Coping Strategies.

Seriously, I think I'm on to something with this weight loss plan. I'll call it "Death of the American Experiment Diet." When I think of the next four years, my stomach knots and my mouth goes dry. I normally snack all day at my desk while working, today I could barely eat a veggie wrap at lunch. No snacking at all. I have no interest in dinner right now either.

Here's the thing: I know the people who voted for him are going to start having buyer's remorse in the first 100 days, when they wake up and realize that he's already forgotten them and he's busy "cutting sweet deals" that benefit him and is back to saying stupid shit on Twitter unless his staff somehow takes away the PRESIDENT'S phone and restricts his online time like he's TEN. They will suddenly realize that he can't do any of that stuff he promised but their actual health care and actual retirement security actually is at risk, and voting is not a fucking game. Please note: I really would like to think that he's going to rise to the occasion, sit down and study, put the people's best interest first, learn what it takes to be president and apply himself, but there is zero evidence that he is capable of this. Actually I'm ready to start a betting pool about whether he finishes his first term. He lacks the intellect, attention span and temperament for the job. He's a lazy sack of shit reality TV star who isn't even as rich as he claims. He has no idea what being president means, and he's not going to like it when he actually has to do the job.

That is our new president, fuck you very much. Sorry, Planet - I didn't do it.

I'm angry, I really am. I honestly, perhaps naively thought that we were better than this as a nation, and actually most of us were. Secretary Clinton won the popular vote. The Orange Nightmare won the presidency because that damn anachronistic Electoral College fucked us over again. It did it in 2000, it did it again last night. 2000 didn't go so well.

And while I agree 1000% with every liberal saying that this is not who we want to be as a country, we don't want to hate immigrants and LGBT people, we don't want to build walls, we want equal pay and all that, yes, yes, that's entirely true. But what's going to do us in (if we don't end up in a nuclear war) is another round of Republican economics. It doesn't work. It has never worked. I'm not going to do your homework for you, just look it up. There are plenty of easy to read charts of spending and debt and when the economy does best, and it's somehow never under the control of the people who claim to be "the party of fiscal responsibility." That's bullshit and always has been. I will never forget the first few weeks after President Obama was elected the first time, when the transition started, and it got very, very quiet and intense. His team actually got a look at the books and realized that the previous administration sort of forgot to account for the astronomical cost of the Iraq war, while FIGHTING IT. His administration stopped cooking the books and were immediately accused of driving up the deficit by the people who cooked the books.

We were underwater (my own history of job loss and the housing crash is in my 2007 archives here - post brain aneurysm. That was a fun year, you betcha) and Obama pulled up the tow truck and put on his boots and gloves and dragged us out of the ditch, against the howls and shit throwing of the people who put us there. At this moment, years later, we are doing quite okay. Could be better, of course, but he got a lot of good things done despite absolute, intransigent opposition. Those same idiots are now in total control of the country, led by a failed businessman and pathological liar. This is going to go well, don't you think?

The schadenfreude of watching his followers' disillusionment grow will not be sweet when my own retirement security disappears in the next few years, right along with the futures of the idiots who voted for him. His agenda, if he follows it, will tank the global economy, and that's not me saying it, it's just about every credible economist. And I won't hesitate to lay the blame were it belongs, on the idiots who voted for him. 8 years of economic recovery just went out the goddamn window, and I'm pissed. I'm really pissed. And I'm not ready to stop being pissed, and won't be anytime soon, because half the country had more sense than this, but we'll go down the drain with the ignorant assholes who caused this. I'm 58 years old. I don't have time to rebuild my life again. It took 8 years to recover from the last Republican administration, but instead of building on the success and moving forward, we are going to lose it all. I'm very, very pissed. Seriously, if you are a regular reader and voted for him - a highly unlikely scenario, because I trust the Few and the Easily Amused to have more brains than that, but I suppose it could happen somehow, but if it happened, I would like you right now to fuck right the fuck off. Run along. Go away. You are why we can never have nice things, like clean air and water and health care and financial security. I know you'll regret this vote next year, but you're too stupid to be trusted with the responsibility of voting and I have zero sympathy.

Deep breath. So. How am I coping, besides unleashing a string of profanity and being unable to eat?

I'm disconnecting from social media for a few days. Not forever. I haven't given up. I just need some space to regroup. I need to take some time to like the world again.

As I mentioned, this Sunday I'm visiting a church I'd been shopping online. My daughter and crew have been attending for a couple of months after I suggested they check it out, and my totally un-churched heathen daughter said, "I'm so glad we found this place, I really like it!" and that's all I needed to hear. I'm excited by the idea of being part of a liberal and grounded spiritual community. It's what I've wanted all my life. I was raised Catholic. Loved the cultural aspects of saints' feast days and rosaries and candles, but the rest of the program never quite rang true for me. I tried going back years ago, it didn't take. I've tried. Time to admit that I'm actually a kind of semi-Unitarian-Buddhist with a Christian identity, and I'm thinking this United Church of Christ looks like it might work. If my cynical heathen daughter enjoys going, it must be quite good. I need community, and this sounds like a dandy one, grounded in practical social causes. I suspect they will get even more active in the coming years, and I need that.

Saturday I'm doing brunch with a friend I haven't seen in about a year, so we can catch up and drink bottomless mimosas and bemoan this election and talk about our futures. It's good that the mimosas are bottomless, and I suspect they'll be throwing us out of the brunch buffet after we are there for three hours. Catharsis. So this weekend will be about pausing, regrouping, focusing (that last one will happen Sunday, not at brunch).

I'm deliberately disconnecting for a few days, but I'm sure as hell not giving in to despair. I am deeply disappointed in my country right now, I really, really am. I lost faith this morning. I honestly thought we were better than this. Apparently half of us are, but now that we have had that ugly exploratory surgery and identified the issues, we can work on fixing it.