giving thanks

it's thanksgiving and it feels like 2016 hasn't given us a lot to be thankful for. the death of david bowie, prince, leonard cohen, as well as brexit and trump -  it's been a rather brutal year. at least for the world.  personally, it's been pretty good. so i think i'll focus on that.

first, i'm thankful for husband. and for the amazing young woman that the child is becoming. i'm thankful that my job has taken me new places - poland, latvia, estonia, belgium and paris. i'm thankful for the fun and creative people i've had the chance to work with all year.  i'm thankful that my back is better. i'm thankful for yoga - for it bringing me in touch with my body again. i'm thankful that i get to spend the week in copenhagen and retreat to the countryside to husband and the garden and the cats on the weekend. i'm grateful for friends - both virtual and irl. i'm thankful for podcasts, the pantsuit nation facebook group, for my cousin who is letting the child stay for her year of high school, for seeing my hometown through her eyes (good and bad (and honestly, it's mostly bad)).

i'm thankful for late nights with friends, drinking wine and solving the world's problems (and also a few wardrobe-related problems). and great food (that sushi in gdansk, a seriously good ramen in london and foie gras in paris). and amazing projects. and the opportunity to be in a london bell tower, both listening to and watching the bells being rung. and for what happens when you share your ideas and are willing to let go of them and let them become what they are meant to be, which is so much more than you imagined. and by you, i mean me.

and i'm grateful for being seen. for unfolding. for transformation and becoming. and finally finding out what i can do.

and i'm also thankful for kittens. and laughter. and candles. and mac highlighter, and benefits mascara and urban decay eyeshadow. and for a day when we think about it all and are thankful. despite all of the other stuff that's going on.

happy thanksgiving, one and all.

we'll always have paris

my throat is raw. i was walking across paris, back to my hotel in the 6th arrondissement, from the eiffel tower, talking to my mother, who finally actually answered the phone after weeks of trying her and never getting her. mom started in on how it was good that hillary didn't win the election because she had received a letter from her, in which hillary threatened to take away my mother's right to be a good christian. she went on to say that it was because hillary had spent too much time with barack obama, so she had become evil. and i was outraged. i screamed at her that those were fucking outrageous lies and she should stop saying them. and she said she sure wished she hadn't thrown it away, because she'd show me that it was true. and i screamed some more about outrageous lies and that it must have been the first piece of mail she'd thrown away in years, which seemed ironic. (not to mention, who sends these things?) and i was shaking so badly, i almost had to sit down right there on a paris street. and i thought, "this is it, this is the last conversation i will ever have with my mother and i always remember that it took place in paris." and i didn't know whether to be jubilant or devastated. life is like that right now. emotions run so close to the surface it's hard to grab onto what you really feel. and i was a little surprised at the heat of my own reaction. my throat is so sore - i must have really screamed. and then i calmed down and mom admitted that she didn't like trump either and that she didn't want to vote for either of them. but she didn't remember who she had voted for, but she did vote early. and she would have to ask her friend who she voted for. i asked her to lie to me if it was trump and she said, cheerfully, and perhaps a bit too readily, "i can do that."

and we ended up ok and she said, "i love you, honey" before we hung up and i said, "i wuv," which is our family way of ducking the real words.

and i have to wonder if my yelling at her didn't scare her lucid, for just a few minutes. because she seemed ok after i did it. and i told her that i was sure that dad would be rolling over in his grave if he knew what she said about hillary and obama. and i almost hung up. and i thought for a minute that she hung up on me. and i was shaking in anger, throat raw, heart pounding, livid.

and now this is what i have imprinted on my first trip to paris. and i don't know what i think about that.  but my throat sure is sore.

inexplicable

i'm still numb. i keep hoping every morning when i wake up, that it was just a bad dream. but apparently it's not, tho' it continues to spiral downward and seem increasingly like a nightmare. and unfortunately, it's increasingly evident that we can't wake up from it. i spent last wednesday curled up in bed with the gilmore girls on netflix and a cuddly cat. it didn't help that much. i spent most of the day in tears. i cried until i had no tears left. and then i cried some more when i imagined how hillary must feel. it must be simply unbearable for her if it was this unbearable for me.

i've unsubscribed to a drove of the pundit podcasts i was listening to, as they self-servingly spurn hillary now that she's lost the electoral college (remember, she resoundingly won the popular vote) and open the door for the withered kumquat, giving him a chance he so richly does not deserve. i haven't been able to watch hillary's concession speech. and i turn away from anything the cheeto is saying as well. i. just. can't.

of course, every lunch conversation is about the election. everyone i meet offers their condolences. a friend even sent her husband over with two bottles of wine to make me feel better. i feel i am grieving. but then i realized that my overwhelming feeling (in addition to grief) is embarrassment. i feel mortified that the country of my birth chose this damaged, sociopathic, racist, sexual harassing narcissist to follow the very classy, intelligent obama. it's quite humiliating to have to answer for it to level-headed europeans who remember history all too well. i can't. i don't understand it myself, so how can i possibly explain it?

serenity now

i don't think i'm going to sleep a wink tonight. i'm so nervous about tomorrow's election. and it will only get worse tomorrow night. hard to comprehend what might be ahead of us, no matter which way it goes. but for now, there are kittens.

these dark days

after an unusually warm october, autumn is upon us. and it's dark and dreary and grey and frankly a bit ominous, which is guess fits with the general mood of these times. with a potential trump victory looming over us, i find my mind feeling as dark and clouded and blurry as this photo. i wake up with a start in the middle of the night, unable to sleep, full of anxiety, actual bile in my throat. i pick up my phone and open the new york times app to see whether some new shit has hit the fan. i am both looking forward to this being over and dreading it. what if that monster wins? what does it mean? where does it leave us? and how could it happen? who are these people who are voting for him? (i've read dozens of articles about that and still don't understand.) have i just been gone too long? how did it come to this? i am sincerely at a loss. and terrified.

but i will say that this helped:

HOLY SH*T (You've Got To Vote) from Funny Or Die

so holy shit, get out there and vote for her. it's the best thing you can do. and it's so important. quite possibly the most important vote you'll ever cast.

when i am deliriously tired and hangry

no one should get up at 4 a.m. especially when one couldn't get to bed before midnight. no one should schedule a flight at 6 a.m. no one should ever agree to check two boxes containing an inflatable captain (who turns out to look a lot like a 6 meter tall cigarette with waving arms when activated) on said 6 a.m. flight. (people look at you very askance, and it turns out that not everyone on the flight is checking such an item, despite your attempt to pretend that was the case). no one should drink 4 double lattes and eat half a sandwich and then attempt to download 170 posters from 170 different countries and attempt to post them on a sharepoint-based website from a hotel connection. no one should stay at the hilton in birmingham. if the hilton people had been past the hilton in birmingham, they would have plastered a trump sticker over their hilton sign and run the other way. it's that bad. no one should be subjected to a hotel room without a minibar. no one should expect everyone to care as much as you yourself do. no one should smoke in a hotel room and then give said room to someone who doesn't smoke. no one should take my brand new latte when i'm getting on a plane (and thankfully, today, no one tried. or they would have regretted it.) no one should continuously listen to only political podcasts. (there are not enough pain meds, believe me.) you have been warned.

in which i say fuck. a lot. and it's totally necessary

ok, US airlines can fuckity fuck fuck off for not letting young people who are 15 fly somewhere alone, not even for outrageous unaccompanied minor fees, if they have to change planes. how infantile are american young people? and how worrying is that for the future of the whole fucking world?

and you, allegiant airlines, with your incredibly bad reputation, but direct flights from one obscure airport to another (i'm looking at you FSD), blocking access to your website from outside the US. fuck you and your americentric ways.

and donald trump, you disgusting, vile, cheeto toned troglodyte. fuck off. you and all your deplorable, uneducated, toothless mouth-breathing followers. most of whom live in my hometown. fuck. the. hell. off.

and teachers who have their heads so far up their asses, they can't see daylight. and who threaten my child with scissors. and who try to blow sunshine up my ass and do fuck-all to actually help the young people who are in your class. and who have the limited world view of a troglodyte. fuck you. and the periodic table you rode in on. i bet you don't even speak a second language. other than fargoese, which, while incomprehensible, isn't actually another language.

rant over...but i'm not sorry for the swearing.