24 May 2020: Daily

If you are remotely prone to worry, catastrophic thinking, or are one millimeter beyond rather than shy of complete terror over the state of America now and as relates to this fall’s election, I cannot in good faith advise you to watch The Plot Against America, the six-part series based on Philip Roth’s eponymous novel. The book was published in 2004. It could almost literally be about our current march to the November 2020 election. Gripping, tense, terrifying, and everything is on the line.

I’m sure you saw the swarms at the Lake of the Ozarks water park from this weekend in Missouri. Perhaps you’ve also read about the surge in cases of Covid-19 since Texas reopened. Or seen the news that more than 40% of Republicans think Bill Gates will use a Covid-19 vaccine to implant a location-tracker in recipients. THAT is all the real plot against America. Grotesque ignorance perpetrated by a horribly anti-Democratic, venal, corrupt “government.”

Do these same people care about the front page of today’s NYTimes? U.S. Deaths Near 100,000, An Incalculable Loss.

Do those Republicans, those crowing “pro-lifers” care at all?

Hillary was right. About pretty much everything.

And Trump golfs. At your expense. At our expense.

I feel like I have failed in some fashion as I’ve let all activism go since starting to shelter in place on March 13. Suddenly, my world feels so small, so constricted. It seems all I can do to feed and parent and tend my three boys each day, every day, much less myself, and my closest friends and family. But please know that if we don’t protect our right to vote, freely and securely, we will lose this country in November. I will do everything I can. I hope you will too.

In the meantime, Tom and I celebrated our 16th anniversary on Friday, today we re-roofed our shed, the one we’ve been refurbishing, and the boys and I helped a neighbor set up her new raised bed (they dumped 30 bags of soil and compost in the frame!). Then we did expressive art with old fence posts: how do each of us feel during this pandemic?

Jack’s “Czech hedgehog” which was incredibly well conceived and explained.

Mine

And some pretties, for some zen: fresh collards from my garden; an Eden rose; a coming Calla lily.

22 April 2020: Daily Humor + Misc

Friends, Happy Earth Day.

If you haven’t already, run to watch Unorthodox on Netflix. It’s based on (closely at first, very loosely later on) Deborah Feldman’s eponymous memoir, which I read shortly after it was published in 2012. The miniseries is tense and excellent, albeit slightly unbelievable in just a few parts. That said, those moments don’t detract from the larger whole, and I highly encourage you to watch.

Before we get to funny, I wanted to share this terrific article on managing gender roles and dynamics during the coronavirus.

Humor:

More hilarious art recreations. Thank you, Susan! The harp player kills me.

This guy is so enormously wonderful and therapeutic to listen to. His rage is spot on! I appreciated the spitting and jacket unzipping.

Billie Jean and coffee. This is priceless.

:)

Shamefully true. And shame on you MS, GA, TN, SC, AL, Las Vegas mayor, and Texas Lieutenant Governor. It is NOT time to reopen, and certainly not because you need a tattoo or your roots done.

21 April 2020: Daily + Earth Day

Friends, when you receive this, it will be the dawn of the 50th Earth Day. I find this one especially sad as pretty much nothing has improved (yes, acid rain, and clean air and water acts sort of because they’re now being reversed and ozone holes and temperature rises and global climate insanity all around) and many things have gotten worse and/or more irreparable.

50 years. Fifty years of trying to call attention to caring for the only home we have. It breaks my heart. Today’s high was in the 60s and yet a serious freeze alert from both weather channel and local nursery sent me into the yard for a good hour covering everything I’ve grown with everything I own. Our yard looks certifiable: tarps, buckets, garbage bags, frost cloth, cloches, newspaper sleeves, you name it. I hope things survive. No one needs to see life snuffed out on Earth Day and six weeks into quarantine because in America, deaths are already at more than 45,000 and climbing rapidly.

For comparison, best estimates assert that roughly 58,220 Americans died during the TWENTY EFFING YEARS we wasted fighting the Vietnam War. So yeah, 58K in 20 years vs 45K in six weeks, and on April 21 south of the Mason-Dixon we’re girding for a freeze, and New York City is a pandemic epicenter and under tornado watch, and happy fucking Earth Day and General Life Day to you, too.

So, let’s chuckle.

Vroom, vroom, vroomy, vroom, what?

This tennis match is incredible. Rooftop to rooftop?

For all you Marie Kondo slackers.

Thank you, Natania Barron, friend of Dana Schwartz.

Which ladies are you?