...and start getting real. (If you don't know this reference, we may not be compatible as friends.)
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| This is not a fun post, but I thought I'd give you a moment of sheer dog bliss. |
A friend reached out to me when I did not post a blog post on a weekday. It's unusual for you not to post, so I was concerned, she said. I was touched and told her things were fine. I just had a lot to do and the blog just couldn't be prioritized and that was true on the surface.
But the thing is that I'm struggling with what to write here. I feel like I'm falling into a trap of not wanting to write things out here because I don't want to alienate people with constant complaining or toxic positivity. But this is my blog and if you decide to stop reading because of something I write here, so be it, I guess. It's not my intention, but it's also time for me to stop pretending.
Things aren't great in the United States right now. Frankly, they aren't great internationally, but I have to admit that I've been absolutely unable to tear myself away from the domestic news. I don't know where to start with the list of things he has done and I'm not going to list them here, but it's HARD for me to post book reviews when Trump is instituting immigration raids in my community (a recruitment fair that we use to target first-generation Latinx students has been canceled because only three people registered for it - I'll let you figure out why no one wants to come), he's decimating research funding which will eventually lead to layoffs and college/university closures (how long until my job is seen as unnecessary to the base function of the university?), attempting to deny the franchise to many people, but seems to be targeting women, and has alienated some of our closest international allies (how DARE HE THREATEN CANADA - the US/Canadian border is the longest and one of the most peaceful borders in the world?). Don't get me started on DOGE or climate change or Medicare cuts or any of about two dozen other things.
But you know all this. (Or maybe you don't, in which case I sort of admire you.)
What's most upsetting to me is people who live in the United States and things seem to be going along like normal. There was a spree of "I don't talk about politics on my blog - it's safe from that type of nonsense" right around the election and I unfollowed quite a few blogs at that time. Right. It's safe from politics. There's a sort of privilege in being able to say that the outcome of the election doesn't matter to you. I read a reddit thread in November where federal employees basically said that it didn't matter to them who won - I wonder how they're feeling right about now? No one is safe from politics.
But, I've been thinking a lot (mostly because of a couple of posts on Jamie's blog where I may or not have been a brat in the comments) that my temper tantrum of unfollowing people is maybe not the right answer.
(I DO think I'm right to stop spending money at businesses that have wrong politics. I have very little economic power in this world, but I will use that power in a way that makes me feel little guilt.)
What do I show people when communication comes to a halt? Two wrongs don't make a right and it means that I'm spewing hatred back in the face of hatred. But I'm TIRED, friends. I'm TIRED. I've been giving the benefit of the doubt for ten years now and it has done NOTHING. The fascist right is getting stronger and my uncle still has the gall to tell me that gay marriage is disgusting and that they deserve to die.
But I'm busy writing CBBC and FIG posts and thinking that maybe I'm just part of the problem. I feel like I veer from guardrail to guardrail - either (too much?) optimism and joy or dire warnings of the collapse of the world's longest-running democracy.
So sometimes I'm taking a day off. Because, yes, I have a lot on my plate and I am prioritizing things other than writing here. I'm trying to figure out what tone I want to set. Maybe it will just turn into a place where I post photos of the dog and cat.
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Comments closed. I just need to sit with this by myself I guess.
