At Best, Today Will Be Annoying.

So here are some cute pics of my dog.

However things shake out, today is probably going to be demanding. Or weird. Or upsetting. Or all of the above.

I used to try to numb myself on days like today. Frustrated with the news, the country, etc etc etc, I’d try to opt out of my own humanity because it hurt too much to care. Numbing myself seemed incredibly reasonable, even savvy at the time. I did it over and over and over again. I started numbing myself in response to American chaos so frequently, I’d sometimes get lost inside the fog of myself for days at a time. It was rough.

I learned the hard way that strategic numbness doesn’t work and isn’t worth the existential interest rate.

Shoutout to friends who notice when you’re falling apart behind your mask. Shoutout to friends who form a circle. Shoutout to therapy. Shoutout to being gifted the opportunity and time needed to change. Shoutout to rage as proof of life. Shoutout to hard-won lessons and the gifts they bestow.

Nowadays, I refuse to hollow myself out in a futile attempt to protect myself from white supremacy. I don’t want to be numb. Now my goal on demanding, weird, upsetting days like today is simply to be here: present and feeling as best I can. If I’m able to access my rage without burning myself in the process, all the better.

Do what you’ve gotta do to take care yourself and your loved ones as best you can. My boyfriend and I have planned an excursion to Costco this afternoon to give ourselves something to look forward to. And, in the mean time, I’ll probably be listening to “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” from Encanto on repeat while I work. (Shoutout to having work to do — and work I care about — as a means of productive distraction today.) Whatever it takes!

Wow, I really thought this post was just going to be a few pics of my dog.

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Or maybe I’m getting ahead of myself and today will be delightfully boring. That would be a nice change of pace. Anyway, here are some cute pictures of Caesar Mansfield-Macdonald, ESQ. He has no idea that America is in shambles. Baby boy is just living moment to moment, baby carrot to baby carrot. Or maybe, since he kind of looks like a former lawyer who was cursed by a witch and turned into a chi-weenie, he knows exactly what’s going on and baby carrots are his coping mechanism. Again, whatever it takes.