Less than two weeks from Election Day (but who’s counting), so find a poll that meets your expectations. Google your way out of feeling like shit about the state of the world. Search term your way to someone who agrees with you. Content for content’s sake. Data like landfills and hoarded attics.
I suffer from political apathy. I don’t care who wins the election (righteous apathy talking). I voted by mail and will have my popcorn ready on Election Night for a thriller. Half the country will be miserable and angry either way. Then, I go to work the next day, pay bills, and put food on the table for my family. All I can give right now is to my immediate life.
Myopia is a defense mechanism. I nest by buying stuff online to make the house cozier. The holiday season triggers loss and nostalgia. The L.L. Bean catalog has returned to a less trendy experience -duck shoes, flannel PJs, and custom monograms- but with BIPOC models.
Shop therapy keeps things present and selfish for now. Foresight and unselfishness have little payoff in a binary world.
My kids want some Thanksgiving tradition—turkey and all the fixings like grandma did (or Whole Foods). Not some Tofurkey performative semantics clusterfuck. They/I want analog family time like it’s 1979: Scrabble, football, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, tryptophan. In psychology, it's called regression. In the real world, it's tradition.
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The temps are seasonal—low 40s in the morning. On the walk to work, I pass a young, hirsute, REI-apparelled man using his phone via earbuds. He laughs and says, “It’s chilly time, not Mike’s Chili.”
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