Apocalypse Eve

Looking back today at my post after last election, and the one I made for the inauguration. In some ways it's not as bad as I thought, because some of the worst excesses have been contained by judicial restraint. In other ways it's worse, because the last two years have revealed that the sheer inability of punditry and much of politics to understand that America is not magically immune to tyranny and that much of what we considered the rules of our political process are just customs and there's really no recourse if the Republicansfascists decide to ignore them. To say nothing of the open appeals to racism and antisemitism this election--if they work, the fascists will take that to heart and 2020 will be a nightmare.

Years ago I would have said "if there are elections," but of course there will be elections. Even dictatorships have elections. They just, like the fascists are trying to do right now, make sure to rig it so that no one else has a chance of winning.

I voted early last week, but I forgot to bring my pre-tutoring snack today. Hopefully that's not an omen.

( Stomach health problems )

I'm also on edge because of the Tree of Life massacre, obviously. I went to the interfaith service at the local synagogue on Friday, which was nice. Standing room only, and I saw two people in collars leaving as the service ended. It didn't do anything to help the underlying worry, but for the moment, it was nice. There are times I think applying to JET is flipping the table, a moment of desperation I'll come to regret, and there are times I look at the news and think I need to get out of here before it gets worse. I've been reading articles from people born in pre-war Germany saying "I never thought I'd be going through this again" for two years now. I'm starting to think I need to listen.

I started playing Darkest Dungeon over the last weekend since I didn't have anything scheduled other than a work session at a local cafe with some friends. I should have been working on my JET essay, and I'll definitely do that this week, but I spent it delving into catacombs and dark forests and slaying the abominations therein. ping816 bought Darkest Dungeon for me two years ago and it took me until now to get to it because of playing all those Legend of Zelda games.

Well, now I'm drawn in. I didn't play Breath of the Wild at all this weekend.

Back to work and trying not to check twitter every few minutes.