• Casey and I watching a toddler discover himself in the mirror of a booth at Golden Nugget.
    • He kissed his own reflection.
  • Finding a dead mouse in the trash can at home :( Possibly a relative of those who took part in the Smarties Incident [9-7-18 and 9-10-18].
    • Trying to protect my mom from knowing about it, because it would have made her so sad. [I reluctantly spilled the beans a few days later.]
  • The Toys “R” Us / Kids “R” Us semi trailer marshaled in a truck yard, the graphics on its side fading from sun exposure.
  • The coffee machine screeching over classical music on the radio in the cafe, making it sound like a triumphant live recording with raucous audience noises.
  • Learning about the School of Names philosophers of ancient China (479-221 BCE) who inspired a “crisis in Chinese philosophy because their paradoxical arguments undermined confidence in the reliability of argumentation and even language itself” (Introduction to Classical Chinese Philosophy, Brian W. Van Norden). Feeling kind of reassured by that, because ancient Chinese people survived and figured out how to have faith in language again, and we’re figuring out how to do that in the US right now.
  • Listening to the Reply All episode about Jack Maple, the cop who invented CompStat, and feeling optimistic about the possibility of changing situations that had previously seemed impossible to change—even ones with massive bureaucracies and complex networks of human behavior behind them, like police dysfunction in New York—but also wary of the ways awful turds like Rudy Giuliani can abuse those solutions.
  • How you can feel a sense of futility or pessimism at there being no point to your work but also an encompassing optimism that you’re still looking for the point. Doy. It’s like feeling (second-order) optimistic about your (first-order) pessimism. I’ve wondered how I could feel so dejected and hopeful at the same time and this distinction explains it for me.