While It's True That Drugs Aren't Never The Answer, They Definitely Aren't Always The Answer.

I've long owned a very old copy of The Age of Chivalry; Or, Legends of King Arthur by Thomas Bulfinch. It's got an 1898 copyright date, a preface dated as 1900, and a title page illustration marked 1908. Its cover is extremely worn, but the insides are intact and still pretty.

Today, I decided to look up the person whose name is on the bookplate. I found him in an ad in the San Bernardino Sun, Volume 62, Number 140, 18 July 1928.

He was a butt doctor.

I am currently reviewing and auditing digital records related to Internet governance. Many are legal documents that underwent endless cycles of revisions and approvals. The oldest among them are over 25 years old.

Much of what used to baffle me about Microsoft Word suddenly makes so. much. sense.

I remain forever unconvinced that normality is normal.

"Your cat doesn't *actually* love you, it's just because you feed them. Oh and they only snuggle with you because they want your warmth!"

Oh, bud, do I have news for you about the origins of affection in all those other mammalian species, too.

No, autocorrect. I actually did mean "discrete", not "discreet". This isn't 2009, and I am not a married man posting personal ads on the sly on Craigslist.

One of the first "oh wow, theory can actually make the world seem less obtuse" moments I ever had was about perfume ads. It seemed to me like everyone had somehow decided TV perfume ads had to be weird but also that TV ads for perfume *must* exist and there was no other way for them to be.

I took a class where this came up and I finally read what's obvious to me in hindsight: The one sense that perfume appeals to is the least conveyable via any other senses. The closest thing to a straightforward pitch you can do with perfume is to list off its scent notes, but those aren't necessarily meaningful to most people, and even to those who know, we can't know how the scents work with each other and on our individual bodies.

So they sell some kind of fantasy of how the smell will make you feel instead. All ads for anything sell a fantasy, but perfume can't pretend like there's anything else there but the fantasy. It's like a distilled, pure kind of cynical consumerism there. Like the Eau de Parfum of capitalism, where other types of ads are Eau de Toilette.

A lot of things that seem like they came out of nowhere are easily explained. This isn't just a classic science/skepticism thing. There are historical, sociological, and cultural explanations that make the world seem a lot less weird to me.

Granted, the explanations can be horrifying rather than comforting. So much of what we consider to be American norms and values are just eugenics, for example. Still, I prefer wrapping my head around it to shrugging and ignoring.

This is all to say, the Gucci ad with Elliot Page, A$AP Rocky, and Julia Garner is more interesting to me than I thought it would be :3

Hot Relationship Tip: Be kind.

That's it. That's the post.

Kindness is seemingly such a simple concept, but I think it's underrated. In established relationships, it can be too easy to drown in layers of sarcasm, irony, and cynicism to the point where genuine affection isn't really expressed. Not good.

These days, when I want to explain my divorce without getting into too many details, I'll say that being in 2020 lockdown made me see just how mean he was treating me all the time. It's the truth, and it's interesting (and maybe sad) to see how many people genuinely nod and get it. Like yeah, who wants to be around someone who is just plain old mean to them all the time?

Praxis starts at home. Concepts like axes of oppression exist to describe social issues, not to justify interpersonal cruelty. Being awful to your partner isn't "punching up". Kindness isn't ever too big of a priority.

maybe I'm just a cynic, but I swear, every progressive I know with a daughter or niece, especially if they are the dad/uncle, will claim that she will take over and run the world someday. and the kid is just a perfectly normal kid?

I'm old enough to where some of those kids are adults or close to it, and while they're certainly cool enough, they're not exactly taking the world by storm or whatever.

it's not that I don't love how loved and supported these kids are. more reflecting on what a weird cliche it is to me to make these grand statements about a child. it feels performative, like they're making up for past misogyny, where they suppressed a girl or woman. or maybe these men really don't know what girls are like before their inner fire is quenched by patriarchal reality. idk

As a kid, you know what I thought "mythology" meant? Religion not directly based on the Bible.

And I was a Muslim?!?!?!

woke up this morning w/ this fully-formed in my brain [oc]