For those of us who consider this Inauguration Day to be a day steeped in horror and disbelief, a day we were hoping would somehow be prevented at one of the many, Many, MANY points it seemed like it clearly should have been prevented—how are you planning to spend the day? I have been partly in denial/hope, and partly distracted by the knee surgery, and partly not WANTING to think ahead or make plans.
In fact, one possible plan is to have no particular plan and spend the day as we usually would. That’s still a frontrunner for me.
Another possible plan is to mark it in small ways that are more deliberate. For example, posting something on Facebook in commemoration of MLK Jr. Day, though I find it’s hard to get that right. I’m already incredulous that the day is the same day as the inauguration (and pre-mad at some of the things we might see and hear because of that); that makes me even more reluctant to seem to be using MLK Jr. Day as a way to make an “I’m ignoring the inauguration” point, if you see what I mean.
But it’s the KIND of thing I mean. For example, tomorrow would be a real good day to make donations to NPR, the ACLU, Alight, any other organizations that fight against the bad things we expect in this coming era. It would be a good day to order some Ruth Bader Ginsburg forever stamps, or a Dissent is Patriotic t-shirt, or an equality/rainbow yard flag, or a little spontaneous gift for a friend. It would be a good day to do some volunteer work, or to donate blood, or to write some postcards, or to bring treats to a place that’s open despite the holiday. It would be a good day to do anything that feels like Doing Any Small Measure of Good.
(image from usps.com)
(image from ACLU.org)
It would also be a good day to wrap up in a throw blanket and drink something hot and treat yourself like you’re ill, or suffering heartbreak, or recovering from knee-replacement surgery. Watch some riveting or soothing TV. Read a book you got for Christmas and have been saving for a special occasion. Eat soup and saltines and drink ginger ale; or buy a pint of some extra fancy ice cream, maybe get some Pringles too. Use any shampoos/soaps/lotions you save for special. Do some restorative yoga and/or meditation and/or witchcraft. Get take-out. Burn a nice candle.
Maybe that would make you stir-crazy. Maybe you need to take action. Sometimes when I feel crummy, I will tackle chores that make me feel crummy, since I’m already feeling crummy anyway. Clean the bathroom, maybe sob a little. Scrub that irritating mold in the shower that keeps coming back, with clenched teeth. Really put the arm muscles into scrubbing the kitchen sink. Use a toothbrush around the faucets. Do laundry, maybe do a few soak loads with stain treatments. Pay bills and use the RBG stamps.
After my first pregnancy, I knew from experience that when I got a positive pregnancy test, I was on the verge of two months of feeling too tired and sick to do anything, and so I would use those last few interim days to do all the things I thought I’d appreciate when I was feeling tired and sick. Nice clean toilet to barf in! Nice clean shower to cry in! Nice clean sheets to sleep in! Nice clean kitchen to eat saltines / walnuts / grapefruit juice / cold pizza in! What things do we think Future Us will feel grateful to Current Us for doing? (Or maybe you are already Future Us, and it is too late to clean bathrooms.)
Sometimes in anticipation of a storm or a trip or the collapse of democracy, I find it soothing to Get Ready in small assorted ways. I change the batteries in my little pre-lit birch trees and flameless candles, and charge up the batteries I took out. I plug in all our electronic devices, and the back-up batteries for those devices. I buy extras of groceries. I get caught up on laundry.
Maybe it’s time for a distracting project. One of my friends has committed to sending one piece of snail mail every single day for a year; she’s signed up for Postcrossing as part of this. Another friend has signed up for a group sewing class: she wants to learn to make quilts with a sewing machine. I’m planning to send Valentine’s Day care packages to the twins and several of their friends; maybe I will spend some time tomorrow shopping for heartsy things.
My town has an MLK Day March. I think it will feel important to be one of the people who shows up for it. And I am hoping to get some cleaning done, because I know that will be good for my mental health. I would have liked to have planned to be disconnected from the news and in nature, but I didn’t. And maybe it actually is better to be connected and liking or hearting posts for everyone who needs it.
And I bought a shirt that may take me a bit to be brave enough to wear…
https://store.democrats.org/75-million-tee/
Nice! I saw a cute F*** Trump one but I didn’t buy it as I knew I’d never be brave enough to wear it. I don’t mind people knowing how I voted or how I feel in a general way – but don’t want to deal with someone confronting me angrily in public. https://www.etsy.com/listing/1749898512/subtle-anti-trump-shirt-fuck-trump-trump
I put a Marriage Equality sticker on my car back in 2008 and it was an interesting exercise in suddenly not being the kind of person who gets to feel safe in homophobic spaces, and so I am trying to lean back into that feeling of “If people are going to hassle me, better me than someone who has to deal with this all the time.” (Although no one ever hassled me). I wouldn’t wear a F*** anything shirt though.
Oh man….I have been in DEEP DENIAL. Very deep.
I wish I could do something productive or good. But I’m not there mentally. I will avoid all news as I have been for 3 months. I am taking a friend to a follow-up doctors appointment. I am planning to rewatch Ted lasso over the next few weeks along with Starstruck.
I hope everyone gets through tomorrow ok. But most of all I wish we’d wake up and find it’s all been a nightmare.
I’m firmly on Team Denial also. I have the day off from work and plan to spend most of it on the couch cuddling with my cats and alternating between reading a book and watching tv. Maybe I’ll find time for a nap.
Another Maggie, also with a revolving 4 to 6 cat blanket. Spending the day under the furries, eating chocolate, and texting a loved one who voted for the new President but who I still love. I read about the speech online so I didn’t have to hear his voice. Will be watching parts of the news with sound off and closed captions for the next four years while continuing to donate to all the places DJT hates…
Ignore the news as much as possible which has been a habit anyway since about 2016. Scroll quickly past anything I see posted and refuse to read things that just make me angry. I am considering setting a countdown to the end of this term on my computer because every day is one day we got through this nightmare. And keep doing the small good things I do to try to put more light into the world.
Seeing the inauguration the news about the inauguration makes me nauseous. Eight years ago I was at the Women’s March. This time I’m figuring out new strategies. I love the idea of fighting for causes that are dear to me rather than trying to react to everything around me. Donations to good organizations seem like a good way to start! Let’s take care of ourselves and stay strong.
seeing the news about the inauguration
It feels so different from last time… I was so fired up, going to marches and rallies and writing my representatives and signing petitions. But a lot of it just seems like it wouldn’t make a difference any more (in the only happy case, because I live in a deep blue town in a medium blue state and my representatives generally do the right thing even if I don’t write them). There was a pre-inauguration march in DC on Saturday, and not only did we not go, we didn’t even discuss whether we were going to go.
But I do still write checks to non-profits and today I was thinking a local immigrant aid group, EDF, and SPLC. And I write postcards. They are mostly for down-ballot races but those are important to maintaining democracy (and to get people in the pipeline for higher office).
As for activities, we are going to the movies, driving deeper into the suburbs rather than into DC because we don’t want to get caught up in inauguration traffic. I wanted to time it so we’d be in the theater at noon but that didn’t work out.
We got the day off work and school for MLK day so I can’t distract myself with work. And it’s way too cold for outdoor activities. So we’re playing video games and watching streaming shows and baking.
I’m a federal employee, so my work isn’t going to be a distraction for the next few years. It’ll be an interesting time for sure.
“and/or witchcraft” 😂 if I was a witch I would SO be casting spells of ignominious failure in a certain direction.
I have plans to re-read The Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking, which is, for lack of a better description, an anti-fascist YA fantasy novel which acknowledges a lot of realities but acknowledges most of them… softly? (yes, fine, it starts with a dead body and there are other dead bodies, but for the *most* part it does not twist knives in you, if that makes sense? and also a lot of the people are *trying* in it, to varying degrees, rather than not trying; the outright malevolent people are also acknowledged and some people who will… well… roll with the opportunities, we’ll say? But: a lot of people, trying, many of them trying very well indeed, and working together while still having human disagreements. And also a carnivorous semi-sentient sourdough starter.)
Anyway. I read it when stressed about something in October, and it was good and “yes, that is correct, sometimes we can’t make a difference but we can keep trying and sometimes it *does* end up making a difference”-reassuring then, and I am hoping it will be again.
Also I have comforting soup and a coat that needs to be repaired. But maybe I should attack the shower mold…
Some friends are coming over (we are in a book club together) and we are making tiny little book replicas of the books we read last year. They go into a clear Christmas ornament with all of the previous year’s books. I’ll have cocktails. We’ll have the Taylor Swift Era’s Tour on tv. Firmly burying our heads in the sand.
I’m finishing a book (A Love Song for Ricki Wilde) and submitted paperwork to adopt another cat.
I also committed to doing dry January (why? WHY?!) so I guess I’ll be having some tea and feeling sorry for myself.
If you like having tv on, I’m watching NCAA Women’s basketball. The Coretta Scott King Classic has 4 great teams . Everyone watches women’s sports!
I’m donating to legal services for immigrants, and to RAINN, and my local abortion fund, and then I got a migraine so I’m watching a movie in bed. Batman Begins, if you were wondering. It’s been an excellent distraction.
Also, here’s a poem for the day, first published in 2016: https://www.seattlereviewofbooks.com/notes/2017/01/03/revenge/
Thank you for sharing this. It’s incredible.
I saw this too late, but sharing what I did. I signed up with my (relatively conservative California town) to do an MLK Day ON (the opposite of a day off) and was set to work painting the railing of a historic museum home with the head of our P&R dept. Not everyone was there was For Me or With Me, but enough people were and I also got to feel like I was contributing to the day that I wanted as opposed to contributing to the day I Didn’t Want. And it was physical work for hours which took my mind off what was happening. I then went to Costco and stocked up. Once I was home, I started Agatha All Along, petted my dogs, and did a puzzle by the fire.
I was glad to be distracted by a freelance assignment. I watched the Inauguration (we’re booing people as they arrive at inaugurations now? wow) but turned it off before TFG started his speech.
I made a big batch of my favorite wild rice/kale chowder for dinner and went to watch a TV show (Silo)/snuggle with my new beau.
I like the idea of installing a countdown app. I am clinging to the hope that our connections to each other will get us through. “Have courage and be kind” [but punch fascists, as needed]
I spent the day recovering from norovirus which seems very appropriate somehow. I was too sick to even scroll on my phone which was a silver lining.
I am not knowledgeable enough to know for sure if this will work for people without a bsky account, but I found this bsky thread very heartening — https://bsky.app/profile/mishellbaker.bsky.social/post/3lg7tans7gc2f .
I do also need to figure out (see thread) what things I personally am going to do to “evade or improve or ameliorate the situation,” because yeah, that matters.
I spent it going to IKEA and the hardware store and putting up a shelf and a towel holder near the sink in the bathroom.
I bought myself a cheap cordless drill, and gloated the whole time that I was able to do the project without throwing the tantrum my soon-to-be-ex throws with every home improvement task.
Then I doomscrolled.
I spent the day offline, off the news, off the tv.
Went grocery shopping and bought a bunch of extra dried and canned foods, which I will do each time I go for a while. Stocking up in case we get invaded (I’m in Canada) or prices go Really Stupid.
Then I painted kitchen cabinets which is my winter project.
And then I caved and checked zuck’s site. And saw stuff that made me mad and despairing, so I was glad I saved it for evening.