despair

[bluelander]

I was going to write about how disenfranchised my vote was this year. This was the first year I've ever had to take a fucking uber to vote. Every other year my polling place was in walking distance of where I live, this year it wasn't even on a bus route. And I was going to talk about going to vote with my spouse, and how fucked and inefficient the polling place was, how much I regret not voting early when I had the chance, how much smoother that was when I voted during the last mid-terms.

But then fascism won, and none of it seems like it matters. I mean, my state's red as paint, so that part never matters, but I wanted to at least say I was there, you know? I guess I've been in denial about how likely this was, because I wasn't prepared for the wave of despair that hit me. I feel utterly lost and alone. I've been crying a lot. I've been making it to work each day but that's about it. I'm staying off social media as much as possible. Even a relatively healthy environment like fedi has been a minefield for black pills and intrusive thoughts. I'm scared in a way I've never been scared of an election result before. The presidential immunity ruling and Project 2025 loom above like a black star.

I'm trying to survive. I'm not looking at news. I've been tending my little digital garden (up to 68 exhibits as of this writing!) because it distracts me and gives me some semblance of normalcy. I have kind of a big backlog at work now though, so I'm probably going to have to drop it down to 1 or 2 new pages a day.

I need to find more stuff to listen to at work. Even apolitical podcasts are tough because they take place in the present day. Earlier this month I listened to Into The Wild and Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer, and they were good. Bleak, and containing echoes of what's taken over our political culture today, but made tolerable by the cold distance of time. I also downloaded Educated by Tara Westover, along the same lines, but I don't know how well I'd do with a first-person memoir right now. I need more history, more science, more sociology and anthropology, more research and cold objectivity

My one tiny glimmer of hope is that our local excess levy to fund the library passed by a huge margin, almost 3 to 1, so books will be there for me. Sorry if this entry is contributing to the black pill atmosphere, just needed to vent.