I don’t think I’m going to have a lot that’s coherent to say here. I don’t really want to write today; I’d much rather drink another 8% stout and finish reading Happiness as Such. I’ll do that. But first — 

Conveniently, I had therapy today. Was warned against the doom spiral. The pit. Was reminded that this is what I do and so I should do it. I shouldn’t beat myself up about not doing this or that other thing, not being more involved or more active. I do what I can. It’s not a lot but it is also not nothing. I can care but I don’t need to give my whole life over to everything I care about. I can pick. I’ve picked. But still today — 

Why Recap? Here are some headlines:

  • "Mob Incited by Trump Storms Capitol" (New York Times)

  • "Trump-incited mob attacks Capitol" (Boston Globe)

  • "Pro-Trump mob storms Capitol building" (Washington Post)

  • "Is this America? A breach in peaceful transition of power." (Christian Science Monitor)

  • "Pro-Trump protesters storm US Capitol garnering bipartisan condemnation" (The Jerusalem Post)

tl;dr is that it is/was pretty fucked. The whole thing is/was fucked. And when you consider the soft-ass response to this fucking coup attempt compared to the full-on military suppression of the BLM protests…​? But I am avoiding the spiral. It is not a good thing.


My therapist says it’s "grieving." I feel like when I was a kid there was some sense that the adults wouldn’t let bad things happen. As a grown up (i.e., I am 30 and an adult myself), the sense is that the "adults in Government" wouldn’t let bad things happen, some neoliberal, technocratic wet dream. Clearly, that is not the case. And paired with Nicholson Baker’s essay? Yikes. Lots of yikes. And so falls another comforting illusion.

The feeling — and I still struggle to articulate this — is that there has been a rupture. A rupture not so much in the sense that there are now more racist and bad people out there, but a rupture of the sense that that kind of racism, fascism, general "badness," must be kept under wraps in polite society. This is clearly no longer the case. I had (and have) some illusions about the lack of (for a close-to-home example) anti-Jew sentiments in America, but even then it was the kind of thing one didn’t expect to have to really deal with often, that the kids who scribbled "kike!" on another kid’s locker would have that kind of behavior — not the sentiment — schooled or shamed or otherwise condemned out of them.

I’d blame the internet — which certainly contributes — but — 

It’s just so much a shame. It’s so much these old fuckers in congress and so on not wanting to give up their power. It’s not about this or that social position, it’s about fucking power and it’s about fucking money and yes, I know my wife(!) likes to joke that I make everything about socialism but it’s also about fucking capital holding onto its own, about the fact that the stock market is doing just fine and the tech companies have made (how many?) billions of dollars during a pandemic in which (let me get an accurate as of right now number) over three hundred and sixty-one thousand people have died in the US alone, not to mention those who’ve had the virus and will have lasting health issues because of it. I mean, for fuck’s sake.

It makes me angry and it makes me tired and it makes me feel small and powerless. I can’t say I particularly like any of these feelings.


I don’t know that I have anything useful to say about this. As someone on Twitter pointed out, a lot of it is still "fog of war" and we don’t know everything and I’m not a pundit so who really gives a fuck.

Tonight I had meant to rewrite, for the…​ seventh? time, the beginning of a novel I’ve been working on for…​ a long time. Although I have some guilt about this I do still think that art is worth pursuing. When I say this I miss a former friend of mine who may, these days, disagree, who would say that the political action is the most important thing. This hurts me to think about, because I miss this friend a lot. Like "grieving" a lot. But I think more than one thing can be the most important thing. "Most important" is context dependent, as is "enough." It is important enough, I think. Art, I mean. Books and all that. Things that make you feel something that isn’t just illness and shame and disgust and weariness. I mean, art can totally do that, too (here’s a toast to you, Francis Bacon, whose work I do admire!). But I think you know what I mean.

Another thing we talked about (me and my therapist, I mean,) is how humanity has always been like this. I have, I think, few illusions about this not being true anymore. Think of Rome right before it’s fall (I recommend the Hardcore History podcasts about it, if they can still be found). Berlin right before Hitler (I recommend Isherwood’s The Berlin Stories). Pick any time in American history, because America is almost always doing something real fucked up (here, think Howard Zinn). I don’t expect humanity to be even or do better. This is why I struggle so much with certain Marxisms: I don’t believe in the "inevitability" of historical materialism. Maybe I misunderstand it. I appreciate how the material conditions affect society; I’m all about that. But that this inevitably will lead to something good…​?

I feel we’re more likely to make our planet inhabitable to human life first, frankly. I know that’s why we fight for the change we want, too. But still. None of the leftists I know own guns, and only a few of them — here I’m thinking of my anarchist friend — know how to throw a punch. I mean, I fenced when I was a kid, but I don’t know that a button-tipped epée will do much against an M1 rifle. Because that’s the proud boy’s thing, ya know?

It’s not that I think humanity is necessarily good or that it will be someday or that we’re evolving or anything, and I think this is OK. Not ideal, but OK. The problem is that due to globalization, the internet, fast and relatively cheap transportation, and one hundred thousand other things, our shittiness has out-sided impact on others. Both in an intra- and international sense (i.e., events in DC sure as shit fucked up my afternoon in Boston, and when we buy cheap made-to-fall apart clothes in America, that’s some worker’s fingers in Bangladesh). There are good things to this interconnectedness; there are also many bad things about it. What’s that quote again? Well, I’m not going to find it, but it’s something to the effect of

Capital always needs new frontiers, new markets to exploit and to sell to.

And it’s true. Not just geopolitically but also temporally, in a personal sense. So many pockets of life are now potential "markets." Just think about all the things you used to live without that you now "need." I think about this every time I worry about getting my phone wet while riding in the rain.


But I’m glad the Dems took Georgia. I’m glad Mitch McConnell will, at least temporarily, have less power. I’m glad congress seem to be back in congress and will ratify the vote. I still think almost all of them are…​ not the best. I accept that you can’t be good or pure, especially if you’re a politician. But I also am disappointed how empty all the threats are. How much politiking there is. How…​ well, I do not want to spiral.

I am tired. I wanted to work (i.e., write) tonight but instead I did this. I may write later, but now I want to drink one of the beers I bought at the tail end of my evening bike ride from Art, this kind human who owns a little specialty grocery just up the street, and read a Natalia Ginzburg book that I’m enjoying and have been looking forward to enjoying since I read the last sentence of The Dry Heart, and then I will go to bed and fall asleep next to a woman whom I love very much, and I will try not to let all the bullshit disturb my sleep because I need it, and why let them take away yet one more thing that I need?