Here I pondered what to do with myself after giving up on the American experiment.  Some updates:

• My garage is much cleaner, thanks for asking.  Although not exactly, you know, clean.
• I haven’t read A Theory of Justice.  But it’s on my Amazon wish list (hint hint)!  Also, it was mentioned in a good book I read about philosophers of the Enlightenment called The Dream of Enlightenment.
• Following my brother’s suggestion, I have listened to Schoenberg’s orchestration of the Brahms piano quartet.  It was great.  Thanks, Stan!  Thanks, Amazon Prime!  Thanks, Brahms and Schoenberg!
• I’ve speeded up my fiction writing.  I’m up to about 40,000 words of my first draft.  Theoretically, that should be about halfway through.  Unfortunately, I seem to have about a dozen point of view characters, and things keep getting more complicated.  Occupational hazard.
• I haven’t read more Shakespeare.  On the other hand, I have listened to Ian McEwan’s Nutshell.  I’m generally conflicted about McEwan, but boy is this novel great.  It’s a modern retelling of the Hamlet story; in this case, Hamlet is the narrator, and he happens a fetus overhearing a plot between his mother (Trudy) and uncle (Claude) to murder his father.  It’s ridiculously well written, even if McEwan’s characterization of a third-trimester fetus isn’t always, um, plausible.

Is my mood any better?  Actually, no, despite the state of my garage.  Here is Charles Blow in the Times, summing things up pretty well:

We are not in an ordinary postelection period of national unity and rapprochement. We are facing the potential abrogation of fundamental American ideals. We stand at the precipice, staring into an abyss that grows darker by the day.