Things that have happened since I last posted

It turns out grad school is hard, and teaching takes a lot of time, so I haven’t posted since before 2016 went from unfortunate to seemingly run by a team of supervillains. To celebrate my triumphant–and probably brief–return to the internet, here are all the things that have happened while I was away.

Halloween!
Some kind of pagan sugar worship festival in which parents wrap their children in strange vestments and offer them up to their neighbors. The neighbor expresses their approval of the child-sacrifice through an exchange of corn syrup confections or, if the neighbor is a confirmed grump, through an offering of apples or other fruit products. Pumpkins are carved in the likeness of fearful apparitions to remind everyone of the inevitability of death.

Americans wanted to keep the Halloween party going so they elected an actual Jack-O-Lantern President

Nostalgic for the comfort of orange skin and a carved-on smile, the American people chose for Commander in Chief the closest thing they could get to an anthropomorphic gourd with doll hands. Further ensconcing themselves in innocent fear of the past holiday, Americans–but not actually the majority of them–picked a candidate with the 5 year plan of Darth Vader and the charisma of Dolores Umbridge.

Canada didn’t do anything stupid

As if to say “Hey, America, I bet I can have a politician who won’t murder everyone with a skin tone darker than band-aids,” Canada continued not electing hyper-racist would-be demagogues. No word on whether Canada will build a wall across the American and Canadian border, but the fact that it is 2016 and there are few roaming packs of barbarians that necessitate protecting the serfdom, it is unlikely the Great White North will barricade themselves in their room.