Little Pink Apocalypses

I would wager that 90% of the information the average American like myself must digest at this moment in time falls always into one of two categories:
1) Heartbreakingly frightening
2) Horrifically stupid

Today wasn’t particularly bad. Nothing really worse than usual. I mean, the Terror Temp seems to be holding steady, at least in my life. I have a callous on my brain (as you surely do as well) from being horrified so often since Trump’s election in 2016 which crescendoed (a very generous word) into the madness that we are now living in every. fucking. day. We are always in a state of low-grade terror. Or is that just me? (Worry not, I have a very good therapist!)

And then there’s the stupid. Like the shit that was no doubt said during today’s impeachment proceedings (which I did not watch because I am trying to trim all excess bullshit off of my life; some bullshit is inherent in this mortal span, but some we ALLOW). I am sure, and based on what I see on FB (I’m a Gen X-er who still uses Facebook; I am so not sorry that this makes me less cool in the minds of some) and Twitter, there was dumb shit flying around that room all day from Trump’s idiot lawyers.

And when I turned on the news to the headline that was basically like TRUMP’S LAWYERS SAY DUMBEST SHIT WORLD HAS EVER HEARD DURING SECOND IMPEACHMENT TRIAL.

Are you surprised anymore? Are you? Are you surprised that Trump and every fucking dreg who still supports or works for him is dumb as shit? THIS IS NOT INFORMATION THAT IS IN ANYWAY USEFUL TO ME I ALREADY KNOW HE AND HIS SUPPORTERS ARE DUMB (or if I’m being kind, I’ll say “deeply detached from reality” or “morally bereft”).

So it’s like, I turn on the news after a really hard fucking day at work and a really intense, tear-filled therapy session, and then my wife and I got some shit news about a friend, and then I turn on the news. For, you know, horrors that are happening in America at large and not just in my personal life.

And I see the headline. And I summon, deep within myself, the most cheerful, boastful, shit-grinning “Ain’t that America!” sung a la “Little Pink Houses” which is a horrible song and not just “now” — it’s always been a terrible fucking song. Then again, I never developed a taste for that which is deeply and blindly patriotic. I am wary of any organized religion for similar reasons.

So then I’m cleaning in the kitchen and Sarah comes by and tells me about some horrible thing she read in the news today to which I replied, singing, “Ain’t that America!” Just that line.

Because I’m fucking losing it.

I think we’re all losing it.

On Sunday, Sarah and I made our way through Trader Joe’s while I waxed philosophic through my mask about Marxism and the “inevitable end of American democracy” in the frozen food aisle and she said, “Did you take an edible before we left for the store?” And well I NEVER! (But yes, I had. I was on a Sunday. Grocery shopping is boring as fuck. I shall do as I please within the perimeters of just laws.) So I was going on in Trader Joe’s about how we were probably living in the end of Democracy now and wondering whether my students would have to live through some Syria like shit in this country or if that would start happening after they were dead and so I said to Sarah, in Trader Joe’s, “I hope everyone I love is dead before America turns into a real apocalyptic freakshow.” And people are looking at me, but what they don’t know is I don’t care if they’re uncomfortable with what I’m saying because I can say whatever the fuck I want on MY SUNDAY in my LOCAL TRADER JOE’s while SLIGHTLY LIFTED on twenty-five mgs of Super Sour Diesel.

Secret! Sometimes I think Sarah and I moved to Tucson in not-insignificant-part for the easy access to Trader Joe’s.
Secret! If that is actually true, I still have no regrets. Trader Joe’s fucking rules. We can disagree on this matter and still be friends.

But I digress.

My point is I really think we are HERE. Like we’re in glorious END TIMES. The start, at least. As a nation, I mean. I haven’t a fucking clue right now how the rest of the world is faring — that’s how myopic the quarantine has made me. Here is a woman who PRIDED herself on being informed of global issues. Who told her students in NO UNCERTAIN TERMS that they couldn’t “JUST” care about America because we lived on a very large planet that is increasingly connected and all of the other countries contain HUMAN BEINGS WHO JUST LIKE AMERICANS WANT TO BE CARED ABOUT, TOO.

Fuck. This was at the core of my human philosophy: we have to care about people in other nations and not just in America and here I am, virtually clueless, about what’s happening in Mexico when I basically live in fucking Mexico.

So I am concerned.

I am concerned that this is really IT for America. And that is so exciting, but also so fucking sad. And the end of “America” as it has been can be 1) a civil, deliberate, positive, albeit difficult transition or it can be 2) a civil war, death, destruction, systems crumbling literally and figuratively.

And I don’t know about you? But I prefer option 1.

And option 1 is ONLY possible if people acknowledge that Old America is DEAD. Maybe we can harvest some of its organs. I honestly don’t know because in order for this to happen, people have to come to terms with the death of life as we knew it through grieving. We have to acknowledge and grieve and move on.

Or — I’m talking to you, person in the trail mix aisle who was staring at me while I was presenting my wife with an American Apocalypse: Marxist Edition in Trader Joe’s — we deny that reality and we fight that reality and we pretend that Old America hasn’t died and we Weekend-At-Bernies this country until the body begins to stink. It starts with acknowledging reality or leading others toward reality with kindness, compassion, in good faith.

But those are just my daydreamy thoughts for a Tuesday.
(Seriously: I am a space cadet when left to my own devices. I really think, and I was just explaining this to my mother-in-law on Sunday, that I had/have ADD — missing the H — and because I was schooled in the 80s/early 90s, right before people started caring about young humans/their overall wellbeing, I was never dx’d.
So many parent-teacher conferences about MY failing grades began with, “Allison is a daydreamer.” Which I have since learned is code for “can’t focus” and anyone who knows me knows I certainly do not have issues with being overly defiant so I wasn’t “not focusing” and therefore “failing” just to piss people off. I just COULD NOT STOP DAYDREAMING.
But “daydreaming” was so the wrong word for what it was: obsessive compulsive thoughts, scary repetitive thoughts, worry, confusion — because “daydreaming” suggests the little girl was gazing out the window thinking of ponies prancing through golden meadows when she should have been learning long division because we still hold female intelligence in contempt in America. For Christ’s sake, even in the 80s, boys were being dx’d with ADD so their grades could improve.
Me? I got diagnosed with “daydreaming” for which no remedy exists.
This fact has made my life both marvelous and marvelously difficult.

Be good to yourself out there.
And to your fellow humans — young and old.
We’re all fucked up right now.
“Daydreaming,” one might say.