I don’t know what to do. But I know what I’m going to do. I am going to love harder than I’ve ever loved before. I am going to love more expansively and compassionately and enthusiastically than ever before. Get ready. If you are in my life, I am going to love you so hard you won’t even remember the President’s name. If you are not in my life, I am going to yank you in and shower you in show-stopping love you’ve only read about in dime-store paperbacks. I am going to hug my mom and call my aunt and play cards with my uncles and listen to my grandma and take that extra trip to visit my sister and give piggyback rides to my nephews and I’m going to write shitty poetry and walk cute dogs and wear bad drag and be better at e-mailing my grandpa and volunteer for kids who really need help and I’m going to be the friend who plans the dinner and I’ll stop saying I’m too busy and I’ll dance like crazy and stay out late laughing and always wear the outfit I like not the one that fits in. I’ll be the most loving goddamn person you’ve ever seen and I’m going to wake up every morning in this mother-fucking country and send so much love out that the clouds will rain faggoty little hearts all over my Manhattan. I’m going to surround my life with a love shield so strong no hate will break through. My Love Shield. Because love lost the election but I am still an American and I’m staying right here and I have a lot of love to give and my only source of optimism is this: we are all still here, and so is all our love. So for today, Love. I can’t do despair. I love you.