brainsplotch

We made it. We survived. No violence. A peaceful transfer of power. I woke up yesterday morning to the news that Donald and Melania Trump had already departed in a helicopter from the White House. No straightjacket or handcuffs were required to get him out, as I had not quite jokingly worried about for months. Oh, did I mention that all the library staff worked remotely yesterday because downtown Lansing was deemed potentially too dangerous for us to work in the building? Thank you Trump. Thank you MAGA, Proud Boy, and QAnon buffoons. I can happily report that there was no violence in Lansing yesterday. In fact, I think the city was a ghost town on Inauguration Day.  So I woke up, found out that Trump had left, and wrote this on Facebook. (I really need to spend less time on Facebook, but that's another story). These words were straight from the gut and flowed right out of me. I had probably waited four or five years to write them: "He is gone. Good riddance. Easily the worst ...

I am in one of those periodic stages I have been throughout the pandemic in which I feel like the world is closing in on me. I'm stressed out and the only way I can get through is by taking life day by day, which I suppose is what everyone is doing. We had someone test positive for Covid at my workplace, and that has me feeling anxiety. I think it has most of us feeling some degree of anxiety. I feel that I'm constantly monitoring my health: "Is that a sore throat I feel coming on? No, I guess not. Good. Can I still smell things? Yes? Good. Uh-oh, I just coughed. Is that just a normal cough? I guess so. Good." And on and on. I mean, I tend to be a bit neurotic anyway, but combine that with a pandemic and one positive test at work--the first one we have had to the best of my knowledge--and I am even more on edge than usual.  Before I make this too much about me , I must say that I hope my co-worker who tested positive makes a full recovery. By the way, yesterday marke...

The dust has at least temporarily cleared from yesterday's storming of the United States Capitol and attempted coup by a mob of MAGA terrorists. How long have I been railing against Trump and the danger he presents to our nation? It's not as if I'm a brilliant sage or learned political scholar. Anyone with a brain could have seen this coming as far back as 2015, when Trump announced he was running for president and started to get traction. And in all actuality, this is a wound that has been festering since well before Trump became president. What should have been a celebratory day--after Georgia elected Raphael Warnock, the state's first ever Black senator (and Jon Ossoff also winning his Georgia senatorial runoff)--turned into an afternoon of chaos in Washington, DC. What happened at the capitol was simply the culmination of the ferment that Trump has been stoking for the last four plus years.  The week began with me leaving messages on the voicemails of Ted Cruz and J...