I don’t want to talk about anything anymore. Except that I can’t stop myself from talking about everything, forevermore. There is always everything and nothing to say.

Women and all people who can get pregnant lost their right to make vital choices about their own bodies and lives because of religious extremists, because of an illegitimate Supreme Court, because of a president who is currently being investigated for inciting a coup. I, a woman, am now a second-class citizen in America because there is, somehow, no political will or pathway to fix the obvious problems, so more problems keep being created. People are already dying because doctors are afraid to perform life-saving abortion procedures on unviable ectopic pregnancies, which kill the people who suffer from them. People are dying and will die in a thousand other ways from this: from abusive partners, from complications their doctors are unable to address, from depression, from being crushed under the boot of a heartless regime.

There is a great feeling of powerlessness in watching people celebrate causing you harm.

On Sunday, when I drew this comic, I thought it was good black comedy, and then I felt queasy about it and worried it was too dark, and now I think it’s just dark enough, since the only point this comic (writ large) has ever had was to express how I feel in the moment.

When the world is falling apart around you, it’s hard to feel good about mentioning anything else, as if taking your eye off the flaming ball means you’re ready to be lit on fire. But I do have a couple of things I want to share which are, at the very least, pretty topical.

1. I wrote a Letter of Recommendation for the New York Times on having a Horror Movie Friend, which actually came out last week when I could have posted it more blithely, but what can I say, I am an imperfect being. At least it contains a lot of meditations on hope in the face of futility and death! Also I am very proud of it. A fun topic near and dear to my heart.
2. The brilliant writer Julia Fine was kind enough to interview me for Catapult, and we talked about End of the World House, narrative architecture, art theory, socioeconomic suffering, and what it’s like writing a kind of crazy book. This, too, feels topical to me, because: apocalypse.

Now it’s time to prepare myself for teaching at Warren Wilson’s MFA program, and to sit back and wait for the rain that it feels like will never come. I’m looking forward to being inspired by my fellow teachers and my future students, because art, at least, does not feel futile to me, even as so much else slides that direction.