Mallory's Camera

There is one good thing about this time of year: I sleep more deeply & I dream more vividly. Like last night, I dreamed I had developed a forecasting tool based on Daily Mail headlines. Each day is a number based on a ratio derived from the number of headlines devoted to each topic. A typical ratio might read:

Meghan Markle (5) : Donald Trump (4): Cosmetic Surgery Nightmares (3): Toddlers Dying in Parked Cars (2): Ozempic Horror Stories (11) = Daily index of 0.189.

Which means a pretty good day! Only 11 Gazans will die; Trump will only collapse three times off camera, coming down those passenger airstairs, and the New York Giants will beat the Kansas City Chiefs.

That's a pretty good idea! I thought when I woke up.

###

Other than that, I did very little but Remunerate yesterday.

My mood is still perky from socializing & accomplishing writing goals so I didn't feel particularly oppressed by Remunerating, although naturally I wish it were more like automatic writing, or that a $50,000 bill would waft down from Heaven, or that the MacArthur Foundation folk would stumble across my diary & realize what a great genius I am.

###

Chapter 4 of the Work in Progress begins with a description of how lame the backwater community hospital is dealing with COVID patients. I haven't been an RN since 1992, and I have no idea what a non-lame way of dealing with COVID patients might be. So, I have emails & texts in to all my medical pals:

How many ventilators they would have. Would they have an ECMO machine? Would they have (or need) access to dialysis? They WOULDN'T have a negative pressure room, right? So what might their isolation precautions look like? How might they handle something like the ER waiting room? Would they make people wait outside in their cars & then just call them in one at a time?

I guess they call that research.

Dreamed Jeanna had taken me to visit (ulp!) my father, who was either a real-life magician or playing a magician in a movie—the dream wasn't clear—but anyway, he was sitting on a throne and when he spoke, his eyes kinda flashed these purple & green pinwheel sparks, the corniest fuckin' special effects in the world (thought I, dans rêve).

He lived in a huge stone mansion, high up on a hill. Jeanna was trying to arrange some sort of audience for me. All I could think was, He's got to die soon! Maybe he'll leave me some money! (In non-dream life, he's been dead for quite some time.)

###

Remuneration this past week has been sloggy to the n^th. I didn't want to do it, but, of course, that didn't matter: You do what you gotta do. Cleaning one's house is actually not one of the things you gotta do—as the state of the Patrizia-torium amply demonstrates—but making $$$ to keep the kiskas in toys & their preferred brand of kibble is.

###

It's an Icky week.

Immediately upon arrival, Icky told me Dante is in imminent danger of dropping out of college, which did not come as any big surprise to me: The kid is obviously massively fucked up, a fact both his parents seem in massive denial about "He's partying nonstop, and he's got this weird eating disorder thing—"

"Anorexia?" I asked. Wouldn't have expected that. If anything, Dante was fatter when I saw him over fall break, still very handsome but with the unmistakable beginnings of a double chin, his diet of potato chips, soda, & no physical exercise catching up with his adolescent metabolism.

"No, he thinks his body is ugly because he sees all these influencers with perfect bodies on TikTok," Icky said. "I keep telling him they're all AI-enhanced, and then he tells me, I don't want to talk about it with you; you don't understand. He's doing steroids. And vaping & smoking."

"Tough time to be young," I said. It was all I could think of.

"Good thing I didn't rent out that other bedroom."

"Really?" I asked. "If he drops out, you want him up here?"

"What's wrong with up here?" Icky asked belligerently.

"For a 19-year-old kid? What is there for him to do up here? Get a job at a fast food restaurant? He doesn't seem to have any friends. If he drops out, you should take him to live with you in the City. There's more for him to do there."

"I can't do that," Icky said. "I'm dating."

I stared at him in disbelief.

"I'm looking for a real relationship. Someone I can settle down and grow old with," he explained.

What do you mean "grow old with," Icky? I thought. You're 63! You are old! You're looking for someone who will uncomplainingly change the bedsheets when you start peeing on yourself. Good luck with that.

But I said nothing because, of course, what is there to say? Sure, sell your kid down the river for a relationship that will probably never exist.

"You know, like the old joke!" Icky continued. "What's the difference between true love and herpes?"

"I don't know," I said. "What?"

"Herpes lasts forever."

Dreamed of the Little Store. Rik owned it, and it didn't look like the Little Store, being three connected rooms on the shore of a vast lake, but I absolutely knew it was the Little Store. The big-ticket item was miniatures of people, exquisitely crafted, maybe measuring eight inches tall. And they were selling so fast!

I bought one set. It came in a sandlewood box that when opened all the way turned into a series of miniature rooms.

It made me so happy to see the Little Store! But I was concerned that items were not being restocked quicky enough, and Christmas was fast approaching, obviously the biggest retail opportunity of the year. I said to somebody, Please tell Rik he simply must order new inventory. But I didn't know whether Rik would.

###

Had a mildly productive yesterday. Studied more tax law. Taught myself the calendar function on Squarespace. Reveled in that feeling of being a Real Human Girl that only paying off bills can give you. Tromped! Reread The King Must Die.

The big political story of the day was that apparently, Young Republicans love Hitler, think people from Arkansas are inbred cow fuckers, & would go to the zoo if they wanted to see monkeys playing ball.

Unsurprising.

Trump's basic appeal is white nationalism, and, of course, we are looking at a future where there won't be an ethnic majority, white or otherwise; there will be a bunch of semi-blended minorities. The Trumpers think by coiling, hissing, and shaking their rattles (see link to Politico story above), they can stave this off. Though, of course, they can't.

In a more progressive cultural moment, they wouldn't feel that they could express these thoughts in a semi-public space.

I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing that they can.

It's always best to see your enemies' true faces.

Dreamed I was on an airplane, but instead of the standard safety spiel—Please secure your oxygen mask before assisting others—the attendant advised us on what self-help books we should be reading in flight.

These books are absolutely life-changing, she assured us.

The first was a book called So What? dedicated to the proposition that when someone close to you does something reprehensible, you should just shrug and wash your hands of that person forever. Surgically remove yourself from their life.

The second was a book called Fuck You Forever, which was a list of all the horrible things that had ever happened or were going to happen to anyone who'd ever crossed you in any way. Each copy is personally customized! the flight attendant told us in a cheerful voice.

###

Yesterday, I pored over tax law. It's complicated! And the IRS actually fines tax preparers who let taxpayers use the Head of Household status when they're not eligible.

In the midafternoon, I began organizing stuff for the Big Halloween Fun I will be having when I visit my pal A___ in Deecie that weekend.

A___ invited me back in August. For weeks, Get Amtrak ticket had been at the top of my To Do list, and yet I was seized with a curious lassitude whenever I contemplated actually purchasing one.

Finally, day before yesterday, I got more explicit directions from my hostess: Arrive at such-&-such an hour!

Okay! So, that's why I had been putting buying the ticket off!

So yesterday, I booked the ticket and began searching around for my fabulous skeleton costume:



Alas! it seems to have disappeared in the move.

Which meant I was gonna have to make a trip to Spirit Halloween.



I have always been absolutely fascinated by the business model behind Spirit Halloween. Traditionally, it's been a seasonal popup retailer, opening in August, shuttering promptly on November 2.

In April, they begin booking 1,500 storefronts in distressed malls all across the nation. Malls love 'em—Spirit Halloween pays a 20% to 30% premium to use commercial space in a short-term contract.

In July, they hire 50,000 seasonal retail associates. Their inventory is bulk shit from China that gives the impression of scarcity (if Reddit is to be believed) because instead of passing along unsold merchandise to liquidators, they trash it all, actually breaking animatronics so potential customers can't dumpster dive.

Here's something hilarious: Spirit Halloween runs its own dodgy charity called "Spirit of the Children." Customers become hostages at checkout: Don't you want to contribute to the poor unfortunate children??? They could donate their unsold merchandise to their own charity, right? But they don't. And, of course, the charity is a tax write-off.

This is capitalism at its end-stagiest.

And it's an environmental issue as well because when that plastic unsold merchandise is trashed, it ends up in landfills.



In 2023, Halloween was a $12.2 billion industry. And Spirit Halloween has played a significant role in turning Halloween into a mega-retail event because there is a ripple effect: Even if you don't buy from them, you see those inflatable Frankenstein monsters on your neighbors' lawns, and you start thinking, Well, I gotta buy something...

And it's an industry that's comparatively immune to online competition because you don't know how you want to decorate your lawn until you see the perfect thing, right? You want inspiration, so you've got to look around.

Sales at Spirit Halloween didn't even dip during the COVID pandemic.



One other interesting (to me at least) thing of note:

Bad TV is my comfort food. Not on a television—I don't own one—but on my computer.

In particular, I'm a big, big fan of the various Law & Order franchises.

The new seasons have started!!!

And you know, I have Issues with Law & Order SVU, particularly with Olivia's creepy kid Noah and the way they keep trying to push a starcrossed romance with Stabler (Christopher Meloni was so much more attractive before he started taking steroids when he still had hair.)

But I was very pleased to see that Dick Wolfe made ICE the Big Bad in the opening episode of the new season.

Because this is actually how attitudes change. Not through protests! Not through Facebook posts! Certainly not through letter or telephone campaigns to your useless Congressional representatives.

But when your favorite TV character stares directly into the camera and says, ICE. BAD.

Kudos, Dick Wolfe!