I feel productive when I finish a nonfiction book. Not a memoir mind you, but a real nonfiction book about history or ideas. I’m a fan of novels, so reading nonfiction feels a bit like school—a completed assignment.
Recently, I finished The Persuaders—a NYT bestseller by the American journalist Anand Giridharadas. It’s been on my list for a long time due to recommendations from friends who are more serious activists than me. I wouldn’t say I loved it, but it gave me some things to think about.
In 2022, I read a nonfiction book by the American journalist Mark Leibovich, who now writes for The Atlantic. Leibo is actually an old friend of mine from my post-college party years so I tend to read his stuff. I think he’s hysterical. I enjoyed every single word of his bestseller Thank You for Your Servitude: Donald Trump’s Washington and the Price of Submission. Highly recommend. It was an amazing poolside read. Even better with wine.
I like talking about the zeitgeist—current events and popular culture (especially movies and TV). I also love talking about books with my book group and music with my choir peeps. I enjoy hearing about people’s travels (to a point). I’m not a big sports fan, but if a Boston team is in the playoffs, I like to know what’s happening with that. Go Celtics ☘️! (and Bruins, I guess)
And as anyone who follows my blog knows, I despise Trump with a deep, burning, crimson hatred I’ve never felt for any other public figure in my lifetime, so I’m always up for any conversation which involves trashing him.
Am I the only one with a sign like this on display in my kitchen for the past 8 years?
How on earth is a disgraced, twice-impeached, 4X-indicted, racist, gun culture-supporting, coup d’état-attempting grifter and rapist the GOP’s choice for President of the United States in the next election?
And worst of all, he’s directly responsible for this.
Are you like me—a musical theater lover who loathes Donald J. Trump with every fiber of your being? If so, then you probably know all about Randy Rainbow already!
For the uninitiated, check him out here. (Gilbert & Sullivan)
My strategy depends on the particular shade of negativity I’m experiencing.
Since 2016, I’ve been mad – a lot. Anger can be channeled into productivity, but sometimes it needs to be unleashed. I find swearing to be one of the best ways to deal with anger. Sometimes (usually after watching the news), I let rip a loud string of F-bombs and then I can move on. Thank goodness my husband and I are 100% in agreement on politics. I don’t know how anyone is surviving in a politically “mixed marriage” at this point.
Do you remember when Trump visited Scotland in 2016? The coverage of their reaction was the absolute best. Does any other brand of English-speakers curse more creatively than the Scots? I don’t fucking think so.
Congratulations! We made it to the big ten-oh. I hope 2065 is treating us well and that we haven’t run out of money. Seriously, we’ve lived 8 years longer than our financial planner modeled. (I hope I didn’t fuck us by retiring at 58.)
In case you’ve forgotten, 2024 was quite a year. If the United States is now a dictatorship under Baron Trump, it’s not due to lack of effort on our part. We worked hard to try to stop his wretched orange father from overturning democracy.
Here we our with our activist friends in 2024
Hopefully things took a turn for the better in 2025—the year we turned 60. Hopefully. Fingers crossed that we get to go out on a high note.
Sometimes failure is just failure. The plays I didn’t get cast in, the rejection from my first-choice college, the math class I dropped because it was too hard, and the fellowship and jobs I didn’t get, are all examples of times I objectively failed.
People talk a lot about “grit and resilience,” usually in the context of blaming today’s parents for being too protective and helicopter-y. Well, failure forces you to build those qualities, even if your parents somehow messed-up.
What other choice do you have in the face of failure? You gotta keep going.
“Keep on Moving Forward” by Emma’s Revolution is my all-time favorite protest song. I think it inspires personal fortitude, as well as strength to keep fighting for a better world.
Gonna keep on moving forward Keep on moving forward Keep on moving forward Never turning back Never turning back
Gonna keep on moving proudly Gonna keep on singing loudly Gonna keep on loving boldly Gonna reach across our borders Gonna end the occupations Gonna stop these wars together Gonna keep on moving forward
Pat Humphries and Sandy O (Emma’s Revolution)
IT’S SUPER TUESDAY in the USA. Don’t waste your right to vote.
My biggest challenge in the next nine months is our national challenge: to try to make sure Donald Trump does not get re-elected President of the United States. If overturning Roe v Wade and staging a coup d’état was not enough to convince you that a second Trump term would be truly disastrous for both the United States and the world, then please get up to speed.
This is not a time to be shy about your political views or to sit on the sidelines and see what happens. It’s a Code Red, people. The simple act of handwriting postcards to likely voters in key districts has proven highly effective in the last two election cycles.
Over the next nine months I’ll be volunteering with Vote Foward and my local Indivisible group, along with a bunch of folks from my church.
Yes, Joe Biden is too old to be President. But the likely alternative, a second Trump term, would “instantly plunge the country into a constitutional crisis more terrible than anything seen since the Civil War.”
I don’t want to wake up on Wednesday, November 6th regretting that I didn’t do more.
Some church friends and me mailing our last batch of letters before the 2022 midterm elections
In the distant past, I used my white privilege to break the law intentionally many times with no consequences. I’ll chalk that up to youth and the too-high age requirement of 21+ for American nightclubs. (It really should be 18.)
I have been pulled over by the police a few times for doing stuff unintentionally. The worst was when I nearly ran over an older woman with a cane in a crosswalk. I just didn’t see her. I was pregnant and rushing to an appointment with my obstetrician. Thank God I saw her at the last moment and swerved.
I got pulled over immediately by a Boston cop on a motorcycle, as I should have been. I got a citation for “failure to yield to a pedestrian.” I did, of course, try to get out of it. I played the pregnant card, the woman card, the dumb card…all the cards. I don’t remember if I cried, but I might have. The cop did the right thing and gave me the ticket anyway. That one moving violation jacked up my car insurance premiums for years. I deserved it.
If there was a biography about you, what would the title be?
According to my son the subtitle of this blog—GenX Mom Keeps Calm & Carries On—is not accurate. According to him, I am not calm or “chill.” He says his father’s the calm one.
I started this blog shortly after I turned 50, in the fall of 2015. The name seemed about right at the time. I wrote six posts about regular mom/life stuff in 2015-16. Then all hell broke loose. The pussy-grabbing star of “Celebrity Apprentice” won the presidential election over a highly-qualified former Secretary of State and US Senator, even though she got 2,864,974 more votes than he did. Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump in the popular vote by more than the population of the City of Chicago, which has 2.66 million people. I’ve been to Chicago. It’s huge. It’s a huge city. Hillary Clinton beat Trump by more than a Chicago. Think about it.
The big city of Chicago, 2006
Clearly I was traumatized by the election of Donald J. Trump and all that followed, including learning that I had Trump supporters among my nearest and dearest.
Blogging suddenly seemed pointless. I didn’t even think about blogging regularly again until Trump was safely out of DC and Biden was sworn in.
That whole time period after the 2020 election, when the networks took forever to declare Biden the winner and Trump kept saying the election was rigged and would not concede, was SO F***ED UP. Those crazy images of “Stop the Steal” rallies in Arizona and endless, needless recounts in Georgia with Trump caught on tape telling officials to “find him 11,780 more votes” like a mafia boss. WTF. We are the United States of America. This doesn’t happen here.
And then…and THEN…two weeks before Biden’s inauguration a fucking RIOT inside the United States Capitol while Congress convened to certify Joe Biden’s electoral win—a perfunctory, procedural, ceremonial event that never caused a stir before in my entire life. And now we’ve got Senators hiding under benches and Vice Presidents being whisked away by the secret service?!?
OK, so clearly I’m not calm anymore. I may never have been. It’s sad that I’ve been like this for so much of my son’s life. He was just 15 when Trump won, and now he’s a senior in college.
I probably won’t change the name of my blog (because I’m not sure how to do it and I’d probably end up deleting the whole thing by accident), but I’ll try to find a more accurate title for my imaginary forthcoming biography. Suggestions welcomed.
Here are a few more pictures of my one and only trip to Chicago. I went with high school friends not long after we reunited for our 20th reunion. We were 40. We liked it!
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