I can't sleep…
5:15 a.m. Traffic flowing. 16 minutes to the office.
Long day yesterday. Whaddya remember? What Stuck?
In bed. 9:40 pm.
ZzzQuil slow drips.
Mind whirring, but in slower revolutions.
Right ear bud pumping in “The Daily Podcast” with “The Anatomy of a Warren Rally.”
Words drift in and out, sleep meds seeping deeper. And then Mind stops, and locks on. Continue reading “Driving I-95 S. Tethered to Nothing?”
Is this verbal violence, then, simply incompetence? Is it the verbal equivalent of someone who has not learned the piano sitting down and trying to play Rachmaninov’s Third? The rudeness of these public figures gives pleasure and relief, it is clear, to their audiences. Perhaps what they experience is not the possibility of actual violence but a sort of intellectual unbuttoning, a freedom from the constraint of language. Perhaps they have lived lives in which they have been continually outplayed in the field of articulation, but of this new skill – rudeness – they find that they are the masters.
~ Rachel Cusk, from “On Rudeness” in Coventry (Farrar, Straus and Giroux. September 16, 2019)
Notes:
Not a statistically significant sample for the Data Kings, but good enough for me. Here’s a driver profile summary for my last 5 Uber rides in Dallas:
“Egber”
Descent: Kurdish, 1st generation arrived in U.S. age 1
Car: Hyundai Elantra (spotless inside)
Music Playing: Country
Uber Rating: 4.88
My Rating: 5.0
“Fouad”
Descent: Egypt (1st Gen)
Car: Toyota Camry (Spotless)
Music Playing: Classical
Uber Rating: 4.82
My Rating: 5.0
“Rafat”
Descent: Jordan.
Car: Toyota Camry (Spotless)
Music Playing: Classical (soft)
Uber Rating: 4.88.
My Rating: 5.0
“Bennie”
Descent: U.S. Lake Providence, Louisiana. African American. “Retired Grandpa of 5. Love People.”
Car: Lexus ES. (Spotless)
Music Playing: Jazz
Uber Rating: 4.94
My Rating: 5.0
“Jason”
Descent: Jamaica (1st Gen)
Car: Nissan Maxima (Spotless)
Music Playing: Pop
Uber Rating: 4.91
My Rating: 5.0
This Rider (DK)
Descent: Canada (1st Gen). Green Card Resident.
My Uber Rating: 4.92
Punch line:
God Bless America.
I love this country.
Photo: (via me-poppins)
I’d brought my computer, but maybe I could actually just not turn it on, and the dreary growth of little obligations that overran my screen would just disappear; maybe the news, which—like a magic substance in a fairy tale—was producing perpetually increasing awfulness from rock-bottom bad, would just disappear.
~ Deborah Eisenberg, Your Duck is My Duck: Stories (Ecco, September 25, 2018)
Notes:
