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| The American impulse to Blow Shit Up |
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I don't really understand the impulse to display flags of any kind, patriotic, polarizing, or otherwise. Can't you just think something or like something without broadcasting it to every passerby? Like, how badly do I need you, random guy walking his dog past my house, to know that I like this sports team or this college or this country? Why not just a T-shirt, or a nice subtle bumper sticker if you must? I don't know why, but flags just feel simultaneously frivolous and aggro to me.
I just give up. I don't understand anything anymore. As a liberal, I don't have a strong desire to claim this chick for our side, but how did this become a conservative rallying cry? The video was funny, but can't we just leave it at that, and leave politics out of it? But also, like how TF are conservatives making the claim that lubin' the ol' pole with your phlegm embodies...conservative values? I feel like if anyone is going to give a dry, uninspired handy or whatever, it's going to be a Repubelican. Also also, this was filmed in Nashville and I didn't realize this was getting national attention. I'm always surprised when something I assume is just local ends up being a Thing. It would be like if Lester Holt did a segment about East Nashville's "Sex Chair for Sex" that periodically shows up in a vacant lot on Gallatin Pike.
Analog Reading:
Finished Long Island. Did I say that last time? Probably.
Read Leslie Jamison's memoir of becoming a mother and getting divorced, Splinters. Honestly it was a real bummer. Not that I expected it to be a lighthearted lark, but like, okay, lady, we get it. You had an eating disorder, and then you were an alcoholic, and now you're sober but you're addicted to drama and you're obsessed with your kid in a way that I, as a non-parent, find almost disturbing. Perhaps I just don't/can't understand, but her descriptions honestly just make me glad I have cats instead.
Read The Secret Life of Groceries by Benjamin Lorr. In the vein of Michael Pollan and Barbara Ehrenreich, this book explores the supply chain of our food systems, not from the perspective of what we eat, but how and why what we purchase to eat ends up on the shelves of our grocery stores.
Almost finished Amanda Montell's The Age of Magical Overthinking. It's witty but only sort of interesting. I'm ready to dive back into a pile of Stephen King ebooks that I have queued up on my Kindle.
