Day 7

So. It's been awhile.

I had planned on getting a review up last week, but to be honest, I hadn't been in the mood to do much of anything for the last seven days. In case there is no way of getting news to your house {and in that case, how are you getting this? Magic!}, America temporarily went braindead and elected an orange reality show star as president. Yep, that really all happened.

I spent most of election night watching Too Cute! because I didn't want to watch the backwards landslide that America was currently sliding down.

I woke up on Wednesday in tears. I cried most of the morning, even while I was baking cookies {my preferred method of stress-relief}. I didn't really cry for me, because this election has really driven home my privilege. My last name might be Garcia, but for everyone looking at me, I'm a white woman with a house and a job, and that makes me okay in their books {yay America, right?}. No, I cried for how white people in America let down everyone else. We had to spend almost a year and a half listening to him berate and belittle women, call people of color rapists and terrorists, made fun of disabled people, and yet...we still elected him. Somehow and some way. We told women, people of color, the LGBTQIA community, and disabled people that they don't matter, that all that hard work they had done to finally be seen as human beings was for nothing.

I couldn't concentrate on anything I was supposed to be doing, so my NaNo story is in the dumps and my editing slowly went to the furthest recesses of my mind. It's been a long week, and made even longer by the constant news of what that man is already doing to put together his cabinet. It's going to be a long, long four years.

But the good news, the news that I'm clinging to, is that I'm not longer terribly sad. No, I'm still sad, but I woke up one day this weekend with a new emotion shoving that one aside: rage. Pure, unadulterated rage.

This man is an idiot. He runs a campaign based on fear and hate, and then acts surprised when people protest against him. He spews this vitrol against his critics, calling them names and insinuating {although he's not very good at subtlety} that they're lesser than human, then put on his best surprise party face when journalists point out the swastikas that have popped up graffitied around his name or the racist and homophobic crimes that have been committed at an alarming rate since he was elected president. Each time I see him acting like he has no idea why his supporters are acting like that, I want to scream. I want to scream in his face and tell him to be honest, that he knew this would happen, that he wanted it to happen. He's a terribly human being, someone who should be locked away in his tower so he won't be able to hurt anyone, and yet, and YET. Come January, he'll be in the White House. Maybe. Unless he thinks it's not gold enough for a king such as himself.

I'm trying my best to get involved. I'm paying attention a lot more and trying to inform myself. I'm going to make mistakes, and that's my biggest fear. I want to help, but I don't want to be so eager that I mess up horribly. That's learning, though, isn't it? And I have to accept that I'm going to mess up and that people are going to correct me, and that's soothing, really. I want to do something that will help this nation and its people for the next four years, but like I said, it's going to be long and bleak, and I want to be able to get us all through it together, mostly unscathed and stronger than before.

Another shining spot is California. We passed wonderful propositions in this election {yes, yes, we can all smoke weed now, hooray}, and we've come together ready for a fight. There have been protests popping up all up and down the coast. One of the sprint car drivers that the boy works with told us that his son might drive a modified this winter when he comes home from school, "but first he's protesting." The boy said the driver sounded so proud of his son, and I'm proud of him, too. I'm proud of everyone out there, not just in California, that are making their voices heard, that are telling others that this is not normal and this is not okay.

Okay. That's enough. I feel better writing it out and not crying to my cat that white people are the worst. With all that being said, book reviews will continue this week. I'm also going to put another update about the website and 2017 up soon. So, everyone, have a happy Tuesday and thank you for reading my messy rant.