Get up, stand up. Eventually.
Why hello, my friends. Remember this newsletter? I moved it to Sundays when my full-time job began, and then the election happened and I built a blanket fort and then moved in to said blanket fort and no one else is allowed in although the cat keeps jumping on top and caving the blanket-roof in. How are you doing?
I don't know who you supported in this election, obviously, but it's likely you're hurting as much as I am. Even if you voted for that other guy, I hope you're appalled by the hate crimes and the celebrations of the KKK and the white nationalist movement. If you're not, you may go away right now, thank you. Unsubscribe.
[Is that one guy gone now? The weird guy with the neckbeard who always smells like soup? Excellent.]
WHAT I'VE BEEN UP TO
How to phone it in because Mommy can't handle the Trump victory
You’re tired, you’re grieving and you still have to be a goddamn parent. Your kids are still demanding shit from you in that way that children do. They have energy to spare. They’re not worrying about their futures because they’re just kids. Glorious, messy, loud, tiring, self-centered children. They think nothing of bombarding you with question like “Why is Australia?” while you’re just trying to breathe and get through the next 24 hours.
WHAT I CAN'T STOP READING
We’re heading into dark times. This is how to be your own light in the Age of Trump.
Write down what you value; what standards you hold for yourself and for others. Write about your dreams for the future and your hopes for your children. Write about the struggle of your ancestors and how the hardship they overcame shaped the person you are today.
Write your biography, write down your memories. Because if you do not do it now, you may forget.
Write a list of things you would never do. Because it is possible that in the next year, you will do them.
Write a list of things you would never believe. Because it is possible that in the next year, you will either believe them or be forced to say you believe them.
Obama loyalists plot Trump resistance
In the past week, Obama alumni have planned gatherings at Glascott’s Saloon in Chicago (an old campaign haunt) and The Winslow in New York. In Washington, they’re meeting in hotel lobbies, 14th Street bars, nonprofits’ conference rooms and living rooms, plotting the resistance over beer and hummus.
One attendee called the meetings “Obama Anonymous,” and while they largely started as impromptu commiseration, they’ve shifted to mobilization. It’s an early sign that Obama can continue to command a formidable movement and potentially launch a serious defense of his legacy as a private citizen.
One thing to consider may be citizens’ capacity to resist and disobey. To what extremes of disobedience and resistant behavior do peaceful Americans know how to go? I would like to find out. I think familiar forms of symbolic resistance will not be enough by themselves. I am thinking of protest and journalism. The ordinary and unromantic and vilified forms of disobedience may be what we will depend upon. Refusal of allegiance. Refusal of participation, at all levels. Not showing up.
Evil settles into everyday life when people are unable or unwilling to recognize it. It makes its home among us when we are keen to minimize it or describe it as something else. This is not a process that began a week or month or year ago. It did not begin with drone assassinations, or with the war on Iraq. Evil has always been here. But now it has taken on a totalitarian tone.
In future newsletters I hope to go back to writing about — and linking to pieces about — creativity and mental health and cool birds or whatever. But right now this is all I have. And I think it’s important for us to pay attention. Take action where you can. Resist.
Dismantling my blanket fort,
Alice