Hey, look, a quiz. That's new.... /not.

(I’m doing this because….well, because I have some weird fascination with these things.)

Can you fill this out without lying? (If I was going to lie I wouldn't do it, or just plead the Fifth; I’ve done it before.) And yes, I corrected the grammar in the questions.

1. What was the last thing you put in your mouth? Coffee.
2. Where was your profile picture taken? No idea; it’s a stock photo. The one I usually use was a selfie taken at my desk in the study.
3. Do you play Pokemon Go? No, I seem to have missed both iterations of the Pokemon craze.
4. Name someone who made you laugh today. I just got up, so so far, my cat, Widget. (I started this much earlier - I didn’t just get up at nearly five! LOL)
5. How late did you stay up last night and why? Not too late for a weekend. Though I did end up playing Brave Frontier with the kiddo a bit later than I intended.
6. If you could move somewhere else, where? Europe, most likely; maybe southern France, or possibly Florence. Then again, given the political unrest everywhere, maybe somewhere more…neutral, like Canada, or Finland.
7. Ever been kissed under fireworks? Yes.
8. Which of your friends lives closet? Well, I do count my kiddo as my best friend, so right here. And my ex is usually a friend (lol), so right across the street. After that, Aline is closest.
9. Do you believe ex's can be friends? It's hard, and sometimes painful, but yes.
10. How do you feel about Dr Pepper? Don’t really care; I rarely drink any soda at all, though if I do, it won’t be that.
11. When was the last time you cried? Probably yesterday.
12. Who took your profile picture? See question #2.
13. Who was the last person of whom you took a picture? My kid.
14. Was yesterday better than today? Don’t know yet, but it’s hard times right now, so tough to say.
15. Can you live a day without TV? Yes, I don’t even have cable.
16. Are you upset about anything? Personally, more worried than upset. More broadly, have you *seen* what we sent to Washington?
17. Do you think relationships are ever really worth it? Many are. Not all. Romantic ones? These days I have my doubts.
18. Are you a bad influence? I can be, in all the best ways.
19. Night out or night in? Definitely night in.
20. What items could you not go without during the day? Phone, at least one decent pen (fountain pen, of course), coffee, my kid, and either a computer or a good book.
21. Who was the last person you visited in the hospital? Ex-father-in-law, who will always be ‘Dad.’.
22. What does the last text message in your inbox say? “It seems like it would be.”
23. How do you feel about your life right now? Generally, I love my life, but there is a lot of uncertainty, both about my future and about the future of our society, so I’m worried.
24. Do you hate anyone? In an impersonal sense, the entire GOP. Personally, not really.
25. If we were to look in your inbox what would we find? Depends on which inbox, I have 4 spanning…7 e-mail accounts. In my personal mailbox, ads for sales on pens or books, a lot of political mailing lists. On my work e-mails, school related stuff - students griping, memos no one reads, stuff like that.
26 Say you were given a drug test right now, would you pass? Unless caffeine or chocolate counted against me, yes.
27. Has anyone ever called you perfect? Yes, and sadly, I believed them. It is amazing how damaging and manipulative such a statement can be.
28. Someone knocks on your window at 2:00 a.m., who do you want it to be? If they want to live, it better be someone like Alistair Theirin, Casavir, or Dean Winchester (or any of a few other fictional characters). Real people - just don’t.
29. Name something you have to do tomorrow? Enter grades, follow up on some e-mails, maybe tidy up a bit. Try to get some mental R&R.
30. Do you think too much or too little? Way, way too much.
31. Do you laugh a lot? Despite my worries, yeah, I do. Granted, a fair share of it comes from irony, sarcasm, dark humor, or schadenfreude, but a most of it doesn’t. Fears notwithstanding, I do love life.
32. Do you have any fears? Oh, yes: whether I’ll have work in any given future semester, whether I will ever be able to retire, growing old alone, never being kissed again, and a lot of fears about the kind of nation/world we are making for my son. Shit like spiders and the dark really start to look pretty lame compared to adulting…..

So, life.

Once again it's been too long. And, as always seems to be the case, life is a mixed bag; lot of good, good bit of not-so-good.

Still teaching, but the stress of wondering, every semester, if I will get enough classes to be able to stay afloat is wearying in the extreme. So far, this time, from my main uni, I have only one for fall. My other uni didn't give me a class this spring (first time since I started there), and hasn't begin their fall scheduling yet. I'm also teaching at a middle/high school, which I really love, but they don't schedule until mid- to late-summer. So for now, I'm on pins and needles, wondering just how tight I'll be pulling my belt come fall. And fall is the worse of the two semesters to not have a reasonably full load, coming as it does on the hells of summer, which is always lean in and of itself.

Then there is the massive fear/anxiety/depression/anger/stress over the election and they way the next four years are shaping up. I hope I am being hyperbolic when I say that I suspect within a year this nation will be unrecognizable. On the one hand it feels like hyperbole, but then again, we got this far because we have, as a culture, become far too adept at ignoring what is right before our noses. More on that in another post, lest I get too maudlin here!

The kiddo is flourishing for the most part. he's a bright and talented high school sophomore (how in the hell did THAT happen?), and he's looking at pursuing engineering. My middle and high school students are a bright spot of hope in these times; far more capable, literate, informed, and motivated than 99.9% of my college students. Yes, it's a private school, but still; they shame my college kids. I find this both inspiring and incredibly sad - inspiring for the hope these amazing children give, and sad for the ones who are in their early 20s with no grasp of life or the world around them. How did they ever get out of high school? ANd how will they ever be bale to function as citizens? (that may not be an issue soon anyway, I suppose....)

For me, personally, life is still a struggle at times, and a joy at others. (Like everyone, right?) I am nowhere near 'over' the collapse of my marriage and with it, many portions of my future. I cannot imagine ever entering into a relationship again; the notion makes me almost physically ill. At the same time, I am often so lonely, it takes my breath away. Sill, even when lonely, I love having my house to myself, and my time to myself, and just being *me.* So, it goes in stages.

The End of Democracy?`

I wondered recently if I was being hyperbolic to suggest that we are seeing the death of American Democracy. It's a harder question than one might think. Certainly, one's first instinct is to dismiss it as overly dramatic pearl-clutching. After all, don't we see enough of the 'chicken Little' theatrics from the evangelical loonies who sweat gay marriage will bring doom raining down from the offended heavens? Seriously!

Then again, look at where we are, and the trends that promise to become the 'new normal:' suppression of the press, the disconnect from reality, the major shifts in policies both domestic and foreign - there is much about which to be concerned.

I think, at the very least, much of the progressive work we have done will be reversed. Women, minorities, immigrants, non-Christians—in short anyone who is not a Christian white straight male—is going to find much of their social power and equity eroded if not erased. That, together with the wide-reaching implications of repealing the ACA and gutting support for the most vulnerable in society will, I suspect, have a deeply destructive effect on the economy. Healthcare prices will skyrocket while the industry itself shrinks (both of which will follow fewer people using any formal healthcare at all), and the effects of poor health and shrinking healthcare access will bleed over into rising unemployment, homelessness, and poverty. Add in sinking wages, deeper penetration of 'right to work' laws which simply hamper unions and enable corporate abuse of workers, and the spending power of the poor & middle classes will vanish. We are looking at a deep, deep crash, and in incredible era of human suffering.

Meanwhile, our ideologue in chief presses an ever more aggressive, blame-filled, and fascist agenda. The 'middle ground' between the sides simply no longer exists. We keep hearing the urging to 'reach out,' to 'bridge the divide.' Where? How? Reach out to what middle ground? Women are people who deserve full equality and autonomy; or they don't. LGBTQ persons deserve the basic civil right to marry the person of their choosing and receive the same protections and considerations as every other person; or they don't. People of color, Muslims, immigrants, and non-Christians are people who deserve respect, full civil rights, and full equality; or not. Health care is a right; or it isn't. Climate change is a thing; or it's not. Either a democratic society has an obligation to put our resources to work protecting the most vulnerable and ensuring that every person has the basic necessities for a life of human dignity and meaning; or it does not, and screw them; if they are poor they are lazy and dissolute and they deserve what they get. There's not really a '...but...' in there anywhere. Women are not going back into the kitchen, gays are not going back into the closet, climate temperatures are not going back down because we say they never went up, and measles is not going to go away if we treat it with garlic and coconut oil. How do you compromise on such things?

I seriously think we have run out of middle ground. There are two narratives at play in American culture, and they are completely, totally, existentially irreconcilable. One is based in facts, in the imperative to guard the rights and well being of ALL human beings, and in the presupposition that all must share in the opportunity to build a meaningful life. The other is based on self-aggrandizing extremism, hate of what is different, and a disconnect from reality. And it is the latter that is currently winning. We are a 'post-factual' culture. We get on our smart phones on the internet and deny science and reality. We accept doublespeak, and blame others for the failures we create with out fear and bigotry and xenophobia. And that narrative is becoming the dominant one, within which there is no place for diversity; of race, gender, orientation, faith, creed, or opinion. We call that fascism. Is it really excessive to suggest we are seeing the end of American democracy?