Wait, is the shutdown over? What did I miss?

My 4 segments, accomplished while entertaining my kid whose school isn’t open today, did not allow for any awareness of the outside world.

Another productivity strategy is this. I have 3 intense projects going on. Two are research-related (articles with a hard due date) and one is bureaucratic. I need to strain every capacity to finish 2 of these projects by December 1 and one more by Christmas.

This is what I do to get a handle on the projects. Every day, I split the page of my notebook in 4 parts. Each part is dedicated to each of the 3 projects + 1 segment for health. Every day, I aim to fill each segment equally. There are several check-in points throughout the day. What have I done on segment one? What have I done for health? Segment four keeps looking sparse. What’s causing it?

Since I constantly keep each project within my field of vision, I’m free of the feelings of guilt that there’s something I need to be doing and I’m not. Less guilt always means more energy.

In his book Ahora y en la hora (2025),  Colombian writer Héctor Abad Faciolince explains why he traveled to Kramatorsk, a city 20 km from the front lines, in 2023. It’s one thing to want to go and offer support and participate in cultural events, but what’s the point of visiting a pizzeria on the front lines? Abad’s adult children almost murdered him after they found out the risk their old Dad had taken.

Curiously, Abad’s children were the reason why he ended up almost perishing in a missile strike in Kramatorsk. The writer’s son and daughter are very left-wing. They were both past age thirty and decided not to procreate. Because climate change, because colonialism, because fascism. Because they were both infantile drama queens, in short. Abad felt that it was easier to die and not face the horror of his own children being… this. Obviously, he doesn’t criticize them in any way in his book. He’s a crazy Dad, completely in love with the silly old brats. But it’s such a sad story.

Still, Abad’s children aren’t completely immune to their father’s suffering. Or, at least, his daughter isn’t. Since Abad’s near-death experience in Ukraine, she gave birth to twins. The babies were severely premature, and Abad spent two months walking them around the hospital tied to his chest.

It ended well for the Abad family, and that’s always good.

My outfit for tomorrow:

Nobody can claim I’m slacking off on celebrating November.

More inflation is coming our way:

This is the reaction to the election wipeout on Tuesday. It’s a reaction borne of fear and panic. There’s not an iota of thinking behind it.

The story of Lance Twiggs is very interesting in what it tells us about the nature of masculinity. His lifestyle – the mold experiments, the gadgets, the collectible cards, the trinkets, the mess in the living room, the financial dependence – are those of a young, badly parented boy. He never became an adult man in anything other than his biological age and physical development. His forays into transgenderism and furrying are a clear sign that he knew he wasn’t managing to become a man.

“If I’m not a man, I must be a woman or am animal” was his logic, and it does make sense in a really warped way. He clearly perceived a mismatch between the form and the content of his self and tried to plaster the rift with adopting other identities and self-medicating with drugs.

We can pretend all we want that reality is infinitely malleable but it’s not. We have shied away from talking about the importance of male rites of passage, normal stages of masculinity, male communities and networks of support, and the result is a large number of young men who have no idea how to bring their minds into alignment with their bodies of grown men.

Everybody seems to have forgotten about Tyler Robinson, the murderer of Charlie Kirk. Here’s a new investigation into him and his boyfriend who has now seemingly been allowed to evade all responsibility for egging on the murderer:

Corroborating the veracity of the @anonbirdd aka Turkey Tom leaks on Tyler Robinson & Lance Twiggs. 7 points of contact match. The bathroom match adds validity to the anonymous claims in the Tom substack.

Turkey Tom leaked discord chats, photos, and interview:… pic.twitter.com/GLZYiwfThL

— midGRAY (@_midGRAY) November 9, 2025

The Right refuses to honor its dead and turns the investigation of a brutal assassination into a self-promotion opportunity for its most tenuously grounded members. The discussion of Kirk’s murder should go back to Robinson, Twiggs, and the subculture that created them but too many people are finding it profitable to derail the investigation.

In a similar situation, the Left would have arrested everybody who ever was in the same room with the killer, reshaped every institution in the country and assigned collective condemnation of the perpetrator in every classroom starting from infant daycare.

This is why we lose. We can’t stay on point, can’t avoid getting baited into attacking each other and giving the opponent a pass on everything.

Let’s find some inner discipline and go back to discussing what actually happened.

I swear, I don’t want to be a Debbie Downer, I swear.

OK, it’s everyone for himself. Everybody save your own hide. Let’s talk about productivity strategies and individual psychological resilience.

I was at Ulta yesterday. It’s a makeup chain, in case people don’t know. The front part of the store is given over to stuff branded with the movie Wicked franchise. Make-up, hair clips – it’s all very expensive and very clearly aimed at middle-aged women. I liked most of the products, which goes to show that they are not for teenage girls or young adults.

I find it very hard to understand this. I like the products but the ditzy children’s fairy tale association makes me not want to buy them. And a young girl who likes the movie won’t wear the heavy dark colors in a momsy palette.

Then I started thinking, what are the cultural references for people in my age category, and there’s nothing. Everything is based on the idea that you will be a teenager forever.

I have my own coffeemaker that I love and pour my morning cup as a wakeup ritual. I can’t have more than one cup a day because I get jittery but that first morning sip is wonderful.

This is why I haven’t bought coffee at local coffee shops for years. Today, I went to a locally owned café (not a chain), and asked for a 12-ounce cup of coffee with milk. No fancy syrups, cold brews, nitro soy whipped flavored seasonal weird name concoctions. Simply Kaffee mit Milch. It cost me $6.80 and the cash register suggested adding a 20% tip.

The coffee wasn’t worth the price but the enlightenment it brought was.