I've had the strangest sadness all day-- it doesn't feel like 'depression'. It feels like when there's a clear, tangible, finite cause. But there isn't one. I went bicycling in the sunshine-- but only half-helped.
My best guess is: we got a new bed. Slept on it last night. It was only used as prop furniture in a model condo-- until all the condo units sold. West Elm website says the mattress is $400, headboard $650, frame two-something. (Tho I think those prices are inflated by much of their stock being sold-out.) But all we had to pay was the man-with-van delivery.
This bed is replacing another free one, from a Google Home product display/ job. It was nice, too. But we got rid of everything except the mattress... on the floor. So the stiff old dog could climb on & off. He spent so much time on it-- there was a permanent Joe Biden Alzheimer's dent in the Memory Foam. At the end he pissed & shit blood on it-- so I peeled-off the top layer of foam & discarded.
So that bed was as depleted as the dog, in the end.
I think-- sleeping on the floor on the wrecked mattress-- I still subconsciously felt like the dog was still sleeping down in his spot. All was right in the world.
A new real bed at civilized height-- feels like I'm in some Tinder girl stranger's uncomfortably-comfortable girl-room. Likely the cause of the sadness.
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So I called my brother, this afternoon. We've grown apart-- long periods between conversations. He's tenured. Told me about a student with punk attire who asked permission to wear sunglasses during a Zoom class. The kid said he had social anxiety & the glasses would make him more comfortable. Bro said the glasses would be fine, unless it disrupted the students interacting via Zoom.
Bro said he didn't want the kid to make a complaint to the university 'Accessibility' office. I said, "WTF." To me-- the correct answer is to tell the kid that he doesn't need permission to adorn himself however he wants. Don't get sucked into the Feeble Snowflake politics... and don't get sucked-into the cliched-teacher b.s. ...that anything you don't-like... is 'disruptive' to learning. Bro didn't like me talking about his job like I'm qualified to have an opinion.
He mentioned Critical Race Theory-- and parroted some talking-point-- about-how it's silly for states to try to ban it-- because there's nothing which demarcates what is-or-isn't Critical Race Theory. There's no clear boundary around it, no official governing body or accreditation. I said the same thing could be said of Creationism-- but he wouldn't be against that being banned in schools. He didn't like that comparison at-all.
We talked about James Lindsay-- and the 'Sokal Squared' papers-- but Bro didn't really know much. He thought it was the original Sokal guy-- still publishing hoax papers. Bro used a specific phrase which irritated me-- he said he "felt insulted" & "did not appreciate" me talking like he didn't know his own business in academia. Again: I think it was me having the nerve to consider myself qualified to have an opinion-- which bothered him. I'm concerned that his brain is infected by the butthurt snowflake offended&outraged sickness... of mushy-left Victim Culture.
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That conversation made me think of an old best friend. I googled his name, read a synopsis about a presentation he gave-- invited to speak at some conference, because he founded a hedge fund. His talk was about assessing corporate cultures-- as a factor in deciding whether to invest in those corporations. He talked about corporate values-- like Originality & Ethics & Discipline. I got a creepy ice-water in my veins vibe, reading it. In the dotcom days-- he analyzed start-ups & wrote reports to his bosses-- with recommendations whether to invest. Then he left that job-- and launched his own dotcom start-up. The problem is: his start-up was based on knowing the exact criteria which VC and hedge fund investors would use-- to decide to fund a start-up. His start-up wasn't designed to be an actual functional corporation: it was designed to look-like one to attract investor money. His company never made a dime in profit-- just millions in start-up money/ to burn-through then fold.
So when he talks about the importance of Originality & Ethics & Discipline in a corporate culture... is he _really_ concerned about the genuine article? Or is he satisfied with an American Psycho all-surface-level good-enough-if-it-fools-the-test version?
The business profile page I was reading-- included his political donations. $50,000 in 2020-- to a 'secretive' PAC whose mission is to give More power to Silicon Valley companies & their whizkid leaders... by using next-level techniques of funding candidates. Such as giving no indiction that they are going to fund a certain candidate-- until the day-of the federal reporting deadline... then flooding that candidate with money/ before the opposing party can realize a money-war has begun and they need to defend their candidate with an injection of funds. Also-- the PAC employs "Moneyball" strategies... of spending the money in ways designed to outsmart conventional wisdom.
Alls fair in love & war... but you wouldn't want these guys telling your daughter they are madly in love with her-- as a strategic play to convince her to let their herpes-dick inside her without a condom.
And of course the PAC worked in conjunction with that self-described "conspiracy" reported in TIME magazine-- the ones who coordinated riots with Antifa and BLM for desired political outcomes.
https://archive.is/nhcVv
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So by the end of the day, I had collected plenty of actual rotten stuff to justify the previously-unaccounted-for heavy sad feels.
(but I'm doing fine now.)