10 Things I Still Like About America

It’s not over.

I sometimes try to explain to the kids what it was like living through Peak America while you were in your Peak Youth. Imagine experiencing exuberantly triumphant America when this place enjoyed total worldwide dominance, while you personally were feeling no pain as a teenager, drunk on optimism and your certain immortality. If you had told me then that America would be over within in my lifetime it would have been like telling me I’d get old and die one day—inconceivable!

We never felt guilt or shame about being Number One. Our obvious superiority was uncontested and noncontroversial. The idea of feeling bad about being awesome was utterly unknown. We were The Best and we were having the Best Time.

When Donald Trump says he wants to make America great again, that was the country he’s talking about.

Every time we dropped another blockbuster movie or summer rock anthem or swept the medals at the Olympics, we cheered like we’d just given those Euro nerds another swirlie in those disgusting pit latrines they euphemistically called “la toilette” in their backwards native countries.

We never dreamed it was temporary, that our vitality and youthful exuberance was a mirage—or just our teenage hormones talking.

Now we are fish swimming through the ruins.

Cleopatra’s submerged palace off the coast of Alexandria.

We grimly embark on another long holiday weekend poisoned by bad news or high prices or the haunting fear of what will become of our kids. Sometimes I squint at the sun going down on the beach where I grew up boogie boarding and I get so verklempt I could die.

Took this yesterday.

Or maybe that’s just the microplastics talking. The plastics are in our brains now, the experts say. It’s over, right?

Only it’s not—not yet!

One day it may be, but not this day!

Red, Blue, and White Pills

What is there to feel good about at the end of America—or at least, the America I thought I’d get to live in forever? A lot sucks, but today I wanted to think about the things I’m grateful for.

Here are 10 of them:

1. Our language: American English is rad. It’s based. It’s so full of dangerous words and phrases that an army of language minders and moderators is forced to police our language at all times. There is no language that works so well for my purposes and is so easy to use for writing screeds, memes, jokes, puns, and what-have-yous. It’s one of the few cultural behemoths that’s still dominant. I get to watch my favorite movies without subtitles.

   

2. Zoomers: Maybe it’s a teenage wasteland from where you’re sitting, but I am pleasantly pleased with the yoots I’ve met. At least the ones I’m the mother of, and the twentysomethings who follow me on Twitter. Xenoestrogen and seed oil awareness is strong in them. Boomers may be fading but at least some of their grandkids are all right.

3. Land: We still have a ton of room to move around and most of it is awesome looking. A couple hours from my suite at the Wynn and you’re cruising through alien rock formation and orange desert vistas. Cruise down the 101 from Marin County to L.A. and behold the golden hills of Steinbeck country dotted with those glossy obsidian black cows. Why are they all black? One of California’s great mysteries.

4. Surgery: If you need a complicated medical procedure, you’re not going anywhere. I wouldn’t get my teeth cleaned in a different country. Women keep coming back from their Happy Hour Special plastic surgery in Mexico with hideous infections. Just say no to your 10 peso Brazilian Butt Lift or you’ll need an airlift to the Mayo Clinic.

5. Hawaii: The best thing we ever acquired. It’s nice to have our own personal set of tropical islands and you don’t have to bring a set of electric plug adaptors to charge a cell phone or schlep through customs or end up in a dodgy foreign resort where you die in your sleep of carbon monoxide poisoning, or get raped and robbed by the local gentry. Okay, maybe it’s not as exotic as the beaches of Thailand or the Maldives, but I’ll take it.

   

6. Freedom of speech: We still mostly have it. In the UK, they send you to jail for posting “there are two genders” on Facebook.

7. Terrorism: 10% of France is new arrivals who seem hellbent on jihading it into ruin. I’ll take our nonbinary Antifa commies over the machete-wielding mobs that are converting Europe to a Caliphate. At least here if Antifa wins we won’t have to worry about mass rape, since they’re mostly castrated gender fluid furries.

8. 2A: We’re armed to the teeth. You can’t own a gun in most European countries. We’re only like 4.5% of the world but we own about half of all the guns owned by civilians worldwide.

   

   This, as we know, is the only reason things are still relatively free. Cling bitterly to your muskets!

9. Road trips: You can still take one, anytime, and avoid the airports. I don’t love long car rides but at least here you’re in a car large enough to give you a fighting chance on the roads.

10. Dreams: Your biggest dreams can only come true here. You may not ever get there, but you might just get a shot. Despite all the bullshit, all the forces of Mordor arrayed against you, you can sometimes go out and achieve anyway.

    

    I have this poster in bus-bench size framed at my house.

    You can go big here in a way you can’t anywhere else. Even if a Chinaman took your legs in Korea.

We can’t go back. We can’t retvrn.

And we can’t leave. Not yet, anyway. Where am I gonna go? France? If I go anywhere far it’ll be Hawaii anyway.

I’m not leaving and neither are you.

And that’s okay. We have each other to hang onto on the way down.

Thanks for reading!

—Peachy