I’m Thinking of Not Watching the News Tonight

That’s my plan. Four years ago I had to take a Xanax and even then we didn’t know who won the election until that weekend. I remember hearing the spontaneous celebrations ringing through the canyon that divides Los Feliz and Silverlake. We walked down to Sunset Junction and joined an impromptu dance party that had sprung up. There was even a beautiful rainbow over the city – it was all a bit too much to be honest. But in the Fall of 2020 after the fires and lockdowns and riots we all just wanted to celebrate.

In my mind a second Trump administration would be as bad as the first. Probably not better, maybe worse. I don’t really buy into the whole, “he’s going to end democracy” thing. Not because I don’t think he wouldn’t want to. It’s because he surrounds himself with idiots who are not capable of executing their worst plans. I suspect there would be too many people in his administration lining their own pockets for them to really get down to the business of Third Reich level evil. We’ll continue to grow more polarized. Gay marriage might be repealed. Social Security will probably be raided or privatized and then gambled away. Prices will stay exactly the same. There probably won’t be a national abortion ban but if he gets in huge trouble then maybe.

I have no idea what a Harris presidency would be like. Probably sort of like now. Maybe a little better, maybe a little worse. We’d continue to coast making no big changes unless congress were to be unified. I like her plans. They’re all centrist moderate plans. Small changes. It’s fine but then again, is it fine when things are as urgent as they are in so many ways? My number one issue is the climate crisis and in reality, the market is already doing a better job on this than the government. The only question is, will the US get on board and become rich in the process or will we continue to hand out billions in subsidies to the oil and gas industries?

Either way we get the government we deserve.

My friend called me in a panic – he’s watching the news and wanted to spiral about the state of the race. It seems like Trump is winning. I told him I didn’t want to talk about it. I wanted to have one last good night and worry about it tomorrow.

In other news, we have a dog, I think. D got a dog over the weekend. I came back from Florida to a new dog in the house. He looks like a blonde version of our previous dog who was amazing. New dog (we don’t have a name yet) is very shy. He likes D. He won’t come near me yet. I think maybe we didn’t get a dog but a very large cat? I’m being patient. I know it takes a while for a skittish dog to get comfortable in a new situation. He’s maybe 4 – was rescued from a high-kill shelter. He had three different people adopt him and return him: the first adopter developed a terminal illness after a month, the second adopters realized they’d have to spend too much on building a fence, the third adopter’s other dogs didn’t get along with him. So here we are. I’m sure he isn’t sure about us. So maybe he’ll warm up once he knows we’re not going to ditch him. I wish I could speak dog to him and tell him, “not to worry, these are some high class gays. You’re going to be fine!”