adiva_calandia | (no subject)

So hey. It's been a week, hasn't it.

Every time I think I'm doing better something comes along and pitches me back into emotional lability -- last night I sobbed watching Kate McKinnon's "Hallelujah," this morning I was singing along with "City Hall" while setting up the food truck and almost lost it. I am scared about so many things and I keep writing blog posts in my head, lying in bed trying to get to sleep -- about why I'm so mad at and untrusting of third party voters (from the nice white lady who expressed hurt on Facebook that people were blaming her and other third-party voters for losing the election, to the multiple white guys posting videos about how this is all liberals' fault for ignoring rural America and if we'd run Bernie Sanders we would have won, to most especially the guy in Pennsylvania who voted for Johnson and posted snarkily on Wednesday about how he welcomes his country's new elected official -- because he has dual citizenship in Ireland and they just elected someone and so he is, if he wants to be, entirely insulated from this shitshow, oH MY GOD I'M SO MAD AT HIM I THINK I REALLY WILL NEVER FORGIVE HIM, okay okay I'm good okay this parenthetical is too long). About the horror I feel for the new generation of LGBTQ kids, who had eight years of unprecedented openness and acceptance and now are looking at another Bush or Regan era. About the terror I feel every time I think about climate change. I am so scared about climate change. I am so scared I can't think. About wearing a safety pin and a rainbow cuff. About switching back and forth between listening to angry screaming rock like Green Day and passionate acoustic queer women like Ani DiFranco and Indigo Girls.

I am spending as little time as possible on Facebook, though I still post about once a day and then immediately log out. Trying to process everyone else's anger and grief at the same time as my own is too overwhelming.

I need to get a therapist. For real, this time.

I have been spending so much time in the last few days reaching out to the people in my immediate network that I haven't gotten around to reaching out to most of my online network yet. So -- hi. Hello. I love you guys. I love you so much, and I will say to you what I said on Facebook on Wednesday morning: I may not be able to be Okay for you, if what you need is emotional support, because I am really Not Okay myself right now. But if it helps to know, I love you. And if you ever feel like you're in an unsafe place, I will do what I can to get you out. I will buy you a bus ticket, I will donate to your GoFundMe, I will call you a car.

Generally I feel like I'm in a pretty safe position -- I have a very supportive and fairly well-off family, I am fairly financially stable myself, and I live in a liberal urban center, although the evidence of the last few days shows that this is not a guarantee and when I talked with a group of grown white men last night on the bus you bet I was aware of that -- and that makes it all the more imperative to me that I help in the ways I can. So.

Here's something that's maybe a little more fun, though.

ladysingsthe suggested, and I jumped on board, that we run an Inktober/30-30 style art challenge in the 30 days leading up to Trump's inauguration. We're calling it Art Trumps Hate (#arttrumps3030), and the goal is twofold: to start channeling our feelings into creation (the opposite of war, as Jonathan Larsen said), and to troll that fascist motherfucker. I'll post about more details as we develop them.

Anyway. I love you. I am not going anywhere anytime soon (even if I do continue to stay off Facebook).