Obligate Ram Ventilator

I typically don't go in for serialization of these posts, as that would violate the one sacrosanct rule I have about my work in this space: don't make it actual work. It's a single phrase, but that encompasses a lot of ideas, like "two hours is too long, unless you spent most of it distracted by YouTube shorts about cats knocking things off shelves" and "never do any actual research, unless by 'research' we mean 90 minute diversions into YouTube shorts about cats knocking things off coffee tables," rock-solid personal ethos stuff like that. The sort of unimpeachable ideas around which one can build not only a limited endeavor like this, but a whole human life.

That said, the ongoing drama of my life has led me to a) skip a week of posting, which almost never happens, because I'm a compulsive weirdo, and b) thrust me in the middle of an ongoing national news story the type of which I have had the luxury to ignore in the past, where I could lazily while away the hours watching Instagram clips of cats knocking things off counter tops (YouTube shorts didn't always exist, you know), none the bloody wiser.

So, to update the major storylines from the last episode:

1) I did indeed go on vacation in the middle of being out of work. It's a weird state of being, enjoying sights and experiences and major metropolitan manhole cover venting smells you've never experienced before while you know you have no money to pay for such things. But when Such Things had already been paid for well before this no-work situation became a thing, well, you do what you do and Don't Let The Bastards Get You Down.

2) I've given away the plot, but it's kind of been out there, so I'm not sure it's much of a spoiler: still not working. Your tax dollars are currently at work somewhere I'm sure, but not in the direction of running the government or paying the salaries of people hired to do it.

I was being overly coy I guess talking about your tax dollars "at work somewhere," as that "somewhere" has also been in the news a fair bit in the active non-allegorical demolition of the White House. I missed the start of that particular subplot as I was busy up a mountain (or what the East Coast adorably pretends is a mountain) taking in the resplendence of a sunset over a horizon of autumn foliage. I'd like to claim I was purposely unplugged; I definitely had my phone with me, but the reception up there is shit. Couldn't even do the Wordle, I just had to take in the wonder of autumn or whatever.

And I guess that's the lesson: normies like me can get sidelined or sidetracked, but completely inexplicable, self-justifying extractive bullshit, well, that has a tick-tock work ethic immune to diversion, distraction or sleep. It just keeps humming along, swimming ever forward like a shark, because, like sharks, these types of enterprises understand that to stop would mean a potential moment for self-reflection, the only thing fatal to a project immune to logic, reason, financial constraint, moral compunction, information, objectivity, decency, empathy or fairness.

Wait, no, sharks just do it because they'll drown if they stop. I don't have any insight into their ambition, fiscal discipline or moral character, that was too far. If I had to guess, I'd say they're probably less Kant or Rousseau and more prone to Ayn Rand or purposefully misreading Nietzsche, but wait, I'm probably talking about Republicans again.

Anyway: New England was great. Saw zero sharks. We went prepared with the correct rain gear, but we only needed it those first two days. I got to come home and start dipping into my saving to pay my mortgage, but again, that's not the vacation's fault. Like looking at the fall leaves, it's valuable as experience, but way less adaptable to any kind of edifying metaphor like the cycles of natural shedding and rebirth. Unless I do eventually get the backpay I'm supposed to get, then I can maybe work up something more poetical and life-affirming for you. But that's going to be in heavy, heavy retrospect.