Heartsore

Goddamn, my chest hurts. 

My in-laws sided with the KKK even though our niece is half black and about to go to school on scholarship in South Carolina. 

My cousins sided with the anti-gay VP, even though our sweetest cousin just married her long-time girlfriend a few weeks ago. When she cried and asked what would happen to her, they patted and soothed her like people taking their dog to the vet to be put down.

Yesterday a friend I've known for 14 years found that someone had spray-painted "GAS JEWS" and "KILL ALL NIGGERS" along with swastikas and "Trump" on the mountain above her town.

Another longtime friend saw "HANG OBAMA" tagged on the train she was boarding.

Last night a friend in Seattle stopped two young men from threatening a Middle Eastern convenience store cashier.

A friend in Arizona came outside to find her neighbor had added 4 new stickers to his truck - a confederate flag, an american flag, "Fuck your hybrid" and a naked woman in heels bending over above the caption "Fuck it like you stole it".

These are first-hand accounts of these instances, not internet re-tweets from strangers - and there are thousands of those pouring out. The leash is off, the racists and mysogynists have been validated. Protests are turning into riots, people are getting shot. This isn't whining or pouting. This is horror. 

I was looking at this graphic novel I'm writing, and suddenly it seemed uselessly fluffy. Maybe I should be writing something substantive and harrowing. But we have to model the world as we want to see it, and this story has no sexual harassment, no racial slurs, no body consciousness. It has butt jokes and nudity and swearing and misadventure, but nothing that will make a person feel like shit about themselves while they sit and read it and relax their gut for an hour. So I'm crunching down on it and trying to finish the color and text in part 1.

Working backward from page 51 - on pg 40 now.

Yeah, cliche selfie, I know, but nobody takes pictures of me.

The sky over my library. We can do this.