I got some questions about psychoanalysis in the mail and I want to answer them here. 

Is it a good idea to record the sessions to listen to them afterwards?

No. Because your memory of what you think transpired during the session is one of the most important therapeutic tools. 

How should I prepare for the sessions?

You shouldn’t. The whole point is to weaken the control of your consciousness and release everything that is kept locked in by your constant thinking and overthinking. I found it useful to start a sentence without knowing how they would end. If I begin with, “I feel that. . .” and then just let the words find me, some really surprising shit comes out. 

What I get blocked and there is a long uncomfortable pause?

Consider yourself super lucky because those uncomfortable silences is when most of the work happens. I can’t take a pause to save my life, and that’s not great for the process. 

So the Illinois Dems made every concession to Rauner, came up with a budget he has been demanding, conceded literally everything, and. . . of course, Rauner vetoed it. 

And finally, finally even some Republican legislators realized that Rauner is just fucking with them. He doesn’t want a budget, any budget. He wants to go on for a third year without one. To him, winning doesn’t mean ramming through his version of the budget. Winning means never coming up with a budget for the simple reason that his personal wealth grows as a result of Illinois not having a budget.

Once they finally realized they were being had by their own governor, 15 Republicans in the House broke ranks to override the veto. In the state Senate, a single Republican senator, Dale Righter, voted to override Rauner’ s veto. (Two Dem rats defected.) He has a large public university in his district, and that university is dying. Thank you, Senator Righter, for not being a partisan dick.

My admiration goes to the Dem speaker Mike Madigan who came up with the brilliant plan to reveal what Rauner was really about and fake agreed to every concession. He knew that Rauner would still veto even his own budget. That’s risky yet talented strategy needed to break the stalemate.

The House vote is on Thursday. Everybody who’s in Illinois, let’s bug our representatives to death on this. A budget is so close. Let’s fucking do this already!

What really matters about next week’s G20 is that Putin and Merkel will pressure Trump to approve Nord Steam 2, an agreement that goes against the stated goals of the EU to diversify its energy supply and move towards renewables and away from fossils. 

Merkel needs Trump to approve because NS2 is detested by the rest of Europe. Europeans see her efforts to ram it down their throats as even more proof that Merkel sees herself as the ruler of the Union. A recent US Senate bill opposes NS2 because it would represent an enormous reward for Putin and his oligarchs and serve as an unwarranted and harsh punishment to Ukraine. 

This is the real story and not the idiotic “Germany made a statement that they don’t want to be friends with us because we are so mean” that I keep seeing in the press. Merkel is trying, in her signature clumsy manner, to pressure the US massively to enrich Russian oil oligarchs. The question now is whether Trump will flout his own Senate and bend over for Putin and his close ally Merkel. 

This fellow seems to have an important message about anti-semitism. But he chose to deliver it in the weirdest of formats that makes it unreadable and strips him of all credibility. Even Instagram would work better. 

I have no idea if people who try so hard to deliver long texts through Twitter are mentally unbalanced or liars who use the deranged format to preclude any criticism or response. 

Today is my first non-spending day of the challenge and I have already discovered that I need to make an effort not to accidentally buy something on the Amazon app. 

If there were emotions or emotional expressions that were barred to you in childhood, as an adult you will play the game of emotional substitution with these forbidden or “bad” feelings. 

For instance, if you weren’t allowed to protest, your rebellious feelings in adulthood will manifest as tardiness, incapacity to stick to a deadline, laziness, forgetfulness. You will do everything- from work obligations to daily chores – a lot more slowly than you would otherwise. 

If you weren’t allowed to express anger, whenever you feel angry in adulthood, you’ll displace the anger into self-sabotage, self-harm, start having minor household accidents, bumping into things, etc. 

Happy 4th of July, everybody!

We have massive plans for celebrating here. There will be a mini-parade in my street, followed by a neighborhood party. The only other holiday on my block that gets a parade and a party is Halloween because people leave town for other holidays. 

Then we have our own family celebration at home. I’m not sure we’ll get to see fireworks because Klara falls asleep by 8 pm, and it’s still very light at that time. 

Good times.  .  .

This had a practical purpose, too. It’s how we used to rewind the tapes. 

Facebook is scary. I just discovered a real Spanish fascist on my feed. Real like in he is posting love letters to Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, the founder of Spanish fascism and, according to this Facebooker, “an innocent victim of red hordes.” 

He asked me to friend him last week and I mistook him for a colleague with a similar name and agreed. But the question is, why did he choose me? I never publish anything in Spanish on FB. I do leave likes under the posts by writer Andres Trapiello. Does this mark me as an FB Spanish fascist? 

A few good, long pieces. 

A great article on feminism. 

A nostalgic piece on diners. 

How the left lost its mind. It’s not just the left, though. It’s everybody. 

And yes, dumb Jews do exist. Unbelievable but true. Here is one.