Whatever it May Bring

I wasn’t THAT into Sinead O’Connor.

I mean, like, I didn’t see her in concert or have her poster on my bedroom wall or anything. I bought the Nothing Compares 2 U single for $2.99 on cassette at the Columbus Circle Tower Records. I gawked at her shaved head and her shock-and-awe heresy on Saturday Night Live like everyone else. 

“This bitch is CRAZY!” I remember thinking to myself at the time, with something between voyeuristic cringing and a subtle undercurrent of envy. 

What was that about?

I didn’t find out until later, when a few more of her songs started to show up on mix tapes mailed back and forth between me and my friends. I could see that her tortured sense of social justice (along with mental illness probably) both defined and doomed her to mockery and ultimate obscurity. 

There was no internet then, so I could only guess at why she hated Margaret Thatcher, but I later came to get her lyrics stuck in my head. Like REALLY stuck, and from two songs in particular.  

From Black Boys on Mopeds it was:

I’ve said this before now

You said I was childish and you’ll say it now ...

These are dangerous days

To say what you feel is to lay your own grave 

Remember what I told you 

If they hated me, they will hate you....

Remember what I told you

If you were of the world they would love you ...

Then from the Emperor’s New Clothes:

Everyone can see

What’s going on

They laugh ‘cause they know they’re untouchable 

Not because what I said was wrong 

Whatever it my bring 

I will live by my own policies 

I will sleep with a clear conscience 

I will sleep in peace 

I could not stop thinking about these lyrics then, and years later they crept back into my head, occupying real estate I could’ve used for things like my kids’ social security numbers and the password to my credit card statement. But there they were again, and after being unconstitutionally fired for criticizing the government, I finally understood why.

“It speaks to me,” people say. They say that about books, poems, or art. In this case, I felt like Sinead O’Connor’s lyrics were speaking to me, and I didn’t even want to hear them. I would’ve just as soon forgotten these words, but there they stayed—not so much inspiring as nagging, warning, and haunting me.

These are dangerous days ... to say what you feel is to lay your own grave ...

Whatever it may bring ... whatever it may bring ... whatever it may bring .... 

Those last four words—specifically—have been on loop in my head since 2015 when the Trump era began. I kept telling myself that I was not going to stay silent, but I needed the courage to absorb the consequences of speaking up.

I needed to find a way to stop trying to conform to things I couldn’t bring myself to conform to, and instead just be myself by saying what I thought—in the way I wanted—and letting the chips fall where they may.

Those four words brought me courage and reminded me that there is always a price to pay for living by your own policies. If there weren’t, everyone would do it. They don’t, and that’s because when you do you get laughed at, gawked at, called crazy, lose friends, jobs, credibility, opportunity. You’re walking across what feels like a gauntlet of burning bridges at all times.

But the sleeping in peace part is where the comfort is. It’s the faith that there are lucid clearings beyond those incinerated bridges. It’s the conviction that you’re more at peace being yourself and letting the world burn down around you than you are burning down yourself to satisfy the world.

https://youtu.be/n14lwdpYkAA

Now What?

It's been a long time since I've written a full blog post. 

Maybe it's because the news has been coming in a furious barrage, and I feel like all I can do in response is tweet. And yet every day feels the same, like that Bill Murray movie Groundhog Day. With no social events or trips to rupture the monotony of work and childcare, I feel like it's all I can do to make it from one sunrise to the next. The "Before Times" feel like a distant memory as COVID continues to ravage the planet.

I was honored, though, to receive the Anchorage Press's award for Best Blogger. A reader alerted me to the alternative weekly's 2020 Press Picks, and suddenly I was like . . . wait a minute . . .  I need to get back to writing longer blog posts again! FOR SHAME! I need to live up to this award! And in any event, writing, especially now, feels cathartic and needed.

The same thing that's been on everyone's mind has been on mine as well: the twilight of the age of Trump, and what it means for us, individually as citizens and collectively as a nation. Even as the election teeters on a razor's edge, it seems increasingly out of reach for the incumbent, and yet we need to evaluate the dangers that remain, what we do to heal as a nation, and where we go from here.

I keep coming back to the through-line of domestic abuse. I'm certainly not the first person to analogize this president and this presidency to an abusive relationship, but the analogy continues to hold fast, especially now as the country gets ready to purge the Trump scourge.

Having served on the board of Juneau's AWARE shelter for several years now, I've learned a lot about rape culture, internalized misogyny, and the cycle of abuse and control. 

The parallels are stark.

Trump wooed this country with empty promises and we believed him, despite a documented history of literal rape and sexual abuse alleged by at least 26 different women. He promised to be the best boyfriend ever! The greatest and most terrific person we'd ever known! He was going to save us from ourselves and everything that came before! He was going to make us GREAT! But it soon became apparent that his real agenda was to use America to both line his pockets and feed his bottomless, insatiable ego.

Like any abuser, humiliation, petty name-calling, and vindictive, rageful language were Trump's stock-in-trade. He had a belittling nickname for everyone. We were once a country that shunned a vice presidential candidate for misspelling potato. We became one that not only tolerated daily spelling errors, schoolyard name-calling, and gleeful illiteracy, but much, much worse forms of physical abuse. 

Kids in cages separated from their parents, maybe forever. Forced hysterectomies. The use of physical, federal force to incite riots against us while exercising our constitutional rights. Encouraging vigilante white supremacy and neo-Nazism. Downplaying COVID, leading to murders over masks. Incessant discrediting of the "fake news" media, reminiscent of the old lugenpresse tactic.

And while Trump was using his Twitter account for stochastic terrorism, he was simultaneously congratulating himself for bestowing on us various gifts in the form of regulatory repeals or executive actions, Tweet screaming at us: "YOU'RE WELCOME!" and demanding we "ENJOY!" his largesse.

Like any abuser, Trump loved to level threats against us--threats to reject the results of the election and refuse to leave office peacefully, threats to shoot us in the street, nonstop litigation and obfuscation to keep us from learning about his financial and personal alliances that would compromise our nation. Then he and his enablers would say, but he's only joking. This wasn't his "intent." Excuse after excuse after miserable excuse.

Like any abuser, he lied and gaslit us to a dizzying degree, telling us to deny both history and the evidence of wrongdoing before our eyes, isolating us from our allies abroad, intimidating the press, and fracturing relationships between friends and family members right here in our own homes and workplaces. 

All the better to exert control--the sine qua non of the abuser.

Now, as the country prepares to leave Trump forever, we are holding our breath and standing at the most dangerous juncture in the abusive relationship. Anyone who works in domestic violence knows that when you threaten to leave, or do leave, the abuser is at his most volatile. Neither you nor he can control what happens next. The abuser is a cornered animal. He is losing control. He is -- and this is Trump's worst fear -- a literal "loser." His fight or flight instinct activates, and there's no telling what he will do. Will he walk away quietly? Or will he tie us to the bed and set the house on fire?

Yes, Trump has his cult following and always will. But America at large is tired and has had enough. We are worn down. We are sick of fighting with each other. We are sick of being victimized. We are sick of being, quite literally, sick.

How did this happen, and what happens next? 

While Trump wasn't our "fault," we as a nation were vulnerable to him, because we have not dealt with our own historical traumas: the fact that our nation was built on slavery and stolen indigenous land, the white-washing of history, and the minimizing of sexual violence both in the past and today. These blind-spots allowed Trump to slither in and reflect back at us our worst impulses and wrongdoings.

So where do we go from here? Leaving Trump in the rearview mirror is the literal bare minimum of what we need to do to even begin to heal as a nation. No one person can save us from ourselves. The Biden/Harris ticket is not going to magically and heroically erase 244 years of violent history that we have yet to reckon with or accept. 

It's not going to repair our personal relationships that were fractured when strangers--or worse--people we once knew and loved, stood by silently as our democracy crumbled, or chose to be loyalist quislings, or were forced to choose a side, and at times failed to choose the right side of history. 

As I write this, we have one foot out the door. We are tantalizingly close to leaving for good. But Trump is pulling us backwards--hard--by the scruff of our necks, breathing his fetid breath into our ears, threatening to leverage every weapon in his abusive arsenal to keep us in his thrall. Will he succeed? 

That's not up to him. It's up to us.

“You Know a Jakob Schmid”

This is a Twitter thread from @libbyjones715:

Most people who know the name Sophie Scholl know she was a 21 year old German student activist who was executed by the Nazis for distributing anti-Nazi pamphlets on her college campus. But people don’t talk about what happened leading up to her execution, or what happened after.

Sophie and her brother Hans were caught by a university janitor named Jakob Schmid as they distributed pamphlets in a courtyard. He grabbed them, declared them “under arrest,” and turned them over to the Gestapo.

Four days of interrogations later, they were in front of Nazi judge Roland Freisler (one of Hitler’s favorites, his “hanging judge” flown in from Berlin) for a show trial that Hans and Sophie’s parents weren’t allowed in the courtroom for.

Hans, Sophie, and their friend Christoph Probst were all found guilty of treason, sentenced to death, and beheaded a few hours later.

No one talks about this janitor, Jakob Schmid. He got a cash reward and a promotion for turning in Sophie and Hans. The University of Munich threw him a celebration. Hundreds of students attended and cheered for him. He thanked them with a Nazi salute.

After the war, Jakob Schmid was arrested and put on a trial of his own. He said he only turned the Scholls in because distributing pamphlets was against university policy - it wasn’t because of the content of the pamphlets.

When you think of Nazis, you probably think of uniformed officers. But the Nazis were a political party of everyday people. So also think of a janitor tsk-tsking that someone wasn’t protesting “the right way.” A student at a rally applauding him. A judge towing the party line.

We like to tell ourselves Nazi Germany was so horrific it could never be repeated. Maybe you don’t personally know someone who would have flipped the switch on the gas chambers. But I can almost guarantee you know a Jakob Schmid.

It’s Time to Rethink the Alaska Attorney General’s Office

Article III, section 25 of the Alaska Constitution provides that each department head in State government is appointed by the governor and confirmed by the legislature. That includes the Attorney General, who heads the Alaska Department of Law, which in turn consists of two divisions: civil and criminal.

Alaska is in the slim minority of states that appoints its Attorney General. Most are elected, and regardless of how they get the job, remain independent from the governor to a greater degree than they do here in Alaska.

The Department of Law is one of the most impactful agencies in state government. That’s because its many capable attorneys are responsible for advising every state agency, and bringing every criminal prosecution in the state. It’s an enormous mandate and responsibility, and at its helm—ever since Statehood—has sat the governor’s buddy.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Before being unconstitutionally fired by the Dunleavy administration, I served under seven different Attorneys General across five administrations, and they were all fine lawyers, if not always fine managers. 

The problem comes in the form of a question: “who is the client?” That question is famously asked at nearly every legislative confirmation hearing for Attorney General; but the legislature has only once failed to confirm a governor’s Attorney General appointment, calling into question the effectiveness of its role in the process and in tempering executive overreach.

Under state law, the Attorney General is the lawyer for the governor and other state executive branch agencies. They do not represent individual members of the public. But they do represent the public as a whole, and that puts them on a bit of a tightrope. 

Through a duly-elected governor, the Attorney General carries out the people’s policies, but those policies cannot be unconstitutional or simply executed at any cost or in violation of the public trust or interest. The governor is not a private client paying his lawyers by the hour to throw stuff up against the wall just to see if it sticks. Public lawyers, at least in theory, serve a higher purpose than that.

An appointed Attorney General leaves the position susceptible to corruption, cronyism, and general hackery to a degree the delegates to Alaska’s Constitutional Convention may not have anticipated. 

They believed in a powerful executive and rejected the idea of an elected Attorney General by a wide margin. Like a zombie, though, electing the Attorney General rises again and again as a silver bullet to the heart of the piquant brand of nuttiness we’ve seen over the last few weeks during “558 kiss-emoji-gate.”

But I don’t think electing Alaska’s Attorney General is the answer. Attorney General elections are vulnerable to the same vagaries and cynicism of other elected political offices. In fact, elected Attorneys General are arguably even more compromised and less effective than appointed ones; the office holder often spends more time auditioning for their job than actually doing it.

Rather, I think the Attorney General should be appointed the way Alaska’s judges are: winnowed down by their peers in a bar poll, elevated to the governor for appointment, and then either confirmed by the legislature and/or retained or fired at periodic elections. (And lest you worry about the socialist leftist bar triaging Attorney General applicants, recall, Dear Reader, this is the organization that made Alan Dershowitz its keynote speaker at this year’s CoVID-foiled annual convention).

A hybrid approach strikes the best balance between gubernatorial policy objectives and the arguably more general public interest. It would take a constitutional amendment to accomplish this, but maybe Alaska is ready for one. 

In the meantime, all lawyers in state government below the director level should unionize so that they remain insulated from political whims, brinkmanship, and loyalty-based firings. 

Lawyers, like all citizens, deserve to keep their constitutional rights and are sworn to uphold those of others. That’s a huge responsibility, and it can’t be met while working in a climate of political retaliation, intimidation, and fear.

558 is at Least 557 Too Many

1. Maybe

2. If 

3. You’re 

4. The

5. Attorney

6. General

7. Of

8. A

9. State

10. Sending

11. 558

12. Texts

13. To

14. A 

15. Junior

16. Employee

17. At

18. Least

19. 200

20. Of

21. Which

22. Came

23. After

24. She

25. Told

26. You

27. To

28. Stop

29. And

30. Said

31. Things

32. Like 

33. Come on over 

34. You can come work at Law haha 

35. You’re beautiful ... Sweet dreams

36. What ya doin little troublemaker 

37. Rise and shine 

38. 😘😘😘😘😘

39. Those hugs are always pretty darn special 

40. I’m virus free

41. Etc.

42. Over 

44. The

45. Course

46. Of

47. One

48. Month

49. Was 

50. Gross

51. Scary

52. Creepy

53. And

54. Given 

55. The

56. Power 

57. Imbalance 

58. The

59. Chief 

60. Law

61. Enforcement 

62. Officer

63. For

64. The 

65. State

66. Should 

67. Know

68. Better 

69. And 

70. It 

71. Doesn’t 

72. Matter 

73. That 

74. The 

75. Texts 

76. Were

77. “G-Rated”

78. Or

79. “Not remotely salacious”

80. Because 

81. You

82. Are

83. A

84. Married

85. 61 year-old

86. Man 

87. Treating 

88. Your

89. Office 

90. Like

91. Tinder

92. So

93. In

94. Addition

95. To

96. Losing

97. Cases

98. Like

99. Socks 

100. In

101. The

102. Laundry

103. You’re 

104. Acting

105. Like

106. Work 

107. Is

108. Chillkoot 

109. Charlie’s 

110. And

111. This

112. Woman 

113. Whose

114. Number

115. You

116. Have

117. For

118. Work

119. You’re 

120. Blowing

121. Up

122. Her

123. Phone

124. Like 

125. The 

126. Fourth

127. Of

128. July 

129. While

130. She

131. Painfully 

132. Tries

133. To

134. Give

135. You

136. A

137. Hint

138. You

139. Won’t 

140. Take

141. It

142. And

143. Instead

144. Leave

145. Work 

146. For 

147. A

148. Mysterious 

149. 30-day

150. Period 

151. And

152. No one

153. Knows

154. Where 

155. You

156. Are 

157. Except 

158. People 

159. Did 

169. Because 

170. It

171. Turns

172. Out

173. You

174. Were

175. Placed

176. On

177. 30

178. Days

179. Of

180. Unpaid

181. Leave

182. And

183. Then

184. Got

185. To 

186. Resign 

187. Instead 

188. Of

189. Being

190. Fired

191. Like

192. You 

193. Should 

194. Have

195. Been

196. On

197. Day

198. One

199. Let’s

200. Be

201. Clear

202. By

203. The

204. Time 

205. You

206. Are 

207. Defending 

208. Your

209. Texts 

210. To

211. A

212. Professional 

213. Subordinate 

214. Using

215. The

216. MPA

217. Movie

218. Ratings 

219. Scale 

220. You’ve 

221. Already 

222. Lost

223. The 

224. High

225. Ground 

226. My 

227. Friend 

228. Speaking 

229. Of

230. Which 

231. For 

232. A

233. Guy

234. Who’s

235. Made 

236. His

237. Career

238. Persecuting

239. Other 

240. People’s 

241. Sex

242. Lives

243. In 

244. The

245. Good

246. Lord’s

247. Name

248. You

249. Got

250. Some

251. Set

252. Of

253. Gonads 

254. Doing

255. This

256. But

257. Who

258. Are

259. We

260. Kidding 

261. This

262. Shit

263. Keeps

264. Happening 

265. Because 

266. We

267. Let

268. It

269. Over

279. And

280. Over 

281. And

282. Over

283. Again 

284. In 

285. Fact

286. By

287. The 

288. Time

289. You

290. Finish 

291. Reading

292. This

293. Countless 

294. Women

295. Will

296. Have

297. Tried

298. And

299. Failed

300. To

301. Extract

302. Themselves 

303. From

304. Some

305. Gross

306. Creepy

307. Text

308. Convo

309. They

310. Have

311. No

312. Business

313. Being 

314. In

315. Anyway 

316. With 

317. Creepers

318. Like 

319. You

320. And

321. While

322. We’re

323. Here

324. Let’s

325. Discuss

326. How

327. There 

328. Are 

329. No

330. Two

331. Things 

332. More

333. Highly

334. Prized

335. In

336. Our

337. Society 

338. Than

339. A

340. Mediocre 

341. White 

342. Man’s

343. Reputation 

344. And

345. Career

346. So

347. Give

348. It

349. Six

350. Months

351. And

352. No one 

353. Will

354. Even 

355. Remember 

356. This

357. Now

358. I 

359. Must

360. Confess 

361. To

362. Some 

363. Serious 

364. Schadenfreude 

365. Watching

366. You 

367. Self-immolate 

368. After 

369. All

370. You

371. And

372. Your 

373. Corrupt

374. Accomplices

375. Fired

376. Me

377. And

378. One 

379. Other

380. Jewish 

381. Lawyer 

382. Within 

383. Three

384. Hours 

385. Of

386. Assuming 

387. Office

388. Because

389. We

390. Were 

391. Mean 

392. To

393. Trump

394. On

395. Twitter 

396. So

397. I 

398. Must 

399. Say

400. I 

401. Didn’t 

402. Think

403. It 

404. Could 

405. Get 

406. Better 

407. Than

408. Tuckerman

409. Babcock 

410. Getting

411. Fired

412. Nine

413. Months

414. After 

415. He

416. Fired

417. Us

418. But

419. You

420. Proved

421. Me 

422. Wrong

423. With

424. Your 

425. 😘😘😘😘😘

426. Not

427. To

428. Mention

429. How

430. You

431. Tried

432. To

433. Get

434. Trump 

435. To

436. Violate

437. Immigration 

438. Law

439. For

440. Your 

441. Colombian  

442. Supposed  

443. Wife

444. Which 

445. Is

446. Yet 

447. More

448. Layers 

449. Of

450. Gross 

451. Can 

452. I

453. Stop 

454. Now

455. This 

456. Is

457. Getting

458. Uncomfortable 

459. Wait 

460. No

461. Sorry 

462. To

463. Bother 

464. You

465. I’ve 

466. Just

467. Got

468. Like 

469. 100

470. More

471. Things 

472. To

473. Say

474. At

475. The 

476. Risk

477. Of

478. Making 

479. You 

480. Uncomfortable 

481. May

482. I 

484. And

485. I 

486. Don’t 

487. Want

488. To

489. Be

490. Forward 

491. But 

492. Was 

493. That 

494. Whole

495. Mask 

496. Kerfuffle

497. With 

498. Anchorage 

499. About 

500. Freedumb 

501. Or

502. Has

503. A

504. Woman 

505. Never

506. Sat

507. On

508. Your

509. Boiled 

510. Ham

511. Head 

512. Because 

513. If

514. That’s 

515. It

516. I

517. Know

518. Where

519. You 

520. Could 

521. Get

522. Some

523. Tips

524. On

525. Your 

526. Game 

527. But

528. Spoiler

529. Alert

530. It’s 

531. Not

532. At

533. Work

534. Nor

535. Does

536. It

537. Involve 

538. Inviting

539. A

540. Junior 

541. Employee 

542. To

543. Your

544. House 

545. 18

546. Times

547. Like 

548. Maybe

549. Instead 

550. Of

551. Sexually 

552. Harassing 

553. Women 

554. Do

555. Some 

556. More

557. Legal 

558. Research😘

Alaska’s Primary Election is This Tuesday: Here’s What You Need to Know.

1. When is Alaska’s Primary Election?

This Tuesday, August 18 (the date is set in statute).

2. What is the Deal with the Multiple Ballots?

Under current Alaska law, political parties, not the State, decide who can vote in their primary, per party bylaws, which they submit to the State in advance. The State then runs the primary. Republicans have a semi-closed primary (Ds can’t vote in it, but registered Republicans (R), Undeclared (U) and Nonpartisan (N) can). Ds have an open primary and any registered voter can vote in it. As a result of litigation, Ns and Us can appear on the D ballot. You will have a choice of ballots if you are registered R,U, or N. There is no “independent” category, but N and U are functionally the same thing. If you are registered D you can only vote the D ballot (sometimes called the ADL ballot for Alaskan Independence/Democrat/Libertarian parties, which all appear on the same ballot). Alaskan Independence is the anti-Statehood party, not to be confused with “independent” voters which again is not technically a thing here.

3. What’s on the 2020 Primary Ballot?

On the primary ballot this year are United States Senate races for Dan Sullivan’s seat, the United States House race for Don Young’s seat, and local house and senate races (depending on the district). Federal house and state house are always on every ballot, but state and federal senate races are staggered due to longer terms. Candidates who win the primary advance to the general election ballot in November.

4.  Is There Voter Fraud?

There is no widespread voter fraud, in person or otherwise. There has been one prosecution in the last decade or so for alleged absentee ballot fraud in House District 15 in Anchorage, because the elections division immediately caught an irregularity and that is why felony charges were brought against a state house candidate from that district.

5. Does my Early or Absentee Vote Even Count?

YES YES YES. Every single ballot is counted, starting on election night after polling places have closed. Early ballots cast in person at early vote locations are commingled with votes cast at polling places on Election Day. Absentee ballots, which are cast in envelopes, are opened and counted by boards under a strict statutory process for 15 days after the election until the count is complete. Sometimes the result is known on election night, but all ballot counting begins at the same time.

6. How Do They Know Votes are Legit?

For in-person and early voting, you sign a precinct register or form and an election worker checks your ID (Alaska’s voter ID law is very liberal and there are many different forms of acceptable ID) at that time. For absentee voting, you fill out an oath and affidavit envelope that contains your witnessed signature and identifying info that the elections division processes after you vote.

7. What’s that Election in October?

Some Alaskan cities hold municipal elections the first week in October. These are sometimes all by-mail. They are city elections for local office and issues, and have nothing to do with statewide elections.

8. Who Can Vote Early or Absentee?

Anyone. Alaska is a “no fault” absentee voting state, meaning anyone can vote early or absentee for any reason starting about two weeks before the election. You don’t have to have a reason.

9. What is Ballot Measure 2?

Ballot Measure 2, called “Alaskans for Better Elections” is slated for the November general election ballot. It’s a voter initiative (direct legislation) that would create a top 4 nonpartisan open primary, a ranked-choice general election, and more transparency in campaign finance. All the parties hate it and that should tell you something.

10. What About COVID?

There will be some changes to polling place voting this year because of the pandemic. You are (and always have been) assigned to one of 40 house districts based on where you live. Check the division of elections website to find out the deal with your specific polling place. https://www.elections.alaska.gov/

Letter to My Pre-Pandemic Self

January 1, 2020

Dear Libby,

Happy New Year! 

Are you sitting down? No, don’t worry. No one died. At least not yet. That’s gonna change in about four months, however. About 150,000 US citizens will be dead by then. What? No, not a nuclear holocaust or asteroid, although you’ll be praying for both. I’m not really at liberty to say a whole lot more at the moment, but I’d be doing you a disservice if I didn’t at least try to prepare you a little bit for what’s coming.

Hmm. How should I put this. Uh. Um....Ok. First of all: how’s your WiFi? You’re gonna wanna increase your bandwidth because you’ll be spending a lot of time online. Like, a LOT. OHM is gonna do numbers though so that’s good at least! Oh! ZOOM. Also Zoom. You’ve never heard of that? It’s like Skype. Call Kerri over at Edward Jones. Buy stock in that shit like, NOW. Also while you’re at it you MIGHT want to add Charmin and whatever company makes surgical masks or respirators to your portfolio.

Remember the movie 28 Days Later? The zombie movie starring that hot British fuck boi from Peaky Blinders? Why am I bringing that up? Weeeellll ... all I can tell you is that you’re probably gonna want to go out for dinner or drinks with the girls now. Pretty soon you won’t be able to do that. Hug your friends. 

The kids? Oh don’t worry about them. Kids are resilient, thank God. But you should probably tell them to quit fighting and start working on their sibling rapport, because they won’t be seeing their friends or going to school again for the indefinite future. How come? Welp. I can’t really say exactly, but I CAN tell you to stock up on board games and Ativan.

Impeachment? Mueller? No no no. Forget about all that shit. That’s a big ole nothingburger with cheese and a side of waffle fries. Sorry to say Trump isn’t going anywhere. In fact he’s going to stir up massive amounts of shit. More than he has already? Believe it or not, yes. He’s gonna do “amazing” on a dementia test though, so that’s good at least. And there will be a LITTLE bit of baseball. With cardboard fans in the stands.

How’s your math? Like common core. That might be your new job. No no no. Don’t worry, you’ll still be a lawyer. In fact you’re going to get a great new job. But you ALSO need to bone up on 7th grade algebra because that’s gonna be a big part of your parenting responsibilities now. Also time to learn to sew. I know you’re fucking useless. But it’s time to grow up and learn some practical skills.

Bottom line: I suggest you go online right now and order a gross of toilet paper, two bolts of fabric, and a dozen boxes of N95s. What are those? Oh they‘re like these surgical masks with respirators built into them. Yes yes. You’re gonna have to wear them. Inside. Also sometimes outside.

Also have you heard of the Darwin Awards? That’s gonna be a thing.

Love,

August Libby