Ellen's '96 'Taste This' album is the only thing that can make me laugh in Trump's America

None of what the experts call self-care ever makes me feel better: not the gym, not leafy greens, not long naps.

Who came up with these options, and why are they are all so boring? As an unlicensed self-care professional, I'll tell you what's helping me survive in Trump's America: buckets of fettuccine Alfredo, viral video clips of Maxine Waters, Pinterest boards full of plants, and this nun's Twitter account. Nothing, however, warms the heart and romances the ear quite as much as Ellen's 1996 Taste This comedy album.

If it makes you feel better, you can even listen to it while on the dumb treadmill at the gym.

Taste This was produced during the Clinton era, an otherwise perfectly average time in American history. That's not to say things were good, of course — this was the beginning of mass incarceration, the end of welfare as we knew it, and the middle of the gay rights movement. But at least the world existed within a normal moral framework.

Ellen's brand of comedy was built for a timeline like that one. She's always pulled her punches softly but with great accuracy, and nowhere does it show more than on Taste This. Her targets are familiar: bad airplane food, people who get anxious waiting for elevators, cats who menstruate. She doesn't punch high (at people or power), nor does she ever look down. But the album transcends mediocrity because her observations are so specific and strange, they still feel fresh 22 years later.

Do you feel like you're too broken for Ellen? Think again. Have you heard her take on walking into a plate glass window?

What about people who write "over" in greeting cards? She's got five minutes dedicated to this singular phenomenon.

That bit made me spit up my Taco Bell in 1997, and cough up my collard green wrap in 2018.

Taste This is emotional comfort food that has just enough spice to make it feel novel. It's like coming home to a baked potato with Kraft shredded cheese — topped with some zesty kale aioli.

Give your brain a break. Our bodies aren't made to consume this much trauma. There's only so much you can give and so much you can organize and so much you can read before your body fully breaks down and your mom stops taking your calls.

Let Ellen, the poet of a happier, funnier, blander, America, give you 90 minutes of peace.

Taste This is available for streaming and downloads on Apple Music, Spotify, and Amazon.