Wednesday, December 30, 2020

2020 Year In Books

I'm not blogging much anymore, but here is the list of books I read in 2020. My list this year is far smaller than years past, largely owing to the fact that libraries were closed for months and I had to <gasp> buy books for the first time in as long as I can remember. It made me more judicious in what I read and, by extension, more satisfied overall with the content. When the pandemic hit, I had two books out from the library, The Splendid and the Vile and 1774, The Long Year of Revolution. That turned out to be good luck as I was not rushed through either book, each of which was long and were enjoyed without feeling like I had to race through either one. The list after that is made up of books I bought and (mostly) enjoyed. The Hardhat Riot took an interesting counter take to the image of the late 60s as a time of hippie love and popular support for ending the war in Vietnam, arguing instead that the Silent Majority was both not-so-silent and also the more traditional view at the time - that America should see through its obligation in Vietnam and also cleaved the Democratic Party, beginning to hive off the white, ethnic, working class voters who would ultimately become so-called Reagan Democrats. I was less impressed with The Biggest Bluff, a book about Maria Konnikova's transition to being a high stakes Texas No Limit Hold 'Em poker player. The book felt dated as the poker rush has now crested and unrealistic in that a novice would not have the benefit of what is akin to a grandmaster at the game (in her case a guy named Erik Seidel) to coach them. Also absent was Konnikova's sharp eye in her prior books (both of which I LOVED) for the grift, the hustle, the way psychology is leveraged against people. There were some empty calories too, like the oral history of The Office and Lindy West's pithy Shit, Actually, where she skewers movies with her acerbic wit. I think we all needed some empty calories in 2020, so, no shame in my game. 

1. The End Is Always Near, Dan Carlin

2. Have You Eaten Grandma?, Gyles Brandreth

3. Medallion Status, John Hodgman 

4. The Death of Truth, Michiko Kakutani

5. Disney’s Land, Richard Snow

6. Blowout, Rachel Maddow

7. The Splendid and the Vile, Erik Larson

8. 1774, The Long Year of Revolution, Mary Beth Norton

9. The British Are Coming, Rick Atkinson

10. The Office, The Untold Story of the Greatest Sitcom of the 2000s, Andy Greene

11. The Big Goodbye, Sam Wasson

12. The Hardhat Riot, David Kuhn

13. Rome 1960, David Marinass

14. Reaganland, Rick Perlstein

15. The Biggest Bluff, Maria Konnikova

16. This Isn’t Happening, Steven Hyden

17. Shit, Actually, Lindy West

18. The 99% Invisible City, Roman Mars

19. Countdown 1945, Chris Wallace


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Friday, November 13, 2020

Book Review - This Isn't Happening

Usually, music meets the moment. The Beatles released All You Need Is Love as the hippie movement swelled worldwide. Disco music perfectly captured the mindless nihilism of the 1970s as surely as punk rock eviscerated it. So it is not surprising that when Radiohead released Kid A in October 2000, it was not met with universal acclaim. This was 2000, folks - we had survived Y2K, the economy was humming, the stock market was at a record high, and the world was (mostly) at peace. What could an album that leaned heavily on electronica, was littered with nonsense lyrics, and contained a hidden track that included literal silence, say about a world that seemed so … stable? 


As it turned out, quite a bit. A week after Kid A’s release, Al Qaeda terrorists killed 19 sailors on the U.S.S. Cole in Aden, Yemen, foreshadowing a far more devastating attack less than a year later. And as Kid A was going gold, the world watched as the U.S. presidential election was litigated all the way to the Supreme Court. Thom Yorke screaming “JUST HOLDING ON” on Kid A’s third track, The National Anthem, went from “huh?” to prescient awfully quick. In the succeeding years, 9/11, the Iraq War, and the 2008 economic collapse would cascade one after the other, leaving America, and the world, on the mat reaching for its collective mouthpiece. And all of this happened as technology fully consumed our lives. It would take some years for the moment to meet the music, but when it did, this album that toggled between ambient and chaotic noise would come to be seen not only as a foresighted prediction of our world in the 21st century, but its most profound musical statement. In Steven Hyden’s This Isn’t Happening we not only get the inside scoop on the creation of this modern masterpiece, but Hyden’s unique talent for connecting disparate elements of our culture into an intelligible whole. 


In 2000, technology generally and the internet specifically were seen as net goods. E-commerce was still in its infancy and the idea you could “chat” with someone anywhere in the world and connect with people who shared your interests was still novel and new. Facebook did not yet exist. Algorithms that slice and dice our preferences based on our past behavior were not a thing. It is unsurprising that Kid A was met with skepticism. An album that anticipated how these things would be turned on their heads and isolate us instead of bring us together would have been considered naive and unrealistic. The critics were unsparing. In Radiohead’s home country, one review called the album “self-congratulatory, look-ma-I-can-suck-my-own-cock whiny old rubbish.” Ouch. None other than Nick Hornby, he of High Fidelity fame where Jon Cusack and Jack Black debated such important topics as the “top five side ones, track ones” dismissed the whole effort, whining that “the music critics who love Kid A, one suspects, love it because their job forces them to consume music as a 16-year-old would” before tut-tutting ~ the youth ~ with a lecturing tone that “Kid A demands the patience of the devoted; both patience and devotion become scarcer commodities once you start picking up a paycheck.” 


Including Hornby’s kiss off review is fitting because This Isn’t Happening is, in the main, a record store fan boy’s book-length meditation on beloved music. And I do not say that as an insult but rather as a compliment. As Hyden points out, music matters precisely as much to us as we deem appropriate. As someone who literally has Radiohead symbols tattooed on his body, I get the obsession and welcomed it (for the most part). If you’re a die-hard fan, Hyden has a CVS-length receipt. Do you want to know the signature live version of True Love Waits? You’re in luck, it happened on December 5, 1995 in Berlin, Germany. How about the location of On A Friday’s (the precursor to Radiohead) first ever gig in 1987? That would be the Jericho Tavern in Oxford, England. From the obscure instrument Jonny Greenwood whipped out for Kid A (ondes Martenot) to Ed O’Brien’s dairy of the album’s making, no stone is left unturned in tracing the band’s history. 


But what elevates This Isn’t Happening from a compilation of random trivia into a deeper meditation on how much music influences our lives is Hyden’s ability to place Radiohead within the broader sweep of popular culture, sprinkling in call outs to everything from long-forgotten 90s Brit pop like Suede to the early aughts last gasp of guitar rock from The Strokes. He traces the band’s evolution not just against its contemporaries (and how its predecessors influenced them) but Radiohead’s own progression from a band of baby-faced outcasts who performed Creep on MTV’s Beach House in 1993 to the fully realized musical gods who had the balls to perform a fully freaked out version of The National Anthem on Saturday Night Live eight years later. The cultural currency Radiohead collected is also impressive. From Paul Thomas Anderson’s collaborations with Jonny Greenwood to Brad Pitt and Ed Norton reminiscing about how they listened to OK Computer on repeat as the filming of Fight Club came to an end, the band’s reach extended well past its manifest influence on music in the 2000s. 


But in the spirit of record store debating, a few omissions bear noting. While Hyden touches any number of bases connecting Kid A to the broader culture, the one he skips past entirely is The Matrix, which is surprising considering the DNA the album and movie share. Both speculate about a sterile, near future that devalues individualism. At the time, The Matrix was wildly popular and critically acclaimed, whereas reviewers were more ambivalent about Kid A, but it is possible the dystopian view of the former was deemed too out there to be taken seriously, whereas the latter was not dystopian enough, written off as gloomy navel gazing instead. Ironically, that the matrix was fed through the human mind would end up being a spot on description of what social media platforms would ultimately do while Kid A now looks like it undersold how unnerving the future would be. 


The other elephant in the room is Hyden’s passing treatment of what some of us consider Radiohead’s true masterpiece - OK Computer. It would be like writing a book about Picasso’s Cubist period but tossing off Les Demoiselles d’Avignon as a nice, but unimportant work in the milieu. To understand Kid A a full accounting of OK Computer is required but the most we get from Hyden is a dismissive insult of Fitter. Happier. as a too-on-the-nose criticism of consumer culture. But that song, and the album more generally, is precisely about the pressure society places on people to conform. The through line between stripping people of their autonomy and the yearning expressed in songs like How To Disappear Completely and The Morning Bell could not be more direct. To be sure, Hyden goes on at length about the song writing process and more particularly Yorke’s fear of having his lyrics be seen as too ham-handed or obvious (dating to criticism he received early in his career) but it is impossible not to see Kid A as building on the themes initially explored in OK even though one relied on click tracks and synthesizers and the other used guitars. 


I always looked at Kid A as part of a three album continuum from OK Computer to Amnesiac that bore the closest resemblance to Pink Floyd’s mid-70s run of Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, and Animals. The themes of alienation and isolation, of corporate influence and individualism, of rebellion and conformity just ooze out of both sets of music but instead of seeing these parallels (you won’t find a single reference to Pink Floyd in the entire book) we get a pages-long digression about Linkin Park (because, reasons?) and a bit of filler in the form of an imagined Kid Amnesiac that blends the best of both albums. And this is not to be overly critical. Part of what makes fandom fun is swapping opinions and interpretations of shared canon. Hyden thinks “There There” is the best song on Hail to the Thief when everyone knows it is “Where I End And You Begin.” 


I also liked how Hyden ends the book. After tracing the band’s post-Kid A (and really, post-Amnesiac) work there is a meditation on aging and loss. Of whether, as Neil Young once wrote, it is better to burnout than fade away. When we think of iconic albums, invariably, we are thinking about music produced when the artists were in their 20s and early 30s. When the hunger to succeed, the single-minded focus on creating, and the possibilities of the world are greatest. The inevitable pull of ~ adulthood ~ be it marriage or parenting, the material comfort that comes with success or the validation from sold-out arenas, critical acclaim, and chart-topping albums comes for every successful musical act. Nostalgia, Don Draper famously said, is a twinge in your heart far more powerful than memory alone. What Kid A represents to Hyden, and to many of us who love that album and the band that created it, is not just a time machine to a moment that has already passed (yeah, it’s gone … I’m not here, this isn’t happening) but a reminder that it is possible to feel emotion in a modern world stripped of it. 


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Sunday, October 11, 2020

Book Review - Reaganland

As we round the bend toward the culmination of the 2020 election, the publication of Rick Perlstein’s outstanding new book Reaganland could not be more timely. In Reaganland, Perlstein, who has devoted the last 20 years of his life to tracing the creation of the modern conservative movement, closes the chapter on what remained of the New Deal era that heralded an era that may end in three weeks.

The timing of the book’s release is also portentous. Jimmy Carter, still puttering around just past his 96th birthday, is getting, what for him, is as close to a historical reevaluation as he is ever likely to get. Two books, one, by his former chief domestic policy aide (“President Carter: The White House Years”) and the other, by the journalist Jonathan Alter (“His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, A Life”) try to reframe his four years in office in a more positive light, emphasizing his decency, humility, and yes, the successes he can legitimately call his own. At the same time, his successor’s place among the ten best presidents in American history is starting to congeal into accepted fact. 


To tackle this terrain - and even at 914 pages - the sweep of history Perlstein collects is so vast that certain events that garnered their own books - the Camp David accords (“Thirteen Days in September”), Carter’s “malaise” speech (“What the Heck Are You Up To, Mr. President?”), Kennedy’s primary challenge (“Camelot’s End”), only get passing mention because there is so much ground to cover. And that is part of what makes Reaganland such addictive reading. To call a book this length a page turner would seem counter intuitive, but the propulsive nature of Perlstein’s storytelling makes the chapters fly by. 


And this is at least in part because the first two-thirds of the book are really two stories running on parallel tracks. One story is about Carter’s floundering presidency. Here, Perlstein is more in line with the historical narrative that a combination of Carter’s imperiousness, sanctimony, and refusal to play the “Washington” game conspired to cripple his presidency so badly that he was challenged for his party’s nomination in 1980. And it is easy to see why this conventional wisdom has taken hold. There are the familiar stories of Carter micromanaging the schedule for the White House tennis court, his aides’ snubbing of Tip O’Neill by burying the House Speaker in the cheap seats at Carter’s inaugural gala, and Carter’s unwillingness to appoint a Chief of Staff, believing the job unnecessary to the proper functioning of the West Wing. But these unforced errors might have been avoided (or overcome) by a better politician. 


Therein lies one of the contradictions of Carter’s time in office. To win the presidency, one has to have a certain amount of political skill (especially if you were a one-term Georgia governor who began the 1976 campaign as a literal asterisk in polling), but being President requires an entirely different set of skills that Carter lacked. As Perlstein relates, Carter’s view of things was that the people had elected him and therefore, the typical push and pull of D.C. politics was precisely what he should push back against. It is why Carter continued going back to the well of presidential addresses in hopes of rallying public opinion to his side. After all, the voters had put him in the White House, surely they would support the belt tightening he asked of them, be it where they set their thermostats or how fast they drove on the highway. 


But as Mario Cuomo would later observe, you campaign in poetry and govern in prose, and Carter’s unwillingness to compromise and negotiate with leaders in his own party in Congress - and the enmity he generated with his high-handedness - left him with few friends (or allies) when small imbroglios flared up and became raging fires. Indeed, in an era when reporters were highly attuned to even the whiff of scandal, that Carter was blind to the impact investigations of his brother Billy and one of his closest aides (Bert Lance) would have on him, particularly when his political “brand” had been to move the country past the Watergate years, beggars belief.


And these minor contretemps paled in comparison to the real challenges of the day. Perlstein rattles off a litany of stories of the day that painted a bleak and unremittingly dark picture of our nation in the late 1970s. To start off, there was of course, the economy. Increases in the cost of goods caused by inflation eroded what were already stagnating wages while borrowing costs skyrocketed to close to 20 percent. Gas shortages resulted in long lines at the pump (and sometimes fisticuffs or worse). In New York City, a brush with municipal bankruptcy was followed by a power outage that resulted in a night of chaos and a lurking serial killer who unloosed mayhem on an unsuspecting populace. To top it all off, when U.S. embassy personnel were kidnapped and held hostage by Iranian students in 1979 and Carter frittered away months negotiating for their release only to have a rescue attempt go horribly wrong in the Iranian desert, the picture of the United States as an impotent world power brought to its knees was cemented.


All of this is fertile ground for the other part of Perlstein’s story and one he has traced through four books and nearly four thousand pages. You see, the Carter years were when disparate political movements - the religious right, defense hawks, and small government advocates - who, on their own, may have never made it past historical curios, were alchemized through Reagan’s candidacy to become the three-legged stool of modern day conservatism that guided the Republican party for the next four decades. 


It is impossible to understate the importance of this development. Evangelical voters who supported Carter in 1976 quickly turned on him and surfaced a political agenda that was openly discriminatory towards gays and lesbians and the Equal Rights Amendment and in favor of what would become a favored buzzword well into the 1990s - “family values” - which was code for heterosexual marriage and nothing else. Meanwhile, a segment of Democratic thinkers and politicians joined Republicans who saw the way past the humiliation of Vietnam through a build up in our military. At the same time, a small band of economists were advocating for massive tax cuts they said would unleash so much economic growth government would collect more revenue, not less. These fantasists were joined by deep pockets in corporate America who had grown accustomed to tolerating Democratic rule (what Perlstein refers to as the “boardroom Jacobins”) but realized they could advance a deregulatory agenda instead of simply accepting the administrative state’s dictates by funneling its political money not equally between the parties, but overwhelmingly, if not exclusively to, Republicans. 


Perlstein drives home these points in ways both great and small. From the local politicking done to seed delegates to the 1977 National Women’s Conference with Phyllis Schlafly-approved delegates, to the moment-in-the-sun for Anita Bryant as a crusader against gay rights in Florida, Arthur Laffer’s famous cocktail-napkin explanation of supply side economics, to the growing power of the anti-abortion movement, the power of direct mail fundraising, and the centerpiece of his storytelling, a chapter-length dissection of how religious and financial resources were brought to bear to kneecap an IRS regulation regarding the tax exempt status of religious schools. 


But these small victories would have been of less consequence were it not for Reagan’s unique talents as a politician to coalesce these groups together into a winning coalition. Here, Perlstein’s years of research with his subject shine through. You have to imagine the difficulty Perlstein, a progressive and public supporter of Bernie Sanders, had in acknowledging Reagan’s skills, but he does. As Perlstein discusses, time and again, reporters and political foes alike dismissed Reagan as an aging, intellectual lightweight who played fast and loose with the facts. What they missed was Reagan’s touch feel for reading his audience, hitting his marks, and performing best under the bright lights. Reagan turned his primary race around in New Hampshire by grabbing a microphone out of a reporter’s hand at a debate and cemented his general election win by filleting Carter at their lone debate with a shake of the head and a “there you go again” dismissal of a Carter attack line. 


Reagan also had a campaign team ahead of their time in what would become foundational aspects of campaigning - the stage crafting of events for television, the micro-level targeting of voters, and constant message refinement. Indeed, Reagan likely would have won in 1980 just on the support of his new coalition, but what took his victory from that to a Republican rout just six years after Nixon’s resignation, was the realization that there was a slice of Democratic voters who could be brought into the fold by voting against their economic interests. This cultural messaging turned these voters into vaunted Reagan Democrats who would rear their heads as white working class voters who helped Donald Trump narrowly claim the White House 36 years later. 


It is easy to see this tide forming in retrospect, but as Perlstein brings these two narratives together as the 1980 campaign starts, Carter and a lot of Democrats realized too late that the walls were closing in. The victories this nascent collection of political interests accumulated were buttressed by a politically weakened Carter, who attempted to curry favor by repealing a regulation long-hated in the banking industry (Regulation Q), voiced support for expanding missile defense, and trimmed his sails considerably when it came to issues of social equality. In the Senate, old bull Democrats like Frank Church, George McGovern, and Gaylord Nelson were ill-equipped to handle the flood of negative advertising that twisted their records and turned them into pariahs among an electorate all had served for a generation or more. In fact, had Democrats been paying more attention, they would have seen a chirpy House back bencher named Newt Gingrich deploying guerrilla tactics to upend the chummy, backroom dealing that kept government functioning effectively, albeit with Republicans in what appeared to be an eternal House minority, and turn it into the zero sum game we now take as a given. 


It is almost quaint to look back at the political battles Perlstein highlights, from the Panama Canal - something literally no one cares about anymore but was a tooth-and-nail battle back in the day, to stimulus proposals that would give Americans $50 (yes, 5-0 dollars) and compare them to what now informs public discourse. Here to, you start to see how politics was transforming in real time. Reagan, far more than Carter (or reporters for that matter) understood the value of what Stephen Colbert would refer to as “truthiness” more than 30 years later. Reagan’s emotive messaging would often skimp on the facts, earning him opprobrium in the media, but hit home with the audience of voters who were exhausted by years of economic woes, incompetence on the world stage, and a feeling that the nation’s best days were behind it. Leaning into (white) Americans’ sense of patriotism, a desire for a simpler time before inflation and Vietnam and the social upheaval of the 1960s, proved far more compelling than the question of whether one economists’ estimate of a tax cut was accurate or not. While Carter was skirmishing over lines of legislation, Reagan was offering what his running mate would later call “the vision thing” without worrying about the details. Ironically, it was Carter who suffered with the press, whose dubbing of him as “mean” would be repeated in races decades later (Gore was a “beta male,” Hillary was “untrustworthy” etc) while being smitten by Reagan’s charm offensive. 


Other historical echoes abound in Perlstein’s telling without his having to hit you over the head with them. George H.W. Bush is persona non grata among New Right leaders right up until the moment Reagan taps him for the VP spot, thereby ushering in six of seven presidential elections where a Bush family member was on the ballot. In Arkansas, a young Democratic governor named Bill Clinton struggles with an influx of Cuban refugees and ends up suffering his first (and only!) general election defeat. Every now and again, Perlstein name checks people like Joe Biden, Dan Quayle, and Chuck Grassley, all of whom would be involved in politics at the highest levels of government for decades to come. 


There are also the crushing ironies. The air traffic controllers union, Eugene McCarthy (!?!), and Ralph Abernathy (!!!) all endorsing Reagan look, in retrospect, as myopic at best and suicidal at worst. Carter sealing his fate by choosing Paul Volcker to lead the Federal Reserve only to watch as inflation finally gets stifled midway through Reagan’s first term putting him on a glide path to a landslide reelection in 1984. But the biggest takeaway Perlstein does not even touch is that the mission Reagan began in 1980 is now largely complete. 


Trump turned out to be the perfect avatar of ignorance and self-interest that was needed to finish the conservative movement’s four decade push to remake the federal government. The Hobbesian bargain he struck with Congressional Republicans created a conveyer belt of Federalist Society-approved lawyers to fill seats up and down the federal judiciary, cabinet and regulatory agencies led by industry lobbyists eager to roll back the regulatory state (or, in the first two years of Trump’s term, to do so by legislative fiat thanks to a bill passed in the 1990s that yes, Bill Clinton signed into law), and a massive tax cut for corporations and the wealthiest Americans that hoovered up what little wealth they did not already have and put it in their pockets. All that’s left is Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, and given the trillions in debt that have now been added to the national debt, these programs will be in peril the next time the Republicans have unified control of the White House and Congress.  


It is quite possible that a wave similar to what formed in 1980 is happening today in the opposite direction. Republican policies that have starved government of needed resources, questioned science, placed a religious sheen on bigotry toward gays and lesbians, used racial dog whistling and created a yawning income inequality gap unseen in 100 years, are coming home to roost. If so, I can only hope it will not take another 40 years to undo the damage. 



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Wednesday, September 23, 2020

September 23

My daily schedule is so messed up now. I typically finish working out by 9 am, eat lunch at like 10:30 and have dinner at 4. It's like I'm already retired and living in South Florida.

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Monday, September 21, 2020

September 21

I have slept really well the last week or so. It really does affect the rest of your day. I had fallen into this bad zone in late August/early September of being up between 4 and 4:30 am, no idea why, but now that the weather has cooled and the house is, dare I say a bit chilly at night, I fall asleep in no time around 9:30 and sleep all the way through to 5:30 (or later). It is really nice.

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Sunday, September 20, 2020

September 20

I really should have quit following politics in 2000. The presidency was stolen in broad daylight and we all just moved on. But now, I really am ready to call it a day. They won. They stole it all. They've looted the treasury, redistributed the wealth, deregulated all the industries, and are now securing the courts for probably the rest of my life. So sure, I will vote for Biden and hope Democrats take both houses of Congress, but they won't do anything with it. They won't use raw power because they're expected to compromise, to reach out, to trim their sails in order to be reasonable. So, nothing will happen, Republicans will obstruct and block even modest reforms and hey, if they pass, they'll just get bottled up in courts now ugly with 30 and 40something Federalist Society judges who are anti every right known to man except gun rights. This is the country we live in now, this is the country we will live in for the foreseeable future. 

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Saturday, September 19, 2020

September 19

 It's hard not to be despondent right now. Ginsburg died yesterday and Trump is already scheming to fill her seat even before she's put in the ground. McConnell, hypocrite 'til the end, will push through whoever Trump nominates, locking in a 6-3 majority for the foreseeable future. The pandemic continues apace. It is just really dark right now.

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Friday, September 18, 2020

September 18

 I've been busy and not able to post a daily update. This morning, I woke up at about 3:30 and had trouble falling back asleep. I got up about 5:30 and was out the door by about a quarter to 7 for groceries. I came home, whipped up 5 days worth of spaghetti and meat sauce and then spent the day working on a brief.


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Wednesday, September 16, 2020

September 16

Man, I slept *really* well last night. It was glorious. Windows open, nice cool breeze, I slept past 5 am for the first time in, I am guessing, three weeks? We're in this nice pocket of time where the nights are cool but not cold and it really helps.

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Tuesday, September 15, 2020

September 15

Getting a filling at the dentist this afternoon <upside down smiley face> ugh, just why? It's not even a new cavity, I take good care of my teeth, just a super old filling (like from when I was a kid) that is finally giving out. 

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Monday, September 14, 2020

September 14

I am almost illogically excited for cooler weather this week. I don't know, I guess it's because this summer was so hot and I spent so much of it anxious over my HVAC and being indoors all the time, but open windows, walks in the neighborhood a ~ crispness ~ in the air all sound great even if we are still living through a pandemic.

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Sunday, September 13, 2020

September 13

Had a busy day today. The weather is just starting to turn cooler (next weekend is supposed to be in the high 60s!) so I swapped out some sheets. I worked out. I took a nap. My anxiety was (mostly) under control. Football started. Small victories.

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Saturday, September 12, 2020

September 12

I read an article on The Washington Post website about how COVID has messed with our sense of time. Days no longer exist, it is all just "Blursday." Today, I was up at 4:30, had breakfast, took care of the cats, ran a half mile, did a Body Pump workout, had lunch at 10:45, sat in on a 2 hour moot court for a co worker, and am now typing this at 2:21 PM. It is true though this is Saturday, it could also be Tuesday. Like, all the days are the same blend of personal and professional all blended into an existence that occurs almost exclusively within the four walls of my house. Very isolating. 

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Friday, September 11, 2020

September 11

 Never forget ... 

The Supreme Court stopped a state's vote recount and handed the presidency to George W. Bush.

Richard Clarke told Condoleezza Rice that Al-Qaeda would be one of the biggest challenges Bush's Administration would face.

A month before 9/11, Bush got a briefing about Al-Qaeda's desire to execute a terrorist attack on U.S. soil. W's response? "You've covered your ass."

After 9/11

Instead of asking Americans to sacrifice for the cause of the nation, Bush told us to visit Disney World.

Bin Laden got away.

Bush lied us into Iraq. A war that is still technically going on almost 18 years later and at a cost of more than $2 trillion (not to mention the nearly 5,000 dead American soldiers).

The Taliban was never defeated.

Bush is now some pater familias who lives a comfortable retirement and spends his time painting water colors.

His propagandists while in office (people like Steve Schmidt and Nicolle Wallace) are now members in good standing with the mainstream media or paint-by-numbers right wing Trump apologists (Ari Fleischer).

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Wednesday, September 9, 2020

September 9

Busy day at "work" and I am not in a good mood. I would rant and rave but I am honestly too tired.

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Tuesday, September 8, 2020

September 8

I skipped yesterday, oops. It's now the Tuesday after Labor Day and the ~ rhythms of fall ~ are nowhere to be found. No kids waiting for the school bus, no parents standing proudly next to them, no smell of diesel exhaust wafting in the air. It is weird. 

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Sunday, September 6, 2020

September 6

I am on a three-days-on-one-day-off workout routine right now and today is an off day, so I am going to basically sit around and watch TV all day. 

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Saturday, September 5, 2020

September 5

I went into work for a few hours this morning. It actually felt good to be out of the house and at my desk, getting things done. I came home and worked out, had a nice big bowl of pasta for lunch and am going to take a nap.

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Friday, September 4, 2020

September 4

I do not want to compare quarantining, or whatever it is you want to call spending five plus months largely at home as being like solitary confinement, BUT, it does share some similarities. On the face of it, the idea you could spend all your time in your comfortable home, have the material comfort and job security that you are not stressed about the mortgage or your bills, sounds lovely. But when you live it - or at least as *I* live it, is draining me mentally. Maybe it's in part because I don't have close family or friends to talk to (the crumbs of conversation are usually work related aside from an occasional quick chit chat) and I do go out of the house unless I have to (not even sitting in the backyard). The monotony of it, the fear of choosing the wrong time to go to the wrong place and running into the wrong person who has COVID and somehow getting infected informs every decision I make even as I long for even a modicum of attention (much less affection).

Lately, I have been struggling just to get through this summer - it has been hot and I have been stressed about the HVAC (which is getting a tune up next week) and just being ... uncomfortable in my own home. But yesterday I was thinking about what *winter* will be like. To be sure, I have the gas fireplace which is a main source of heat (allowing me to run the central heat less) but being in the house every day in winter just does not seem (or sound) ideal. It has a very The Shining vibe to it. I don't know, maybe it's never going to be back to "normal" until a vaccine arrives. 

In the meantime, I do understand the desire to tempt fate. I would *really* like to go out on a date or two, or just see another living human being for more than 5 minutes. Knowing my luck, I would do it, catch COVID and drop dead.

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Thursday, September 3, 2020

September 3

I have been sleeping like absolute shit lately. Like, the last three nights I've woken up between 3:30 and 4:30 in the morning and have been unable to get back to sleep. It's so annoying and just fucks with my whole day because then I get super tired in the afternoon and nap and then I have trouble falling asleep even though I am then waking up in the middle of the night and the cycle starts anew ... 

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Wednesday, September 2, 2020

September 2

Today, I went to the dentist for an overdue cleaning (it was originally scheduled for April but the office shut down b/c of COVID and then, after it reopened, I dragged my feet). It was fine. The hygienist was very mindful of limiting splash and stuff squirting out of my mouth (she was wearing a mask, a face guard and PPE). I do have to get a filling redone, but I got like 40 years out of it, so decent return on investment.


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Tuesday, September 1, 2020

September 1

There is a dating site I use that makes me feel bad about myself and yet, I continue renewing my membership on it b/c *some* attention, even from women I know are not right for me, feels better (in the moment) than being alone. 

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Monday, August 31, 2020

August 31

Today is the first day of "vacation." Basically, I'm doing the same thing I do every day, just not checking my work email. There is construction being done on my street because of course, god forbid I should be able to enjoy even a day of peace instead of having literal jackhammers right outside my front door. Just hands down the worst year ever.

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Sunday, August 30, 2020

August 30

The day finally came when gyms were reopened in New Jersey. Technically, they can reopen on Tuesday (Sept. 1), but I have been dreading this day for a while. To my gym's credit, it had suspended dues while it was closed and even provided free online classes (which I have been doing regularly). But now that it is reopening, I had to make the difficult decision to cancel my membership because I am still not comfortable being a gym, which from everything I've read, poses one of the higher risks of infection, and specifically, for people (like me) who go primarily for group classes. 

It was difficult because aside from work (which I am doing remotely), the gym is my one steady source of human interaction and I am reluctant to give it up, but the risk is simply not worth it for me. Short of having instant COVID testing at the front door, I don't think I can go back to a gym until a reputable vaccine is available. So, for now, I signed up for LES MILLS ON DEMAND, which is the branded exercise program used at the gym. It's cheap, like $10 a month, compared to the $70 a month I was paying at my gym, so that will be nice. It is not ideal, but it allows me to keep fit and safe, so I am doing it.

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Saturday, August 29, 2020

August 29

You know what I find really relaxing lately? Watching QVC. I don't buy anything, I just sort of let it wash over me (particularly "In the Kitchen with David"). It is like visual muzak.

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Friday, August 28, 2020

August 28

I'm on "vacation" next week, which is just a glorified way of saying I'll be doing the same thing I do ever day, just without the responsibility of checking and answering email and dealing with clients. 


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Thursday, August 27, 2020

August 27

I don't really have anything to say today. I'm just exhausted. Exhausted from a long, hot summer. Exhausted from being on quarantine since April. Exhausted by what I read in the paper and see on my TV. Just done. 

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Wednesday, August 26, 2020

August 26

Ghost appears to be doing better. It sounded like he was going to do something during dinner last night, but it passed. I'm still a little worried about him. His peeing is back to normal and he pooped last night too, so I think those are good signs. 

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Tuesday, August 25, 2020

August 25

Yesterday was not a good day. For one, it was like 92 degrees, which is just SO tired at this point. I think we've had something like 40 days above 90 degrees this year, more than double the average. If that was not bad enough, there was construction on my street, so hours of jackhammering made it almost impossible to think straight. And then, just because hey, someone wants to see how much shit I can take in one day, Ghost barfed up his dinner (and a chunky hairball). My sweet Ghost, I spent a lot of time with him afterwards, rubbing his belly and scratching that little spot behind his ear he finds so irresistible. He drank some water and seemed to be ok (he slept on the bed with me). This morning, he did not pee, which was ... not great. I was ready to take him to the emergency room but he finally went after I gave him a little extra food around lunch time. Hopefully, he's all better.


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Monday, August 24, 2020

August 25

When your iTunes library has more than 11,000 songs, it can be easy to forget a CD's worth of music your ex-girlfriend gave you but you forgot to remove. Music is a funny thing. You can be bopping along to some random version of Franklin's Tower and then, the electronic jukebox shuffles over to a song from The Head and The Heart and you are back in 2013, hopeful, happy, and washed over in nostalgia for a time that never truly was. And you remind yourself to remove that music but you just can't bring yourself to do it. 

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Sunday, August 23, 2020

August 23

It took more than five months, but it finally happened. The woman I was casually seeing before the pandemic hit and then ghosted me when I refused to take her grocery shopping way back in March when COVID was decimating New Jersey (she had other options and I was not risking my health for someone I had been out with four times SORRY) got in touch last night. Was it to see how I was doing or apologizing? No. There was not even a perfunctory acknowledgment of either, just a straight to the point request for my help b/c she is having an issue with her landlord (she is a PhD student at a school I won't name in NJ and is renting an apartment). I mulled over that text for a while, contemplating options - 1) politely refuse to help; 2) tell her to fuck off; or 3) ignore. I chose "3." Deleted the text and forgot about it (and her).


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Saturday, August 22, 2020

August 22

I worked out for the second day in a row. A good sign. If I'm going to die of some freak stroke or heart attack, at least I will be in good shape when the ambulance comes ...


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Friday, August 21, 2020

August 21

Today, I was confronted with an issue that I really struggle with - which is standing up for myself. The context was in regards to taking a vacation, which isn't really a thing now b/c I never leave my house, but regardless, I had requested time off before Labor Day. Subsequent to my request, I was assigned to work on a new case with a couple of other lawyers in the office. I almost had to apologize to the managing partner in letting him know I had put in the vacation request and that I wanted to take it even though this case is new and needs attention. I hate that everyone else just puts themselves first, takes their time, and does not think twice about it, and here I am not only feeling guilty for taking the time but assuring others I won't actually take the time b/c I will monitor email and sit on calls so it won't actually feel like I am not there. Grrrrr

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Thursday, August 20, 2020

August 20

It is so much fun when your anxiety and stress manifest themselves in things like random chest pains that linger for days. Thankfully, I have good health insurance and can literally get in to see my general practitioner within hours. I had some blood drawn, an EKG, and a pretty thorough examination that led my doctor to conclude I had probably pulled or strained a rib (or muscle) because the pain I was feeling was (thankfully) not near my heart. Can't wait to see what body part will go sideways next <eye roll>

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Wednesday, August 19, 2020

August 19

I stayed up late last night watching the Democratic National Convention. It was oddly compelling. Without the fanfare and crowds, the tendency of camera people to look for crowd reaction shots and speakers to drone on, it forces the viewer to simply focus on the words being said. Make America Decent Again with a side of next generation leaders and everyday Americans speaking to the best of who we are. To be sure, there was a nostalgic streak, but as Don Draper famously said, nostalgia is delicate, but potent. At a time when we're barely keeping our heads above water, it's not such a bad thing to remind us that we are better than this, that we can do this, that, as Biden often says, (paraphrasing) betting against America is a losing bet. I don't know. The realpolitik of what happens in DC in 2020 is not the gauzy, soft lens bipartisanship of the 1970s and 1980s, but this is who Biden is, this is what he believes. Reporters claim they (and we) want authenticity in our politicians. Well, featuring a bunch of septuagenarians like Chuck Hagel and Colin Powell, John Kerry and Cindy McCain, all testifying to Biden's decency, decision making, and character is not intended to get the Tik Tok generation fired up. It is not fodder for the online social media discussion. It is directed at reliable voters (seniors) who, if they swing to Biden's camp, sink Trump's battleship. Having Jill Biden speak to parents' fears while connecting the losses we have experienced as a nation to the ones Biden experienced in his personal life tell us that this guy will be the calming presence, the stable core, the steady hand, that guides the ship of state. In the action and reaction between hope and change and build the wall, maybe that is what we need right now.


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Tuesday, August 18, 2020

August 18

Having a combination of anxiety and PTSD is a great way to go through life if you want to constantly think that any and every minor ailment, pain, and ache is going to kill you.


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Monday, August 17, 2020

August 17

 The start of another work week. Another day of random physical maladies wondering if any of them will be terminal, so that's fun.


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Sunday, August 16, 2020

August 16

I slept until like 6:30 this morning, it was pretty glorious (although I did wake up at about 2:30 and it probably took me about an hour to fall back asleep). I also worked out for the first time since Monday - a good sign.


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Saturday, August 15, 2020

August 15

Today is Saturday. Weather is not too warm and I am feeling well, just ok. I guess that's a win these days .. 


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Friday, August 14, 2020

August 14

So ... my COVID test came back negative. I was surprised and unsurprised. Surprised in that I definitely have symptoms consistent with COVID but unsurprised because now I am convinced I did not self-administer the test properly (did not get the q-tip far enough up my nose?) Anyway, I am going to take a second test early next week. Now that I know the procedures, I will be less anxious about the whole thing and hopefully do it right. If that test comes back negative, I will have a bit more peace of mind. But hey, shouts to NJ, a free test that provided results in 2.5 days is not great, but not awful either.


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Thursday, August 13, 2020

August 13

 I am still here. I woke up feeling like shit (groggy/dizzy) and rallied a little as the day wore on, but definitely not myself. I have no idea how I am going to survive another 6 months in quarantine.


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Wednesday, August 12, 2020

August 12

I took a COVID test yesterday. I felt it was the right thing to do in light of my symptoms. To New Jersey's credit, the process was remarkably easy. I went to the state's website and it directed me to several different testing locations near me. I clicked on a link for one of the pharmacies, took about 1 minute to fill out a basic questionnaire, and selected a time for my appointment. About 30 minutes later (yes, that quickly), I was parked outside the pharmacy. I called from my car, a technician came out and handed me a simple testing packet that included my voucher (which had my name and DOB), a testing vial with some liquid in it, and a long Q-tip. The instructions for self-testing were sent to me via a text link to my phone. I took the Q-tip out of its wrapper, shoved up each of my nostrils, and then inserted it, swab-side first, into the vial, snapping off the excess part of the shaft and sealing the bag. I called the pharmacy back, the technician came outside with a box and I dropped the kit into it. I was in and out of the parking lot in 5 minutes. No hours-long lines, no workers in PPE, very smooth and very simple (and free!). My one concern was human error - relying on lay people who are not medical professionals to self-test. Like, did I shove the Q-tip far enough up my nose? The instructions said 3/4 of an inch, but that is a hard distance to measure when you're doing something like that. Oh well. I am supposed to get my results back in 3-5 business days, which is not great, but better than nothing.

I am feeling a little better, certainly better than I did overnight Monday into Tuesday. I'm still a little dizzy and "low energy" (I did struggle a bit to get through a conference call yesterday), and so I have gone through several different emotions, perhaps not unlike the five stages of grief. Assuming I do have COVID, I do marvel at its ability to transmit, because I never leave the house to do anything other than grocery shop. How I could have contracted COVID in those 10-15 minutes, twice a week, is impressive, but also (obviously) annoys me as I have done all the right things and appear to have still caught the virus. I also think about risk - if you stay home almost all the time, your risk of contracting the virus is very low, which makes all of the negative outcomes from catching it moot, but if I do have it, now I suddenly drift into the roughly 1 in 100 chance that something really bad happens. Thankfully, I do not have co morbidities that put me at greater risk, and assuming I did catch it in the grocery store, my exposure was brief and I was masked, which has been shown to reduce the amount of virus you take in. 

There would also be some piece of mind (weirdly) in having been infected. At least I know I have it. At least I know if things go south with my health, I have some lead time to plan and get in touch with an emergency contact to take care of P and G. And, if things don't go really south, and I sort of muscle through a mild (or even bad, but not have-to-be-hospitalized bad) case, the other side is less fraught. That is, although I would of course remain vigilant in terms of my social interactions and how often I am out and about, I will have developed antibodies that likely protect me from another infection. All things being equal, I would prefer to have not been infected, but if I am, the odds are still in my favor. I will keep you posted.

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Tuesday, August 11, 2020

August 11

 How was your night? Mine was truly awful. I woke up in a sweat and feeling dizzy at about 1 am. I was really unsteady, but I managed to get out of bed, flip the a/c on, and plop down on the couch. I spent the next two hours basically immobile, restless, and occasionally shivering, sure that I had somehow contracted coronavirus even though I literally never leave the house to do anything other than grocery shop and when I do, I wear a mask and gloves. I toggled through the worst case scenarios, mentally thinking through what person I would inconvenience by asking them to take care of P and G if I had to go to the hospital and just tried to quiet my mind otherwise. 

I drifted off about 3 am and slept for about 90 minutes. When I woke up, I felt a little better (well enough to clean the litter boxes, though still not moving very fast) and managed to get the cats fed. I have not lost my sense of taste (I did choke down breakfast), I do not have shortness of breath, and I felt steady enough to go to the grocery store this morning for a previously planned shop, but ugh, it just is not great. I am going to monitor myself today and see how I feel (the worked out yesterday morning without incident). There are a couple of places that do COVID testing near me, so I may get checked if I don't feel better. Fingers crossed. 

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Monday, August 10, 2020

August 10

The season finale of Perry Mason aired last night. It was fine. The show had the vague whiff of True Detective about it and the finale was a bit clunky in terms of wrapping up its various story lines. The bad guy got his just desserts, the wrongly accused was not acquitted, the case ended in a mistrial. It turned out that one of the jurors was bribed even though two others voted to acquit without being paid to do so. Right now, I just want to stare at TV that does not make me think too much but is enough of a diversion to keep my mind off the daily awfulness, so, mission accomplished.

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Sunday, August 9, 2020

August 9

 Today is the anniversary of Jerry's passing. I can still tell you exactly where I was when I heard the news. I was interning at the White House that summer, sitting at my desk in the Deputy Chief of Staff's office when one of my friends called. "Have you heard the news?" "What?" "Jerry died." This was back in the day when the internet was barely a thing and well before smart phones were even a twinkle in Steve Jobs's eye. It was such a dagger. It is hard to explain to people why someone's death who you've never met can affect you so profoundly, but Jerry was this larger than life figure but also painfully human. His passing, without it being too cliche, was also the death of a certain innocence, of youth and the promise of the future. The world is just a worse place without him here.

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Saturday, August 8, 2020

August 8

I dwell a lot on my age because, dear reader, I do not expect to make it to 60, maybe not even 55. I have what they call "bad genes" - my dad and grandfather (on my mother's side) both died at 52 of strokes, so I have it pretty much hard wired into my mind that I'm on borrowed time. In fact, one of the reasons I work out so much is because I am actively trying to avoid that fate (the other reason - not looking awful naked in case anyone was interested seems to be pointless considering there is a pandemic going on, I am not meeting anyone, and was not dating much (or having sex) before it started). 

Anyway, you would think having an expiration date like this would make me embrace life, but the reality is that as I have aged, my world has shrunk. Again, even before the pandemic, I rarely went out anywhere other than the gym and the library, I have no social life, and zero self-esteem. So, while part of me envisions a lengthy retirement in Arizona, photographing mesas, bike riding, and driving around in a convertible, the more likely outcome is I die sometime before 2025 and decompose for a few days before anyone realizes I am dead.

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Friday, August 7, 2020

August 7

There is no question I have talked to my cats more since, oh, let's say April 1st, than any one human being. It is not that social isolation is wearing on me, there are days it does, others, I do not, it is just that the two places I relied on interaction - my office and my gym - have both been shuttered for the last 4 months or so and so I have been essentially left to my own devices. I do not worry about the long haul, I am pretty sure I can do this well into 2021, but I would like to get laid at some point, which does not appear to be in the cards until well past I turn 50. Hope there's still lead in the pencil at that point ... 


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Thursday, August 6, 2020

August 6

I went to the grocery store this morning. All was fine, I was in the self-check out, paying for my groceries when the machine malfunctioned. It just goes to show in a pandemic how small things end up unnerving you. Like three people had to come over to take care of it (the container that holds the money was full and needed to be emptied) and I tried to shuttle off to the side so I could avoid close contact. It felt like forever when it was probably only like 2 minutes, but still. 

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Wednesday, August 5, 2020

August 5

Ah, the vagaries of mother nature. A shift 20 miles to the west, an upper level flow a little faster than predicted, and what was lining up to be a disaster was just a couple of spurts of heavy rain and a little wind that, by the middle of the day was gone and replaced with warm sunshine. Go figure.

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Tuesday, August 4, 2020

August 4

Nothing like waking up to a tornado watch to get your day off to the right start. Ugh. 

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Monday, August 3, 2020

August 3

A tropical storm is going to blow right through New Jersey tomorrow, so that's fun. After a month where 70 percent of the days hit 90 degrees or higher, we are going to get topped off with between 3 and 5 inches of rain and 60-70 mile per hour winds. Just wonderful. I mean, I made it through Sandy but one of my greatest fears is one of the massive trees that ring my property comes down during one of these bad storms and takes out my house (or me (or my cats)). 

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Sunday, August 2, 2020

August 2

I have been thinking a lot lately about how I might essentially be stuck in my house for another 6 months. It is not a thought that makes me happy, but the reality of the situation is that I have to be more conservative than most about being in public. I don't have family or friends up here to take care of me (or my cats) if god forbid I caught COVID and got really sick. My priorities are Pumpkin and Ghost and I have to do everything I can to make sure I stay healthy and able to care for them. The flip side to that is until a vaccine is available (and shown to be effective!) I am pretty much a prisoner in my home. I do look forward to late summer/early fall, when it is still warm but not hot, when the leaves will change (and I can sneak out to take some photos) and, for better or worse, I will turn 50. Just trying to mentally power through until around Labor Day and hopefully things will get a little better.

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Saturday, August 1, 2020

August 1

I am feeling better today. One thing that COVID has affected is my reading. Usually, I get through about 30 books a year. This year, I will be lucky to read 15. Part of it had to do with the libraries being shut down for months but even now that they are open again, I am not comfortable checking out books, so I am buying books but without the pressure to return them, I am reading less, or maybe I just have less energy to read. I don't know. 

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Friday, July 31, 2020

July 31

I have had a bad headache, like migraine bad headache, since last night, so I am spending the day on the couch, enjoying the one day break from the heat.

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Thursday, July 30, 2020

July 30

Something, larger than a stone but smaller than a boulder (?) hit my car this morning while I was driving on Rt. 1. It made a noise on the underside of the car, I didn't even see it, but it immediately triggered my anxiety. It is just SO MUCH FUN when your heart rate spikes to like 130 while you're driving 60 miles an hour, let me tell you. No lights came on and nothing leaked, so hopefully no damage was done, but for crying out loud, when you drive less than 40 miles a week, WHY does even that modest amount of travel have to be so fraught. Oh right, it's New Jersey.

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Wednesday, July 29, 2020

July 29

My sleep schedule is really off right now. When the pandemic hit in March, I was barely able to stay up past 8:30 and was sleeping until close to 6. Now, I'm up until close to 10 and up sometime between 4 and 5. Part of it is anxiety. Ok, a lot of it is anxiety. My current obsession is the HVAC, which is running a lot more than normal both because I am home all the time and it has been one of the 5 hottest months of July on record. I had tried to schedule a tune up early this summer and then when the place I called told me they could not come out until early August (!) I just gave up instead of trying to find another provider to do it. I just have a lot of anxiety generally about people being in the house and now it's of course worse b/c of COVID. So, every day I try to apportion out running the A/C just enough to keep things "comfortable" (which is to say in the low to mid 70s) and hope I make it through to Labor Day when I usually shut down the A/C for the season.

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Tuesday, July 28, 2020

July 28

Today is the first day of what passes for a "vacation." Honestly, it doesn't look much different than my work from home days except I don't have to monitor my work email or do legal research. Otherwise, it is like a bazillion degrees today (as it has been this entire freaking month) so it is not like I am particularly motivated to do anything other than lay on the couch.

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Monday, July 27, 2020

July 27

One of the taglines I use in my dating profile is "fighting off dad bod one push up at a time." It is glib and has the benefit of being true, but I will level with you fam, dad bod is starting to win. It is a cruel irony that in quarantine, my fitness routine is probably better than it was pre-quarantine - I can work out when I want and without ever leaving the house. I am actually working out more now than I was pre-Q (three or four days on, then one day off, as opposed to four times a week) but where I think I am losing the small daily battle is the otherwise sedentary life I am living. In the normal world, I was adding 10,000 (or more) steps a day at the office just by going up and down stairs a few times a day and moving around. Now, I'm lucky to get 1,000 because I rarely leave the house. I guess the other thing is just creeping middle age. The ability to maintain fitness and weight goals simply gets harder as you get older and the little skirmishes you lose, be they of steps walked or food consumed, turn into bigger lost battles faster and the ground is harder to take back. 

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Sunday, July 26, 2020

1980

In 1980, an incumbent President ran for re-election in the midst of a crisis he had failed to contain. And it was not for lack of trying. If you go back and read about the Iran hostage crisis, you will find out that Jimmy Carter tried very hard to bring that dark chapter in our nation’s history to an end. He tried diplomatic means. He green lit a risky rescue operation that went horribly wrong. He gave up the time and energy he might have otherwise directed at campaigning to try and solve a problem that made him (and our nation) look impotent and weak.

Carter may have been fortunate in his competition. Ronald Reagan was thought to be some combination of an intellectual light weight, over the hill, and a right wing extremist. Even late into October, Carter held a small (3 point) lead among likely voters in polling done by Gallup, which, at the time, was the gold standard in the field. Reagan gave a polished performance in the competitors’ lone debate (his rhetorical question of whether voters were better off than they were 4 years before is still cited in presidential races to this day) that moved lots and lots of late deciding voters into his camp. He destroyed the image of him as bumbling (or dangerous) and his message of an America with better days ahead resonated with an electorate exhausted by years of inflation, high interest rates, and unemployment. 

Media types are always looking to compare the present day to history and that is understandable. Joe Biden’s healthy polling lead over Donald Trump has many reporters eyeing 1988 as a cautionary tale of calling a race too early. There, Mike Dukakis was ahead in one poll (also Gallup) by up to 17 points late into the summer, only to lose 40 states (and the election) to then-Vice President Bush in November.  

But to me, and something I have tweeted about a few times, 2020 is far more likely to look like 1980 than 1988. Why do I say this? For several reasons. Trump, like Carter, got elected promising to shake up Washington. Carter, a little known Governor when he ran for the Democratic nomination, offered a fresh start after the convulsions of Watergate (and to a lesser extent, the Vietnam War). Trump, while certainly better known, also offered himself as an outsider who would “drain the swamp” and draw on his supposed business acumen to grow the economy. 

One of the reasons Carter ultimately faltered is that he failed to make good on his campaign rhetoric. Even before the Iran hostage crisis, the nation remained mired in slow/little economic growth and the psychic wounds from Vietnam had sapped our belief in our military and its use as a force for good in the world. Trump, by contrast, has had an ocean of corruption and scandal follow him into office at a level unseen since Nixon, and arguably, ever. Between his impeachment, the ethics scandals of people like Scott Pruitt, Ryan Zinke, and Alex Acosta, and the wanton grifting of the public fisc, the “swamp” Trump promised to drain was an ever-deepening cesspool before COVID hit. 

Second, Carter was, charitably, a bit of a prig. A born-again Christian, Carter often came off as a scold. This happened most famously in his “malaise” speech, a word he did not actually use, but became associated with the overriding message of moral rot in the country that was eating away at the fabric of our community. At other times, whether it was lecturing people about lowering their thermostats or personally reviewing requests by aides and elected officials who wanted to use the White House tennis court, Carter looked like a nag and a wet blanket. Trump, is, charitably, a bit of a prick. The quotes are well known, but his glaring racism, misogynism, xenophobia, and so much more make him as popular as herpes with all but his MAGA followers. Caging kids. Calling white supremacists “very fine people.” Shithole countries. In the same way Carter’s parsimony turned off Americans who were already suffering and did not want to be treated like children, Trump’s odiousness runs counter to who we like to believe we are as a nation - charitable, progressive, open minded, and welcoming of all people, regardless of race, creed, ethnicity, or sex. 

Third, their opponents share similarities. While Reagan and Biden’s politics will never be confused for being the same, both were experienced hands at politics. Reagan with two terms as California Governor under his belt and Biden having two terms as Vice President after a long career in the U.S. Senate. Much was made of Reagan’s age (as the Trump people are trying to do with Biden) and the fear that he would steer the country in a rightward direction (as the Trump people are trying to portray Biden as a dupe of the left). 

Finally, and most importantly, are the crises Carter and Trump faced. While Carter was hands on and did all he could to get the hostages freed from Iran and Trump has checked out on doing anything to mitigate COVID, voters’ reaction has been the same - widespread disdain for both. What Iran exposed with Carter and what COVID exposed with Trump is the same thing - incompetence. For Carter, it cemented the view that he was simply in over his head. That his lack of experience and inability to bring a small country like Iran to heel even with our military might, made America look small and weak. For Trump, his indifference to COVID has revealed all that people knew about him - his narcissism, his obliviousness to facts, his laziness - that some looked past in 2016 but cannot do now because this is not a reality show, it is literally a life and death situation that other countries, with competent leadership, have gotten a handle on while we have not. It has exposed a different kind of weakness, a different kind of impotence, than Iran did, but the result is no different. Americans by wide margins, see our nation heading in the wrong direction and see a man standing at the White House podium saying things utterly divorced from their reality. 

Looked at in this way, the late October breakers who abandoned Carter and swung to Reagan appear to be making their judgment about Trump’s failures earlier in the race, perhaps owing to Biden’s credentials as a former Vice President to a still popular former President who is a safer alternative than Reagan was viewed to be until that debate performance. It explains why polling shows the closest states from 2016 like Michigan and Pennsylvania swinging sharply to Biden’s camp, but the true canaries in the coal mine for a 1980-like sweep are in places like Arizona, Georgia, and even Texas. If those states abandon Trump, then you could see a Biden victory that may not reach the 489 electoral votes Reagan won in 1980, but could fall comfortably in the 360-380 won by Bill Clinton (twice) and Barack Obama (once).

There is one other consequence to that scenario. While Reagan’s victory is remembered as the birth of modern conservatism, a less remembered result of his landslide victory was the 12 Republicans who won U.S. Senate races that night too. Democratic incumbents like six-term incumbent Warren Magnuson, four-term incumbent Frank Church, three-term incumbents Gaylord Nelson and Birch Bayh, and the Democrats’ 1972 Presidential nominee, George McGovern, all lost. In 2020, so-called purple state Senators like Cory Gardner and Martha McSally are viewed as highly vulnerable, but as polls show Republican incumbents like Joni Ernst (Iowa), Thom Tillis (North Carolina), and Susan Collins (Maine) trailing their opponents, you can start to see the ripples of larger waves forming. If Trump continues to repel all but his ardent base, a 1980-like tsunami might take out other thought-to-be safe Senators like Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell while under-the-radar races like Alaska could also swing blue. 

Of course, as we are constantly reminded, there is still a lot of time between now and election day. But early voting starts in six weeks and COVID is not getting any better. Trump may have modestly changed his ~ tone ~ this week, but tone does not change the facts on the ground or the continued misery we are all experiencing. If, on election night, Biden is declared the winner early and down ballot races not even thought to be competitive for Democrats break in their favor, expect to hear a lot of flashbacks to forty years ago.


Follow me on Twitter - @scarylawyerguy 

Saturday, July 25, 2020

July 25

I've been thinking a lot lately about my 40s. They are ending in a few months. So much time squandered. On the personal front, I started by digging myself out of the worst mistake of my life and got divorced. I dated a bit and then about 2 years later I met someone who broke my heart. Flash forward 7 years, and I'm utterly alone and have not had a serious relationship since and have not really dated in several years. On the professional front, I was on a glide path into upper management in my office and distinguished myself on a myriad of occasions only to get passed over when an opportunity arose. In the military, they call this "up or out," well I was "out" except I did not retire, I just got dumped into a backwater part of our office where I still reside, cooling my heels now that the pandemic has made any employment both scarce and not something one walks away from without solid back up plans.

So, yeah, a total waste of a decade. A DECADE.

Follow me on Twitter - @scarylawyerguy 

Friday, July 24, 2020

July 24

Had a productive day (and it's only 1:30). I slept like shit, which always helps in terms of getting the day started. Regardless, I did a grocery run (as good as it's going to get so long as COVID is around - everyone in masks, mostly distanced, and in and out in 15 minutes), got a work out in, and wrote a brief.

Follow me on Twitter - @scarylawyerguy 

Thursday, July 23, 2020

July 23

I passed 13,000 followers on Twitter yesterday. I will admit I take some pride in having organically built this healthy following. I never ask people to follow me (gauche) or pay for followers (straight up bullshit) and I have always believed you should tweet the same whether 1 person follows you or 1 million. I did pick up some new people by hash tagging a few tweets, which stopped doing a long time ago largely because of what happened when I did it yesterday - lots of bullshit replies from people I end up blocking. It is just one of those tradeoffs you make on social media. If your tweets get exposed to more people, more people are likely to engage with them - some you will want to engage, some you will not, and others in between. 

My general rule is I do not engage with trolls, I just block them. My other rule is people who include me in replies usually get blocked (always if they do not follow me, regardless of whether they are replying agreeing or disagreeing with me). I think Twitter is a choose-your-own-adventure platform and mine is to tweet, rarely retweet and every now and again tag someone I follow with something I see or read that I think they will find interesting. Your mileage may vary.

Follow me on Twitter - @scarylawyerguy 

Wednesday, July 22, 2020

July 22

I am really starting to wear down. I think it is the heat. It is just unrelenting. I am doing the bare minimum each day, just trying to ride it out until (late?) next week when it is supposed to cool down. I am also rethinking my plan to retire to Arizona. Ha ha.

Follow me on Twitter - @scarylawyerguy 

Tuesday, July 21, 2020

July 21

Ugh. Another bleak day, another step toward authoritarian rule in America. Unidentified federal troops scooping up protestors. Coronavirus out of control. It was less than a month ago that the Times reported on Russia paying bounties for killing troops in Afghanistan and it's like the story never happened. Roger Stone's sentence commuted. Geoffrey Berman fired. The sitting President saying he might not accept the results of an election he is likely to lose and is already screaming about it being rigged. The budget deficit will be $4 trillion or more. It may be ok if you're 30 and have decades ahead of you to (hopefully) clean up this mess, but I had plans I wanted to quit working in 10 years. I expected a comfortable retirement. Now? Who knows if our nation will even be a democracy, much less a functioning one, and not a bankrupt quasi-dictatorship.

Follow me on twitter - @scarylawyerguy 

Monday, July 20, 2020

July 20

I am really not feeling it today. I did work out this morning and I did watch I Will Be Gone in the Dark afterwards (may I recommend you only watch this show during daylight hours?) And now, I do not want to do anything but will stare at the computer screen until dinner time so I can say I "worked" today.

Follow me on Twitter - @scarylawyerguy 

Sunday, July 19, 2020

July 19

One of the "fun" things about quarantine is strategizing ways to maximize time during heat waves! For example, I am working out really early (8 am) to get my exercise in before the heat of the day, running the A/C later in the morning (10 am - noon) and then cruising through the afternoon until the A/C starts running again from 5 pm to 9 pm. It is not ideal, but I am making it work.

Follow me on Twitter - @scarylawyerguy