BOOT! EDGE! EDGE!

I had an entire 70-screen PowerPoint presentation all prepared to impart on Pete (I call him Pete) how much I respect and admire and enthusiastically support him—and how we’d make awesome duet partners at the piano—but there was a bit of a time crunch so we were able to jam on only six piano concerti together. But still. I JUST MET PETE!

Gah! I look 1,000 years old here. I think Pete's photo-taking lady must have hit the wrong filter when she grabbed my camera to take our pictures.

Nineteen—NINETEEN!—Democratic Presidential nominees are in my home town right now

They're here to hold individual rallies and then a civilized, intelligent, productive, meaningful debate at our US Cellular Center this afternoon. I just walked through our beautiful downtown from the Pete Buttegieg rally to the street outside the convention center where the supporters of each candidate are joyfully chanting and cheering and holding signs and high-fiving everyone who walks by—including me in my BOOT EDGE EDGE shirt—and I’ve never been prouder to be a Cedar Rapidian and a progressive and a citizen of a country that DOES have hope and DOES have joy and DOES embrace civic responsibility and DOES FINALLY SEE A WAY OUT OF THIS HELLISH DOTARD NUCLEAR DUMPSTER FIRE.

Speaking of, the last time man-boy dotard stable genius brokeahontis held an emotionally needy rally here, I stood in this exact same spot and watched multiple people walk by me carrying Confederate and Nazi flags on their way in. I don’t even have to point out that there are none here today.

The last appearance from a representative of my bountiful wardrobe of clearance-rack patriotic attire

The first weekday training run since my hip grew back. Here’s hoping it takes me a full three miles!

#HowToTurn50 #AndNeverLoseHope

#WellMaybe #ButJustALittle

It’s been a year

since we lost President Obama and started plummeting from dignified, informed, capable, exemplary leadership to the appalling hourly implosions of integrity and morality that somehow count as adequate ever since. Here’s how I said goodbye:

"Selma to Stonewall."

For nearly a decade and all of an era, my President -- my conscientious, intelligent, egalitarian, accomplished, diplomatic, relentlessly inspiring and unapologetically yes-we-can-ing President -- has brought our nation a mountaintop eight years of dignity and clarity and principled leadership and national apotheosis and -- yes, as promised, as expected, as delivered, as savored day after day after day for two consecutive, exemplary, triumphant administrations -- hope. Calming hope. Inspiring hope. Enduring hope. Presidential hope.

And for the first time in the history of our noble, beautiful, glorious, always-full-of-wonderful-life-changing-promise country, he made me a part of it. A part of the dialogue. A part of the people. A part of the staggeringly hard-fought, always-on-the-front-lines-of-vital-importance equality.

And I am so grateful, Mr. President. So exhilarated. So proud to be a part of your vision. Your promise. Your world.

You have indeed brought us -- all of us, across the country, around the globe -- change we can believe in.

So I thank you. We thank you. You have made us immeasurably, profoundly, everlastingly better.

And though we knew this day would come and you and your family would step down with the grace and respect and dignity that have been the hallmarks of your leadership, it's still overwhelmingly difficult to say goodbye. 

OMG

"Selma to Stonewall"

For nearly a decade and all of an era, my President -- my conscientious, intelligent, egalitarian, accomplished, diplomatic, relentlessly inspiring and unapologetically yes-we-can-ing President -- has brought our nation a mountaintop eight years of dignity and clarity and principled leadership and national apotheosis and -- yes, as promised, as expected, as delivered, as savored day after day after day for two consecutive, exemplary, triumphant administrations -- hope. Calming hope. Inspiring hope. Enduring hope. Presidential hope.

And for the first time in the history of our noble, beautiful, glorious, always-full-of-wonderful-life-changing-promise country, he made me a part of it. A part of the dialogue. A part of the people. A part of the staggeringly hard-fought, always-on-the-front-lines-of-vital-importance equality.

And I am so grateful, Mr. President. So exhilarated. So proud to be a part of your vision. Your promise. Your world.

You have indeed brought us -- all of us, across the country, around the globe -- change we can believe in. So I thank you. We thank you. You have made us immeasurably, profoundly, everlastingly better.

And though we knew this day would come and you and your family would step down with the grace and respect and dignity that have been the hallmarks of your leadership, it's still overwhelmingly difficult to say goodbye.

Depression will tear you down. But the world can help you up.

Depression will tear you down from happy to despondent in a matter of minutes and will pin you there with its hands on your throat and its knees on your chest so you can't breathe and you can't move and you can't think and you eventually can't even summon the will to care.

It will override your sense of reason and convince you that despite any evidence to the contrary everyone hates you, you're better off dead and you'd better figure out how to get that way soon or you'll just prolong the agony and the hopelessness and the fact that you just don't matter.

It will destroy you from within, thought by thought, feeling by feeling, certainty by certainty, and leave you battered and bloodied and empty and profoundly profoundly profoundly exhausted whether it slinks away like a fog or sprints away like a wolf with a ripped-up part of you in its teeth so it can hide and feast and grow stronger and lie in wait until its next attack.

It will make you lonely and defeated, desperate for some semblance of validation through a lunch date or an actual date or a party invitation but too scared and awkward and exhausted to follow through until people stop inviting you anywhere because they know you won't show up.

It will dig in its claws and fight to the death the drugs and the counselors and the hospitalizations and the electroconvulsive therapy you eventually turn to in desperation as you endure irritating and embarrassing and possibly permanent side effects and withdrawal effects on your frustrating, endless quest to remember what normal feels like and to attempt to reclaim it.

It will compel you to write alarming texts to your friends and repeatedly, off-puttingly post your graphic, brutal, unfiltered, unapologetic thoughts on social media in a futile attempt to explain yourself, empty your head, get to sleep, try to normalize whatever the fuck is wrong with you so you can finally overcome your choking sense of isolation and think readily and lucidly and productively and walk the earth with confidence and never never never spend another moment foggy and dark and despondent and immobile and alone and sleeping sleeping sleeping and fucking scared you'll do something stupid when you should be breathing and laughing and eating and participating and loving and feeling loved and just goddamned fucking LIVING.

But you know no matter how bad it gets, it will still give you moments and days and maybe even weeks of reprieve where you can see where you need to be, feel what you need to feel, do what you need to do, and memorize this precious knowledge so you can hopefully look at your next attack objectively and learn how to ride it out and minimize the damage and maybe even be embarrassed enough to apologize for the profanity and the disturbing imagery you use when you're buried up to your neck in lava and you're trying to claw your way out and explain yourself so people will understand and maybe help you or at least embrace you flaws and all and help you regain your footing, your dignity and maybe your place in this bright, friendly, joyous world filled with people and places and experiences eagerly waiting to welcome you with wide open loving inviting arms.