On my continuing anhedonia:

I had rehearsal and couldn't really watch the debate last night, but I checked in now and then, and caught the split screen of the Vice President looking poised and confident on one side, and the scowling, tired, and hate-filled visage of the former technical winner of the 2016 electoral college on the other. Reading about how it went after the fact, I'm given to understand that Kamala Harris acquitted herself quite well indeed. 

Pictured: Kamala Harris acquitting herself quite well indeed.

Above: voters in Wyoming, seen here wielding
five times my voting power, presumably as
a consolation for living in Wyoming.

I'll never feel hope again, not since the aforementioned moment in 2016 when a centuries old system put in place to make rural states feel appreciated swept aside the will of the people and gave the former host of The Apprentice the nuclear codes, but at the very least we can say Harris won the debate by any reasonable standard. Still though, there are millions of people out there who, for reasons we will never understand, want to bring back the sexual assault enthusiast who tried to pull off a coup last time we all voted him out. 

Once, on television, Steve Urkel invented
a robot version of himself. But most of 
us understood that this wasn't real, right?

But still, I will try and enjoy these slight balms to the background anxiety that's been slowly building since Joe Biden's inauguration. These brief reprieves from the continuing menace of polls showing a neck and neck race between a qualified, experienced candidate and a man who claimed that immigrants want to eat your pets. A man who, when called out on this nonsense but the fact checkers, rebutted that he saw it on TV. A man who could very well be the president again if certain Republican controlled legislatures are feeling frisky this November.

So again, I'm not feeling hopeful. Yes, Kamala Harris is objectively a great choice for President. Yes, the other major candidate is fascist clown shoes. And yes, the election will be decided by like eight people in some random county in some state neither you nor I live in. But I am, let's say buoyed by last night's debate and yesterday's endorsements. I mean, who could have predicted a world where Dick Cheney and Taylor Swift came together on something on the same day?

I could honestly not name a single Taylor Swift song, but if
the Swiftie vote gets us there, I will follow her through fire.