Scene: Bedtime, Little A snoring softly in the bed beside us.

Me: Are you excited about the election tomorrow? We’re going to have a new president!

Big A: I’m excited to not have school!

“I’m excited to not have work! I’m excited for a new president, too. But I’m also a little nervous. I really hope Hillary wins.”

“Do you H Donald Trump?”

“No, I don’t hate him. I’m just a little scared of him because he says things that angry people like to hear.”

Peach people, as Big A calls them. Lots of angry peach people who love their firearms a little too much and don’t necessarily believe that women’s rights are human rights or acknowledge that Black Lives Matter. People who want to go back in time to when America was great for their peach parents and grandparents, who didn’t have to compete for jobs against the wider world or the technology of the future. People whose love for the Second Amendment trumps their belief in the First, the very founding principles of America, the freedoms of speech, religion, press and peaceful assembly.

Yes, I am a bit scared. But hopeful, too.

That’s not, like, some self-help mantra. Or maybe it is.

I felt like I had some breakthrough on Monday. I was reading an interview with my favorite writer, Cheryl Strayed, whose advice to aspiring writers—“write like a motherfucker”—adorns an empty coffee mug I keep on my office desk. (Empty because I have a naturally over-caffeinated brain).

In the piece—a Q&A on how to write like a mofo—the interviewer mentions Neil Casey, an improv comedian I actually interviewed recently. (Irrelevant to my larger point, but isn’t it cool how sometimes it feels like we’re all connected?). Anyway, there’s a point in the article where the interviewer mentions an improv class she’s taking and says,

Someone recently asked [Will Hines, who runs Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in New York]: “Is improv a road to nowhere?” The question focused on Neil Casey, an improviser who was hired at Saturday Night Live after more than a decade of improvising. Hines responded: “When [Casey] was 20, . . . SNL was not on his mind. . .. If he never got a job, and now I can speak from experience, then he’d only have a life spent being happy behind him. . . . Spend your days in love with what you’re doing as much as fucking possible, and thank the stars for your chances to do that. Be nice and honest and brave and hopeful, and then let it go.” Don’t you love that?

Strayed responded, “I do. That’s exactly it.”

Spend your days in love with what you’re doing as much as fucking possible, and thank the stars for your chances to do that. Be nice and honest and brave and hopeful, and then let it go.

Damn, that spoke to me!

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There’s only one endorsement that would hold any weight this election season, and it would come from a man who knows more about ruthless ambition, moral ambiguity, corruption, greed and leadership than most in Washington. He is George RR Martin, supreme ruler of Westeros.

“When you play the Game of Thrones, you win or you die,” Martin wrote in the series’ first book. “There is no middle ground.” The words bear eerie forbearance to November 8, when a new ruler will ascend the Iron Throne of America.

On the one side, we have the real-life equivalent of Ramsey Bolton, the petulant bastard son whose power from a “very small” multi-million loan from his dad helped finance a campaign rooted in resentment and loathing; whose appeal resonates a little too closely with the pale-skinned masses, ready to build walls, defend guns and “knock the hell out ISIS.” Perhaps even flay some skin.

Then there’s Tyrion, the smartest person in the room, underestimated throughout her entire career, despised for her ambition, vilified for her networks, resented for her acumen. She is not the Daenerys Targaryen of the Sanders campaign. She would not liberate Meereen without a plan. She is slower, more methodical. Her secrecy serves as evidence of her low cunning, and she sleeps with the enemy in a way that repulses even her most ardent supporters. She may not be likable, but she gets the job done.

Meanwhile, the American Meereenese grow restless.

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I want a husband who wants me.

On a cerebral level, I know Mr. D does. But emotionally, physically… that’s where I’m starved. Potheads don’t have passion.

They’re kind and warm and funny, and make life a comfortable ride—you can be happy going nowhere, doing nothing, finding the joy in the monotony—and then all of a sudden feel broken and bereft.

Mimi and Sarge are probably the couple I most admire, possibly even more than my own parents, and my parents make a 35-year marriage look effortless. Mimi and Sarge have something special, too. They found forever in their second marriage, a blended Brady Bunch family of the 90s whose kids all turned out perfect (doctor, teacher, accountant, soldier), and who still, decades later, seem to have the fire.

Mr. D and I saw them earlier this month at a wedding, and I asked them the secret to a long and happy marriage. “Compromise—and good sex,” Mimi said. Sarge said alcohol.

I love weed, and I doubt Mr. D and I would be together if I didn’t. I’ve come to believe drug compatibility is essential for any adult relationship (and I define drugs in the broadest of senses–starting with Marx’s “religion is opium of the masses” quote).

But Mr. D loves weed more than me. He’s always loved drugs more than me. I don’t know why he doesn’t understand how much that fucking hurts.

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I hadn’t planned to go to my commencement ceremony, hadn’t even rented a cap and gown. “Do we have to watch you ‘walk,’” my dad asked. I probably shrugged. It wasn’t important. Not in the way that mattered to our family.

Studying, learning—that was different.

In middle school, I once brought home a report card full of B’s. My parents offered to drive me to McDonald’s and Taco Bell to scope my job prospects. “That’s your future,” they said at the time.

The both share six college degrees, though I’ve never seen a diploma. Probably just another paper my dad tossed in the recycling bin. Education is such a critical, natural part of life, why be all showy about it?

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You ever notice how Facebook women of a certain age always seem to thank their men for keeping them sane? I know I’m probably guilty of it too. Without Mr. D, my brain would be… ugh. I shudder to think.

It all goes back to Enrique’s universal truth: “All men are dumb; all women are crazy.”

I’m admittedly as nuts as the next broad. Maybe more so. But I often feel like my crazy gets rebranded as pessimism when it suits Mr. D’s arguments or assumptions about me.

We had a spat about this a few months back. I can’t seem to remember what exactly we were fighting about, but I said that I’m too naturally happy to be negative. Mr. D said it’s possible to be a happy pessimist, that the two are not mutually exclusive.

I’ve been thinking about that ever since.

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This past Tuesday, two days before my eldest daughter turned six, I found myself screaming “Serenity Now” on the ride home from swim lessons.

Big A was being so mean to her little sister, so uncharacteristically bratty and whiny that when she finally said something about how Little A and another kid in her daycare ruined the dresses she had made for her stuffed animal kittens and then smacked her sister in the head, I responded the only way I knew how.

I yelled. “That is NO excuse for this nonsense,” I said. “KNOCK IT OFF RIGHT NOW!!!”

My angry mom voice works when it needs to. It shut her up for about 10 minutes. And then the screams returned. All evening it was something. One complaint after another.

“Ohmygod, Ohmygod,” I said to Mr. D before stepping outside to hit the bowl.

I came back to more fights. Unfinished dinners. Whines and tantrums and smacks and cries.

“Bedtime,” I ordered at 7:30.

The girls marched upstairs and screamed in bed. Obnoxiously. Incessantly. And it might have been the 35^th “MOM!” or the second bong hit, or some combination of the two, but about 15 minutes later, I realized that they were literally calling for me. That they needed me. That the only real job of any importance I have is to be there in these moments, the ones where they are at their brattiest, nastiest little selves.

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I was robbed of the role of the Wicked Witch of the West in 6^th grade. I can’t remember now whether I practiced hard for the part or just had a knack for the stage, but I was good. Damned good. Even 22 years later, ask me to say, “I’ll get you, my pretty, and your little dog, too,” and I’ve still got the magic.

I deserved that role. When I didn’t get it—when, in fact, it was handed to the 8^th-grade Abigail Fisher, whose tepid performance and passionless cackle served to mock my very existence—I saw then the cruelty of life’s injustices.

I came home that night and cried to my dad, who said there’s nothing wrong with playing the side character (he was a proud nobody in his school production of My Fair Lady), and somehow, someway, I got over it, eventually landing the role of a “100 Grand” chocolate bar in my 8^th-grade, Candy Land-based romp, where I played a trampy (but clearly high-end) New Yorker whose accent would later allow me to perfect Marisa Tomei monologues from My Cousin Vinny.

I guess that’s a really long way of saying… it all worked out! Exactly as it was supposed to! Even if it didn’t seem that way at the time.

I think the same can be said of my work woes.

I’ve already blogged about the things I’ve learned over this past year–and I wrote all that back when I still thought I was going to be denied the professional equivalent of the Wicked Witch: the raise.

After eight months of talking to the casting director about the role; after being offered it on three separate occasions, only to see it snatched away at the last-minute; after a really great second audition that had me waiting two months for an answer, after a lot of shit in between, I learned today that I got the part!

It feels amazing!!!! Grit and Grace won! Endurance paid off! Life lessons were learned!

To quote the former Hillary speechwriter, whose remarks would one day be plagiarized by Melania Trump, I have emerged from this experience knowing that “you work hard for what you want in life; that your word is your bond and you do what you say you’re going to do; that you treat people with dignity and respect, even if you don’t know them, and even if you don’t agree with them.”

Those are really good lessons to follow! I’m glad I did. I don’t think this particular story would have had a happy ending if I had not, and I am thrilled it does.

Grit and grace won! So did perseverance and tenacity! Hard work and talent! Integrity and kindness!

That’s the road to success. To happiness. To personal and professional growth. To boss bitch-dom.

On that note, #BossBitchesForHillary!

To my Little A,

You are the light of my life! I saw a sign the other day that reminded me so much of you. It said, “There are very few who possess something of that spirit that will brighten whatever they touch.”

That’s you! Warm, magnetic, charming, magical. You make every moment better. Funner. Cooler. More interesting. Your energy is infectious.

I can’t believe how lucky I am to be your mom. Thank you, universe, for my Little A.

I probably don’t say it enough, but you are the best thing that ever happened to me.

You’re an incredible father, husband, lover, friend, life coach, writer, IT business analyst, therapist (my own personal!), comedian, reciter of esoteric quotes (“Who’s the Boss is not a food!”), and so much more.

You make me and our babies the luckiest girls in the world. Thank you for being you.