40 and Holding on Harper

OK, So... I dont think future generations will fully grasp just how stressful it was to live through the Donald Trump presidency from 2016 to 2020. Combine that stress with a global pandemic, and you've got a recipe for disaster. I will have to do a post just about 2016 and how that forever scarred the psyche of Democrats everywhere, and created a fear-based anxiety about polling, elections, and a general uncertainty and doubt about actual electoral realities on the ground. But I digress. So let's start with the most recent events and how it relates to my damaged emotional state. Donald Trump was arguably the worst president in modern US history. Do not let anyone try to rehabilitate his image in the future. He created a cult of personality that used chaos as a ladder. Every single day it was one crisis or another, and our President was either willfully ignorant, totally incompetent, or knowingly malignant. Not sure which of those three characteristics were the worst. He w...

OK, So... The global pandemic happened. Here we are September 2021, 18 months almost to the day since our first lockdown. I was living with my boyfriend at the time, Sean. Sigh. What to unpack first? This experience has been so psychologically traumatizing and I feel like I am still trying to recover and heal from it. Sean and I had a lovely one-bedroom in West Hollywood. Normally I worked from home twice a week, and Sean went to his workplace downtown every day. Overnight around March 15th we both had to work every day from home - in a small apartment that did not have a workspace for two people. I took over the desk in the living room, and Sean took over our dining room table. He needed a lot more room since he's a clothing designer and needed room to spread his sketches and fabrics, and the mulitple monitor for his computer. First crisis averted. We had to make accomodations for each other if we had zoom meetings or phone calls. Occasionally I would take calls in the ...

I was trying to decide how to start this online journal, and all I could think was "OK, SO..." I think that might have to be my opening line every time. Channeling my inner Cher Horowitz. OK, SO... I am about to launch into a complaint session of epic proportions, but don't blame me. I just went through one of the toughest year-and-a-half in my lifetime. I can't wait to live another twenty years and somehow have to explain the weirdness of living through a global pandemic, while simultaneously watching the decline of our democracy and decent into fascism (with some brief respites thanks to Joe Biden), and the ending of my five-year relationship. To the love of my life. Who I still love. And who is still in my life. No wonder I am in therapy. In fact I have a therapist AND a Psychiatrist. And medication. Thank god. So let's consider this journal an attempt at some personal growth and therapy that I desperately need. I don't expect a lot of people t...