Rage and despair

You’d think by now I’d be exhausted from all the rage and despair floating around, and I guess I am, but it also makes me feel like I’m part of something. The rage-and-despair people, like the Art Walk people and the farmers’ market people, are my people. My Twitter feed, for example, is curated to the point where I see 20 rage-and-despair tweets for every joke tweet about a garbage disposal or something, and I’ve come to prefer it that way.

Frankly, the people who aren’t outraged or despairing are the ones I can’t cope with right now.

Side note: I am trying hard not to turn into a generally angry person, but yesterday I got riled up over the phrase “cute tops” in an internet ad. (I realize that that requires explanation, so here it is: (a), I reject the sexist and infantilizing idea that women should wear things that are “cute,” (b) I reject that the definition of “cute” changes in order to sell us more crap, (c) I reject the widespread idea that fashionable clothes should be any kind of spending priority when there are literally starving people everywhere, and (d) that’s probably it, but the picture was annoying, too.)

Anyway, my people—and if you’re still with me after the “cute tops” rant, you definitely are— bonding over our shared fears is nice, but I hope a lot of us are also out in the world doing stuff. In my case, inauguration day was the day I chose to go get the immunizations I needed to volunteer at this day care center, which serves teen parents who want to continue their education. It should be satisfying and refreshing to go and rock babies or read to 2-year-olds for a couple of hours every week, but my intent is to do literally anything they tell me would be most helpful to them.