Women's March 2018/March On the Polls DC

Left at 8:15 this morning, home just after 5p tonight. I'm tired but it was a great day of resistance and active participation in our democracy. The tenor of this year's March was different than last January's. Then, shocked and worried and desperate for hope, we came together to seek solace and strength in one another.

A year in, the shock has largely worn off. We know what we're dealing with, even when he sinks to new and ever-coarser lows. We have seen the damage being done to our country, our citizens of color, the poor and undocumented among us, our standing in the world, our environment. We woke this morning to a government shutdown.

Today we again came together, to vent our rage, to celebrate the many women who have run and won in local and state elections since trump's inauguration, to thank the women of color who got Doug Jones elected, to look ahead to the women and right-minded men who will run this November, to make clear that we are still here, we are still fighting, and a giant blue intersectional wave is only just beginning to really build its strength. 

Yet another protest: we march again

Well, tomorrow is another protest. The one year anniversary of the big one; the Women's March. 

2017 Women's March in DC

I'm grateful that we have this opportunity, grateful for freedom of expression, the freedom to gather, the freedom to express rage and disbelief and heartbreak in words and action. But, I am also furious. Furious that the United States has gone and is going to shit in so many ways so quickly and so constantly since a:

sexual assaulting
money laundering
stupid bouffanting
adultering
lying
addicted-to-golfing
couldn't-give-a-shit-about presidenting
ignorant-as-fucking
tweeting
reality TVing
small dicking
long tie-ing
small handsing
orange skinning
dictator loving
failed developmenting
hated-by-New Yorkers-ing
Birther-creating
"wall"-building
DACA-n-CHIP-killing
tax "reforming"
environment killing
big game hunting (vicariously)
racisting
McDonalds eating
can't-stop-talking-about-Hillarying
white supremacist-admiring
NRA-money-loving
charity stiffing
no-family-from-Swedening

a-hole won the Electoral College but not the popular vote in 2016. 

As we should all now know, democracy is not something to take for granted. Ane yet I am peevish to the g-damn max about spending yet another day with yet another homemade sign and mesh pack full of trail mix, phone chargers, lip balm, and Metro card hoping against hope that Republicans will find their balls and spines and that RBG and Mueller don't die anytime soon. 

my (double-sided) sign for tomorrow, March 2018

I am angry and tired. And I am tired of being angry and tired. But then again, at least there is hope in this messed up idea that is America, for that is more than many countries have. 

My sign and pack sit at the ready by the front door, and I'm off to bed now. I hope the turnout around the globe tomorrow (and Sunday) is huge, and I hope this November's elections are blue and female tsunamis. In the meantime, I continue to try to do my part. Try to show my sons how to be active participants in an imperfect system that is better than many alternatives. Try to imprint upon their dear souls that working for the good of many, especially the weakest, poorest, and most voiceless among us, is absolutely the way to go. Hoping against current evidence that maybe in the future, justice won't take quite so much rage and effort. 

Amorphous blob'ism of a week

Y'all, January is hard enough without accusations of "shithole" (or, as it wasn't but was suggested/lied about, "shithouse") countries and assertions of people we do and don't want anytime but sort of especially MERE DAYS BEFORE we celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King Day in the year that IS ALSO the 50th year since his assassination. 

January is cold enough that we can really do without continued sexual impropriety on a grand scale, including multiple and fairly credible tales of porn stars having had affairs with the Evil Yam just after Melania gave birth and then being paid hush money to shut up about it all.

January is screwy enough in terms of snow days and, thusly, parental schedules, that I hardly think we also need a desperate mother paying a large sum to largely untrained Container Store people for a "sleek and Swedish" organizational system that promises to solve a hoarder son's closet issues. Said mother averred that a cyclonically-inspired closet could be tamed in 60-90 minutes on an early-dismissal Tuesday. Said mother was, four hours, no lunch, and extreme body and foot odor later, chastened by said sleek and Swedish org system that is now a permanent part of a closet due to a mallet, chisel, hammer, and wild-eyed determination to make that fucker fit. Do not tell said mother's husband just what lengths she went to via the baseboard just inside the closet doors.

My dear housekeeper, Imelda, ventured in two hours in: "Emily, I am hearing the hammer. Is everything going ok? I want to offer my help."

"Imelda, I will win in this closet. I will make this organizer fit."

"Ok, Emily, it's just, I'm hearing the hammer" -read: "I should not be hearing a hammer," which was an accurate perspective from anyone but especially Imelda who can fix and solve and do anything- "and I want to offer my services."

I'm pretty sure my scent and the state of my hair and eyes caused her quick departure from the room. 

The Container Store is really the devil. No wonder it partners with Real Simple magazine which is the lyingest name of a magazine ever. Real Stressful would be infinitely more accurate. Sweet baby jesus in the skies, RS editors. Back your trains up. No one can cover even 80% of the advice you offer on one page must less on 200 of them. 

Meanwhile, the children appear to be suffering January-induced meltdowns and loss of senses of humor. Mary mother of moody boys. Get it together. Tonight, Tom's 40th birthday incidentally, found me with a brand new Keratin treatment in my hair -which means it's straight as a board and CANNOT, under penalty of death, be tucked in a rubber band, hair band, or even behind an ear- peeling and deveining shrimp, making biscuits, preparing a cocktail, making the kids' dinner, AND alternately tending to and ignoring pitiful whimpering from Oliver because he had to copy previously written persuasive letter text onto a new sheet of paper. The trials of being a privileged youth today.

My eyes just fell out I rolled them so hard.

Have you ever tried to peel and devein shrimp without being able to move your hair out of your face or even really touch it? Such is not an optimal scenario. And the wailing child is the cream. 

But I'm a perseverant gal, and damn you shithole president and persuasive letter writing and Keratin, I will make my husband a delicious meal. And I did.

barbecue shrimp

biscuits!

kale salad

And the boys calmed down and got their homework done, and dinner was good, and then T and I watched Get Out which is hands down the best social commentary film I've seen in a while, and now we're two forty-somethings off to bed. Happy Birthday, honey.