Goddamn you, 2021: Shakes fist at sky; is anything worth hope?

On New Year’s Eve, the world lost a bright light and a family was rendered heartbroken and gutted. Tommy Raskin, the 25-year-old son of my Congressman, Rep Jamie Raskin, died by suicide. If you have not yet read the tribute Jamie and his wife Sarah wrote to Tommy, you simply must. And if you can, please consider donating to the Tommy Raskin Memorial Fund for People and Animals. At a minimum, please extend an act of kindness to an animal, a stranger, a friend, or a loved one. Check in on them; talk openly about depression, anxiety, mental unhealth and wellness. Normalize struggle and offer resources for help.

Since New Year’s Eve, I have watched:

LA nearly run out of oxygen for COVID patients;

my own state, Maryland, boff the rollout such that vaccines are going to waste and/or being given to anyone walking by;

the Republicans of the PA legislature throwing an idiot-toddler tantrum and refuse to listen to the elected Lt Governor or seat the re-elected-and-certified incumbet, Dem Jim Brewster;

the US Attorney for Atlanta/N Georgia, appointed by trump, suddenly resign and be replaced by trump loyalist, Bobby Christine;

the Minneapolis policeman who shot Jacob Blake EIGHT TIMES in the back be completely acquitted;

the woman who sold my parents a home try to force them to default because she is greedy and now has remorse;

and many trumpers try to overturn the multiple-times-approved 2020 election results…

And I’m trying to just go with it all and help and support, but shit I am tired and overwhelmed, and the amount of stress I’m holding in is NOT NORMAL OR RIGHT OR SUSTAINABLE.

About an hour ago, my dad called to tell me Georgia was going blue. Much as I want to believe that and much as I hope and feel that needs to happen, I cannot invest any faith in a blue outcome or I will Fall.Apart. And yet, his and Mom’s earnestness gave me that hope for a moment and I have since been in snotting tears that are, of course, all those saved up from so many stifled moments of Keep Calm and Carry On since November 9, 2016.

Here is the truth: I despise and actually do wish ill health on (in no particular order; complete stream of consciousness): Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, Nikki Haley, Tulsi Gabbard, Donald Trump, Ivanka Trump, Melania Trump, Eric Trump, Donald Trump Jr, Kimberly Guilfoyle, Tiffany Trump, Matt Gaetz, Kayleigh McEnany, Jenna Ellis, Kellyanne Conway, Stephen Miller, Stephen Miller’s wife, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ father, Josh Hawley, Ron DeSantis, Greg Abbott, Brian Kemp, all Republicans from AL and MS, Kristi Noem, all Republicans from GA, all Republicans from Colorado, the Proud Boys, Cleta Mitchell, Rudy Guiliani, Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Boxed Wine Pirro, everyone at Fox News with a slight-Purgatory-exception for Chris Wallace (but the jury is still out on him), Rupert Murdoch, the Koch brothers, fat and sweaty Sheldon Adelson, Sheldon’s sweaty wife, the anti-US spy Sheldon flew back to Israel, that guy’s wife, Joel Osteen, Franklin Graham, mega churches, Liberty University, Meghan McCain, Ben Domenech, Sarah Palin, Federalist idiots, the Nats who visited the White House, all police who’ve murdered black men and women and been acquitted because RACISM, you fucking fuckers, obnoxious parents, racists, bigots, elitists, gun fools, Rick Scott, Dick Cheney, George W, Clay Higgins, all Republicans and many Dems from Louisiana, John Cornyn, Chuck Grassley, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy shut the fuck up Barrett, Clarence you fucking fool Thomas, Ginny, Samuel “you asshole” Alito, Jason Miller, other assholes who don’t pay child support, Neil fucking Gorsuch, all the stupid girls I attended high school with, and so forth.

I’m still crying, and my kids are in that weird “Mom is not ok” fugue state, and my husband is all “oh shit” and burping, and I am SO FUCKING worried about the Raskins and this country and the world I’m turning my dear boys into, and if you aren’t feeling this badly, don’t tell me about it.

Vote blue. And pray/hope/dream for America.

Limping to the finish of 2020: 5 (6) takeaways

This cold December 28th evening finds me prostrate on a couch drinking a really subpar wine and researching seed stratification. Seed stratification and also scarification are fascinating methods of readying seeds for planting when they’ve not had the benefit of overwintering in nature and/or need help germinating due to tough shells. However, I fear such learning will go the way of so much this year, and that is into the cavernous holding pen known as Maybe Later. Also in said pen are Ulysses, the annotated read-along guide for Ulysses, various spices, and a fuckload of yeast. I miss having time, you know? Not Covid time which, in my home, is interminable no-flow time largely spent managing, feeding, answering, cleaning, and “No, I’m on the clock right now” ing. In the Before, there was just time. Time to walk with K, time to be alone in my house, probably working on behalf of it but with the quiet needed to let my mind really wander and process, uninterrupted, time to refill my tank.

The moral of this intro is that I ordered 3” plant versions of the seeds I was investigating, poured out the shitty wine, decided not to stop my still-working husband from still working despite it having been nearly 12 hours since he started working, eyed the annotated Ulysses mere feet from my grasp, and told Ol he could watch another episode of Parks & Rec. Because that’s where things stand at nearly 8p in the nearly 10th month of the Since. We’re all stuck in the pen just doing our best. I mean, I taught my parents Pinterest via FaceTime yesterday, for chrissakes. That seems like some sort of supra-achievement worthy of 3” plants versus seeds that need to be cold stratified.

The years since 11/8/16 have, in many ways and at many times, felt like a slow descent into some Atwoodian hellscape. That Cheeto Satan’s term was capped with a year in which John Lewis and RBG died + Covid is an end I couldn’t have conjured, but here we are. And as we limp to the last flames of the 2020 pyre (that is hopefully just for the GOP and not all of America), I want to share a few takeaways.

1. Live big. If this year has taught us anything, it’s to enjoy the moment. Of course you should save and be responsible and all that jazz, but shit. Be yourself. Your truest self. Drink the special wine. Now. Learn the language, start the business, wear the short skirt, go back to school, move, travel, follow YOUR dreams, read and think and form educated opinions and then stand up for them, proudly, with a fighting spirit but not a closed-minded one.

2. Grow the seeds you birth, adopt, or get to help raise. Listen y’all, my kids annoy the sanity out of me sometimes, not least since we live together 24-7 these days. But also, they are each a bit of magic, unique quilts of genes and history and experience and juju that I get to raise and turn out. I can say that with real zen, even though I considered self-defenestration yesterday, because I am so lucky to get to work with other people’s bits of magic all the time. Seeing others’ kids with non-parental eyes is the greatest lesson in appreciating people for WHO they are. Beyond the things that can and maybe should be worked on, people aren’t individual buffets. Each is a fixed menu. Love them for the courses they arrived with, even when suggesting they sub parsley for cilantro. Unless they’re tacos. Certain things aren’t substitutable, nor should they be.

3. Be generous. With time. With your spirit. I maintain that other than working in a garden, there is no better way to feel good and improve this world than to give. In small ways, in financial ones, with your time, with your skills, go share, be kind, and be supportive.

4. Demand what you are worth. Share, but don’t give yourself away; not your time, not your talents, not the respect you deserve. I don’t work for free unless I’ve chosen to do so. And if someone treats me like poo more than once or without explanation, I bid them adieu.

5. Take/make time for what you need. Put your time where your heart is. Yes, we all have responsibilities that both demand time and funk out our hearts. But beyond commitments, are you investing in yourself? I am not here to tell you that a hot bath one time is going to soothe your anxiety away. IMO, that’s ridiculous, annoying, and invalidating to the harried lives most of us are living. BUT, are you refusing to put everything in the pen? I hope so. I am trying mightily to do this, even though Ulysses and his annotated friend taunt me on the regular. I am paying attention to myself, and I will continue to do so.

6. WW84 was an abominable film, not least as it followed the terrific Wonder Woman. Don’t watch this movie. Save yourself.

Tomorrow, my paternal grandmother turns 95. NINETY-FIVE. And she is still smoking, breaking rules, getting her hair styled weekly, refusing to go out in less than what I, at this point, consider evening wear, and telling me about a northern lights cruise she will take in the near future. Do we agree on many things? We do not. But I cannot tell you she’s done anything but live life, and I have got to admire her stallion-like spirit. I also suspect she will not see WW84, for a variety of reasons.

Thank you for bearing with the musings of a tired, peevish, sick-of-almost-everything Em. Here’s to an even marginally-functional 2021.

Long in the tooth, VOTE BLUE in Georgia

God, y’all, I am tired. Can we just inaugurate President Biden already? I am so sick of the revolting, destructive, anti-science, anti-fact, anti-reality, racist, bigoted, violent, embarrassing republicans and their psychotic idiot-in-chief, cheeto satan.

The past few days in review:

> More than 300,000 Americans have died from Covid-19 and new infection and death records are being set on the regular.

> There is a giant tantrum being thrown over on the Right because Dr. Jill Biden likes to be called Dr., a degree and title she earned and has every right to be called.

> There is another giant tantrum being thrown by the Right because Biden’s campaign manager said the Republicans on Capitol Hill were a bunch of fuckers. Nicolle Wallace responded best to this inanity by asking, “Are we really talking about the f word in any context other than the f-ing people who stood by Trump as he boasted about “grabbing women in the pussy”, smeared “shit hole countries” called black NFL players “sons of bitches” and assaulted our democracy while ignoring covid?”

> Trumpers taped a threatening letter to the back door of the Jacksonville, FL, Democratic Party HQ saying "We want blood. You lost the election. Redress our grievances now or we will be back later." The note included names and faces of the group's officers.

> AFTER receiving classified briefings about Covid, Georgia senators Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue downplayed the virus publicly AND invested in body bags.

> Chief of critical care at Houston Memorial Medical Center told NPR that “half of his nurses won’t take the COVID vaccine for ‘political reasons.”

I am having just a bit of trouble with all this fuckery and the fuckers instigating and propagating it.

THE SINGLE BEST thing we could do to remedy a lot of broken America is to kick Loeffler and Perdue out by replacing them with RAPHAEL WARNOCK and JON OSSOFF, the two incredible Democratic candidates running against Barbie and Chicken in the January 5 US Senate runoffs in Georgia. Over one million Georgians have already voted early. If you live in Georgia, please vote Warnock AND Ossoff. If you live outside of Georgia, please make calls and texts and donate money to the Warnock and Ossoff campaigns or to anything Stacey Abrams tells you to. Fair Fight and the New Georgia Project are great organizations doing important work in GA on behalf of ALL Georgians, not just the white ones.

So, please stay involved (I know we’re all tired as fuck) and keep the hope and determination. In the meantime, Happy Hannukah, Merry Christmas, Happy Kwanzaa, and cheers for a happy, healthy 2021. And, keep your eyes on the Cabinet Pres Biden and VP Harris are currently seating. My god will it be nice to have smart, patriotic, fact-based humans in charge again.