Soup never solved anyone's problems, but sometimes it can help. This is the meal I make when I need the food equivalent of a hug, so I'm making it tonight, and eating it under a blanket, my phone and computer turned off and something Disney on the TV.
Here we are again. So let's do this, again.
OK, never mind. I said I was going to return to the regular RG programming, but I can't. Not yet. There's too much panic and fear and sadness out there; too many people who feel helpless, like the world is crumbling beneath them. A few minutes ago, I left a meeting with my local school district that I'd requested to discuss what exactly is going on with the crippling under-funding and what the community can do to help, and left feeling despondent about the state of education in America, and how much worse it's going to get as the economy plummets. I sat down on a wall to wait for my ride home, and clicked over to Facebook only to find a post titled "Farewell America." I read it with tears pouring down my face.
Because what that post said was that we have reached the end of the American experiment. That America as we have known it is gone, and that nothing will ever be the same.
See that, way out there? That's the future. And it's still female.
I'm not sure how to move on from what happened on Tuesday. As a person, I'm not sure of the best way to apply myself to this "fighting back" thing we're all talking about. I'm not even sure how to sleep again. As a writer, I have no idea how to return to my regular schedule of cute shoes and funny parenting stories, or how to sit down today and start moving through to a to-do list that includes such imperatives as "start compiling holiday gift guide," and "post flat-lay to IG."
When you awaken to find yourself in a strange and terrifying new world, how do you just stand up and start walking again? I wish I knew. But I'm pretty sure that the answer is "you just do, because you have to." And because doing nothing is never an option, and is even less of one now.
The world changed, alright. Just not how any of us had expected.
I wasn't going to post today. And then, around 10PM last night - when it was clear what was happening, but before the election was officially called - I turned off the TV and got into the bath. I took a Star Magazine with me because I couldn't bear to think about anything other than Brad Pitt's marital woes, and for the first time I actually understood why that kind of blunt-force entertainment is so addictive: it gives us the chance to fall down a rabbit hole of celebrity breakups and makeups and the cutest boots to buy this season, and when we're in that rabbit hole we can pretend for a moment that the real world doesn't even exist.
Like many of you, I need a minute to absorb what just happened, and to try to wrap my mind around what this means for the future of the country - not to mention the future for minorities, for women, for the LGBTQ population, for our children, and for thinking, feeling human beings across America and far beyond.
Just added to the glam | camp Holiday Shop: the coolest sustainable amber bamboo boxes. They're technically jewelry boxes, but I like the idea of using them as hiding places for your secret favorite things. (Mine is currently holding Sugar Babies and Xanax.) (Oh shush, I'm totally kidding. I don't even like Sugar Babies.)
Trump just got booed at his own polling place (via The Verve.)
Now THIS is how you #adult. Oh man, I am going to miss him. (Obama Calms Supporters When Trump Protestor Appears, via CNN.)
Me and my beachwear.
Over the summer, Kendrick's friend at work told him about a beach town not too far from us called "Capitola." He said it had a cute downtown, great restaurants, and a cafe right on the water where you can sit and get a drink while you watch the surfers. We've been meaning to go forever, but because we have spectacular timing we decided to wait until November. To go to a beach town.
Election Day is tomorrow. Finally, and thank god, we have come to the end.
Except, of course, it's also just the beginning - because whichever way this election goes I think we can all agree that regaining faith in our democracy is going to be a long process for a lot of people. And for all the bigotry and ignorance and intolerance that Donald Trump has brought onto the national stage, he has also thrown in our faces a fact that many of us may not have fully understood until now: there are a hell of a lot of angry people out there. A hell of a lot of people who feel like they are not being heard.
What this means is that no matter what happens at the polls tomorrow, there is work to be done. And the first step is acknowledging those who feel that they have been silenced, whether by misogyny, by racism, by the media, or by a political system that sidesteps their needs...and making sure that they have a voice.
Sometimes the Internet can feel like this - but other times it lets you get through.
I had an interesting little thing happen to me last night, and it got me thinking, so I wanted to tell you about it.
The story actually starts way back in 1990, when nine-year-old me developed an obsession with the horror writer Dean Koontz (whose books my parents probably should not have let me read, but I seem to have turned out okay, if slightly more invested in the Saw series than the average bear). I decided to write Dean Koontz a fan letter telling him that I wanted to be just like him when I grew up, and several months later I received a typed (on a typewriter!) letter in response. It was clearly a sort of standardized fan mail response letter to which he had added a line about how I should "stick with my dream of being a writer" or something to that effect - but when I opened that envelope I died. I could hardly have been more excited had the man himself shown up at my house with an invitation to accompany him to a private screening of another 1990 obsession of mine, the movie Leviathan (it's a classic; don't judge).
Sometimes a value pack of diapers isn't quite what a new mom is looking for.
I think we all know, by now, what kinds of things should go on a baby registry: round pillows that are "for breastfeeding" and thus approximately three times the price that a round pillow should be. Tiny plastic milk-collecting bags that will vex you endlessly, and rip at extremely inconvenient moments. One of these unfortunate-looking (but genius) gizmos.
But there is apparently another type of registry that you might not be especially familiar with: the "Mom Registry" - useful for sprinkles, for fourth trimester gifts, and for moms who seriously do not want another onesie and would much prefer a nice big slab of brie, please and thanks.
Both of my children are looking at the camera and not being (too) weird.
Halloween miracle.
I'm fully aware we're nice and oversaturated with Halloween content over here, but there are two things from last night that I really do have to show you.
