My Cardboard Balcony

Things have been...rough for me, in a word. I won't deny it. Over the past couple of weeks, I have dreaded American politics and feared a potentially dangerous and oppressive global future. I have cried in my fiancée's arms and cried in front of my family and cried while talking to my sister, and as a result, I've been given lots of advice. Maybe I should cut down my Internet time. Maybe I should deactivate my Facebook account. Maybe I should practice breaking away from the computer and focusing on the now. So I've been trying to do that. Not the Facebook deactivation part, but at least trying to control how much time I spend looking at articles and websites that only fuel my anxiety. Well, it turns out that focusing on the now still can bring me back to politics, but in a way that is historic and powerful. Yesterday, I got to sit in my car, turn on the radio, and tear up as I listened to Hillary Clinton - and whether you like her or hate her is irrelevant to this - a

Making History by Belinda Roddie How about we make a puppy the United States' president?

"How do you want me to cook the potatoes?" Lottie asked as she hunched herself over the stove. She had to use a stepping stool to make herself the right height, her long, scraggly gray hair pulled out of her face by a neon green scrunchie. Donovan shrugged from behind his newspaper, his face blending in with the black text. "However you want." "C'mon, Donny, help me out. Should I boil 'em? Mash 'em? Scallop 'em? Fry 'em?"