TROPICAL HOT DOG NIGHT!

I spent the first part of the day in jury duty waiting to be not picked to serve on a domestic violence case. Some of the court stuff was interesting but then I just degenerated into sloppy sexual fantasies about the defense attorney and several of the women in the jury pool. It was a hormonal trip back to age 15. I blame the school-style desks in the jury assembly room.

There is no parking whatsoever at the Harbor Justice Center. If you ever get called, go a bit early.

Now I am in the Borders and back to the hormones. Ssssmokin’ hot sexylibrarian woman just left, darn that ring on her. Oh, wait, she’s back. Mmmm.

Apart from my base animal desires, which are in rare form today, I also want this! but I do not have $500 handy.

The crying wolf?

So, Naomi Wolf says that Harold Bloom groped her 20 years ago. And she was made ill and afraid by this and it hurt her academic career, but she couldn’t do anything then. And now, apparently Yale would have nothing to do with her complaint.

And, you know, people have opinions. Some people are mad at her for being mean to an old sick man. Some people are mad at her because they don’t like “victim feminism”. Some people are mad at her because she waited 20 years. Some other people are mad at her because she trades on her own physical attractiveness a lot and is obsessed with her youth and won’t stop talking about sex, and they think she has a double standard.

I’ve never met her, and I have no idea if she’s a nice lady or not. But I still think you shouldn’t grasp the thighs of your undergraduates. I had a prof in college who sexually harassed his (male) students, and I was lucky he didn’t find me attractive. What a situation to be in! My dad knew him, too, and they were on inter-campus committees together. What would I have done?

So, yeah. Maybe she is a publicity whore, and maybe this and maybe that, but if Bloom really does this stuff as much as is rumored I don’t care how eminent he is, or how old and feeble; that ain’t right. And sometimes you have to wait 20 years so that you’re famous and powerful yourself and you can say something without having powerful people trash your new career.

The mind-body problem: no mind, no problem

It’s a mark of our animal nature that we’re physically persistent in the face of meaninglessness.

I get up, work, eat, shit, wash myself, socialize, and take care of business despite abundant evidence that there’s no point in any of this. The executive brain says: “This makes no sense; why do we continue?” The soul says “I’m empty; this has no future”. But the colon and the leg muscles and the jaw keep clanking along obstinately, dragging the rest of me around.

I’m Galvani’s frog leg jerking to the current. And, maybe, so are you.