I Predict

 My prediction with a Republican government with no oversight:

1. Trump will hand over Ukraine to Putin. He will withdraw all humanitarian support to Palestine and help Israel wipe out the Palestinian people.

2. Trump will die in his sleep after a year or two. JD Vance will take the presidency. There will never again be another honest election. Possibly never again any election at all.

3. They will gut all healthcare (Medicaid gone, Medicare too expensive with no benefits). Pharmaceutical and insurance companies will make healthcare decisions. 

4. No more Dept. of Education. No EPA. Our preserved lands will be drilled. We'll speed up the process of destroying the planet.

5. Women will go 4B hard in America and and things will get dangerous as fuck. Police will have no oversight and rapists will see no punishment. Women will be jailed for "false reporting" men. 

I feel, in my gut, this election was rigged. It just makes no sense. How did Kamala have such a perfect campaign and so much support? How did she get a billion in donations? How did so many Republicans say they were voting for Kamala and she couldn't hit Biden's margins?

I know Americans hate women and more than that, they hate black women. I mean, they HATE black women. Maybe she never stood a chance and we were too blind to what America really is.

A little advice: get a passport. Make sure you have available cash. Make sure you have your documents available. Don't trust white people. (I mean that, as a white person, just don't.) America is going to get a lot more dangerous and it isn't hyperbole to say that we have to be prepared.

And if you know someone who might face "special treatment" (deportation, loss of rights, unsafe living conditions), be prepared to help. There is no looking away. We didn't do enough to keep our country safe. We need to do all we can to keep our most vulnerable safe.

My Writing Assignment

I could tell you everything in my kitchen cupboards and refrigerator in less than five minutes. From the bags of frozen chicken, the popsicles to the refried beans in the cupboard and 5 cans of Star Kist tuna, I am a savant of food. I know how much mayonnaise is left in the jar and that there are only 2 hot chocolate K cups in the drawer.

There is the plastic container with the expired cottage cheese and single Key Lime Yogurt I never ate. The strawberries still in the container that aren't washed or cut.

The sour cream is watery and the roast chicken is bland.

And I'm starving.

I eat. Chicken and potatoes. A diet Coke. I think about cookies. Popcorn. I'm full but I crave more. I want sweet. I want salty. Maybe juice. Maybe a cookie. Maybe any of the endless cans of fruit or instant puddings or what else there can be.

I'm 66 years old and still standing in the same Seattle kitchen that I stood in at age 15. The summer I could no longer hold in the pain. The summer a part of me died that little bit and I did anything I could to not let it be all of me.

I was she and she stood in that kitchen with a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter and a knife. How many peanut butter sandwiches were made and consumed during that time? How many times did that knife smear peanut butter across bread as a way to keep it from knicking against an artery and ending all the sorrow?

41 years later and still living the same hunger. The same need. I'm an actress trapped in a role where the curtain never goes down.

I'm as bound to this moment as a hostage trapped in a basement wrapped in rope and duct tape and no chance of escape.

This hunger defines me. As happy as I am, as happy as I can be and yet the yawning emptiness always is there.

I'm not alone this time. At 15 there was me and I had to survive with just myself and my strength. I had to be a loving parent, a best friend, a rock in the chaos and pain. Nobody would do it for me.

Carolyn and Lea, Mollie and Lori are here now. My family grows with women who understand how hard it is and who remind me that I am not 15 years old. I am not doing this by myself. I am bound to others with the ties of love and found family.

Survival was peanut butter and wonder bread back when I was unmoored. Right now my belly is full and the dishes are washed. My brain thinks of the strawberries and Icees but I don't move. My cat sits next to me and winds her tail around my arm. She reminds me that I'm tethered to this life, this moment and we will survive.

Cravings bind me to the past. Joy allows me to live in this moment instead. I'm grateful to both because I've survived. Peanut butter sandwiches saved my life a long time ago. Now the women who love me keep me safe.

Peace and Compassion Through Kamala

 Over on Threads (my social media platform of choice) everybody is gearing into the last few days before election and trying to help/encourage people over the finish line. And I asked the witches and spellcasters, what are you doing in these last few crucial days?

So there isn't one definitive answer. But as a baby witch/crone, I believe that everything we do is marked by intention. 

Someone suggested writing Twitler's name on toilet paper and wiping one's ass and chanting "flush away" when flushing. Someone suggested burning sage daily to burn out the patriarchy (which I am doing). 

But I believe for my own practice, I want my intentions to be helpful. I want to send love out, not negativity. And therefore I am also burning lavender and orange and sending my intention thus: Peace and compassion through Kamala. 

If white women don't fuck it up (like they did for Hillary) we might finally have one of the best of us as leader. It's what we've missed. And I have great like for Joe Biden and admiration but another old, white guy was never the answer. We need a country running on feminine energy and fuel. We need a person whose compassion was created by the circumstances of an immigrant, single mother creating opportunities for her daughters. 

Female rage and female love are powerful. Women are powerhouses. The patriarchy needs to be dead and buried. Let women do the job now.