mental health – Sconnie Molly

Missing the small stakes

I ended my social media sabbatical after about a week, but I’m still actively avoiding the news and depressing media of all sorts. We saw Hannah Gadsby two nights ago and I gotta say, it wasn’t that great, but I don’t know if it’s her or me. I have trouble laughing at the “everything has gone to shit” genre of jokes, even though I sometimes make them myself. The apocalypse is nigh, hahaha. The world is a dumpster fire, hahaha. All that goes through my head is that auto-tuned Madonna refrain from “Sorry“…”I’ve heard it all before, I’ve heard it all before, I’ve heard it all before.”

*me + jen + this album in 2005-06 = thick as thieves*

Like…I 1000% understand joking to cope with hard things. It’s what I did with our ~*infertility journey~* (Jesus Christ is there another way to name the 5 years I tried unsuccessfully to get pregnant? because that phrase is the woooorst) and what I still sometimes do with depression. So I absolutely get the impulse. But if that’s all we’re doing, how is any of this supposed to get better? At some point, don’t we have to move past the jokes and get to actual concrete strategies?

How is any parent supposed to be okay? How are we supposed to drop our children off at daycare and elementary school and middle school and high school and just…leave? I’d feel that way a little bit even if there was no such thing as mass shootings. But reading the emergency protocol for “intruders” in your 2 year old’s daycare really ratchets things up, and by “things” I mean the knot in my stomach.

He’s two. He’s TWO. He’s growing in every way every day and it’s so amazing to watch. I know he needs to be among his peers, and I do think daycare will really be good for him. The thing about mass shootings is that they are terrorism – the goal, outside of killing whomever is on that shooter’s particular menu, is to terrorize. I know intellectually that the probability of some psycho shooting up my son’s daycare is truly incredibly small. But it could happen, and I know that because I’ve seen it happen, so I can’t stop visualizing it as though it will happen. The terrorists have won, in my mind anyway.

What are my options? Keep my son in daycare as planned, tolerate the massive increase in daily anxiety, and just pray for the best? Keep him home, likely stunting his social and mental growth, until…college? Uproot us all and move to another country where this shit doesn’t happen and literally no one has to worry about it, but where I’ll know no one and probably not speak the language or be able to get a job?

I don’t know how every single person in this country isn’t straight up immobilized by grief on a daily basis.

***

I got rejected from another job today. A state job, but a communications position that I genuinely thought I’d be good at. I know that the answer here is perseverance. Michael Jordan got cut from his junior high basketball team, etc etc etc. But let’s just acknowledge that perseverance is very, very hard, yeah? By definition, obviously, it takes a toll. Rejections take a toll, especially when you don’t really know what you’re doing wrong. Maybe you’re not doing anything wrong – there are a million reasons why you might not get hired for any particular position that have nothing to do with your qualifications or resume. But maybe you are…

***

What I’m Reading

Primarily “Beautiful World, Where Are You” by Sally Rooney, though I’ve got a few books going on right now. I liked Sally Rooney’s previous books; the very specific (yet universal-feeling) world of Irish millennials loving and leaving one another while musing about capitalism, religion, and politics just does it for me, I guess. This one seems slower, less “plot-focused” – which is to say, not much is actually happening – than the others but I’m still enjoying it.

What I’m Watching

The Bear, and season 2 of Only Murders in the Building, both on Hulu. Re: the latter, You really can’t go wrong with Steve Martin and Martin Short. As for the former, it’s unlike any other show I’ve seen somehow. Compelling as fuck, but also borderline breaking my “no depressing media” rule. OMITB is my current palate cleanser, I guess.

We’re also watching Ms. Marvel, of course, and the South Asian representation is so exciting. I’ve *never* seen Partition depicted or even discussed in American TV or movies – so many people don’t even know it happened – and that was really powerful. It’s a superhero show, obviously, so it’s not exactly the Indian-American sitcom of my dreams…but Never Have I Ever still exists, after all (and is returning in August)!

What I’m Looking Forward To

Visiting our Lacrosse besties in a week and a half. Mulaney, still. Fall.

What I’m Fuming About

I got pulled over while driving home from Milwaukee about a month ago. I had been going ~12mph over the limit, but the cop actually wanted to ticket me for non-registration. Turns out our tags had expired, um…10 months ago? Oops? So whatever, you got me, Jefferson County. I paid the ticket. Today I get a letter in the mail informing me that I still owe the County of Jefferson $2.00. The ticket had been for $175.30, and for some reason I wrote my check (YES, a PAPER CHECK, because the county charges you exorbitant fees to pay online) for $173.30. So now I have to write them another goddamn check, for 2 goddamn dollars, and I am just salty about it.

Oh, it’s…December? huh

Ashwin has been sick for the last 36 hours or so. We took him to the ER last night because he was so incredibly lethargic and refusing all food/water and throwing up and had a fever. All of the things. I don’t know if I’d ever been in an ER before, and had heard horror stories of people being turned away during the pandemic (aka currently) for lack of beds and/or staff to treat folks. Fortunately that didn’t happen to us, and didn’t appear to be happening to anybody else there. He was eventually given an anti-nausea medicine and soon was acting like his old active self so we were discharged – but then this morning, it was back to Lethargy Town. He napped for 3+ hours and woke up much better, so basically it’s just seesawing and I’m really not a fan of this rollercoaster. I don’t want him to be sick when he wakes up again.

Seeing your kid – your baby – like that is levels of shitty that I was not prepared for. Anyone who has met Ashwin, or even seen him on social media, knows that he’s an active, engaging, curious, giggly dude. Yesterday and this morning he was exactly the opposite. Not interested in a damn thing besides being held, which of course V and I were happy to oblige, but it’s hard to enjoy those cuddles when you don’t know what’s making him act so out of character.

I know it’s only a stomach bug. It’s not the end of the world. He will be fine. All of that. I think both V and I experienced some Seattle NICU flashbacks waiting in that ER, so remembering how tiny and fragile he was then just made the whole night more emotional. But he’s come a long way, my boy.

***

Momming in general has me thinking lately about innocence. As a kid/teenager I thought “innocence” was such a crock, so overrated. Like please just leave me the fuck alone and let me learn things for myself. Of course, from the parent perspective, it’s about protection and not wanting any harm to come your kid’s way…literally the most understandable impulse in the universe. I skim Twitter and dread the day when I have to start explaining to Ashwin what anti-vaxxers are, who Brett Kavanaugh is, why the bad orange man fucked the country for decades to come, and where exactly all those people without homes at Reindahl Park are supposed to go. And that’s just barely scratching the surface. It’s a horrible goddamn world, and I know that really there is nothing new under the sun, but it sure feels like things are unprecedently bad right now.

I know there is a ton of beauty in the world; I know there are tons and tons of good people. I have seen it and I know them. I know they tend not to make the headlines and the headlines are a big part of what’s making me crazy and being on Twitter and the internet as a whole less often would probably improve my situation. But try as I might, I can never stay away for too long.

***

Our house-hunting journey ended up being much shorter than anticipated. We got an accepted offer less than a month after first meeting with our realtor (the esteemed and beloved Kelda Roys) and we close in a couple of weeks. At every turn, the sellers have been really accommodating and reasonable and it’s been miraculously different from the current standard real estate narrative of cash offers, paying way way over asking price, not getting an inspection, etc. And while we’re not exactly in the part of town I hoped to be in, we are in the city of Madison, and that was a big deal to me.

Sometimes I think this whole blog is basically just me saying over and over “something kinda shitty happened, but it’s not THAT bad, I’m actually super lucky, so you know what never mind!!!!!!! Here’s an ironic meme, byeeee” Not sure if that’s more or less annoying than just complaining all the time or just nonstop cooing about how fortunate I am. *shrug emoji* Guess we’ll never know!!!

***

What I’m Reading:

God, I’ve got like six books going right now and can’t seem to make headway with any of them. But I most recently finished The Laziness Lie, which I absolutely insist you read if you’ve ever felt exhausted and burned out by life. So yeah, 100% of us. It’s short, you’ll love it, it was a balm to my soul and I will probably buy it and loan it out to whoever will listen to me.

What I’m Watching:

Obviously Succession, which just keeps getting better and better. Also the Dexter revival, which…is a bit hackneyed so far but I’m willing to go with it and see what happens. Also Hawkeye, a true holiday delight, and when I get the chance, SELLING muthafuckin SUNSET. Maybe this is my version of watching the Kardashians. I can live with that. I eat that luxury real estate/incredibly petty drama/plastic surgery overload shit up.

What I’m Looking Forward To:

Closing on the house and moving in, which probably won’t happen until the new year, but that will give us time to do some painting and clean the carpets and yada yada yada.

Also I must admit that I’m very curiously and sentimentally awaiting “And Just Like That…“. Will it be actually good? I mean, maybe? Will it be schmaltzy? For sure I think. Part of me would prefer to keep Carrie et al forever in their 30s, where I am comfortable, and doesn’t really want to see the aging and the changing and the ~*mid-life discoveries*~ that seem inevitable and scary and very un-fun.

What I’m Fuming About:

I can’t read too much about this cynical partisan buffoonery that is incredibly harmful for democracy or I will really and truly lose my mind. Any news in this general category raises my rage meter like very little else, because it’s something I actually have intimate knowledge of and I used to deal with these people and I know just how much of an obscene clown show it all is.

What I’m Listening To:

The Phineas and Ferb theme song occasionally alternating with the Bluey theme song. I will spare your brain and not link to them.

Depression, but with memes!!

Something has changed in the last few weeks and I don’t really know what to think.

I’m…happy? But also VERY wary of happiness??

I’m eating well: tons of fruit, veggies, lean protein. I’m exercising, like, almost every fucking day whether it’s the circuit training I do at Orange Shoe or the walks I take with Ashwin. Sometimes I take two walks a day. I’m finally losing weight, little by little. I’m writing! I started a freelance writing course that I’m so far really loving and I published my first piece on Medium yesterday and as listicles go – true, they are kind of the dregs of the internet – I’m rather proud of it. I’m sleeping well. My skin is (mostly) clear. I have *energy*, which is the strangest feeling of all. (I still often nap when Ashwin naps, but not every day, and they aren’t depression naps!) I’m reading. I’m having fun with my son. I’m staying cleansed, exfoliated, and hydrated AF.

I don’t know if it’s superstition, cynicism, or your garden variety anxiety disorder, but when things are going this well, I feel very very nervous. Something is about to go terribly wrong. In therapy (I will never not want to make fun of myself after beginning a sentence like that) I’ve learned that anxiety is my lizard brain trying to protect me and keep me safe from danger. But there are really no predators to watch out for in the United States, circa 2021 (unless you count the unvaccinated! or the mass shooters! or the alligators! or the rapidly deteriorating planet!…) so my brain I guess has to come up with other threats to occupy itself. As it just did, without breaking a sweat.

*just gonna pretend this isn’t from LOTR*

Maybe part of it is just feeling weird about being 35 and approaching ~middle age~. I don’t want to get old. I mean, it’s always annoyed the shit out of me when people complain about aging – I always say “it’s better than the alternative!!” which is a glib way of saying “be happy you’re not dead”. I had a dream – nightmare, I guess – the other night that I was on a sinking ship and everyone was screaming and I was thinking “oh God this is really it oh my God I’m going to die this is actually going to happen what is going to happen what’s it going to feel like when will things just go black and how fucking terrifying is that”…and then I realized, as my head was underwater for a few seconds, that I hadn’t actually tried to swim. I brought my head up above water, breathed, and that’s when I woke up. Is there something profound there? Maybe. I don’t know.

I just don’t want to spend so much of my life worrying about death. That’s it. That’s probably the most intimate thing I’ve ever written here; I don’t like to talk about it OR write about it. But writing helps sometimes! So let’s give it a shot. Bow out now if you don’t want to hear about my history of death anxiety!!

When I was in elementary school, my parents went away for a weekend once and I stayed at my best friend’s house for a few days. We usually watched the TGIF lineup, but maybe it wasn’t Friday, because we watched Touched by an Angel instead. Remember that show? This episode’s premise was basically the storyline of that song “Last Kiss” by Pearl Jam – the song that made me a passionate hater of the band until I met V. (I’m still not, like, a fan but they’re okay. The song still isn’t.) It’s about some high school sweethearts who get into a car accident and the girl dies. Rock n roll!!! Anyway – I was traumatized by it. My parents spent so much time and energy sheltering me from “bad” TV and movies and music, and the thing that damaged me the most was this episode of Touched by a fucking Angel. I didn’t want to let my parents out of my sight for months. I wanted to go on every errand, every trip, because they wouldn’t get into an accident if I was there (so my thinking went).

Eventually I got over it – I guess just by becoming a teenager and all the self-absorption that comes along with that. And then for years and years I’d almost never think about death. It didn’t come up. I was lucky. In 2011-2012, we lost several family members in quick succession and while that was incredibly shitty and sad and depressing, it didn’t spur a return of my own specific death anxiety. Then in 2015, V and I started trying to conceive, and I gradually went off all of my depression and anxiety medications, which turned out to be a horrific mistake. I spent most of that summer crying. There were multiple days I left work early feigning illness after crying in the bathroom and then cried some more on the bus going home. Death was suddenly all I could think about. And I mean ALL. By the fall, I was back on the meds and slowly getting better. But it’s never completely gone away since then. I’m working on it in therapy.

Oof, that was a lot. And there’s oh so much more where that came from, but that’s for me and Dr. Sarah Byer to sort through. I guess I just wrote all this to…put it in perspective? I don’t know. Maybe I’ll write more about it some other time, or maybe I won’t. I don’t know if anyone relates or is at all interested.

Also: if you ever try to talk to me about any of this, I will change the subject to the Packers or my cat or something.

What I’m Reading:

I just finished Ace of Spades, which was described in reviews as “Get Out meets Gossip Girl”, which pretty much sold me, and that is accurate! It was good, entertaining, didn’t demand much from me.

What I’m Watching:

V and I have finished our Sex and the City rewatch but have yet to tackle the two movies. We’ve now begun a Veep rewatch. We binged the second season of Never Have I Ever in like two days, it was so so so good. Maitreyi Ramakrishnan FOREVER.

What I’m Listening to:

Still a lot of Olivia Rodrigo, but also a lot of random ’90s.

What I’m Looking Forward to:

Traveling to Detroit this week to visit family and show off this guy:

Update #1 from Quarantine-ville

Well this sucks, doesn’t it?

Never did I imagine that I’d be spending my son’s first weeks of post-NICU life under quarantine. Neither did I imagine that he would be born 7 weeks early. 2020 is just chock full of twists and turns and frankly I am well over it at this point.

Ashwin was discharged on March 7, 5 weeks after he was born. We had gotten into a pretty good routine with the NICU – visit him from around 11am until 5 or 6pm, go home and rest, repeat. It was very much part-time parenting, which made the transition from NICU to home quite…jarring. We’d had way more preparation for it than non-preemie parents get, which is the huge upside to being in the NICU: constant help and resources right at your fingertips, plus (in our case), you get to go home and get actual sleep!

So yeah, those first few days of full cohabitation were rough. My mom left on the 9th, and V’s mom arrived on the 10th; the 24 hours in between were REALLY rough. My MIL got here just in time, thank God, before travel from Europe was banned and before we were under quarantine.

I want to tell you a little bit about that really rough 24 hours, even though I don’t want to and I’m genuinely afraid of judgment, because I hope it will help another new mom or dad feel less alone or less like something is wrong with them.

I had anticipated postpartum depression. I saw it coming like that acquaintance you see in the grocery store that you don’t want to talk to, so you hide out and hope they won’t see you so you can continue about your day. I hoped PPD wouldn’t see me, but it did, and as hard as the NICU was, the full force of the depression didn’t hit me until we brought Ash home. I couldn’t have prepared for the crying, the screaming, the constant anxiety and uncertainty, the lack of sleep. It hit me like a ton of bricks and honestly, I had some pretty dark thoughts that night, questioning everything – why had we done this? Why did we try so hard for this? What the hell did we sign up for? How can I be expected to function under these conditions? How does anyone do this?

Please understand how embarrassing/shameful it is for me to admit that, as someone who tried for five years to get pregnant. All the blood (so much blood), sweat (eh, not so much?), and tears (you better believe it) it took to get us here and now I feel…anything less than jubilant?? Like how fucking dare I? I tell myself that this is a hard stage, some people say THE hardest stage, and it will get better, and I know that that’s true. I think if will even start getting a little better as soon as he starts interacting with us more. It boggles my mind that people volunteer for this two, three, four, five times. I never ever thought I’d want just one kid, but now it feels like a real possibility. I don’t know. And I haven’t even touched on breast milk vs. formula.

And for all this to be happening during coronavirus…it’s just…a LOT. I’m truly at levels of anxiety I have never experienced. I just want to know when it will be over. I have an appointment with a perinatal psychiatrist on Monday and I hope there is something that can be done with my medications, like hopefully introducing a new one, because the two I’m on now are already at their maximum dosages. It’s scary playing around with different anxiety and depression drugs, though, so I really really hope whatever we do is helpful on the first try.

What I’m reading: Well, not much honestly. When I’m pumping in the middle of the night I’m too exhausted to read, and during the day there just isn’t a lot of time. When I have picked up a book, it’s been Daniel Lavery’s “Something That May Shock and Discredit You“, which tbh is a disappointment! I hate saying that because I absolutely love Dear Prudence and just like Danny as a person in general, but the book has a lot of highbrow literary/antiquity references that I simply do not get and therefore have skipped. I may not finish it. I’ve also been reading “Cribsheet” by Emily Oster, which is subtitled “A data-driven guide to better, more relaxed parenting from birth to preschool”. You can probably guess which word sold me on the book.

What I’m watching: V has The Office on whenever he’s feeding Ashwin, so there’s been a whole lot of that. But I’ve also checked out “Babies” on Netflix and am rewatching some Schitt’s Creek with my MIL who seems to enjoy it.

What I’m annoyed about: oh, where to begin. Well it definitely is annoying having to learn all these dumb little things that baby requires: how to properly strap him into the car seat, how to assemble the baby carrier, which of his cries means he’s hungry vs. he’s cold vs. he’s pooped himself. My brain feels very antagonistic toward learning anything right now, for some reason.

What I’m looking forward to: obviously, more than anything, for the pandemic to subside and normalcy to resume. I don’t know if that will be in weeks or months, and as much as I want it to happen, I don’t want it to happen too soon and have even more people get infected. Specifically, I am looking forward to getting my nails done, going to the library, taking walks without fear of accidental human contact, going out to eat, getting a massage…etc.

Please be careful and stay well. Please don’t go anywhere you don’t absolutely need to. Please send me strength and resolve and peace.

Brain tabs

I’ve had the same four tabs open on my Chromebook since New Years Day. A GQ article on the HBO show Succession, which I want to try watching but V doesn’t so it has languished; NPR’s Best Books of 2018 monster list, which I’m still picking my way through; a slideshow from Redbook called “25 Solo Vacations For Women“; and a spreadsheet tracking my paltry 2018 income for tax purposes. I just closed that one, because our taxes are done now, but I don’t want to close any of the others, because in my mind closing a tab = closing the subject in my brain. My brain is very literal like that.

The solo trip keeps getting postponed. Not officially, because I’ve made zero decisions or plans for it, but every time I apply for a Real Job (which I am still doing, albeit not terribly often), I think about how I need to get my ass in gear already because what if I do get a Real Job? Then I’m back in the weeds of vacation days and PTO and out-of-office emails, which are currently, blessedly irrelevant to me. I just need to pick a place and a time and make the damn plans, but I think I am subconsciously a little anxious about it. I would’ve done it already if I wasn’t. I’m not overly concerned about safety – I worry more about like, if I’ll be bored. But if I make enough plans, that shouldn’t happen. I just need to go somewhere that has a lot to see and do.

Two weekends ago, we spontaneously did a 24-hour Portland trip. I am, of course, going there again at the end of this month for #AWP19 (Association of Writing Programs 2019 conference), and that is sort of going to be my baby step solo trip. I’m taking Amtrak (a first!) down there on a Wednesday, doing the conference Thurs-Sat, and V is going to drive down to join me Friday night or Saturday morning. So it’s a half-solo trip, I guess. That will be a trial run. But I think the conference will keep me plenty busy so there’s not much danger of getting bored. Anyway, our little 24-hour trip was a good introduction to the city. Portland and Seattle seem to have a weird sibling-rivalry relationship that as a PNW outsider, I don’t fully understand, but I think it’s sort of like Madison and Milwaukee. Places that attract similar people; places that have a major influence on the rest of the state, which the rest of the state is not very happy about; places that are a lot more alike than they are different, leading to inevitable comparisons – I see some parallels. We didn’t see much of the city outside downtown, but there were some very pretty views of Mt. Hood. Not quite comparable to the views we have here of Mt. Rainier and the Cascades…like, everywhere you look…but that’s my Seattle bias.

portland seattle meme — *I imagine it is something like this.*

What I’m Reading:

I finished two books this week: “The Byline Bible” by Susan Shapiro and “Leaving the Witness” by Amber Scorah. I won’t get into the latter, because I actually want to pitch a review of it to Ploughshares, but I did receive an ARC (advanced readers copy) and let me tell you, I feel VERY important. The Byline Bible was great freelancing advice. If anyone is qualified to give it, it’s Susan Shapiro – she’s been published every-damn-where. I learned a lot and wisely bought it instead of getting it from the library, so I can refer back to it as needed.
I’m now reading Stephanie Land’s “Maid” and I’m less than 100 pages in but GOD, it’s heartbreaking. The book is about a single mom doing odd jobs to make ends meet, barely escaping homelessness, for herself and her daughter. The author’s own family of origin isn’t exactly the focus, but I learned enough to once again be extremely grateful for the healthy and loving family environment I grew up in. I don’t know what it’s like to live without a safety net, and I have so much admiration for people who persevere and beat the odds. Not a “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” kind of moralistic story, but simply people with difficult backgrounds overcoming them and blazing their own trail.

What I’m Watching:

I watched the first half of Leaving Neverland, and don’t know if I can bring myself to watch the second half. It is extremely rough viewing.
Captain Marvel was sooo good! I’m still working on forgiving Brie Larson for Basmati Blues, but we’re getting there.

What I’m Eating:

Dinner tonight is probably naan pizza. I’m trying to be good; I bought the wheat naan at QFC.

What I’m Writing:

Or perhaps more accurately, What I’m Getting Published. I do have a new piece in the March issue of BRAVA (page 23 in the digital magazine). Fingers and toes and arms and legs crossed for something else soon.

Extras:

We won $0.61 each on HQ last night! Because V is a Game of Thrones encyclopedia.
I have rose gold-ish hair again!

rose gold hair

Kava-NAW, etc.

I am feeling discouraged today.

In a couple of months I will have been unemployed for a year. I suppose another way of saying that is that I have been a freelance writer for a year – and believe me, that’s what my resume says, and that’s how I try to think of it – but it has not been as fruitful as I’d like and that’s probably more my fault than any external factors. I never expected it to be easy and I never expected to make a ton of money, so at least I haven’t been surprised on those fronts. I’ve pitched some editors – maybe half a dozen – and gotten zero responses, which any writer can tell you is far worse than any rejection. A friend of a friend told me about Hugo House here in Seattle, and I’ve signed up for a couple of multi-week workshops, one of which starts tomorrow – I’m dreadfully intimidated but also just kind of dying to DO IT. I see so many women out there thriving in their writing careers and I cheer them on with every bit of my heart – I just want to get where they are, where I could casually say “here’s my latest for [x badass publication]…” instead of “OMG YOU GUYS SOMEONE ACTUALLY PUBLISHED ME THIS IS REAL THIS IS HAPPENING!!!” It will take time…I know. I feel impatient today.

And I also know that a year ago, I would’ve killed just to be published anywhere at all – so paying attention and respect to progress that has been made would probably be a better route to take, mentally.

I’ve been trying to find a therapist here but it seems like none of the lady shrinks in my network are accepting new patients and the one place that seemed promising isn’t returning my email.

We bought a new mattress and it’s delightful but naturally takes some getting used to especially since it is memory foam and we are not really accustomed to that. The firmness! My God, the firmness! My body feels good but also sore?? Or is it sore from Seattle’s hills and stairs?

Allegations against Brett Kavanaugh continue to pile up – today a third woman went public. How many will it take? How many women have to tell their stories? My Twitter feed is positively bursting at the seams with women sharing their sexual harassment and assault traumas…and it just. doesn’t. matter. If nothing else, this whole episode – hell, the last two years – have been extremely illuminating re: the number of people we have in our government who could not care less about sexual assault. They’re going to vote on Friday no matter what happens on Thursday. It’s all a foregone conclusion. What breaks my heart perhaps the most is the female GOP senators who could be putting a stop to all this and for whatever reason, aren’t. My expectations for white men in power are already subterranean so it’s pleasantly surprising when any one of them stands up for women or any marginalized group. But a woman should know. A woman should get it. If Susan Collins was my senator, I’d be picketing her office every day of the week and twice on Sunday until she agreed to vote against this piece of misogynist elitist garbage.

Then there’s all the civilian Republicans who, I guess, just have no problem with giving an alleged serial sexual assaulter a lifetime appointment on the highest court in the land. Your cousin. Your neighbor. Your boss. Your pastor. People in your life that you care about and respect, who aren’t showing any kind of care and respect toward women, because they are just going along with the party line. It’s really, really disappointing to see the lengths people will go to not believe women. Women who have EVERYTHING to lose by coming forward. We’re learning a lot about our friends and family members and community leaders by their responses to this stuff.

What I’m Reading:

“The Very Worst Missionary” by Jamie Wright, the story of a woman who became a Christian in her 20s as a young mom and decided to go be a missionary in Costa Rica and discovered that most mission work is bad/useless/counterproductive. Having lots of flashbacks to the weeklong “missions trip” my church youth group went on to Costa Rica in 2003. We…were not super helpful. Anyway, she’s funny and very sweary and unapologetic, my kind of girl.

What I’m Watching:

Still lots of Brooklyn 99. When I started it several weeks ago, I picked up in like season 3 or 4. So we watched all of that until it got current, and now we’re going back to the beginning to see what I missed. It’s so delightful.

What I’m Listening To:

Ella Mai, “Boo’d Up” and “10,000 Hours” and “A Thousand Times”. Also “Best Part” from H.E.R. (featuring Daniel Caesar). I had never heard of any of those people until about a week ago when I was hanging out at a coffee shop and letting YouTube play whatever it wanted after I picked a random Beyoncé song. “Best Part” is the song that plays in my mind when I envision a beautiful autumnal falling-in-love montage: walking through the leaves, drinking cider while wearing sweaters and scarves, cuddling by the fireplace, all the basic shit. Highly recommend.

What I’m Fuming About:

I believe we’ve covered that.

screaming