Life of Wry

Here’s the thing: Feels like we are mucking around in the deepest do do of our lives. We are one week away from an election we’ve been waiting for for four years (yeah, that was three homophone thingies in a row) to elect somebody who will hopefully bring us back from the edge of the abyss. And we’re in the middle of a pandemic that is again surging like nobody’s business all over our country and the world. And today was the swearing in of a new extreme ideologue justice, just eight days from said election. A breathtaking, hypocritical power grab. And loads of other stuff besides. It’s all so much and all so heavy I just feel like I’m in a constant state of jitters and anxiety.

And, forebodingly, I actually sat in a meeting tonight where we watched a presentation on how to respond to a coup. Ninety one of my fellow Davis activists sat on a Zoom call, some of us were drinking wine, some of us had cats in our laps or children doing homework in the background. I had dinner in the crock pot ready to go soon as I got off the call. Normal people on a Monday evening, talking about coups. It was an incredibly smart and sober discussion that was also surreal and shocking. And it’s a real possibility that people are actually gaming out. Over a hundred national organizations have joined a coalition and are training and preparing their folks in the not-unlikely event that the president will do something crazy following his near-certain loss.

So, you know, I’m a bit agitated.

Still, earlier today, I sat in a phone bank and made my 33 calls to Kansas while simultaneously working on a nice arty jigsaw puzzle, in between a mammogram and a nice conversation with Peter.

Can you even process any of this?

These are weird times. Like we’re in a theater of the absurd.

I don’t have a photo that goes with any of this insanity. So how about this… I was in the Kaiser parking lot this morning and spotted this old car. I really have no interest in old cars, but what caught my attention was the color of the car. Our old family bubble car from the late 50s, early 60s (no idea its make or model) was exactly this shade of aqua.

I’ve learned a few tricks in Canva.. so I quickly worked up a design by first removing the background, dropping backgroundless car into a new scene, doing a little tilting of images and words, and presto.. this weird little exercise in distraction from all things overwhelming.