evie altman
art and stuff


happy-go-lucky me

i’m not doing enough. not protesting, acting against this horrendous administration. new congress brought hope, but they haven’t reeled him in. at all. our country, our world seems to leap toward devastation. no more crawling. bye bye american pie.


they announced an action at the supreme court on tuesday at noon, showing the “keep abortion legal” rounds that consumed my life for two years. back then we had hope cause, well, there was sanity. now i just don’t have hope anymore. whatever kavanaugh and thomas and the rest of the majority conservative court has in store will not be affected by my standing outside their building with an abortion round. his judges are placed all over the country. the laws are being made. the wall is being built, the war is being started. for the first time, really ever in my life, i believe that resistance is futile. he’s going to do whatever the fuck he wants anyway. yes, we believed that about bush the second, and he did, but even he had some kind of self stop button. 45 has no stop button. it’s all march and conquer. and once he goes, so many others already in place. because this is what we are as a race. we are selfish, war mongering, angry, scared of change.

i know, history shows ups and downs, penduluming to an ever-changing balance, but man, i don’t see it happening now. he’s got us and the means of reigning him in have been dissolved. congress won’t take the necessary steps (damn, can you believe that clinton was impeached over perjury and obstruction of justice? oh my fucking god, this man has done so so so much worse and pelosi thinking about the politics of the situation in not impeaching him is fucking ridiculous). this man is a criminal. fuck the politics and get him out of a position of power already.

haven’t watched the news in forever. stopped listening to NPR also, cause it’s like hearing your causes of death declared before the firing squad. and yeah, the washington post still arrives every day (and NYT on sundays), but now i look at the headlines mostly. can’t bear to read the details of what we’re allowing this man to do to us. to the world. bush and chaney were evil. trump is insane.

so i’ve been turning inward. the book i’m reading now, “why does the world exist? an existential detective story” (jim holt) asks, why there is something instead of nothing. now, on the micro scheme of things, sure, we have our families, our passions, our struggles. all religions have opinions here. and then relate it to the macro level of god and the universe and our place in it. leaving all that alone for now, my questions lately revolve around human limitation and our failure to communicate with each other, based on differing moralities and fear. so here is my real question: why does trump exist?

ok, and yeah, why do the 25 male lawmakers who feel so strongly about life at conception but not outside the womb exist? and why did/do hitler, caligula, papa doc, parkinson’s disease, cancer, pedophilia, alcoholism, any disease, any bad, any pain exist? a long time ago, i concluded that there was no “reason” per se, that it just was. and to thump my head against the wall of “rightness” is pointless — a waste of time. cause i’m not gonna change it and i’m not gonna solve it. accept what is, make the best of things for myself and those around me, act decently to all, and create beauty where i can.

so how to contribute when the litany of the world’s ills rain down like a never-ending hurricane? abortion restrictions, swastikas appearing in the local middle school (two miles away), leaf blowers constantly spewing carbon dioxide, animal populations going extinct by the thousands, watching those i love in pain, bemoaning my place of privilege compared to others’ lack, immigrant children housed in cages, people with black and brown skin targeted at such a high percent. on and on and on. if we, as humans, are an experiment, we have failed mightily.

ok, but failure in and of itself is the basis for a better future. understand that. and i can understand a different morality, different religious beliefs. but why do all these differences have to result in so much hatred and pain? i get that they don’t see it as hatred. they see it as protecting their own. and yes, as the hatred has increased, i have closed down. the past months, especially, i’ve focused on making art for my home. adapting my rooms to a fuller, beautiful vision. my little corner of the world. and i’ve stopped going to aclu meetings and i’ve stopped protesting. the guilt associated with that follows me around like bad body odor, but it’s not enough to change my inactivity. determining that other things take precedence was a thoughtful decision. not working against it. so am i now part of the problem?

are we here to struggle? is that the beginning/middle/end with short flashes of peace and shorter flashes of joy in between?

i’m actually in a good place now. i’m at peace, for the most part. have been for a while. but the rest of the world seems to be crumbling around me. there is so much pain and so much anger out there. people have always enslaved other people, been cruel to animals, fought for power over neighbors, berated women. so i focus on my little corner and appreciate kindness when i find it. it’s not enough.