Feeling Blue?

Welcome to Maryland.

Last night, I dreamt that I had swept under a radiator in an area of the house where I hadn’t cleaned since we moved here. I got on the floor to look under it before sweeping, and I saw a partially eaten apple. It wasn’t even brown; it was a perfect red apple.

According to an online dream dictionary, “To dream about a partially eaten apple means that you’re blinded by something and you can’t see the bigger picture of an important matter. Start looking with your own eyes.”

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I had one cigarette left when I went to bed last night. My big plan was to smoke a celebratory cigarette in the morning and quit. It’s not that I expected the planet would be saved by a moderate Democrat who refused to acknowledge the suffering of the Palestinian people and the need for a national healthcare system. It was simply a step in a better direction for most marginalized groups, including women.

Instead, I woke up, smoked my cigarette while crying, and bought two packs at 7-Eleven while my husband was walking the dog.

I couldn’t help thinking that we are a nation of ignorant people who would cut off our noses to spite our faces, that we would vote against our self-interests to ensure the suffering of others. We are jealous, believing that someone getting a benefit deprives us of one. We are gullible, believing that immigrants are taking jobs away from us. (I know so many people are standing in line for that vegetable-picking job.) (Sarcasm doesn’t help, does it?)

My child posits that we’re actually in hell right now—the “bad place.” But I don’t think so. Ice cream is still readily available.

Fortunately, I’m from “Maryland, my Maryland.“ Despite our racist state song, written about that ol’ despot Abe Lincoln, who dared to free the slaves (“Huzza! She spurns the Northern scum”), Maryland is blue, and I trust her to shield me as she has before. “Maryland! Thou wilt not crook to his control.”

The irony of quoting a racist song after the election of a racist (pedophile, crook, misogynist, racist, antisemite, fascist, low-IQ individual) president is not lost on me. But everything else is.