One Friday night in 2018, I found myself at the center of a small, crowded room, screaming until I went hoarse. It was the week of the Kavanaugh hearings—just a few days after Christine Blasey Ford described being assaulted by a man who would later be appointed to the highest court in the land—and as I stayed glued to the news at work, weeping at Ford’s words and tensing up every time someone raised their voice in my vicinity, I, like many of my friends (especially the women and the survivors of sexual assault), felt like I was slowly unraveling.
I realized I wasn’t alone that awful week when my friend Maya Kosoff, a writer and founder of content agency 18 Olives, organized a group outing to Montero’s, a beloved Brooklyn Heights karaoke bar where a big group of media girlies could all rage to our heart’s content, making our pain communal instead of solitary. It was just one night, and it didn’t structurally change anything, of course, but howling along to Hole gave me something visceral and physical to do with my fury. (Yelling the lyrics, “You should learn when to go, you should learn how to say NO” at the top of your lungs feels really good, I can attest.)
“I think karaoke can be cathartic and a good emotional release regardless of the circumstances—have you ever seen a recently heartbroken woman sing “You Oughta Know” at Sing Sing?—but doing it after the hearings felt even bigger, almost akin to a primal scream,” Kosoff told me recently.
Before this Election Day, I told myself I’d keep it together no matter what happened, promising that I wouldn’t be caught off guard and constantly on the verge of tears like I was when Donald Trump first won the presidency in 2016. I was eight years older and wiser now, I reasoned, with plenty of mutual-aid contacts and volunteer opportunities at the ready to help my communities in the event that we were disappointed again.
After Tuesday’s result, I’m still debilitatingly angry and sad—in some ways, even more than I thought I’d be. But this time around, I know exactly what to do with my emotions. First, I donated to local abortion funds around the country that are seeing their resources dwindle as state abortion bans threaten their ability to operate; next, I signed up to volunteer with a local organization helping trans people officially change their legal names and gender markers; and finally, I’m planning another session of what I’m calling Katharsis Karaoke (better name pending) this weekend for any friends in Los Angeles who feel like they might benefit from drinking heavily, draping their arms around each other, unhinging their jaws, and yelling—song lyrics, ideally, not just a Meryl-Streep–in–Big Little Lies shriek, but honestly, whatever works!
