Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man

 Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man
2020
Weight: 18 oz
Method of Disposal: Giving Away

What can I say about this book that has not already been said?  Likely, nothing.  I can tell you that I read it before falling asleep, and I had nightmares all night about the Trump family.  I kept waking up in the night, in a stupor, frustrated with Robert Trump, who was trying to surrender a dog.  I cannot tell you how many times I woke up gritting my teeth saying, "We will take it.  We will take it.  I can't leave that dog with you.  I told you.  Just let me deal with it in the morning."  I was so tired the next day.  I said something in passing to my Dad in a text, and he wrote back, "You made me laugh out loud about a politician's dead brother coming to you in a dream requesting he surrender his dog to you.  I know exactly what that means.  It means you work too much, and you need to see less news."  He might be right about that!

Also, the other thing that is evident is that if Trump is elected again in November, we are in HUGE (YUGE!) trouble.

What Happened

What Happened by Hillary Clinton
2017
Weight: 3.4 lbs
Method of Disposal: Gave to a Friend

This book was a hard one.  It was painful to relive the 2016 election and everything that led up to it and after it, but that is what reading this book asks you to do ultimately.  I wish I had read it when I first got it instead of waiting.  Reading it just reminded me constantly of how much better the world might be today if more people voted, if Russia had not got involved, if the electoral college did not over rule the popular vote, if Comey had not ambushed Clinton, if there had not been a massive anti-Hillary campaign spanning back to the 1990's.  This woman has been drug through the mud, the shit, the vomit.  She's been wrung out and hung out, and yet she never stops fighting.  All that fight and all that experience could have led us in a very different direction that the course we are on now.  Please, God, let us make it to the next presidential election.  Don't let it be too late and please oh please don't let it be rigged.  I cannot cry or worry anymore, and I know I am not the only one. It must be impossibly hard to go from thinking you will be the first woman president of the United States to watching a sexually assaulting, exploitative, sociopath move into the White House instead.  I cannot imagine a dream dying that hard.  I am just so relieved she is doing what she does best--fighting through the shit and holding herself up as an example to all women.

Volume 17, Number 4

Tin House: Summer 2016
Weight: 1 lb
Method of Disposal: Donating

Have you ever experienced night paralysis?  There is this moment of awareness before the visions start.  You feel that your body is heavy and unmovable, and there is this dread that overcomes you.  Will you be able to wake yourself up in time or is it too late?  If you give in completely you will be overcome by horror and completely incapable of escaping it.

That is the gloom I have been living in since November 8th.  Some days I wake up and can almost forget that we are on the verge of collapse--that my whole life could possibly change.  That a lot of lives could change in ways most Americans would struggle to imagine.  I don't think this is dramatic.  My worst nightmare is the collective leadership of Donald Trump, Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Ben Carson, Mike Pence, Rudolph Giuliani, and now Steve Bannon.  It is like a really bad SNL skit and my deepest darkest nightmare combined.  It is so impossible I do not know how to wrap my brain around the fact that it IS possible.

What will happen to us?

McCain Paper Dolls

McCain Paper Dolls  tom Tierney
2008
Weight: 1.6 oz
Method of Disposal: Leaving in a Box in Decatur

Did I mention Obama won?  Did I mention he won again?  Yaaaaaahhhhhhooooo!  This was passed onto me and the only reason I still have it is because I kept thinking it might be fun to play with a paper doll again, turn it into some sort of "art project," or more likely write letters on the back of the dolls.  I have faced the facts.  Never gonna happen.  And it may be suprising when some unsuspecting person stumbles across it after all this time.

OBAMA!

 

I would love to hear from some of you.  What are you doing to help your community?  What does progress look like now?  How can we get the best out of this presidency?  Give me some inspiration to go with my ever increasing urge to fight and move forward!