Unicorns

I came across this nonchalant-looking unicorn in Soho over the weekend. It's called "Uninhibited," by the artists DollyOlli. They have a lot of playful sculptures and sculptural furniture on their web site, including a sofa that looks like a giant derrière (dubbed the "Ass Sofa").

You got to laugh to keep from cryin', right? That's how I feel this morning looking at the election results so far. While most of the big swing states are still in play, it's not looking good for Harris and The New York Times sets Trump's likelihood of winning at 93 percent. When Dave and I went to the pub on Saturday, we were talking with the waitress about the election, and I told her to watch Pennsylvania -- whichever way it swings, so will swing the election. I still think that's true, even if it's not exactly ground-breaking insight on my part.

There's nothing like an election to make me realize that the things I hold dear -- my morals and values, my ideas of right and wrong, my sense of the balance between social responsibility and personal freedom -- are not necessarily the same for a vast swath of my fellow Americans. And every time, every time, that kind of surprises me. I don't know why. I guess I feel like my perspectives are not all that unusual, despite being a childless urban gay man living overseas, which I certainly realize is not the standard American demographic. Of course there are plenty of people who do share my perspectives, so there's that -- but it seems they are often not enough to win an election.

So, yeah, at this early hour when the race hasn't yet been called, I am feeling once again like an outsider.

I do think we Democrats have a long-standing and persistent problem in selling ourselves. For decades we have allowed the right to define us, whether that means Newt Gingrich sneering about "liberals" or Donald Trump talking about "Democrat hellholes." We've never been good at getting in front of our message and our goals, at making people see what we stand for and how we intend to help them. Not since FDR, anyway. Maybe Obama, though the Affordable Care Act is hanging by a thread.

And government often does shoot itself in the foot. Did you all see the sad story of P'Nut the squirrel? The Republicans have touted it as an example of government overreach in a Democratic state, and I gotta say, they are right. This poor guy raised an orphaned squirrel for seven years, and then a bunch of jackboots take it away and kill it?! Come on, now. Be sensible and have a heart. Sheesh.

Anyway, back to unicorns. Remember the discarded rocking horse/unicorn that I photographed lying in the autumn leaves a couple of weeks ago? Well, it has lain there ever since, next to a trash bin in front of an empty house. Yesterday, walking home, I grabbed it. I know, I know -- I am a 58-year-old childless man with absolutely no use for a rocking horse, but I just couldn't stand to watch it lie there and deteriorate. I'm thinking we'll turn it into a plant stand, maybe?