It's snowing again. There haven't been any trash pickups and there's a scary icefall on the corner of the building, but otherwise, we're fine. Our house is built for it; the city has infrastructure (if a hateful bully of a mayor who can't manage them); we've got good clothes, a kitchen full of food and no special needs.

I miss biking in it but I'm never going to get my fender.

The world is a horror.

Everything is too much. So i broke my "no frivolous spending in February" plan for supplies for a fanciful showgirl headpiece for an online gathering scheduled later this month. I feel pretty conflicted about the spending part, but not at all conflicted about the hours I spent drafting the pattern pieces. I have not been focused like that on anything in what feels like years--and probably is actually close to a year.

I read some costuming blogs; looked at a few vintage hat patterns; looked at some vintage hats. Measured my head and just started drawing on butcher paper and pinning things to the wig head (which is smaller than my head). I changed direction two or three times, but I think I have a plan now. And maybe some overly-ambitious further plans.

But it felt good.

I dreamed that I was watching hundreds of pages flash before my eyes.  Some had only slight differences from each other, as if they were evidence of the multiple-worlds hypothesis.  When the changes slowed enough for me to get the gist of one article, I memorized the details.  It was written by someone with the unusual name of "Jicknicy" and it was about Penn State athletics in the 1950s.  When I awoke, I actually FOUND that article, and showed it to my wife as proof of my psychic abilities or photographic memory or something.

Except... THAT didn't happen, and when I awoke for real I found only trace references to obscure usernames on sketchy websites.

So... if someone reading this is one level up from me, I'm ready for that kick to wake me up again.

Failing that, you could try identifying the source of these lines that I probably didn't make up entirely, and which Brett also vaguely remembers in this reality:

"Oh, what shall I do?  Oh, where shall I go?  The streets are sloppy and full of snow!  My boots are old and full of feet, and I must face everyone I meet!"

A chemical test for iron helps archaeologists search for this, at sites such as altars and slaughterhouses...

Me:  "What is blood?"

Daughter:  "Baby don't hurt me..."

I am end-of-the-rope. My hair is a horror. i can't reliably get groceries I need for things I'd like to make. I still can't get fenders for my bike. Everything I touch at work explodes. The cat's health is failing. I miss my friends. I never get a chance to be alone. I miss bars. I miss restaurants. I miss my parents. 

I'm tired of clicking on headlines or texts or emails promising to tell me how, where and when to vaccinated only to learn I can't, no-one knows, good luck and be patient. 

I'm sick of this ineffectual, limp Congress. I'm sick of my incompetent, wealth-chasing mayor. 

I'm tired; I can't sleep. I'm bored; I can't read occupy myself. I'm drinking too much. Eating too much. Spending too much (how? I can't leave the house!). My temper is short. My humor is spent. My patience is absent.

i'm just like everyone else. 

I watched Queersighted: Queer Fear on the Criterion Channel tonight and then The Seventh Victim. Which I had not seen since college. I wished Farihah Zaman had had more time to explore her thesis about the exchange of objects standing in for kisses in Code movies and how the man in the love triangle stands in for lesbian kisses in the films. I'll have to look up her essays or more of her criticisms at least.

Wow. It's unfamiliar. having my head filled with something . . .maybe not frivolous, but not dire, not political, not pandemic. My father has gotten his vaccine--I was unclear from mom's note whether she had hers too, or just an appointment. My in-laws, too, have appointments. It's telling, isn't it, that I already know more people who've been vaccinated than who have been ill, who have died.

So there, it's never far from my thoughts, but it's getting less oppressive.

I can't imagine my household will be vaccinated before the fall. But that means, maybe, hoidays with my parents and my sister, and maybe, if there's still such thing as snow, skiing next season.

I have a very ambitious reading list. I, like others I know, have not been able to make my brain read since 2016. I envy the people who are not having this problem.

I managed to read a good chunk of Jen Howard, Clutter: An Untidy History (Belt Publishing) and the first bit of Joe Allen, People Wasn't Made to Burn (Haymarket Books). And then got fidgety. I dipped in and out of Martin Aston, Facing the Other Way (The Friday Project) and Sasha Petraske, Regarding Cocktails (Phaidon Press). I'd like to read Mexican Gothic (hey! Fiction) and I have a long reading list from an agency we partner with as well as some stuff from a funerary customs class I'm interested to take (but fear I'll be overwhelmed).

So there's my theme, isn't it? I feel so overwhelmingly incompetent all of the time. I'm not sure when it started or how to break out of it. I sometimes think "oh, if i just commit to [giant project], that'll do it," but I am a little smarter than that. I don't know--maybe I could do with a therapist.

Once I had a therapist and it was extremely helpful. Once I had a therapist and it felt unnecessary. Once I had a therapist and it felt like a complete and aggressive waste of time. I feel almost like committing to another one is the same issue of not being able to accomplish anything.

The buzzword in philanthropy these days is "Time, talent or treasure" which of these do people give, to whom, how much, why? I've lost the ability to apply either of the first two and my means for the third are limited. Not just where philanthropy and service are concerned, but also where life is concerned. 

Or perhaps I'm just tired. Perhaps if the rhythm of life gets back to more swithcing among home, not-home, home, society, solitude I'll get capacity back.

It should be obvious that when an enormous weight is lifted from your shoulders, your natural reaction is to want to sleep for a long time. The body, so used to having that extra hit of cortisol and adrenaline, now doing with less, realizes that shit comes with a cost.

This morning's soundtrack, because when I am happy, I sing showtunes.

One Day More, Les Miserables, OBC

Do You Hear The People Sing?, Les Miserables, OBC

Everything's Coming Up Roses, Gypsy revival w/Bernadette Peters

Comedy Tonight, A Funny Thing Happened On The Way to The Forum, OBC

Free!, A Funny Thing Happened On The Way to The Forum, OBC

Love Makes The World Go 'Round, Carnival OBC

Direct From Vienna, Carnival OBC

Yorktown, Hamilton OBC

Here's Anna Maria Alberghetti singing "Love Makes the World Go 'Round":

"OBC" = Original Broadway Cast (Album)

Trump is not President. I will be able to hug my parents in 2021.

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have been inagurated as President and Vice President of the United States of America.

Other sources of happiness:

• The odds that no one I love will die of COVID-19 have dramatically increased. 
• The odds that no one else I love will be permanently affected by the after-effects of COVID-19 have also dramatically increased.
• No one will be inside the Capitol of our United States wearing Nazi fashion ever again. The leader of the free world will not tell anti-Semites that they are "good people" and that he loves them.
• A competent government will handle vaccine distribution and injection. Said government will not prioritize people based on "red state"/"blue state" or who they voted for.
• My sons will be able to safely go to school in person.
• My sons will be able to hang out with their friends again.
• My college boy will be able to get up to normal college shenanigans. (yikes!)
• I will be able to hang out with my friends again! In groups! 
• When the President speaks, he will tell the truth (to the best of his knowledge) and he will speak in full, coherent sentences.
• The President of The United States will speak of progress, not of grievances.
• We elected our first female, Black Vice President of Indian Descent. Also, her husband and kids will be the first Jews to be a Veep's family.
• I won't be embarassed to be an American. At least, not mostly. We Americans are very talented at embarassing ourselves.
• If I want to watch a train wreck reality show, I can choose to, but I won't be forced to watch one because it's our government.
• Vacations!  Remember traveling?  Maybe Europe will even let us in again.
• Archer will be able to improv again and I will be able to watch him perform in person!
• Hunter will finally be able to take his archery lessons!
• My mental health will be at its normal level of fuckery.
• And ... and theatre will be back. 

There are more reasons to be happy. And more work to do.

We have a Republic, America. We may even be able to keep it.