It’s been two weeks since Election Day and I have still yet to reach the stage of Acceptance. A stubborn part of my brain simply refuses to admit that That Man is going to be president again. It’s like after Godzilla failed to completely destroy Tokyo, the citizens got together and voted to invite him back. I refuse to accept it because it’s absurd and obscene and unconscionable.

I guess that’s Denial. The Anger has ebbed some, but it spikes again every time a new cabinet selection is announced. Watching TFG assemble this team of the least qualified, most obsequious weirdos available has been infuriating — though also, I must admit, kind of entertaining. It’s just too bad the name “Insane Clown Posse” is already taken.

I’d be willing to Bargain if I thought it would accomplish anything. Right now, for instance, my last best hope is that the Senate shows a little backbone and keeps the likes of Matt Gaetz and Pete Hegseth out of positions of responsibility. I don’t know what chips I have to offer in exchange for that, but I’d be willing to listen to offers. Probably though they will cave and we’ll have a sex and drug criminal as Attorney General, and a weekend Fox News host with issues of his own as leader of the most powerful military the world has ever seen. Sure, why not? Nothing matters and what if it did?

The Depression rears its ugly head now and again, especially when I see headlines like this:

Apparently we as a species are simply not serious about maintaining a habitable planet for our children, or even for ourselves a few years from now. And yeah, it’s not like Kamala was going to solve this problem; sadly no political leader is willing and able to step up and treat climate change as the emergency it is. But electing the guy who promised to “drill baby drill” is certainly not going to help.

As I was perseverating on this and other matters about 4:00 this morning, I thought of a line of poetry and went downstairs to look it up. It turned out to be from W.B. Yeats’ “The Second Coming,” vintage 1919, the first stanza of which goes like this:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Doesn’t that feel just right for our current moment, as half the country wanders around in a daze wondering what the fuck just happened, while the other half cackles with joy at the antics of the demon it’s just summoned?

A big storm is coming, friends. I can see it out my window. Make fast what you can and prepare to hold on.