Good morning. Hello. How are you?
A bunch of bad shit happened and I’ve been stuck in a car for an hour and a half with a kid with phenomenal willpower.
Good morning. Greetings from the parking lot of Jane’s school. Jane and I have been sitting in the car for about an hour now. She refuses to go in. Has no good reason. I explained to her we are now in a battle of wills, and I deeply admire her willpower, but that the thing is, I can’t give up because of the law and mommy and perverse rewards. So we are going to be stuck here all day I think.
At least until 2:15 when I gotta go to the movie theater and see Dune 2. Because I took half the day off. Because boy do I fuckin need it.
Fucking Supreme Court. Jesus H. Absolutely ridiculous. One more degree in this frog boil pot. This is fine everything is fine. Made me physically nauseous learning of their decision to take the Trump immunity case. Even as I wasn’t surprised. Even as I smugly laughed at every pundit who said the decision was air tight and there was no angle for the court to take it. I knew they would. This advance knowledge does make me feel any better today.
Jane is behind me running a small toy doll through my hair. She is extraordinarily committed to not going to school.
Anyway, last night as I was watching a (really very good) Jane at bedtime, just a wave of shit hit me on my phone. So much shit. Everyone needs to get off their phone at night so I can enjoy my evening without the world going to shit. Supreme Court shit. Stupid neighbor shit. Oh and the school emailed to say there will be another lockdown drill.
Took a very stiff gin and tonic to calm down.
Now I just feel sick to my stomach sitting here in this car, listening to “Rhinestone Cowboy.”
I did have a long list of topics for today. But I don’t know if I can do it sitting here.
Now Jane is performatively putting her seatbelt on as if that is going to make me decide to drive away.
I actually have no idea what to do here. I don’t especially want to be like That dude who spent twelve hours with his kid talking about opening a jar or something. I would give in if I thought I could.
Now she is stomping her feet.
Mitch McConnell is retiring in November. Good riddance.
Now she’s throwing things at me.
I wish I didnt have this pit in my stomach. Everything is fine. Fine. I mean. Aside from the country dying.
You know, I can feel myself stopping to care about the fate of America as I get older. Like I will never lose my passion for fairness and desire to stand up for the little guy, but man sometimes I find profound relief in knowing I’ll be dead before too long and I won’t have to spend my entire life under fascism.
I’m not sure I’m explaining this right.
Just… age. It’s changing me. Not turning me into a Republican or anything. If anything it’s radicalizing me even more. But. I guess if America wants to vote itself a fascist…
No no I don’t mean it… it was a passing thought. One I find repugnant. Rage against aging. Rage against giving up. Rage against turning more conservative as you get older.
Rage against Substack using some bullshit JavaScript to disable the double-space-bar-tap replacing two spaces with a period.
Oh speaking of the school parking lot, the other day the protestors were back and it turns out they weren’t from Moms for Liberty or something creepy. They were just teachers marching for better wages really quite nice. We had a nice chat and I took a flyer. I am relieved.
Watched some more of Night Country last night and another thing that is off is the relationship between the indigenous protestors and the mine. Whole thing shows a real lack of understanding of the Alaska Land Claims Settlement Act, a true marvel of legislation. Because the natives would own the land that that mine is on. Every one of those protestors would be getting a quarterly dividend that would be substantially increased by the mining revenues.
Now. Of course, they may still be against the mine anyway on philosophical grounds. This is all fine. But they routinely say in the show that “the mine employed half the town” as a reason why people support the mine. These towns all have majority native populations, so in reality more than half the town would be getting direct payment from the mine. Seems weird not to mention it.
I wrote all that while Jane whined “somebody help” over and over again and pretty soon someone’s gonna accuse me of kidnapping
This is insane.
Tune in tomorrow for the thrilling conclusion.
The Media is the Day is this song from Cold War because Jane won’t let me listen to it and keeps turning it off and it fits my mood perfectly.
Apple Music instead of Spotify because that’s what I use in the car.
https://music.apple.com/us/album/deux-coeurs/1522752678?i=1522752680
That didnt convert to a link did it. Oh well. Substack leaves a lot to be desired. Like life.