Ways to handle this

Rachel Lucas ^ | 11-7-12 | Rachel Lucas

[Indy Pendance]

Ways to handle this

We lost.

Despite my genuine and profound despair caused by the cold hard proof that over half the American electorate dwells in a pathological state of denial about elementary basic arithmetic and of the concepts of cause and effect, I’m trying to be optimistic right now. Trying to make myself laugh right now or else I’ll give up.

I’m convinced there are productive ways we can cope with Jimmy Carter’s second term, and work to defend what’s good about this country in the near future, and I have to tell myself we’ll figure out how to do that or die trying.

But whatever happens, I’m not going Galt.

I understand, on some level, why some people want to do that right now. It seems completely ***king pointless to work hard and produce anything if more than half your countrymen want to confiscate the fruits of your effort for their own lazy and even destructive aims, and they have the armed backing of the federal government to do that.

But I’ve spent too many years living in Europe, experiencing firsthand the end result of what happens when too many good people “check out” and give up and don’t say or do anything to defeat the **ithead selfish “majority” because they feel overwhelmed by forces they believe are beyond their control. *****mmit, I refuse to remove myself from an ideological or political or existential battle because of election results or social pressure.

But that’s all talk for another day. The negative raging rants could fill pages.

I spent this morning staring out my window at the clear, crispy-looking Alps west of Turin (the fog has finally lifted after months) and I decided that while we all nurse our hangovers – physical and emotional – I’m gonna use this small public platform that I have to maybe make someone smile rather than to add to the gloom. There is plenty of time for that in the coming days and weeks but for today, what’s going to work best for me is to have a sense of humor about this whole gruesome nightmare.

You know how I said I had a bulging folder of GIFs to spray all over everywhere? Oh yeah baby. I do. I know that too many of these makes the page look messy and crazy but maybe YOU are messy and crazy, huh? Huh.

So here’s an illustrated chronicle of how last night played out for me.

(If any of these pictures aren’t already moving, it helps if you hover your mouse over them.)

—-

The first results favoring Obama begin coming in but not enough to make me nervous. Just wary.

I don’t despair yet though; my naive stupid sparkle-mood lingers thanks to bourbon and happy music on the iPod. Then the Senate seat in MA is called for Pocahontas Warren and people start saying VA and FL are close and possibly going for Obama.

More and more people talk that crazy talk, and Florida remains too close to call. FLORIDA?

And then it all gets so very worse. So very worse. I mean drunk-texting-my-Dad-worse.

Et tu, Wisconsin and Virginia? After all we’ve been through together?

Now I’m confused. I really thought Romney/Ryan would pull this off. I thought the media’s coverup of Benghazi and Obama’s abject failure at his job for four whale-assed years would penetrate the skulls of at least half the electorate, and that critical thinking skills may finally come into play in an American election.

Well guess what?

Then people start to confidently call this thing for Obama. I take shots of bourbon and keep refreshing the results on my iPad and my laptop, and at some point Rupert calls from Norway to ask if I’m doing okay.

WELL SINCE YOU ASKED.

Rupert comforts me by generally being sweet and by saying something about my cherished collection of fluffy socks. I really do love those socks. He has to go to bed because it’s very late in Europe and he has a job. I take a terrified peek at the latest results.

I soothe myself by fantasizing about having pets again. I want a dog. I really want a dog. But we live on the 8th floor in the middle of a huge concrete-based city. Would a dog be happy up here in this apartment-sized cage? Probably not, so….CAT! We’ll get a cat! Rupert said he would not hate a cat if I got a cat as long as Cat doesn’t jump on the kitchen counters or leave Cat-pee on Rupert’s pillow.

Then I remember we live on the 8th floor and must keep our non-screened floor-to-ceiling windows open several months of the year because no air conditioning, and that fact is that cats do shit like this:

So I’d have an accidental Cat suicide on my hands within the first 10 minutes of Cat ownership. But it’s more pleasant to think about that than about about the election news so I keep thinking about my future pet. Maybe my Cat would be smarter than those dumb YouTube jumping-type cats.

By now it’s about 3 or 4 a.m. here. I don’t even know. All I know is I go to my blog and read the comments from you guys, and then I refresh the election-results pages, and then I text my Dad a picture of the tortilla chips I’m eating, as a symbol of my despair. He reminds me to wait until more precincts report but I can tell he’s just being nice. I text something to Buttercup about the Drinking Closet, then I email my middle sister (the one who is not a horrifically malinformed Jon-Stewart-watching liberal) about coming to visit me next year, then I refresh the results pages again and…well.

Then I put away the bourbon, eat some chicken, and spend the next few hours sobering up and grimly watching the returns come in, until at about 5:30 a.m. Italy time. Finally I hit the wall.

And I force myself to go to sleep.

—–

It sucks to lose. The left is gloating and we’re licking our wounds.

That’s fine.

I’ve read/heard it too many places to give proper credit but there’s a very good point being made by many: the fiscal cliff is our unavoidable destiny – very soon – no matter who’s in charge for the next 4 years.

Obama has been elected captain of the Titanic.

And he inherited the whole decaying mess from himself.

So there’s that.

[Ellendra]

I don’t have any harlequin seeds, is that the company or the variety?