It’s Mourning in America Again (Or, when is it ok to go back on tinder?)

For students of history, they know that Ronald Reagan’s famous commercial in the 80’s titled “It’s morning in America again” was designed as a dog-whistle and not too dissimilar to the recent MAGA mantra.

We are all tired of hearing about how upsetting this week’s tragedy is, and I really want to find a way to move on — which I know is completely ridiculous. It’s way to soon and raw to move on. I know this.

Then again; when will it be soon enough and who decides that? When the world devolves into chaos and anarchy? Yeah, that’ll probably be just about the most American time to move on.

Please go to that Youtube clip and thumb’s down it and realize that the idiot that posted this terrible commercial doesn’t know that the caption should read IT’S not Its. Don’t read the comments unless you want to be more depressed.

I was in Vegas during the election for a conference, and I really can’t think of a more dismally accurate place to be when the world decided to go completely batshit. Surreal doesn’t begin to capture the feeling  of being slathered in loud noise, blaring lights, cigarette smoke, and desperation. Tacky, guady, and overpriced is what we are now. That is, until we run out of money. Then maybe we can make Vegas great again: Quiet, dark, and peaceful.

Vegas circa November 8, 2016. Will there even be water in this giant tacky fountain in 2 years?

I think those of us that are upset by the events of the last 48 hours are working through our stages of grief. I’m partially still in denial.  I haven’t actually seen my daughter yet, and hugged her. I’m worried I might start crying when I pick her up after school, but at least I know that she has already had many role models in her life explain the situation to her on 1st-grader terms. The principal sent out a very thoughtful email on the morning of 11/9 explaining how they are addressing this with fellow teachers and the students. Empathy is what they are focusing on.

We are all going to be all right. The children are our future and I sincerely hope my generation and older can remember that.

I arrived home last night around 7 and realized that I was locked out. So I walked to a neighborhood bar to get a beer and wait for Fina to get home from class. This is not normally a particularly popular bar and yet it was packed on a Wednesday. Despite the fact that Hillary had already conceded earlier that day, they had Rachel Maddow and MSNBC on the big screen where they usually played sports. For some reason there was a group of rowdy baby boomers at one of the tables next to me. I’m assuming they were dulling their pain, but they were being a little obnoxious about it. I don’t begrudge them this behavior under the circumstances.

I can’t say the same for people at the table on the opposite side. They appeared to be on a tinder-date.

It definitely seems too soon for that. The dipshit guy said something to the effect of “what’s the point of these protestors? He won.” They then quickly moved on to more interesting and topical subjects like who The Hawks play this weekend and Reality TV and mutual crap that they had in common. I had a really hard time both not eaves-dropping and paying attention to the details, as anger swelled inside of me.

It’s Seattle, so they probably didn’t even vote for our new Despot-in-Chief-Kinda (or DICK¹ for short), but they shouldn’t be talking smack about protest. I don’t want to prance around on a high horse and I do believe we have to heal as a nation, but c’mon, give it a couple more days please.²

¹ I plan on trademarking this to use instead of POTUS.

² I realize I started almost every sentence with I in this post, please forgive me, I’m feeling a bit self-absorbed.

Tagged: mourning, seattle, Social Norms, trump