I looked at my news feed and it’s almost kind of endearing how naive people are and can’t see a clearly staged performance. How can anybody exist in this fun yet cruel world with such wide-eyed naiveté and sweetness?

In any case, here’s my new video about sex spies:

If you got to watch performances, why not to see one where I show a new iteration of my recent haircut?

It’s a very special sort of feeling to sit all day writing about the kind of economy that requires constant readiness for change, pivoting, and moving while awaiting a letter announcing the closure of my department and termination of my job. On a positive note, the problem of how to write the conclusion to my book has solved itself. I always struggle with conclusions, and this time life is writing one for me.

Everybody who knows me says I’m the most positive person in existence, and I have to stay true to the brand.

I don’t know if Republicans realize what a horrible impression thile tacky show they organized around the Epstein files is making on people. The drama, the posing with the files while wearing goofy smiles, the incapacity to explain what is being released and when, the disgusting jokes by the GOP Judiciary Committee – this reads as callous and self-gratifying at best and shady and crooked at worst.

This whole process is a gigantic fail of the current administration, and somebody should put an end to it. I’ve muted my notifications about the Epstein files because I’m embarrassed by what my party is doing. If the files were destroyed, then simply say that. Don’t create a melodrama out of terrible crimes against children.

My father’s side of the family adored me, thought I was the second coming of Jesus. Well, they were Jewish, so probably that’s a bad way to put it. But they truly saw no defect in me. They’d gather around me and stare at me with mesmerized looks like they couldn’t begin to process this absolute perfection. Everything I achieved in life was thanks to this adoring look.

With my mother’s side of the family, I always felt weird, out of place. Everything about me was annoying to my mother and confusing to her relatives. They just couldn’t accept who I was.

And today I realized that I’m replaying this dynamic my whole life. I always find myself living between, “wow, you are amazing” and “wow, you are such a weirdo.” Outside of my university, I’m really respected. At conferences, guest lectures, public appearances in the community, videos, everywhere, people are interested in my ideas. Everybody is excited and wants to learn more. But at work, I’m this clumsy, out of place weirdo. I’ve encountered nothing but annoyance from the administration regarding all the publications, awards, and accolades. It’s hard to explain but I feel like two completely different people. And I just realized, this is how it’s always been. This is my zone of comfort, and I keep engineering myself into it my whole life.

Fans of Shrek are very upset because they new film in the series, they say, looks different.

I stared at the contrasting pictures of characters very hard but for the life of me I don’t see any difference.

I’m putting this up here not because I care about changes to Shrek but to demonstrate that I have a limited capacity to perceive visual images. This might be the reason why I’m so attentive to texts. I believe this is a compensatory mechanism I developed as a result of my limitations in the visual sphere.

I’m also extremely sensitive to the changes of mood and energy but that has a different origin.

My daughter is way too young to be interested. She only just turned 9. I don’t think I could explain to her why those weird people are acting so weirdly.

But I remember the movie, yes. That wife was a bitch harpy from hell. Is there a person living who didn’t detest her with every fiber of their being?

Sad disordered lives of trashy, horrible people. Great acting from Williams, though. And a few good jokes.

Seriously, did anybody ever not despise that mother? The screenwriter must have really hated women.

It’s really charming when people who somehow manage not to notice a terrible war raging in Europe at this very moment run around calling others stupid.

They will get stronger, indeed. Words fail me to describe this incredible hubris.

And here’s an illustration for my preceding post:

The Tates developed a quirky, standout brand. That’s what matters. Who cares that they are ugly, sleazy pedos? Morality is dead anyway. Boreing is simply too old to move with the times and enjoy the originality and the rule breaking.

Just in case people are experiencing a post-lunch slump: I’m being sarcastic. I’m on Boreing’s stodgy, frumpy, unexciting side in this.

I’m bringing this out from the comments because I need to be able to link to it and not have to repeat myself in the future.

Neoliberalism teaches us that chaos is good, order is bad. Embrace unpredictability. Be always prepared to pivot. Rules don’t matter, quirky personalities do. It’s neoliberalism, my friends. It’s liberating, exhilarating, fun. It’s all a big game where you get to change the rules all the time. And you can win BIG.

It’s so good.

Until you don’t win. Until you can no longer pivot and embrace change. Until you get tired, or sick, or tied down by family, obligation, community. If you can’t drop it all at a moment’s notice, you get dropped. Discarded.

Morality is jettisoned, too. There are no longer the same moral laws for everybody. If you have a quirky enough personality, you can stand above all that.

I’m analyzing a novel where two quirky female characters murder a little boy. What strikes me as curious is that not a single critic who has written about this novel managed to say that the women’s actions are amoral or at least just simply wrong. When I say it, I see people look at me in confusion. “Amoral? But that’s outdated. There’s no longer a shared morality. Everybody gets to develop their own morality, and it’s all good. No morality (or system of rules) is better than anybody else’s.”

Of course, the little boy gets screwed in this scenario but that’s a small price to pay for quirky, interesting personalities to be free to remake the world to their liking.

This is the conflict of our times. Boring, constraining, stolid rules versus the liberating, freedom-making chaos. We have all collectively decided to choose chaos and kill the little boy. Children need rules, routines and predictability. And that’s so unfree. Who needs all that? Screw the little buggers and let’s go be free. There is no morality beyond freedom. No higher good. Only being free to be yourself because the God of our era is the all-important, all-powerful Self.

What is it that people are downvoting in yesterday’s post about my diabetic breakfasts? The bunny statue? Yes, I know, but it was Klara’s purchase. She loved its symbolism of mother-child love. Or is it the unknown words? Yes, I eat ethnic food, stop the presses.

Also, I am kind of wounded by the downvotes on the AI dude image. It’s the first one I ever made, and OK, he’s not perfect. I’m glad everybody else is such an AI expert they can do better images. A little support maybe for an AI beginner? I love how everybody is so superior when their own AI-generated stuff might be just as primitive. The show should air tomorrow, by the way, and I’m going to talk about some very juicy perversions, so your loss if you don’t watch.