I woke up in the middle of the night, checked my phone, and read that Lindsey Graham died. My brain, naturally, read it as Mitch McConnell — because who among us can tell them apart — and from there the whole weekend was just political whiplash.

This one is a tour of the chaos of this timeline. A senator had been missing for almost a month. They said he was "working remotely," and I said, yeah, me too, the only difference is I'm just dead inside. His wife left the country. Contractors were redoing his floors. And I had a lot of questions that nobody was interested in answering, so I did what I do: I made it funny.

Somewhere in there I decided "The Dead Senators" would make an excellent throwback band name (the genre, obviously, is French Regency punk with banjos — a punk rock minuet), I invited everyone to come fight me in our Quirky community, where the Daily Fights have already established that the only acceptable pen is a Pilot V10 in purple and the jury is still out on whether a hot dog is a taco.

And then the part that matters most. A Small Talk from Kristen in North Carolina: "I'm a 38-year-old woman with ADHD, and I look fine. From the inside, I'm running 40 browser tabs, three of which are on fire, and I haven't replied to a text from my sister in 11 days. I want someone to say out loud that looking fine and being fine are not the same thing."

So here it is, out loud: they are not the same thing, and you are allowed to be a put-together human on the outside and a hot mess on the inside. Nobody has it together. Nobody knows what they're doing. We are all raw-dogging life with no guidebook — least of all a guidebook for this exact timeline — and the sooner we stop pretending otherwise, the better.

🎧 Different, Not Broken — honest, funny conversations about neurodivergence, mental health, burnout, and being human.

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Contains strong language and political commentary.

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So we had a senator who was MIA for almost a month.

he was the majority leader in the Senate, which is like a really powerful position.

He's not anymore because he's 84 fucking years old.

we know he was taken to the hospital That was a month ago almost.

We had no signs of life from him whatsoever.

No contact, and the video that we were able, that, that has surfaced of

somebody being taken out of his house

shows a person on a stretcher with no life-saving measures being taken

after the 911 call specifically said that there was an elderly person in

cardiac arrest Like bro had to be dead.

There's just no way that he wasn't dead.

So they took him to the hospital and they said he was getting quote

unquote, excellent care Okay.

first off, they said that he was working remotely.

And I was like, "Yeah, me too. The only difference is I'm only dead

inside." but then they said that, he was not running for re-election.

Is it because dead people can't run for re-election?

I have questions.

They're not getting answered.

and then they said that he was recovering well, but still no signs of life,

and that he was still hospitalized.

And I was like, "Does hospitalized include in a refrigerated drawer with a toe tag?"

Because none of this sounds correct.

so everybody was talking about Mitch McConnell because

Mitch McConnell was missing.

Nobody had seen Mitch McConnell alive.

people were saying they were talking to Mitch McConnell, but nobody had any proof

that they'd talked to Mitch McConnell.

Oh, and Mitch McConnell's wife, three days after he was hospitalized for a

supposed heart attack, left the country and went to China Not sketchy at all.

Oh, and then they spotted, flooring people at his house remodeling the floors.

We also remodeled the floors in my dad's house after he literally died on them.

So I'm just saying.

Anyway, all very suspicious.

All extra suspicious.

So Saturday, this weekend was like Mitch McConnell jokes galore.

there's so much stupid, crazy political shit all happening at the same time.

They're trying to desensitize us to it.

Instead, I feel like they have just made us sensitive to fucking everything.

we're sensitive all the time.

Like always, everything is constant sensitivity.

I feel like everything is whack-a-mole all the time, and my

brain is constantly being whacked.

Anyway, so Saturday I went to bed, I think I went to bed at a normal

time, though I don't actually recall.

Woke up in the middle of the night, checked my phone, and saw somebody I

know posted that Lindsey Graham died.

And I was like, "Oh, did they finally announce that Mitch McConnell died?" For

the uninitiated, lots of people confuse Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell.

I looked at the post and saw Lindsey Graham, but read Mitch McConnell,

and then looked at it again and I was like, "Oh, this guy I know said Lindsey

Graham when he means Mitch McConnell.

That's weird." And then I saw another post that said Lindsey Graham, and then

another post that said Lindsey Graham.

So of course, I turn on the television to the news box.

Lindsey Graham died.

We have confirmation that Lindsey Graham, who was on television healthy

the day before, died, was supposed to be on Meet the Press the next day.

He died.

No confirmation of whether Mitch McConnell is still alive.

I would like somebody to go into Mitch McConnell's basement and see

if he has like a creepy portrait of himself that seems to be getting

older, because that is the only way I can explain what has just happened.

Lindsey Graham, 13 years younger than Mitch McConnell, still 71

by the way, and like a hard 71.

Bro has lived a life.

but Lindsey Graham is dead, not Mitch McConnell.

Nobody has confirmed that Mitch McConnell is dead.

And then the next day, they send out a picture of Mitch McConnell sitting

next to his wife that was either fully fake or his medical emergency was a

facelift there's no middle ground.

None it was the craziest weekend, the whole weekend.

the thing about Lindsey Graham, and I actually didn't realize this.

I knew that there was a longstanding rumor that he was gay.

I knew it.

I'd heard it, obviously many times.

But I did not realize that he was a confirmed bachelor.

I thought that he had like a beard, basically.

I thought he had gotten married and had a beard.

No.

Single his whole life, never been married, no children.

Now, stories, lots of stories.

Did you know that NDAs expire when you die?

They do.

Every escort in DC has stories about… And I should be

clear, every male escort in DC.

I said that Lindsey Graham was survived by a bunch of apps on his phone that

we're not supposed to know about, because, whew, there are stories.

I posted on the internet a statement from Lindsey Graham's housekeeper that

just said, "I do not wear shoes because they make me fall down." and the people

who got it are my favorite people in the world, and the people who are confused

cannot be my friend anymore Because that's like baseline, like good culture.

Like you should know what that means or what that's from.

but it also led to me watching "The Birdcage" on Sunday, which I

very much needed in my soul, and I forgot how much I needed in my soul.

So that was what this weekend was like, was just nonstop whiplash political news.

like what kind of bitch move is it to preempt your best friend in death?

And the thing is like he got, he was in Ukraine the day before,

so it's like, has anybody waved a Geiger counter over that guy?

Are you ready?

No So yeah, it was just a wild weekend.

I'm very tired and my brain is like I had a hangover.

I did not do anything fun aside from post silly things about Lindsey Graham, and

I fell back asleep after like two hours.

Also woke my husband up in the middle of the night and said, "Lindsey Graham died."

And he said, "No, that's Mitch McConnell." And I said, "No." I

was like, "I'm-- I understand.

I understand where you're coming from, but that is not what happened.

I need you to listen to me." but yeah.

There's also a question about, like, how does somebody call 911 when

you live by yourself in a townhouse in DC and there's nobody there?

And they're saying that he called one of his staffers and said that he was

having chest pain, and they called 911.

Anyway, that's my weekend

Now I wanna watch Birdcage again

This was a rumor, I don't know if it's true.

Yesterday people were saying Trump scheduled an address to the nation.

Somebody reported, I don't know if this is true, but somebody reported

that he's doing a press conference to announce that the two senators who were

elected in Georgia, who were elected in 2020, were fraudulently elected

and that their, elections were a scam.

and there was rampant voter fraud in Georgia when they were

elected Just what I just, what?

the Republicans are down two senators, so let's just oust two Democrats.

We'll fix the problem that way.

So every time I'm like, "I'm not gonna post any more politics on the

internet," this guy does something and I'm like, "This motherfucker."

It's like I could not hate this man more if I tried, I'm gonna try anyway

It's my obligation.

but I will say The Dead Senators would make a really good throwback band name

So what kind of music would the Dead Senators play?

That's a really good question.

I don't know.

I was thinking like French Regency punk

A mix of banjo music And also like gay club music

And maybe together

But with banjos

obviously on the banjos, obviously it's like a punk rock minuet.

That's what it is.

that's what I hear at least.

I don't know what that would sound like, but that's what I hear in my head.

I'm inviting you to come fight with me.

Seriously, come fight me.

Okay, not exactly.

so we have a new thing that we're doing in Quirky, our private community, it's

Quirky community for the antisocial.

and we have, this new thing called Daily Fights that we do during the week,

and we post, like a question about,

It just, could be anything that people in general disagree upon.

we started this very early on with, what the best pen is, it got heated.

It got heated.

it's a Pilot V10, by the way.

There's no other answer.

It's a Pilot V10.

You can take your G2 and shove it somewhere, but it is a Pilot V10.

don't bring me a V7.

those are insufficient.

It's a Pilot V10, specifically in purple, though we will take

it in any color we can get it.

Anyway, this is what we fight about fairly regularly.

and so we have fights every day about, whether a hot dog

is a taco and similar things.

Come hang out with us.

It's free.

It's silly.

It's a bunch of weirdos who, want community but don't wanna ever talk to

people, and that's kind of how we do.

So come hang out with us and come fight me you can find us at alwaysquirky.com

We have a small talk from Kristen in North Carolina.

" Hi, Lauren.

I'm a 38-year-old woman with ADHD, and I look fine.

I have a job and an apartment, and I remember to water my

plants most of the time.

From the outside, I am completely indistinguishable from a

person who has it together.

From the inside, I am running 40 browser tabs, three of which are

on fire, and I haven't replied to a text from my sister in 11 days.

I guess I'm writing because I want someone to say out loud that looking fine

and being fine are not the same thing.

Are they allowed to be different?"

Not only are they allowed to be different, the reality is that they are

different, what does it mean to look fine?

What does it mean to look normal?

What is normal?

nobody has it together.

Nobody Listen, I work with doctors all day and I love working with doctors.

They're some of the smartest people on earth, and also they do some of

the stupidest shit I have ever seen.

I had a doctor once who I worked with text me because he could

not get into his bank account.

And I was like, What am I supposed to help you with?

And he goes, I just changed my password and now it's not working.

And I was like, you changed your password for your bank account?

No, I changed my password for the EHR.

That's a electronic health record.

And I was like, how does that affect your bank account?

And he was like, doesn't that change all my passwords?

No.

Why would you think that?

No.

Why no.

You take scalpels and you cut people, and I justify it by saying

they have so much science in their brains that they don't have room

for other stuff, and that's fine.

We need them to have the science brains and they need people like me who do the

other stuff because they're so science smart that they're everything else stupid.

I get that.

But I'm just saying he's a doctor.

That person is a doctor.

He went to school for like 20 something years to get letters

behind his name that are supposed to mean that he is good at things.

it is a very limited number of things that doctors are actually good at.

And I say that as a person who fervently loves doctors, who loves working with

them, and who will do it for the rest of her career because it's my thing.

Nobody has it together.

You might have it together in one area and not at all in

another area, and that is normal.

Not only that, nobody knows what they're doing.

We're all just making shit up as we go.

There's no manual, there's no guidebook, there's no finish line, nothing.

just throw you out into this world of raw dog life as if

there's any way to do it right.

And then they make you feel like shit all the time.

If you're not perfect and you don't have a million dollars in your bank account

from selling crypto, that's not realistic.

That's not real life.

So yes, you are allowed to be an outside presenting, an externally presenting.

put together individual and a hot mess on the inside.

Not only are you allowed, it is encouraged 'cause it is reality.

I actually have enough tabs open on my actual computer right now that

even I was like, whew, this is a lot.

This is too many.

I need to close some of these tabs.

It would not be unheard of for me to have a hundred tabs open.

That's not an exaggeration.

And even I was like, we should probably tamp down this number of tabs.

That's the chaos of this timeline.

do.

You don't feel bad about any of it unless you're an actual asshole

to somebody, then you should feel bad and you should apologize.

We are all just doing the best we can without a guidebook and certainly without

a guidebook for like this exact timeline.

nobody was like, Hey, you have to wake up every morning with the crushing

reality of fascism pushing down on you.

When we thought we eradicated that oh, 70 years ago.

Smile, there's no rules.

There's no rules.

It's fun.

that's gonna be on my fucking tombstone.

victim of her own success.

the other day, my kid asked if she could listen to something, and I said,

"Okay, open iTunes and just type it in." And she looks at me and goes, "iTunes?

Do you mean Apple Music?"

And I was like, "Do you mean get out of my house, you little goblin?" Like, what?

I felt like I was like, "Hold on. please let me go sit in the corner where

I'm going to disintegrate because my bones are chalk." God, I felt so old.