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According to the latest Gallup poll, 61% of “Republicans” are “satisfied” with the direction the U.S. is heading in. Take that, shithole nations!
This more-or-less reinforces my sense that while affluent white people may enjoy playing Ain’t-It-Awful on social media, you’re not gonna see any regime change until the stock market starts to go down and index funds begin to tank. These people are just gonna keep helping MSNBC make more ad revenue.
The economy is very, very strong right now. Blue Churchers like to get into furious arguments about the reasons behind this, but the one thing they’re all very certain about is that it has nothing to do with Trump.
Myself, I’m not as certain. But then, I’m neither Blue Church nor Red Church. (Yes, yes, there are definite platform differences between Blue Church and Red Church, and yes, yes, I have a decided preference for Blue Church platforms. But Blue Church/Red Church process is identical, so it’s difficult for me to see any real difference between the two.)
It’s a kind of a double-edged sword: I mean, do you really want the economy to bottom out just so the forces of social justice can prevail? That may mean you’re gonna have to switch to coffee that comes in a can and take fewer vacations!
###
I’ve been a bit blue for no reasons I can clearly articulate. Or even understand.
BB came over to this side of the river yesterday, and we spent a pleasant afternoon tromping around the Vanderbilt estate and peering at the graveyard where Malika’s Stoutenburgh ancestors are buried before toddling off to Rhinebeck for early supper at Terrapin. (Terrapin is a restaurant that gets written up a lot, but I’m not sure what the fuss is about: The food was satisfactory but not great.)
BB has a very active social schedule. I thought to myself – a bit plaintively – Well, you could have an active social schedule too-oo-oo. If you wanted.
Which is actually true.
So why don’t I want?
###
I think it was William James who observed that most memories are really the memory of remembering. Polished stones, in other words. Conjured in words; bereft of sensory imagery. Set pieces your mind reenacts for you at predictable intervals.
In contrast, there are those sudden floods of memory that are unleashed from the limbic system by scents or musical passages. The equivalent of psychic rainstorms in a way because often, when you find yourself gripped by one of these memories, it comes without markers or antecedents. You really can’t summon how you happened to be standing in a summer rainstorm on that one particular day long ago. But the vividness of the imagery – the sun slanting through the clouds, the smell of the saturated earth, the warm raindrops upon your skin – transports you far beyond your here and now.
Insofar as the universe has an underlying meaning, I suspect that meaning has something to do with these mnemosynatic flashes; and I suppose the deal is that I’d really rather wonder about that than find people who will pat me on the head and tell me, You really are the most fabulously dynamic, unique, interesting, and kind human being, Patrizia!
Since these are concepts I can barely articulate let alone communicate, they’re not things I can easily share in conversation.
Plus I have to think that practically nobody else on the planet is particularly interested in this kind of stuff.
I write about these things better than I talk about them. I suppose that’s one reason why I feel such a strong urge to write. They are... important...
Not me, but the wind that blows through me…
###
I do know my life will be infinitely better if I buy this and this.
So, that's what I'm gonna do.
This more-or-less reinforces my sense that while affluent white people may enjoy playing Ain’t-It-Awful on social media, you’re not gonna see any regime change until the stock market starts to go down and index funds begin to tank. These people are just gonna keep helping MSNBC make more ad revenue.
The economy is very, very strong right now. Blue Churchers like to get into furious arguments about the reasons behind this, but the one thing they’re all very certain about is that it has nothing to do with Trump.
Myself, I’m not as certain. But then, I’m neither Blue Church nor Red Church. (Yes, yes, there are definite platform differences between Blue Church and Red Church, and yes, yes, I have a decided preference for Blue Church platforms. But Blue Church/Red Church process is identical, so it’s difficult for me to see any real difference between the two.)
It’s a kind of a double-edged sword: I mean, do you really want the economy to bottom out just so the forces of social justice can prevail? That may mean you’re gonna have to switch to coffee that comes in a can and take fewer vacations!
###
I’ve been a bit blue for no reasons I can clearly articulate. Or even understand.
BB came over to this side of the river yesterday, and we spent a pleasant afternoon tromping around the Vanderbilt estate and peering at the graveyard where Malika’s Stoutenburgh ancestors are buried before toddling off to Rhinebeck for early supper at Terrapin. (Terrapin is a restaurant that gets written up a lot, but I’m not sure what the fuss is about: The food was satisfactory but not great.)
BB has a very active social schedule. I thought to myself – a bit plaintively – Well, you could have an active social schedule too-oo-oo. If you wanted.
Which is actually true.
So why don’t I want?
###
I think it was William James who observed that most memories are really the memory of remembering. Polished stones, in other words. Conjured in words; bereft of sensory imagery. Set pieces your mind reenacts for you at predictable intervals.
In contrast, there are those sudden floods of memory that are unleashed from the limbic system by scents or musical passages. The equivalent of psychic rainstorms in a way because often, when you find yourself gripped by one of these memories, it comes without markers or antecedents. You really can’t summon how you happened to be standing in a summer rainstorm on that one particular day long ago. But the vividness of the imagery – the sun slanting through the clouds, the smell of the saturated earth, the warm raindrops upon your skin – transports you far beyond your here and now.
Insofar as the universe has an underlying meaning, I suspect that meaning has something to do with these mnemosynatic flashes; and I suppose the deal is that I’d really rather wonder about that than find people who will pat me on the head and tell me, You really are the most fabulously dynamic, unique, interesting, and kind human being, Patrizia!
Since these are concepts I can barely articulate let alone communicate, they’re not things I can easily share in conversation.
Plus I have to think that practically nobody else on the planet is particularly interested in this kind of stuff.
I write about these things better than I talk about them. I suppose that’s one reason why I feel such a strong urge to write. They are... important...
Not me, but the wind that blows through me…
###
I do know my life will be infinitely better if I buy this and this.
So, that's what I'm gonna do.
