I don't even know where to begin today's post. I thought I knew, then I got a text from my conservative buddy that has thrown me for a loop. I've been inundated with texts this morning in a way I rarely encounter. I'll need to check my hororscope.
I'll begin with this: I got up to pee in the night, and when I looked into the mirror--oh, my. Who the hell was that?
I got normed at the beauty parlor yesterday. My hair is really short now. I'm a trad. I'm trying not to freak out. My hair hasn't been this short since the 6th grade. All there is to look at now is my face.
And that ain't so pleasing.
People I know will look at me sideways when I see them today. It's o.k. Change is good, right?
The beauty parlor took up the afternoon. You wouldn't think, but with the coloring and all. . . . My beautician had a lot to say. I tried to tell her of my loss of confidence and my touch aversion, but as is often the case, that took a U-turn and she told me about how she is coping with her life problems. She, too, has a crisis of personhood, it seems. She gave up what she had for what she thought she wanted. I was reminded of a line in a brief response Christopher Hitchens gave about "The Odyssey" in a video that Q sent me yesterday.
"Maybe it is better to travel hopefully than to arrive."
All nostalgia, he said, is the desire to go back home. To paraphrase a line from one of my old profs, Hitchens makes me feel like I've been playing horseshoes all my life. I would like to think I was an academic or a scholar at some point, but not within earshot of someone like him. I did one good scholarly piece, at least by my own admission, and several mundane ones. I was accepted into the lower echelons of the academy for a brief second, but I never made it to the second tier. As one ages, one must look back with clearer eyes and less ego, for the future is so very far away.
I'm trying.
I was a shop boss at the factory. I can make no claims otherwise.
I never made any money, but it never seemed to matter much to me. Perhaps I was always "living above my station" in some illusionary way. I was around great wealth, but I never lacked confidence even though I am tremendously shy. You can be silently superior in your own noggin. Many are so affected, I imagine.
When I was poor, I really never worried about money. I just didn't have it. But now. . . I seem to worry all the time. The coffers are being drained and there seems nothing I can do about it. As I said yesterday, I'm the White Negro in the crowd, and I'm watching my p's and q's here using polite language.
Now I am not even a shop foreman. I live on a pension which is to some enviable but I promise you it is not enough. Who was it that said the worst curse is having a small but adequate income?
Goddamn, I love A. I.
Edmund Wilson stated, "There is nothing more demoralizing than a small but adequate income."
I began reading "The Frenchmen" last night. Ooooo, it is going to piss a lot of people off. She pretty much marginalizes (yippee! I get to use postmodern language again) the American fascination with French theory long after it was used up in Europe. I lived among those minor hipster academics who loved to pummel the "old guard" with deconstruction. It was like lobbing Molotov cocktails into the lobby of The Beverly Hills Hotel. I've strained the simile, I think, but I was trying to be colorful on a gray day. You get the point.
So far as I have read, at least, the book is a potshot at the pinheads. It's like having fun at the fair.
What has me terrified this morning, though, is a message I got from my conservative buddy.
I spend most of my day immersed in Claude Code and Codex while working on my side music project and finances. Along the way while doing mindless yard or housework I listen to podcasts like Moonshot, Jordy Visser, All In and other tech/finance oriented material. One fascinating tidbit they have shared is the creation of digital twins or avatars. For example Ray Kurzweil has or is creating an avatar by feeding most or everything he has written into a model. So, you must be sitting on reams of written material you have produced over the years. Add to that the photographs. You are likely sitting on a gold mine. Image your avatar available to speak to others. I am not kidding. All I have are corporate emails. You know the type. Hey, where is that project you are responsible for? Response: I have that to Bob for final comments and have not gotten a response. Bob, where is Dan’s project you are amending? I finished it and sent it back to you. Oops, sorry. It was stuck in my drafts………
Really? He, like most people I know, do not know of this blog.
So, you must be sitting on reams of written material you have produced over the years. Add to that the photographs. You are likely sitting on a gold mine. Image your avatar available to speak to others. I am not kidding.
I write a lot of things, not just this blog, which is what he recognizes, but I wonder--has someone already made my avatar from this? Has someone already created the fictional C.S./shaman/shyster/buffoon/soul-sick/trickster? Fuck me! I was warned about the internet. None of my academic work, my serious writing, nothing where I am trying to be intelligent is on here.
Yea. . . there is probably a Chinese version already. It is terrifying.
Or funny, depending on where you decide to stand. Nobody but A.I. could possibly digest these 20 years of daily blogging.
Truly--what the fuck was I thinking?
I wasn't. I was keyboarding.
I told Red that that was my favorite photo of the day.
"Of course it is," she said.
"Quit it."
I just got a series of text from my conservative buddy. Apparently all I have to do is ask Chat to consume all my shit and create a chatbot. That means that is all anybody has to do.
I am in a state of paralysis.
Such is the life of the wicked. And my locks are shorn. I am weak like Samson. As with everything, fuck me!
Let's just chill and listen to some trance music. I never knew Van Morrison and Bob Dylan collaborated. Interesting.
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