it felt good to be out of the rain

Well, I think we can all agree that if there's one thing I'm good at, it's not posting on this blog. My last six months have been filled with the typical medieval bestiary of Debbie Downer life events — many of which have been related to severe health crises, for both myself and others — that I always feel slightly guilty writing about online, as if I'm attempting to elicit the sympathy of strangers to collect donations for a shady religious charity. There is definitely something coercive about saying, I or someone I love almost died! to people who don't know you in person. I don't know why! But it always makes me feel uncomfortable when I read other people's explanations of dodged fatality. I empathize with people who have gone through awful things, obviously, but I suppose I have somehow acquired a puritanical dedication to suffering in silence myself. Maybe it's all those English fantasy novels. Still: I got better! My mother got better! My father got better! Then my mother got better again! We're all better. (Mostly.) (92%) We are as well as modern medicine can make a person, which is good enough to write blog posts with.

I've already written a post about "politics," but it turned out to be so full of poison and despair that I'm never going to let anyone see it. I'm currently taking it apart into two posts; one is about the failures of American cultural liberalism, and the other about well-off essay-writing white people who would like to reclassify poor white men as a minority group (when white people call for an 'end to identity politics' and they aren't being 100% disingenuous, this is what they're talking about). Writing about both of these things makes me angry, of course, but the "white people suddenly trying to invade the spaces to which minorities historically retreated for self-protection, because those minorities managed to make their own exclusion look like a fun party" part passeth all understanding. White people, what are you doing to us? What are you doing to yourselves?

Anyway. Since I've spent the last five-odd months sitting in hospitals and doctors' offices reading, with an increasing degree of incredulity, the articles in mildly-outdated American "news," "science," and "women's" magazines, I have prepared for you an overview of the intellectual landscape of the dying world of paper publishing. It's like the maps Tolkien put at the beginning of all of his Middle-earth novels, only pointless. This is a brief enumeration of some of my favorite topics, all of which were, are, and will be written about in the the most opaque, inhumane, and unimaginative ways possible:

• My Wife's Decent Salary Made My Penis Redundant
• Will You Get A Load Of All Of These Millennials Over Here
• Do You Remember That Time In The Recent Or Distant Past When Things Were Wonderful/Explicable
• Is The Entire Universe Going To Explode Next Year
• Impressionable Suburban Jamokes Are Frightened Of Various Mostly-Imaginary Threats, Here's Why You Should Worry Too
• Everything You Eat And Touch Is A Cancer IOU
• Will You Get A Load Of All Of These [Post-Millennial Generation Name] Over Here
• Have You Noticed That Some Emotionally-Crippled White Folks Act Like Assholes Online
• Look At Some Floodlit Photos Of Obnoxious Underweight Rich Famous People Who Are Promoting A Depressing Commercial Entertainment Product, They Are Such Adorable Nerds (Follow Them On Social)
• How To Dumb Down Your Feminism So It Doesn't Threaten Your Guy (He's An Hysterical Useless Baby That You Won't Ever Dump) (Not That We're Suggesting You Should Lol!!!)
• This Giant Faceless Tax-Evading Corporation Is Spearheading Symbolic Logo-Ridden Efforts To Combat Some Of The Starvation And Misery It Created (Here's How You Can Help) (Buy Stuff)
• Is It Okay If Fat People Exist
• This Repellant Irrational White Supremacist Fulfills Many Brainless People's Expectations About Conventional Physical Attractiveness: Does That Make Him/Her More Or Less Scary
• Could You Be Putting Even More Effort Into Your Pointless Job
• 10 Tips For Helping Women Shoulder Extra Cultural Burdens
• Cook All Your Own Food Which You Grew Yourself (In A Quirky Repurposed Pinterest Bucket)
• Let's Go Back To Training Men To Perform Outdated And Harmful Gender-Stereotyped Behaviors So Dumb Women Will Want To Fuck Them More
• Be Sure Your House Is Decorated Exactly Like All The Other Houses
• New Study Says Thumb Dexterity Is Down 12% Among Kindergarteners (Scientists Blame Recently-Discovered Undetectable Toxins) (The Word "Down" Is Defined Creatively)
• Pretending That Making Your Own Shampoo, Toothpaste, And Cosmetic Products Is A Fun And Necessary Activity
• Here Is A Fawning Interview With A Man Who Portrays That Character In A Popular Movie Or Television Show That Everyone Wants To Fuck
• Read An Over-Simplified Account Of The Isolation Of A Minor Neurotransmitter That Looks As If It Might Have Something To Do With Appetite Control (Will The Scientists Finally Give Us A Magic Diet Pill?) (No)
• Do These Difficult And Faddish Calisthenic Exercises So You Can Look Like A Photoshopped Celebrity In Your Swimsuit And Attract The Sexualized Beach Gaze Of Random Men
• How To Make Your Own Substandard Naked Feet Look Like An Extruded Plastic Nordstrom Mannequin's Pedal Appendages
• This Boring Well-Off White Couple's Desperate Expensive Quest To Breed Biological Children Will Make You Wonder How People This Stupid Were Able To Acquire That Much Disposable Income
• Acting Like The $350 Purse Is A Major Bargain Compared To The $7,438 Purse Which It Resembles (They Are Both Ugly)
• A Misinterpretation Of Poorly-Understood And Incomplete Scientific Data Suggests That Women Are Biologically Required To Pursue Cuddles, Babies, And Ice Cube-Sized Engagement Rings At The Expense Of Rational Thought
• This Plant-Related Superfood Has Been "Linked" To A "Reduction" In "Cancer Risk": 9 Unpalatable Smoothie Recipes Whose Greenness Conveys Awareness Of Global Injustice (Get A Transparent Travel Cup)
• We Rated 34 Brands Of Transparent Travel Cup And Will Coincidentally Recommend The One Sold By Our Biggest Ad Sponsor
• Profiling The Deeply Deranged Megalomaniacs Of Silicon Valley Who Are Titling At The Windmill Of Human Mortality (Like Alchemists, Only Dumber And Wearing Khakis)
• 10 Minutes Of Mindfulness A Week Will Literally Stop You From Ever Dying
• How To Tastefully Wear Your #NastyWoman T-shirt To Your Aggressively Soulless Corporate Workplace Without Annoying Any Important Men (Accessorize)
• Donald Trump: Is He Orange Satan, Or An Old Toddler? We Ask Poets, Chemical Engineers, And Your Mom

I left out all the articles I saw about Muslims, because I knew better than to read them.

I don't actually have the time to reply to comments at the moment, assuming there might be any, but I (probably) will soon. Also I have lots of things to do online before I can get back to writing mean words about fantasy novels. Speaking of which! I am currently working on the review of a couple of feminist fantasy novels written by men, as well as finishing Carolyne Larrington's King Arthur's Enchantresses. After that, it's Simon Schama & Mark Fisher. After that, who knows? 

Thank you for your continuing forbearance, Five People Who Sometimes Read My Blogger Blog!

ETA: I JUST DISCOVERED THAT I HAVEN'T GOT A FEMINISM TAG WTF FIXED