Election '16 Reflections: Dali, Masturbation, Anxiety, Homemade Cookies, and your Uncle's Vinyl Records that you now own

Sitting in a Dr.'s office yesterday, waiting for my son to finish some play therapy as he has been having some anxiety emerge and manifest in new ways as he grows older. On the wall is a print of one of Dali's famous works, not sure which one exactly, although I'm sure I was lucky enough to see it once, in person, in Venice. It's much like all of his works, warping your sense of aesthetic, moral, time, and space...blah blah blah. My kids don't get the same news here in this enclave we live in in the Middle East, I teach at an International School. My daughter, six and a half, says Trump wants to change things but doesn't say how. I guess she has been listening to me. Though I don't talk about politics all that much. At least this year. I figured the absurdity would cleanse itself and we could move on. You don't tell kids Trump got elected because the rural vote had become further disenfranchised with "the system", or the incumbent party is at a disadvantage - they want to know why we elected someone mean. They want to know why he calls women pigs. In typical American fashion we wrote of Trump's misogyny as the status quo - hey that's what angry, capable, white men do. They play hard. They work hard. Right. I imagine this is How President Trump will explain his words and actions in his 2nd or 3rd memoir, which will most likely be available in a fabulously decorated velvet case (Made in China) limited edition bundle on Amazon Prime (recycled paper edition also available From These Sellers!), delivered by drone. So the anxiety that has crawled under my son's skin, even here in a little pocket of America, might not be a pre-disposition for anxiety, it's out there eating away at reality, and apparently only some of us choose to see it. Now I remember the name, how fitting, the Grand Masturbastor.

I wrote the above original thoughts on November 10, 2016 in Saudi Arabia. The image, by the artist Savlador Dali, was sourced from Google after a "Dali Creative Commons" search. I hope it is ok to post.

cheers,
SLC