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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