On the One Hand It’s Only Been A Week - On The Other, It’s Only Been A Week

Bear with me y'all - we're gonna figure this out together.

So, week one sucked.

We knew it was going to. Trump and the rest of his cronies told us how much it was going to suck many, many times. In fact, they even published a deeply unpopular playbook in Project 2025 that told us step by step how much this was going to suck. This Trump administration is also a lot more competent and a lot more vicious than the first time around - vengeful and bigoted. They are committed first and foremost to inflicting pain on their enemies, and they know how to use the levers of government to do it.

My brain runs on two tracks. This weekend, I tried a new exercise class for the first time, worked on my novel, caught up with a few friends. I made coffee and breakfast, I went for walks, I binged the first season of the West Wing. I tried, every single day, to figure out how to open my windows the exact right amount to offset the blasting radiators. But I also keep thinking about Chicago, where Trump’s first ICE operation is planned. I keep thinking about my friends who work in health policy for the government, who have nothing to do this week because they aren’t allowed to share any information with the public. I think about my friends who work in schools and hospitals and churches where ICE might suddenly come knocking to take away loved ones, kids, and neighbors, about trans people whose government is suddenly, violently trying to erase their existence.

Part of me feels like I’m starting to reap the joy of all the work I’ve put into building a life I love over the past few years. Part of me is still sitting on the bathroom floor, trying not to throw up and googling the nuclear blast radius for New York, like I was at 3am on Election Night when they called Pennsylvania. I put off writing this piece for most of the weekend because it’s hard to write about politics and democracy when, right now, it feels like no matter what we do, bad things are going to keep happening.

So this afternoon, after watching a ton of Girl Meets Farm on the Food Network while completing a parade of Monday NYT crosswords, I finally put down my phone, set a time for ten minutes, and laid on the couch to stare at the ceiling with just one question in mind - what do you need, right now?

The answer was to change the sheets on my bed, take a shower, eat some lunch, and drink some water. I say all the time that the world has always been ending and we have always been doing laundry. And the point of this, I often have to remind myself, is not to excuse obliviousness or avoidance. Nor is it to exacerbate guilt. The point, for me, is to remember that this isn’t that different from any other time in my life that I’ve been doing laundry, no matter what it feels like. The laundry doesn’t stop, and neither does the suffering. Sometimes you fight. Sometimes you endure. Sometimes you do laundry. Sometimes you rest up for tomorrow.

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If you have the energy this week, here’s some things you can do to help. Feel free to just click a link and donate! Or you can follow any one of these things down a rabbit hole if you’re more action oriented (if you don’t have any energy for this week, keep scrolling to the next section):

Support organizations that fight for immigrant rights. You can start with organizations like United We Dream and the Immigrant Defense Project. You can also start doing some research to see if there are any ICE Watch groups in your neighborhood. These are groups that can train you to keep an eye out for ICE agents in your area and to protect the immigrants they might be targeting. Teen Vogue has an op-ed on this you can check out here. You can also share this information AOC put up on her Instagram about knowing your rights when faced with ICE agents, available in both English and Spanish.

You can also support the Transgender Law Center, or check out this list of trans rights organizations in every state from Them. You can also donate to some Go Fund Mes for gender affirming surgery - you can find a list here.

You can also call your Senators, Representative, State Legislators, Governor, Mayor, City Council Member, or anyone else who was elected to represent you and tell them what you think. It may feel pointless, but like so many things in democracy, it becomes more and more impactful the more people do it. Disagree with Trump’s cabinet appointments or pardoning of the January 6th rioters? Call your Senators and your Rep in Congress and tell them that. Want your state to protect immigrants? Call your governor and your state legislatures and tell them! You can find a guide to calling your members of Congress here, and I made a guide to getting involved in state and local politics many years ago you can check out here (please note this is definitely out of date, so just treat it as a general resource and take it with a grain of salt).

If you’re raring to transform Democratic politics, may I recommend volunteering with Run for Something? You can talk to young progressives around the country, help them get ready to run for office, and build a Democratic bench that isn’t one thousand years old. I also highly recommend signing up for the email list at Vote Save America because we are going to have some very cool events and trainings come up and you don’t want to miss them.

Finally - talk to one person in your life about politics whom you don’t usually talk about it with. When someone asks you how you’re doing, say “Not great - I’m really worried about immigrants in my community/Trump’s attacks on the environment/the pardoning of the J6 rioters” and just see what happens!

If we want to keep our democracy, we have to use it. Don’t let anyone tell you we’ve already lost.

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If you do not have the energy this week, here’s some other things you can do:

Go outside, if you can. Even if it’s just for a few minutes, even if it’s pretty cold. Just breathe some fresh air, feel the sun on your face.

Make mac and cheese - from a box, from a recipe, from your brain, whatever. If mac and cheese isn’t your jam, make something else, but make sure it’s comforting. Personally I’m a huge fan of buttered noodles with salt and pepper and parmesan cheese. But chili, chicken and dumplings, chocolate chip cookies all spring to mind as good comfort things!

Change the sheets on your bed.

Text a friend. Sometimes I just go to the gif keyboard in iMessage and find the cutest possible animal waving gif I can and send that. Sometimes I just text “hi.”

Seriously, I highly recommend setting a timer on your phone and just laying down and staring at the ceiling (or out the window or at the inside of your eyelids or the pattern on your carpet or whatever) until the timer goes off. Let your brain wander around a little. I do ten minutes, but 2, 3, 20, 60 - whatever works for you.

Drink some water. Yes, right now. A whole glass. I can wait!

Read a book from your childhood - Charlotte’s Web, Stuart Little, Anne of Green Gables, A Series of Unfortunate Events, Percy Jackson - whatever it is, give yourself a warm retreat. Or read a new book! I just finished A Gentleman in Moscow and it was a weirdly comforting book about house arrest in communist Russia! I also love to go back to Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle in times like these, or North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell.

Make some tea.

Light a candle.

A creative project - a coloring book, knitting or crocheting, a collage, a poem, a song, homemade jewelry, pottery, painting, just something with your hands that has no purpose except to be a reflection of you.

Put your phone on ‘do not disturb’ for the whole day and just like…don’t check the notifications. Seriously, don’t check them. For a whole day. Yes, we need to be informed, and we need to fight back, but if you’re taking a break (and you deserve a break!) then really take one. Hide from the news, for just a little bit.

Okay, thanks friends, I feel better. I’ll see you next week, hopefully with a bit more for you. Have a good week, in Trump adjusted terms!