The Dark Side of the Moon

Yesterday was a dark day for me and I don’t have a lot of dark days. I have days when I feel sad or anxious, of course - but I’m talking about days that feel devoid of hope, where I’m out to sea and everything feels fragile - like I could plummet off the edge of the world. In the past when they happened, they’d happen with my cycle, but I’m in peri-menopause, so there is no cycle I can count on - there’s just mayhem and uncertainty, and flying by the seat of your pants. It’s fun, especially with all the mayhem and uncertainty around us.

I also got the accompanying two-and-a-half-day migraine, which I feel pretty certain would send anyone into a spiral by hour 12 or 13. It’s debilitating to feel like you have a broken bone in your head no matter how much you meditate through it. So while there are things going on that are making most of us feel alone and desperate, I know some of it was also hormonal.

I’ve been on a beta blocker for about six months now, and I haven’t been getting migraine clusters until this one. I was getting them every month for a while there, which is one of the reasons I finally went on the beta blocker. The pain was not as blinding this time as it used to be. It was not enjoyable, obviously, but it was not that kind of pain that shuts you down - until the end of the second day. That’s when I started to feel like I could cry. Of course crying would add to the pressure in my head and make it worse, but I could have cried.

Instead I vacuumed. Then I did laundry. I’d already taken my abortive migraine pills on top of the beta blocker, but they increase the risk of stroke so I don’t like to take them unless there’s no way around it. Even all of that had not done the job. I read once that migraines come from too many thoughts, and I remember laughing out loud because yeah, that could be it.

So I tried not to think, I just kept focusing on sensation. I tried to “push” the pain out of my head. I tried to focus on sensation in my feet. I filled the tub with freezing water so the blood would rush downward and away from my brain. I envisioned thoughts escaping through my ear canals and going up into the ether. I did a restorative bridge pose. I tried everything, basically.

Once in a blue moon when I am super desperate and nothing else has worked, I’ll take a hit off a joint. I learned that this works years ago when I was about to head to the hospital. I was having a really blinding migraine, and my kids were little, three and five years old. I’d called the sitter to come, and was going to the ER to get morphine - because I’m white and they will give you morphine if you are white and upwardly mobile and you have a history of migraines. It’s not ideal, it knocks you out for the entirety of the following day, but you have to do what you have to do.

My friend Derek happened to call and I don’t know why I picked up but I did. I told him I was heading to the ER, and he said, Don’t do that, I’ll be right over. And he pulled up in front of my house about 9 minutes later with whatever this new Mary Jane is the kids smoke today, because whatever it is, it is not the stuff we had in 8th grade. Take a hit off of that, he said, and I did. I might have taken two, I don’t remember.

In 8th grade, the first time I tried pot, I ended up in the corner of my friend’s bedroom, curled up in a ball under a blanket, trying not to make a sound as tears slid out the corners of my eyes. It totally depressed me and I could not figure out why anyone liked it. Then I tried it again when a bunch of us went to see Pink Floyd, “The Dark Side of the Moon” at the Planetarium, and that time it did not depress me and I understood - and reserved my infrequent stoner sessions for the nights we spent looking up at that dome.

These days, my pot use, like my alcohol use, is so infrequent I have no tolerance at all. I am the cheapest date out there - two sips of a beer and I’m buzzed. A hit off a joint? Hahaha.

Whatever Derek gave me was something totally different than the 8th grade ganja from my youth. I was high as a kite. It’s not that it cured my migraine, it’s that I didn’t even realize I had a head anymore. Thankfully my kids were asleep, and the sitter stayed until I’d slept it off and remembered who I was again and what solar system we’re in. No more migraine - that got left somewhere between Derek’s car and wherever it is I went for a little while.

So anyway, I took a joint and a lighter and the dog and went to the backyard, and while Rufus did insane puppy zoomies, I took a hit - but instantly had a coughing fit. Like a kid who has never taken a hit before. It was embarrassing and I’m glad only the dog was there to see, because I would have lost any street cred with anyone else (though using the words “street cred” is probably enough to get the job done with everyone). I must have held it in my lungs long enough, though, because once again, I was freaking high.

My Ruzz. See? I’m cool.

The last time I was high it was from half a gummy - 5 milligrams I think - and I took it right before I got on a plane coming back from Austin. So over a year ago. That time I did not have a migraine, it was just for fun and just because I’d been having fun all weekend and was in a why not kind of mindset, which would probably be a good mindset for me to be in more often. But I highly do not recommend having a gummy before you get on a plane with a bunch of strangers unless you’re a professional, which I am not in case I haven’t made that super clear.

I was at the gate and everything was fine, and then suddenly I was grinning like an idiot and I could feel myself grinning like an idiot, so then I tried very hard not to do that, which is the same thing as being with a friend in a situation where you can’t laugh - but now you’re totally going to laugh. Also, I then texted the friend who’d given me the gummy and she had also taken one so then we were just texting and laughing which didn’t help at all.

Then I got on a plane full of strangers and tried not to look at anyone while I focused on arranging my facial muscles in a way that would look normal, and then I sat down in my seat and had to concentrate very hard on simple things like fastening my seatbelt. I listened with rapt attention to the flight attendant who looked alarmed that I was so engaged, like maybe I knew something she didn’t.

Then the plane started moving and I texted my friend that I had to turn my phone off now, but it really felt like the entire plane was going to break into pieces, and I just thought she should know. And then I gripped the armrests of my seat so hard it seemed like my fingers might actually merge with the steel, and it felt like the ceiling was rattling even though a plane doesn’t really have a ceiling per se, and I was sure the guy next to me thought I was high or crazy, but there was nothing I could do about that, plus he was doing the man-spread thing so who cared what he thought?

Anyway, I made it home in one piece along with the plane, and I made it through this current migraine, too, and woke up today feeling not so dark anymore. So I guess taking a hit will be my go-to moving forward, because it works a lot better than vacuuming. It’s true that I can’t write or work in any capacity if I’m high, which is why it’s always been a last-resort type of deal for me. I can’t have a normal conversation with anyone, I can’t drive, I probably shouldn’t even walk my dog in that state, so it will have to be an end-of-day solution when needed - but at least I have a plan. I can’t do any more 2-or-3-day-migraine-events in the midst of everything else.

The reality is that though the beta blocker has been working wonders for me as I navigate the ever-changing peri-menopause waters, there is so much happening around us, it’s likely not the last migraine cluster I’ll deal with, or the last dark day I’ll have. The potus will surely take more bizarro White House rooftop walks, and his supporters will, I guess, continue to ignore it when he makes deals with child raping sex traffickers, so I just don’t see how I can hope to not have my head explode sometimes.

Side note - and this is really far down on my list of concerns - but I like to watch those restoration shows sometimes. You know the ones, where a couple buys an old castle in Ireland or an old schoolhouse in Pennsylvania or a now-defunct Post Office in Nebraska to fix up as a place to live, but there are all these restrictions. Like they can’t replace the door because this place is a historic site, so they can refurbish it, but that’s it. They can build additions, but only if they meet very specific standards that don’t affect the footprint of the original structure, and only if they use these particular materials, etc.

But I guess the White House is like, just open season, do whatever the fuck you want? Pave over the Rose Garden, add a monstrous-looking ballroom while you gut Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, put a gold pool on the roof while you disappear legal immigrants off the streets, hell, build a water slide to the Situation Room while you openly gerrymander, redistrict, and redraw all the maps to cheat your way forward in broad daylight in front of the American people - because you know your supporters will only object when the Democrats in Texas leave the state in an effort to fight back and save some semblance of democracy. Or have we decided voting doesn’t matter, either?

Do we all know about the Voting Rights Act of 1965? When I learned about it in my constitutional law class, it was described as the “legislative crown jewel” of the Civil Rights movement. It was enacted to erode the pervasive Jim Crow policies of the South, and all the discriminatory structures that supported them across the country. If you doubt whether there were discriminatory structures across the country that were upholding Jim Crow policies, I’d ask what you think the Civil Rights Movement was about. If you are not someone who is going to crack open a history book, then watch Ava DuVernay’s films 13th and Selma, and look up Bryan Stevenson and Equal Justice Initiative.

Essentially, the Voting Rights Act (VRA) made it possible for Black people to sue if they felt their right to vote (guaranteed by the 15th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution) was being violated or compromised, or if they were being held to a different standard than other citizens. Because as soon as the 15th Amendment was passed (1870), Southern states started fucking around with things like poll taxes, literacy tests, intimidation practices (we can imagine what those looked like) and grandfather clauses.

So cut to almost 100 years later, discriminatory practices like literacy tests and all that other racist bs were banned (have you ever been asked to pass a literacy test based on the color of your skin before you could cast your vote?), and any states or local governments with a history of discriminatory practices had to get “preclearance” from the U.S. Justice Department (no help these days, which is why elections matter) or a federal court - before they could change any voting rules or regulations.

This act has been systematically eroded since 2013 thanks to Shelby County v. Holder, when the Supreme Court invalidated the formula used to determine which states and local governments needed preclearance, basically allowing for a lot more screwing around again. The Voting Rights Act has never been more in jeopardy than it is right now, thanks to this administration, this Supreme Court with its three Trump justices, and Louisiana v. Callais - a case it will hear as early as this fall - so potentially before the midterms. Who would like to place bets?

Even more egregious is the argument being used to challenge the VRA. As succinctly as I can: Black residents make up one third of Louisiana’s population. Louisiana has six congressional districts in total. Louisiana’s legislature drew up a congressional map with only one majority-Black district. Fair representation would have looked like a congressional map with two majority-Black districts, in case math isn’t your strong suit.

This is not cool. Black residents pay tax just like white residents, and they deserve equal representation, because of that whole no taxation without representation thing we have. So 12 plaintiffs sued as they could and should under the VRA. That’s why it exists, to protect against gerrymandering and racial discrimination when it comes to voting.

Lower courts ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, agreeing the map did violate their 14th and 15th Amendment rights, and requiring the Louisiana legislature to redraw the map with two majority-Black districts. That should have been the end of it.

But then friends, a group of white assholes challenged that case all the way to the Supreme Court because they said the consideration of race in creating a second Black-majority district violated their rights under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. Their rights to what? To make sure their Black neighbors do not have fair representation?

Normally I would not worry. Normally I would trust that the Supreme Court of the United States - a branch of our government I once held in higher esteem than any other - would not even hear this case. But they are hearing it, just like they are reviewing Ghislaine Maxwell’s appeal.

Anyone who supports this administration and what is happening across the board doesn’t care about the country or democracy or fairness or children or women or Black or Brown people or immigrants or the LGBTQ community or the planet or the environment or decency or habeas corpus or due process or science or affordable healthcare. They just care about keeping this man and his minions in power, and they want white people in control who are men. They’re selling the past like it’s some new vision for the future, and it’s terrifying. This is not news to anyone who has ever opened a history book, but sadly, it would appear many of his supporters have not.

Look ladies, it’s fun to churn butter, just look at Laura Beth here in her pastel instagram post and her vocal fry whisper with her six well-behaved kids in the background. They’re lined up and quiet-like, because dad will scare the shit out of them if they don’t smile for the camera, and no-fault divorce has gone out the window along with Laura Beth’s voting rights because she took her husband’s last name and god knows where her birth certificate is. Her husband probably burned it.

All you need to do to escape all the stress brought on by feminism, ladies, is find yourself a man and pop out those white babies - enough that it won’t matter that they refuse to enact any sane gun control legislation. In fact, they’re making it even easier to procure whatever short-barreled rifles and silencers a person might like. No excise tax for you, Billy, maybe you won’t notice your groceries are three times more expensive and you can’t go to the doctor anymore and oh shit, your kid has measles. But your wife is poppin’ out babies because there’s no abortion in your state, not for rape, not for incest, not even of minors, and you like ‘em young! And if things keep going this way, there won’t be birth control, either, so if we lose some poor kids to measles or gun violence, that’s okay, we got them babymakers at home!

And hey babymakers, they don’t respect you, don’t get confused. Your worth is your youth and your fertility and your “purity” so watch your body count, know what I’m sayin’? If you do what they say and find yourself a “good provider” so you can stay home with the babies, what they call you when you aren’t around is a user. You are now a woman using your beauty as a commodity to get to stay home while they work. When you aren’t useful anymore, good luck. Meanwhile, the other white men? The ones in the now gold-leafed halls of government that used to mean something? They respect you even less. All you are is a means of production. You supply the workforce. As soon as you stop supplying, you are of no more value.

So anyway. That’s not a vision I like, not for my daughter, not for yours. I want my vote to count, I want my neighbors to be safe, I want all marginalized groups to be treated like the full, equal human beings they are, I’d like to breathe clean air and to know my kids will be able to do that, too. I’d like the kids whose parents support this insanity to be able to breathe clean air and have access to a good education and all the other good things, too - it isn’t their fault their parents have gotten sucked into the biggest con I’ve ever seen in my life.

The Constitution disappeared from the Library of Congress for a few hours this week, did you hear? Not all of it, just the part that has to do with habeas corpus and the foreign emoluments clause. Weird coincidence. People noticed right away, and raised the alarm. The Library of Congress said it was a “coding issue” and restored the missing parts after a number of hours went by, but this story stinks, folks. It is not credible, not to any coders who have been interviewed. It’s alarming the way it was alarming when the Smithsonian tried to rewrite history and delete the current president’s impeachments.

I don’t know what has to happen for his supporters to snap out of the orange haze, maybe nothing will do it, but I sure hope those of you who aren’t really “into politics” start to get engaged. Politics are “into you” either way.

See you on the Dark Side of the Moon.

Photo by NASA on Unsplash

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