I will never be a Heather
With every trip away from home, I’ve gotten more used to Mom not being here.
I mean when you think about it, I went to NASA and Cocoa Beach, Orlando and Lake Buena Vista, New York and Pittsburgh, New Orleans, and Key West and the Middle Keys. Just in the back half of 2024.
It was the worst year of my life with losing Cocoa and Mom and democracy. But look what I gained.
I’m plotting out one more escape before Project 2025 kicks in and my interstate travel is either banned or, at least, hampered by the tracking of menses in women under age 55.
I am literally here with an invite to my cousin’s for Thanksgiving, Christmas AND to an event at Carnegie Science Center in early December.
I also have plans with K for Thanksgiving. We were thinking Disney.
But then she mentioned Tennessee for Christmas. And that sounded nice too.
Then I got to thinking — what if I took (redacted) up on his offer to join him in (redacted) for a few days next month.
And frankly I kind of want to see Tennessee but in March. Reasons undisclosed.
K will be in (redacted) at the same time I would theoretically be. But with her dope of the month.
Shame she and I couldn’t travel and stay together. Save a few bucks at least.
In any event, when I was leaving Key West, I realized that I hate going home because I am trapped there.
I don’t walk, I don’t shop, I don’t do shit. I work and I die after I snap the laptop closed.
All those things I thought I would do now that I didn’t have to worry about dinner and getting supplies — things like writing, exercising, dreaming, doing — I don’t.
Literally I am either free as a bird on vacation or I am a prisoner to my own inertia at home.
But this trip felt different. I thought, OK, you are going to go home. Keep your tan. Tackle your to-do list. Bloom where you’re planted.
Then Trump had to steal the election again. Or Republican women delivered it to him. Whichever. Both.
Now I am worse than depressed. I am crippled.
I figure with the adjudicated rapist president picking a Fox News host to lead the Pentagon and a sex trafficker to be attorney general, he’s going to kill us all but at least we will die laughing.
And looking at everyone wondering how they let this happen is exhausting. Like you should be fucking branded with your IQ if you voted for him.
In any event, I was kind of thinking “stay local” and “save money to flee the country.”
But I need to chase that high again — anywhere but here — because the inevitability of Trump burning down the country once and for all doesn’t motivate me like it once did.
In the end, I do think we are all either going to be Winona Ryder lighting her cigarette from the explosion in “Heathers” or we’re going to be Christian Slater with the bomb strapped to his chest in the high school’s boiler room.
I think I’ll be Christian Slater because I will never be a Heather. Which, ponder the irony that I would choose to be a Christian. In any sense.
Being a Heather is worse than being a Christian. Huh. Who knew.