One more day left in May. Where has the year gone? Into the endless spreadsheets and tracking apps of my job.

This past week I didn’t work any long days or late nights. That makes it a first for the entire year.

Out of curiosity, I checked my work metrics for the year. Working at a consulting agency as I do, these numbers are Very Important. At my current level I have a certain number of hours I am expected to work which count as “utilization,” meaning work which brings in money for the firm. So far this year I am about 25% over expectations, which explains the utter exhaustion and sense of depression, burnout, and dissociation which I have felt for the past five months. Welcome to end-stage capitalism, I guess.

At least my 401K is doing well. Shame there won’t be a world left to retire into.

But things are looking up, if “up” is the correct term for elevating my gaze over a horizon stacked with bullshit. In three weeks I start a long break from work. In those three weeks I expect my workload to be somewhat normal by historic standards, which means no days over 9 hours. And that will leave time to actually go out and do things for myself, like take care of the house and yard and cats. And, of course, spend quality time with my partner.

Reading

I am a few pages into Laura Robson’s Human Capital, which I must read in small chunks because it makes me want to set everything on fire.

And I am still working my way through the Evergreen Review Reader, 1967 – 1973. I am just at the end of the 1968 section, which includes a long article by John Schultz about the 1968 Democratic National Convention. The violence and chaos following that event, so unexpected 58 years ago, seems to be the expected behavior now, except all of the violence is aimed downward, supported by sycophants and bootlicks of the current administration. I wonder what contemporaneous stories of current events will look like to readers 60 years from now, assuming there are still readers, or that any information about current events survives until 2086.

Writing

This week was slower than last, due mostly to the Memorial Day holiday, which we celebrate here in the Midwest by blowing things up. I think I wrote a poem, or part of a poem, or maybe thought about writing part of a poem. It’s difficult to remember small details.

Weekly Writing Prompt

Subject: Dreams, Super Powers
Setting: Urban
Genre: Procedural

Listening

“Rosanna” by Toto, from their 1982 album Toto IV. I have fond memories of this video, as it was on heavy rotation on MTV back when my brother and I visited our dad in La Place, Louisiana, for a couple of weeks in late summer of 1982.

We didn’t have cable on the farm, or any access to music videos, or indeed music beyond the two or three radio stations we could pick up which weren’t religion, talk radio, country, or some combination of the three. MTV, in its original form, was almost a religious experience for a thirteen-year-old kid living in isolation on a farm in south-central Michigan, and traveling to the greater New Orleans area to experience the latter part of the twentieth century was a pilgrimage of sorts.

Interesting Links

• “Is the AI Data Center Boom Building the Infrastructure for Tokenization and Control?” (Curro Jimenez, Naked Capitalism)
• “The Pleasure of Cruelty: We Are all Palestinians Now” (Yoav Litvin, Counterpunch) – From the article: “Colonial white supremacist ruling classes offer their enforcers a hierarchy of incentives and rewards for participation in aggression: material gain and social status for those adjacent to power, and impunity for the sanctioned degradation and torture of the designated out-group for foot soldiers.”