2016-11-17 – I’ve written about the election here, but I won’t watch comedy TV. I’m not sure which of the five stages of grief that puts me in: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, or acceptance. I’ve made a contribution to a progressive organization that promises to keep up the good fight. I’ve volunteered my services to another.

And I’ve got a life. I’m trying to keep myself in shape with lots of bike riding and swimming. I’m in a guitar class and I’m hoping to learn to play Peter, Paul & Mary’s 500 Miles before the RAGBRAI bike ride across Iowa. I’m still working on my musical adaptation of my novel Cain’s Mother-in-Law and I still have to finish the 11th draft of that novel.

It’s about hate between one brother and another. It’s about forgiveness.

If I had a hammer, I’d hammer out love between my brothers and my sisters all over this land.

It scares me. And sometimes I cry. I cry because the winners are angry. I cry because the losers think they have all the answers.

When will they ever learn?

Today it’s one stage. Tomorrow it’s another.

I read Facebook and everyone seems to know how I should react.

One of the things we are urged not to do is “normalize” Donald Trump.  It may have escaped people’s attention, but “normal” for the last eight years has been intransigent obstructionism. Normal is not a love affair.