The election is over. And it’s good news if you’re a straight white man from the 1950s who was cryogenically frozen and woke up in America on November 9^th. “What? A WOMAN almost became president? Whew. Dodged a bullet there. . .”

Those of us who aren’t happy right now could try to view the election result as an opportunity to teach our kids important life lessons, like: sometimes you lose no matter how hard you try, bullies don’t win, name-calling is wrong, lying doesn’t make something true. . .wait. Never mind.

How about we try to examine what we’ve learned? After all, an election can really help us to understand who we are. Okay, so here’s what we’ve learned from this election:

We learned that penis size DOES matter. . .in a president.

We learned that Saturday Night Live can’t help us elect a president.

We learned that a female candidate must be completely transparent, while a male candidate doesn’t need to show tax returns or reveal conflicts of interest from business deals, etc. Not so important.

We learned that the word “bigly” is a word even though it sounds really stupid.

We learned that anyone can be president. No, I mean it. Anyone. You don’t even have to know much about foreign policy or history or what the branches of government do or. . .really, anyone.

We learned that keeping certain newspapers out of your campaign events, even if it violates the First Amendment, is a thing you can actually do.

We learned that a man who proudly boasts about sexually predatory behavior is not as unnerving to Americans as an over prepared woman; that taking people’s money with a phony university, or not paying your workers, or a reactionary personality that makes you fly off the handle at the slightest provocation aren’t nearly as concerning as careless email handling.

We learned that threatening to deport millions of one group of people is not as upsetting to Americans as careless email handling.

We learned that a man who calls his daughter “a piece of ass” isn’t. . .again, proper email handling, people!

We learned that sometimes the need for something different outweighs the need for something sane. Okay, see how I sneaked that in there? But really, when was the last time we overlooked a candidate who was super cozy with a Russian dictator? Or who talked about grabbing pussies?

We learned that more Americans are invested in The Real Housewives of L.A. than getting off their butts to go to the voting booth.

We learned that more voters were concerned about who gets to smoke marijuana than who controls the nuclear codes.

We learned that if we no longer churn our own butter or use muskets in wars, we should no longer use the Electoral College. It’s outdated. It was set up for circumstances that no longer exist today, and it should be abolished.

Of course, like everyone else, this election affected me personally. I learned that I’m an “elitist” if I vote as a liberal. In fact, I learned that more than half of us are too elitist to understand how the average American feels. I wonder, does shopping at Wal-Mart because their chicken wings are cheaper qualify me as elitist? Yes, I have a college degree. I also have a 12-year-old car with a broken radio. Does that make me elitist? When I hear that word, I think of people smoking pipes and sipping sherry in a library filled with classics. I hate pipe smoke, I’m allergic to sherry, but oops. . .I do have a few books on the bookshelves. Uh oh. Maybe I am an effing elitist snob after all.

My biggest concern after this election result is the way so many white women voted against their own interests: equal pay, reproductive freedom, not having an admitted sexual predator in the White House. . .If you’re a woman, this guy said he’d “punish” you if you get an abortion, no matter what the reason. Punish. That word. He really said it. And yet you VOTED for him? You voted away your own power. The only explanation I can think of for this is that a majority of white women overlooked these things in favor of what they felt was more (cough) important. And okay, I sort of get it. After all, women are used to overlooking comments. We’ve had to do it our whole lives. We overlook the comments from our creepy uncle at Thanksgiving, the inappropriate comments from our boss when we really need to keep the job, sexist comments from guys on the street. We overlook comments. So I suppose, unless Trump was on video actually committing rape, his comments weren’t going to sway enough women. Heck, maybe even his actions wouldn’t. I mean, women have had to overlook inappropriate actions sometimes, too, right? Even as I write this, it all seems truly absurd. But my brain has been in a pretzel trying to figure out this election ever since last Tuesday.

As more time passes, I’m feeling a little better about a Trump presidency—now that I’ve restocked the bomb shelter and gotten my passport ready. As an LGBT American, I don’t feel as comfortable as I did before November 8^th. Already I miss the good ‘ole days of being hated only for driving too slowly or for wearing a Red Sox shirt in New York City. I can handle being hated for silly things, but for who I am. . .oh, crap. . .are we really back to that again? Now we have to fight harder AGAIN? I’m sure that gay-friendly straight America is going to be sick of round-the-clock pride parades and the plethora of rainbow flags we’ll have to hang everywhere.

So what happens now? It seems we’re holding our breath, hoping the same guy who sent nasty tweets with pictures of his wife versus the wife of his opponent (Ted Cruz) will not be the same guy when he steps inside the White House. It’s as if we’re hoping for a secret “transitioning” department that performs lobotomies on candidates. . .ha. . .ha. . .wait, is there one?

I’ll admit I’ve been in mourning ever since Tuesday. I’ve gone through several stages of the grieving process—denial, tears, anger, binge-watching Netflix shows I’ve already watched. Twice. What doesn’t do any good are regrets—thoughts about what should have or could have been done to prevent this outcome.  Maybe there were things at play we’ll never know about, like voters who needed stronger eyeglasses to read the ballot better. Or Russian tampering. Things like that.

As Clinton said, this is going to hurt for a long time. That’s why I need to laugh as much and as often as I can. For me, humor is therapeutic. And since all I have are words, this is my way of making sense out of something that simply does not make sense.

I hope all of us will be able to laugh again someday—you know, like when there are no more roads because cars fly around and we’ve settled other planets. Seriously, humor is healing. It reminds us what makes us more alike than different. It’s a place to start.