I last posted here in October 2024, and was enthusiastic about maybe even doing monthly posts... and then the election happened here in the US.
I remember waking up the morning after, and seeing the results, and feeling like the ground had been removed beneath me. It's not necessarily felt better since, particularly since the abomination took office and started unfurling the Project 2025 directives he'd tried to claim he'd never heard of. And the extremes to which many are taking it are truly mind boggling; I read an article just today about evangelical ministers claiming that empathy is a temptation by the devil.
It'd be easy to get weighed down by it all, and give up.
I've been starting small, taking care of myself.
I'm looking at news maybe once a day. I've discovered that doing so keeps me informed, but removes me from the hype cycle. I'm reading more in-depth reporting (the Atlantic, Slate, ProPublica), and going directly to the AP or NPR for headlines and breaking news. This change has been huge, as it helps me see where the orange cheetoh and his minions are doing their best to distract us from larger issues.
I'm mostly clocked out of social media. I've put in limiters on my phone and browser to keep my time on them down collectively to 30 minutes a day, and most days I come no where near that limit. This keeps me out of the doomscrolling habit, keeping my anxiety down.
As for what I'm actually doing, well, consuming and creating art.
I've been reading. A lot. Around a book a week, and I generally have 3 books going at any given time: the one I'm reading aloud to Jen at night, the audiobook I'm listening to while I do my strength training, and the one I'm reading on my own. Jen and I finished the Discworld series a few months ago, and blazed through the entire H2G2 series since then; I'm now reading "Shakespeare for Squirrels," by Christopher Moore, for her. On my own, I've read the entirety of Kevin Hearne's Iron Druid Chronicles, several Chuck Wendig novels, and a few cozy fantasy/SF novels. I've listened to several audio drama series, a few Scalzi audiobooks, Kevin Hearne's "Oberon's Bathtime Stories," and have been working through Charles Stross's Laundry Files series. It's been fantastic.
I draw a lot. I was doing it every day for quite a few months, but the last month has been slow. I started creating and binding my own A6-sized journals on a monthly basis, and both journal and draw in them. Posting drawings less frequently, but doing a lot more of them. I also created my own digitized art raffle using Logseq and a combination of scans of my bijou cards and digital drawings; this has been fantastic, as I have ready inspiration anytime I sit down to draw, and a handy reference of step outs on my phone, even when I don't have internet access.
Drawing and journaling has been great for my mental health, and exposing where I'm unhappy, as well as what makes me happy. I'm glad I've been making time for it.
I continue exercising. I do 2 strength training sessions a week, with 74 sets of mostly 15 repetitions each, with a combination of a 5 pound dumbbell and a 15 pound weighted bar. I do cardio on my stationary bike twice weekly for 25-45 minute sessions. And I've been doing push ups daily, adding an additional rep each week, with a goal of doing my age in push ups by the end of the year, and 100 sometime next year. It's been weird to see my body change over time; I'm not losing weight, but it's definitely redistributing, and my arms have never been so solid, even when I was doing Aikido.
I'm working my way towards direct action, but it's hard as I don't really have community here in Sioux Falls. So I've started going to Full Circle Book Coop. I was going a few times a week for a few months, but since the summer solstice, I've been maybe one or two times. But going was helping me remember that there are more people in the community who care about the things I do, helping me feel less isolated. And the folks there are very tapped into community events.
So, I'm slowly building the muscles I need, physically and mentally, to survive and resist the chaos of this administration.
I wish I could spend that energy somewhere else, though.