It’s way late because I watched the State of the Union address. I’ve watched the State of the Union address and live-blogged it since the GWB era, so it’s kind of a tradition at this point, but I wasn’t going to watch it tonight. I can’t really stand watching or looking at or listening to Donald Trump. Everything about him gives me the creeps: his stupid hand gestures, his overuse of superlatives, his smug, super-punchable face, his tendency to put the emphasis on the wrong syllable or completely mess up basic words… not to mention that he’s a terrible lying racist misogynist who trumpets terrible ideas (I’m not even sure they’re his ideas – he just says whatever he thinks will get him adulation from his MAGA crowd).

I put all that aside, though, because friends asked about whether we’d be live-blogging together. I decided to follow through with tradition and watch and write and bear witness to this time. When my grandkids ask what we were doing during the US tribulations, I will have that Facebook thread archived somewhere, it all its glory. I think it was important to witness, too, because as much as I don’t ever want to see or hear that face/voice ever again, I think it’s pretty privileged to stick my head in the sand. Words matter. His words, even though they are never true, matter. And the rhetoric tonight was dangerous.

So I’m going to go to bed at least knowing what was said in full, not just from the soundbites that will inevitably be repeated over and over throughout the media. I’ll be able to contextualize the think pieces and reviews.

I will also go to bed knowing there is humor still there. Righteous anger has it’s place; lord knows I have my own fair share of anger. But I think there needs to be some happiness somewhere in the mix – we need to be joyful warriors or we will burn out with bitterness. Satire, jokes, silly side conversations. We need these. I’m glad I have friends who can still joke and laugh. I need that. Thanks friends!