My Week of Living Bigly: T-Minus Four Days

Friday, November 4th, 2016

Now Playing: I Get Wet by Andrew W.K.

Thank God it's Friday.

My heart breaks a little bit every time I hear someone say this. I hear no excitement when its said, but rather mourning for the week that's gone by. You say, "Thank God it's Friday," and I hear, "I hated this week and want it to be over." That's sad to me, and I wish it weren't this way, but this week... this fucking week... this week I think we all need to close our eyes, take a deep breath, and say not just "Thank God it's Friday," but "Thank God it's almost over."

We're so close. So very, very close to this thing being over. There's no guarantee that things will be wrapped up in a neat little bow in the late hours of Tuesday evening, but what is certain is that the campaign will be over and the votes will be cast. No more pandering, no more swapping scandals, no more rallies. This weekend is this campaign's final hurrah. This campaign has turned us all into monsters. Let's spend this weekend doing stuff that makes us happy.

I'm trying to put together a list of all of the things that unfailingly make me smile. Art, food, activities, whatever it might be, I want to make a list of the things that work to make me happy. I know that I'm a better person when I'm happy, and I know I'm at my worst when I focus on politics. So this weekend, apart from these blog posts, I'm going to work on being a happier person by engaging in some gold old fashioned hedonism.

Let's start with the Patron Saint of Hedonism: Andrew W.K. Is Andrew W.K. a good musician? In the sense that he can play music, yeah, he knows a thing or two. Are his songs good? I mean, define good. Is he a poet? The first verse of "Party Hard" features an A-A-A-A rhyme scheme, but who says poetry has to rhyme? (Actually, that first verse doesn't rhyme so much as have every line end with the word "right", which is fine by me.) All of these questions are aside the point. Andrew W.K. writes feel-good music. The album I Get Wet is a feel good album. It's asinine, tounge-in-cheek, beautifully self-aware, catchy as catchy can be, and goddammit if it those synthesizers don't make me happy.

So I Get Wet will be on repeat this weekend, and I'll only turn it off to watch The Sopranos, the only TV show that I can watch over and over again. I think I'm on my third watch-through right now and every frame makes me happy. I come home after a day of work and reading about how Hill is this and Trump is that, and I put on The Sopranos, and suddenly the only thing that matters is who's short on their take this week. The only thing that matters is that I'm smiling.

Skipping rocks makes me smile. Playing with my brother's dog makes me smile. Writing plays makes me smile. Intoxicants in moderation make me smile (more on this at a later date). Getting lost in a new neighborhood makes me smile. Being with other people doing the things that make them smile makes me smile.

And the good thing about these things is that they are not going to stop making me smile. I know that under a Trump presidency if I'm ever feeling down all I have to do is skip some rocks by a lake and I'll feel okay again. If Clinton fails to deliver on her progressive campaign promises, I know that watching Tony play with the ducks in his pool will make it hurt that much less. This isn't a matter of escapism or denial, but rather a necessary step to take in order to maintain sanity and keep calm. You cannot properly effect change if you are so unhappy that you can't breathe. You cannot possibly have the energy to engage with the world around you if all of your energy is spent yelling at the TV. Either way this election goes, each and every one of us must make it our duty to protect each other and to hold our politicians accountable. We have to make sure we're all going to be okay, and that starts with making sure that you're going to be okay.

I'm going to be okay, at least for this weekend. Thank God it's Friday. It's time to party, and when it's time to party, we will always party hard.