America is ...

Hello, friends. These are the sentences of the week, with an honorable mention to my toddler’s imaginary son, Person Ality, who allegedly said “The otters drank all the sea water because the sun was poking out.”

Oct. 13, 2023: America is …

America is pursuing happiness in all the wrong places.
America is about to get really old.
America is getting TikTok all wrong.
America is thirsty for Anthony Fauci.
America is about to choose how bad the pandemic will get.
America is giving up on the pandemic.
America is sliding into the long pandemic defeat.
America is getting unvaccinated people all wrong.
America is a rich death trap.
America is finally spilling its shipwreck secrets.
America is telling itself a lie about roadkill.
America is about to see just how pro-life Republicans actually are.
America is making the world more unstable.
America is still making things.
America is under attack and the president doesn’t care.
America is living James Madison’s nightmare.
America is growing apart, possibly for good.
America is running out of everything.
America is headed toward collapse.
America is running out of time.
America is not a democracy.
America is in denial.
America is doing just fine.

Roughly a year after the collapse of the longest relationship of his life, Jay Priebe built himself a woman.
I picked up the overall sense that the level of tension in his life was increasing.
That is a scary thing to witness up close, when one person is choking another. You sort of don’t do that unless you sincerely desire the death of that person.

I don’t know any real people, I just know new people.
I told my children that one of the most important questions you have to answer for yourself is this: Do I believe in loving everyone? Or do I only believe in loving myself and my people?
You are what you love, not what loves you.

Since when is forgiveness a better quality than loyalty?
All you can do is what you’re doing.

Sources

Headlines from The Atlantic, 2016-2023; Rob Price, “When your AI girlfriend says she loves you”Business Insider; John Jeremiah Sullivan, “Man Called Fran,” Harper’s; my toddler; Carvell Wallace, “Trying to Parent My Black Teenagers Through Protest and Pandemic” The New York Times Magazine; Donald (Nicolas Cage), Adaptation; Roger Sterling (John Slattery), Mad Men, Season 4; Anon.