yule log
Last night I made a buche de noel cake for the first time ever. I had a good teacher, and I feel confident about trying to do it again on my own. I also feel more confident about getting Swiss buttercream and meringue right. Funny how simple things can feel overwhelming, but having someone show me how to do it in a very low key way helps.
I'm trying to enjoy the holiday season, even as I wake up every morning with dread. Mike said something that struck me. For eight years, we lived with a sense of hope and it seemed to go away almost overnight. I look at my friends and coworkers sometimes and wonder why they aren't as disturbed as I am about what's happening. It feels like we're screaming in a nightmare, the way you try and your voice is so strangled, so small.
Yesterday I looked at those photos from Ankara. He looked so young, that policeman. It made me hurt. A few days ago I saw a friend from high school with his son, which felt surreal. We whispered about our feelings about Star Wars, nuclear war and death. Which is to say after two viewings, I like Rogue One a lot. It's so much about death, and the terrible choices, and the people who aren't the heroes of the stories that get told to other generations. No one will talk about Bodhi Rook the way they will talk about Luke Skywalker to their children - but god I can't stop thinking about that man. (Who was young, as young as that policeman looked in Ankara) About how he makes the comment about trying to get right with himself, how his defection took him to a place he didn't have to be and how he kept making choices to do things even though you could tell he was shit scared and unprepared.
I never thought I would live long enough to see the lead character in a major video game be queer, but I also didn't think I'd live to find myself writing an email to a friend talking about what we might have to do when the neo nazis come to town.
Part of me loves December, the holidays and the lights. I've made myself a happy set of secular traditions and a life of my own. My tree, Christmas in our house, our private traditions. It feels hard to celebrate this year, when everything is so strange and terrible. I don't know what the right answer is. Am I failing by buying us gifts when I could have just given all that money to some cause? I have subscribed to two magazines to support journalists doing great work, thrown money at some charities, and none of it feels like enough. I suppose I won't feel like it is enough unless I'm actually punching one of those fuckers in the face. Not that such a thing is really going to do much for the greater good but fuck it feels so fucking bad every day when I wake up.
I don't know what to say. I've had a hard time coping with it. I managed to deal with updating my documents. But the anxiety hasn't gone away. I seesaw between something like okay and bleakness. I'm so angry, it seethes under my skin. Every time someone downplays the actual nazis, or makes a shitty comment about the generalized horror over 2016, or work fucks us over in some fresh way, I can feel it burning right through me. I haven't been such an angry fucking mess since I was twenty one. This is not a thing I'm enjoying, but I don't think it will just go away. I'll have to find some way to cope. Or maybe I'll just punch a nazi in the face.
I'm trying to enjoy the holiday season, even as I wake up every morning with dread. Mike said something that struck me. For eight years, we lived with a sense of hope and it seemed to go away almost overnight. I look at my friends and coworkers sometimes and wonder why they aren't as disturbed as I am about what's happening. It feels like we're screaming in a nightmare, the way you try and your voice is so strangled, so small.
Yesterday I looked at those photos from Ankara. He looked so young, that policeman. It made me hurt. A few days ago I saw a friend from high school with his son, which felt surreal. We whispered about our feelings about Star Wars, nuclear war and death. Which is to say after two viewings, I like Rogue One a lot. It's so much about death, and the terrible choices, and the people who aren't the heroes of the stories that get told to other generations. No one will talk about Bodhi Rook the way they will talk about Luke Skywalker to their children - but god I can't stop thinking about that man. (Who was young, as young as that policeman looked in Ankara) About how he makes the comment about trying to get right with himself, how his defection took him to a place he didn't have to be and how he kept making choices to do things even though you could tell he was shit scared and unprepared.
I never thought I would live long enough to see the lead character in a major video game be queer, but I also didn't think I'd live to find myself writing an email to a friend talking about what we might have to do when the neo nazis come to town.
Part of me loves December, the holidays and the lights. I've made myself a happy set of secular traditions and a life of my own. My tree, Christmas in our house, our private traditions. It feels hard to celebrate this year, when everything is so strange and terrible. I don't know what the right answer is. Am I failing by buying us gifts when I could have just given all that money to some cause? I have subscribed to two magazines to support journalists doing great work, thrown money at some charities, and none of it feels like enough. I suppose I won't feel like it is enough unless I'm actually punching one of those fuckers in the face. Not that such a thing is really going to do much for the greater good but fuck it feels so fucking bad every day when I wake up.
I don't know what to say. I've had a hard time coping with it. I managed to deal with updating my documents. But the anxiety hasn't gone away. I seesaw between something like okay and bleakness. I'm so angry, it seethes under my skin. Every time someone downplays the actual nazis, or makes a shitty comment about the generalized horror over 2016, or work fucks us over in some fresh way, I can feel it burning right through me. I haven't been such an angry fucking mess since I was twenty one. This is not a thing I'm enjoying, but I don't think it will just go away. I'll have to find some way to cope. Or maybe I'll just punch a nazi in the face.