120120 ok that’s impulsive. worried about megan rushing into something again. haha she said her “angel” tattoo wasn’t his name, just a coincidence, but omfg i’m such an idiot of COURSE it was his name. Gotta let go. Be ready, but let go. meanwhile, gotta get millie out of the clink and into the process of seeing if this therapist, in muskego, is not straight. whaddaya think the odds are? but hey, it’s a start. We gotta get her out of the clink first, ya know. was the butterfly thing in class today too dark? the Titanic tie-in? The heat death of the universe? or was it just too cheesy? I guess we’ll never know. 120620 what am i worried about today: - spending money like a goddamned idiot again - trump and all those fucking monsters - megan and her hospital bill and stuff - millie and how there’s always something wrong - the unstable nature of employment; the ghoulishness of jason’s excision of endicott and my complicity/duplicity in it - eating and drinking maniacal like a fucking corpulent sow all the fucking time 120720 people worry. what are they worrying about today: ambition and personality top down management rick pretty much left us alone and that was his strength it was ke before, who’s next is this another transformation like what i feared hpb was doing only worse because more personal or am i just afraid of the new people making me look shoddy “tenets” are dangerous even if they come from a good book. “i base my teaching on this person/this book” that worries me if we all agree and are all sucking each other’s cocks cocks cocks cocks, even though we may do a good job at it, the dangers of conventional thinking still lurk the fixation on the for example WICOR terminology seems like a sidelining, kind of a fetish too. it seems to emphasize categorization over curiosity and vitality. the meta aspects of education (pedagogy)are fine but sometimes i just want to dig into the actual content, the specific subject or text at hand, and let fascination and curiosity be my guide. when we really do that, as toni morrison said that other lady said when we ‘find the words to say it’ because we are *driven* to by the vital impulse within, i bet you can then look back see all the stars of WICOR winking at you blissfully my concern with julia’s chipper competence is that it reduces everyone to the same mold. everything you do is measured relative to “the standard.” again i ask you, WHOSE STANDARDS ARE THEY AND WHY ARE THEY THE RIGHT ONES FOR EVERYONE you can get really good at a script, you can be the most ebullient performer of the script, you can project, you can show up at 7:00 or five minutes till with a smile on your face but if all you have is the script, then all you have is the script. just ask anyone in inpatient services at rogers maybe this is where the post office job and teaching diverge for me. i had to learn the post office job in order to get a vital metaphor for surviving long enough to get full time status as a teacher. but now they’re talking about how to get really good at being teacher mailmen. but i chose this over the po — if i had wanted to be a mailman i could have stayed at the po. until now when shit’s shit’s shit’s starting to get real, when it feels like the frog water is heating up, i didn’t have the nerve to say i knew better than anyone else how to go beyond delivering the bulk mail. but now it’s starting to feel personal and i’m really starting to wonder what might be best for me, next for me, and by what pragmatic combination of necessity and choice. the basic, even the advanced conventionally competent, even the brilliant but conventional, tend to be, on the whole, as i’ve been able to observe, more efficient and organized than i. this could be a problem. not them but me, in case you’re wondering, is who i would change. being a saboteur is not on my to do list. (yet (lol)) of course there’s always the possibility that efficiency and tidiness is overrated. but. hmmm. yeah, i don’t know. of course there’s also always the possibility that i’m just doing the old grandiose paranoid delusions thing. and of course it isn’t all that or none of that. it’s always a little of that. and you know what???? maybe that’s ok?????!??!??!!??!!!!!?!!??!!?? maybe that’s just part of what makes pershidium magical. dangerous, kind of cute, kind of gross, but still pretty cool if you can get ahold of it, if you can let it go, if you can insert fave cliche here as the gong rushes and hisses and the river steams and the dragon arcs around the castle in your heart again, peering in every arrow slot with that wide open face, sinister, curious, weirdly sexy, and always, always, no matter how late in the season, astonishing what’s my takeaway (lol)? don’t rush to blab at the meeting. listen and learn ps: regarding the blog. if it’s about anything it’s about nothing. that’s why they’ve all died off quickly before. the focus makes it inviting like a fairy path into the deeper woods, counterintuitively safe and comforting despite fairies’ famous chaotic mischief. they may deign to talk to you sometimes but you gotta respect the woods. if you forget you’re human, you’re a goober haha, meant to type goner but mr grenache knew better! it’s also--the focus, the delimiter--why “him and me” worked so hot and hard and soft and licorice for so long--why that “task failed successfully” ER: you’re making a scientific claim without a scientific basis; it’s a heinous double standard also it’s a bait and switch. asks “does it matter what you believe” and answers “you need to believe my bible” oh and look over here at this one: i’m supposed to suggest an alternative to of mice and men? but i’m just supposed to already know what it is you object to? yes, you’re “thinking,” because of course we all know who’s proper vs who is a heathen and a cretin. i mean yeah it’s ok that you aren’t good enough to be one of the enlightened ones. we love you anyway. but when it comes right down to it we all know that you secretly want to be like us and you secretly understand where we’re coming from. indecency and obscenity are self evident! all you have to do is be brave and honest enough to tap into your subtextual, subliminal guilt, and we’ll be wink wink nudge nudge on the same page, and you can recommend us the book you secretly know you SHOULD be giving to everyone already. it’s ok. all is forgiven. yeah ok sorry NOPE. i’m not playing. you have to spell it out for me. what’s your actual specific objection. otherwise i don’t know what to tell you, other than linking to some lists of modernist novels or some shit, and you can work it out for yourself. THIS ISN’T A CHRISTIAN SCHOOL AND I DON’T HAVE TO BE A FUCKING CHRISTIAN. and you don’t get to assume that you’re the one true normal and everyone else is deviant 120820 on the other ham, having a somewhat predictable, consistent structure in place can be comforting and reassuring for students and teacher, while providing a fertile bed for flights of fancy to grow out of organically, serendipitously... as opposed to just leaving to chance whether or not your latest musings will turn into an awesome sesh or embarrasingly disjointed (boring) rambling.... 120920 “YouTube to remove content that alleges widespread election fraud” -- ok but that’s only going to make the people that believe that, believe it even more 121020 Quick check-in, to make sure I understand this correctly: We pay thousands out of what should be our compensation for an essentially monopolized for-profit health care system that overrides our doctors’ decisions and uses its obscene profits to lobby our politicians to make sure we don’t have any other choice. And these fucking utter complete morons support Trump who wants to make sure it stays that way, because of made up bullshit reasons while he’s laughing behind his hand. OK. Got it. Millie: I don’t want her to get too attached to her victimhood. She’s a little obsessed with saying things that sound like she’s just accidentally discovering her adhd identity. I’m a little nervous. Plus how sometimes she seems to hold on to the negative, the self-failure, and kind of violently repels any attempt to pull layers of it off of her. like it’s burned scar tissue stuck to her skin. how to inculcate the growth mindset? because you can’t force away the victim mindet; it just doesn’t work that way. but i can’t just leave it be either. can i? on the other hand what if she’s just reporting it all straight as she’s experiencing it and i’m being an asshole by doubting at some level her sincerity or self-awareness or wisdom? i think she’s as likely to be on autism spectrum as adhd but i don’t know if i want to suggest because im afraid shes a hypochondriac of psychosocial issues. and how come none of it seemed apparent AT ALL when she was little? or did it> was i not there enough, was i blinded and oblivious because of all tge other shit? am i failing to remembersigns i might have only partially been aware of at the time? or am i just trying to retro fill in blanks because i (as she does) want a damn answer? cyz like i come across this: > For example, the fact that spoken words sometimes fail me (written ones don’t, which is why I became a writer – it is as much a compensation for my weaknesses as it is an expression of my strengths); the fact that my auditory processing sometimes lets me down causing other people’s speech to hit my ear in the first instance as just noise, with the meaning kicking in a beat or two later; the fact that I can’t cope with crowds; the fact that I’m almost place blind, and need help to not get lost; the fact that I experience problems with executive function, which don’t affect my writing, but make it very hard for me to sit down and initiate a writing session, or make myself lunch, or get myself out of bed, or into the shower; the fact that I have trouble getting to sleep; the fact that I can’t cope with noise, light touch, the smell of certain perfumes, the texture of certain fabrics, or the texture of some foods; the fact that I’m never quite sure where I am in space. (https://aeon.co/essays/what-does-it-mean-to-consider-yourself-a-disabled-person) and it’s practically an echo of 80% 90% of the stuff she’s mentioned to me lately!?! am i horrible because i’m about equally thinking “maybe she’s like that” AND “maybe she read this article or something like it, and is consciously or unconsciously parroting it; playing up these things in herself so she can be a special victim too”???? 121120 maybe i’ve been a total asshole to KE. and a pompous ass with AKL. *Maybe I can’t trust myself.* Time to--lay off the brain fog for a while?? I’m a lot more competitive and defensive--*Machiavellan,* is that what they call it? or just narcissistic--than I thought/admitted. 121220 questioning your assumptions is not enough. You also need to question your calculations; not just “did I make any errors” but your whole calculus that you’re relying on in the first place 121320 ya know ya love it -- the hazy autumn feel of buyin into a bunch of shit you read on the internet -- not even necessarily a bad thing -- until it costs you shit tons of money that you could be should be spending on something else (or nothing) -- just anything to feel connected -- highs wear off -- (the need to be) connected never goes away keep them bright colors flowing one way or another striving to be honest is the longest glowing ember i’ve ever found the text is your only queen cowled in red curtains gilded by the lamps that hang from glistening chains with incense heavy, sultry on the breeze her knees are bare and crossed before you and she smiles when you walk into the room you’ll do anything you can to be allowed in here just one more time before it’s time for bed for good 122120 What worried about today?: - megan, sent pic, looked black-eye tired, looked like her mom. afraid she’s getting sucked into some fucked up relationship thing, again. i feel there will always be a pool of pain in my heart around her—so small, vulnerable, started out so innocent as only a first (tiny, charmed) baby can, and i failed to protect her - me, will literally never be out of debt, general anxiety, eye strain??, procrastination of family stuff like millie medical stuff, can’t seem to get lib and cel off their asses and out the door every day - work, julia the overachiever making me look bad? still haven’t been able to write ke’s irritatingly nonspecific letter, can’t quite bring myself to care enough. am i doing any work? what am i working on? the concept of play? how long will js humor me? what screwups might i do to make him stop blessing me? if i lose this job, what then for an aging, apneac, eye-strained dilettante? 122620 > Part of the work of being a modern person seems to be dreaming of alternate lives in which you don’t have to dream of alternate lives. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/12/21/what-if-you-could-do-it-all-over 123120 well that’s it the line has been crossed a ducked up pandemic year followed by a fooded up, drinked up, barely recovered from too much thc’d up xmas break spent weirdly at home, warm, slow, lackadaisical, lulled by two versions of mario kart, amazed that me and the girls haven’t killed each other yet, worked up over megan’s latest tearful phone call that she’s recovered fully from twenty minutes later and now she’s going back to the latest jerk boy’s house has led to among everything else this: i’m tired of my job i don’t give two shits about grading ‘action research’ give me a fucking break; all the preliminaries have done is reaffirmed how it’s pointless to do research the basic thesis of which is “my job and all of you are full of shit” i’m fucking bored of all this kiddie shit i want to be an adult for a fucking minute before i’m too decrepit to do anything but hope one of my kids somehow ends up, despite all the ways my avoidant disillusioned bullshit never-fucking-grew-up selfish mindfuck wastoid ignorance failed them, fond enough of my increasingly crotchety old ass to still want to take care of me when i’m shitting myself in public and can’t afford to retire with anything close to resembling dignity here’s to a new fucking year or whatever, because tonight is somehow different from all the other nights??? ??1220 OMG when i dig into all my old files, aka the dirt in my garden, i sometimes find meerkats in the tunnels down there! that coukd be a metameerkat in itself! you have to keep adding to the compost or else your stuff won’t grow as well and will eventually tyrn to weeds—or worse, start to die altogether. then the voice says ‘what have you done with the garden that was entrusted to you’ and you start all over again (hopefully wiser this time) (remember, you can just search for #meerkat too) > What people do online will become less salient if the physical world is suddenly more attractive and exciting to be a part of. > Current social networks do not really fit with evolved human sociality. > Sometimes creating structures that reduce the transaction cost of innovation can be more important than any particular innovation. https://aelkus.github.io/theory/2020/12/03/solu.html the ppl calling other ppl sheep are likely sheep too except guess what none of us are we’re fucking chimps and you cant change that