It’s an ungodly hour. Sitting. Lounging in my massage chair as my elite liberal ass is kneaded by Japanese technology. Black cat on my chest purring, apparently not caring as my body undulates and shakes as I tap away on my phone above his little body. He’s a delightfully weird little cat and I’m glad he has decided to share his soothing purr.

So Trump won.

When I left this blog dormant in 2013, almost all my posts were private. Yesterday, I went back to the beginning and was restoring the private posts to public one at a time. I did 2004 yesterday. That was also was an election year. Bush vs Kerry. I was predictably upset at the result, but even then, in my mid-twenties, I had scabbed over political scars.

It was really 2000 Bush Vs Gore that broke my heart. The Florida hanging chads. Remember that fiasco? It was during my second year of university. I fancied myself an environmentalist, favorite class Ecology. Truly hopeful that a president who cared about science and the planet would get us back on track. That election felt like everything. It was the first time I was really shocked by the American people. I still have a hard time processing it. That is the pinpoint in time where I believe we fell into the shitty alternative reality.

It doesn’t feel like it, but I think that’s because of my limited perspective. If I was a Boomer maybe I would say it was when Reagan beat Carter in 1980. Or Nixon winning in 1968.

In this moment though, the 2024 election feels bad. It really does. So much so that I lost total momentum on this post as I slipped into a dark contemplative fog thinking about the future.

Massage is over, yet purring has maintained. I love this cat.