{"id":119300,"date":"2017-12-25T09:00:31","date_gmt":"2017-12-25T14:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=119300"},"modified":"2017-12-19T11:18:19","modified_gmt":"2017-12-19T16:18:19","slug":"a-number-of-reasons-ive-been-depressed-lately","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/12\/25\/a-number-of-reasons-ive-been-depressed-lately\/","title":{"rendered":"A Number of Reasons I\u2019ve Been Depressed Lately"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><i>We\u2019re away until January 3, but we\u2019re reposting some of our favorite pieces from 2017. Enjoy your holiday!<\/i><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/depressed.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-111390\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/depressed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1000\" height=\"754\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/depressed.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/depressed-300x226.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/depressed-768x579.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>One. It\u2019s early September of 2015 and I\u2019m on the island of Santorini for a literary festival. After the short reading, which takes place outdoors on a patio, the Greek audience asks questions, the first of which is, \u201cWhat do you think of Donald Trump?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Since announcing his candidacy, the reality-show star has been all over the news. Every outrageous thing he says is repeated and analyzed\u2014like he\u2019s a real politician. I answer that I first became aware of Donald Trump in the late 1980s. That was when Alma, a Lithuanian woman I was working for, bought his book\u00a0<em>The Art of the Deal<\/em>\u00a0and decided he was wonderful. Shortly afterward, I saw him on <em>Oprah<\/em>, and ever since then he\u2019s always been in the background, this ridiculous blowhard, part showman and part cartoon character. I see his presidential bid as just another commercial for himself. It wouldn\u2019t surprise me if he were to name the Hamburglar as his running mate. So I say that on stage and then have to explain who the Hamburglar is.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/06\/05\/number-reasons-ive-depressed-lately\/\">Read More &gt;&gt;<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After the short reading, which takes place outdoors on a patio, the Greek audience asks questions, the first of which is, \u201cWhat do you think of Donald Trump?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1174,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32152],"tags":[5654,29014,513,19381,8919,8226,29016,4912,29015,411,21529,4094,29013,2426,2708,1329,7681,22971,1428,26405,9123],"class_list":["post-119300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-best-of-2017","tag-bill-clinton","tag-cher","tag-depression","tag-donald-trump","tag-election","tag-family","tag-hamburgler","tag-hillary-clinton","tag-hopelessness","tag-humor","tag-injury","tag-jay-z","tag-national-health-service","tag-politics","tag-president","tag-prince","tag-queen-elizabeth","tag-republicans","tag-thanksgiving","tag-the-illuminati","tag-voting"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>A 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