I don’t write very much for a supposed professional writer

Sometimes I absolutely loath my work ethic. When I write, when I’m in the flow of it, I get a lot done and I enjoy it. But when I stop, starting up again each time is hard. like re-starting a diet or exercise program. Writing is how I get this pile of shit out of my head and make sense of a senseless world. I was writing a year by year summary of my life here on OD and then it started to feel like work and not fun and it stopped. Maybe I’ll pick that up again but jump around to random years — or years that I’m looking forward to writing about: 1990, 1993, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2010, 2012, 2015 and 2018. Those were the last interesting years of my life. 2020 is by far the least interesting year of my life — and that’s probably true for a lot of us?

Oh right, so we’re all waiting to find out who is going to be President. If it’s Trump my life sucks by x% and if if it’s Biden my life sucks a little less by x%. This coming from someone who enjoys most of the benefits of white, male privilege. I mean that — do not interpret that as sarcasm. I won the fuck ing lottery with my life. The gay detracts a couple of privilege points but I can pass as straight for 15 to 30 minutes in a pinch. HOWEVER, for everyone else, if Trump wins well that’s a fucking fiasco. What we know, historically is that crime, teen pregnancy, death, death by suicide and financial ruin all go up during republican administrations. How they get people to vote for them is beyond me. I am impressed that 70% -ish of U.S. Americans voted in the election. That’s a huge turnout by our standards — and that it happened in a pandemic is impressive. (Though, duh, you mail people ballots they might vote more often).

Right now I’m not panicking but last night I was on the couch filled with sick dread. So anxious that I fleetingly thought I’d rather be dead. I thought about a friend who killed himself by carbon monoxide poisoning about a week before the 2016 election and how I envied him for not having to go through it. Right, again, perspective — white male privilege, stable job and a nearly paid off home in California — land of never falling real estate prices. So I’ve got it made but my constant companion anxiety and depression gave me one of those suicidal shout outs. I’ve got a good network of friends, my husband plus no guns in the house so, you know. These thought come and go. Anyone less fortunate, when the thinking gets big and noisy in your head, please reach out. Remember, everyone who has jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge and survived has had, to a person, the same thought just after going over the edge, “I shouldn’t have done this. The problems in my life were not unsolvable.”

Some Xanax and a fitful six hours of sleep and I’m in a hazy “who gives a shit” kind of mood this AM. We wrote an animated series for AMC and are in talks to get our old pal Macaulay Culkin on board to voice the main character. We had a Zoom meeting with him a couple of weeks ago and he looked like he was doing “My Name Is Earl” cosplay. God I hope he says yes. It would be a huge point in our favor and he’d be perfect because the character is basically him. I’m supposed to be working on another show about Billionaires who bug out to an apocalypse bunker just a little too soon. Turns out the world didn’t end after all but they’re stuck down there because the whole world is better off without them. It’s like Gilligan’s Island with Zuckerberg, Musk and Bezos fighting over supplies.

I’m getting very far along on Duolingo Spanish. It’s what I do to calm myself. I figure if it all goes Handmaids Tale I can abscond to Uruguay. I did fill my Chevy Volt’s gas tank on Monday as well as stock up on 20 gallons of water. It hasn’t come to the Trumpenvolk invading the liberal enclave just yet but there’s time. There’s time for anything.