Square

I tried.  I went out with my camera on the streets around my studio for a few minutes thinking I might take a few pictures.  I got this masterpiece.  All I can say about it is that I used to have a dog like this when I was growing up.  They are extremely smart for dogs.  Mine could do simple math.

O.K.  It is a start.  The poop bags are the story, a cultural trait of our times.  When I had dogs, I never had them on leashes and never had poop bags.  They were like Lassie, really, running around saving the world.  Different times.  So. . . the picture is about the poop bags.

I didn't sleep well at all last night, waking up at 3:30 and never truly falling back to sleep.  I may stay home from the factory today.  I haven't made up my mind yet.  Most of us like to go to work when we feel badly, right?  We'd rather save our sick days for when we feel good?

What a fucked up world.

Or maybe it is just me.

I hired a transgender yesterday.  A she becoming a he.  She said she did not identify with any gender and that she wanted to be referred to as "they."  I told her that was great and that I preferred to be referred to as "all."  No I didn't.  I just thought of that now, and I wouldn't have said it even if I had thought of that then.  She talked about her partner who I eventually found out was male.  She is transitioning now, so her appearance will change, she said.  I'll watch with interest.

People gotta be free.

But when will the things I want most be tolerated?

So last night, among the many things I thought about in the sleepless darkness, I thought about identity politics and how square I am in my very heterosexual way.  That is what Ili tells me.  She says I'm a square.  I thought about the old saying that liberals become conservatives as they get older, and I realized that it wasn't because they became more conservative at all but that the world around them changes.  Old ideas, old ways of expressing them.  It is nothing to fear, I guess, and I know I should absolutely not try to have street creds with people who are young and radical.  That would be an ugly embarrassment.  I was glad that I hired they and that they liked me.  They said they were very excited to get the job and couldn't wait to begin.  And I did that without trying to be hip or now.

But I thought about Donald Trump, too.  Not Trump exactly, but why Trump in general.  And of course it is the disenchantment that many people feel about political correctness.  The once hip very hetero is now a creepy uncle.  "We want our country back," isn't about real estate, of course.  Uncle Creepy just wants to feel normal again.  Ili asked me if people were happier and if life was easier in the early 1960s (early Madmen, I guess).  I said no, not for many people, but more people probably felt at ease when they were part of the majority value system.  And I thought last night, that must be it.  It was not good to be black or homosexual or a communist or whatever else was marginalized, but that was a minority of the population.  Now, perhaps, the ratio has changed.  There is more of an even split in the numbers.  The culture wars have had a lasting effect.

And still. . . when will I be free?

Cuban style is sure to be the rage in the U.S. now.  The Reggaeton look.  It is another thing I will never have (link).  Ili is right, I am certain.  There is no denying it, no getting away from it.

I have become a square.