The scene: A Publix somewhere in Florida earlier today.

A fit woman in a seriously cute summer dress was ahead of me at the self-checkouts, struggling with the machine. It wasn’t her fault; it wasn’t working correctly. She’d already turned a few times to glance at me. I was next in line behind her. But then she got frustrated and turned to me fully and said as she was about to walk to another station, “Don’t use this one. It’s broken.”

My response was spontaneous, though I used to do these sorts of things when I was younger as a social experiment to learn to better interact with people and to see what worked and what didn’t. Anyway, I said, “Your dress is so cute I’m surprised that alone didn’t fix it” and smiled, not expectantly, as I didn’t want anything but to make her feel good, but rather appreciatively.

She turned a bunch of shades of pink, said “Thank you,” and turned around to walk to a functional machine as the attendant came over to diagnose the broken kiosk.

As she was at the other machine, she kept glancing at me (and not in the way of “wonder what the creepy guy is going to do next,” but rather how you look at someone who makes you feel seen). As she was about to walk out of the store, I smiled again and nodded at her and she did the same to me.

See how easy and pleasant those sorts of interactions can be when everyone is not an utter shithead?

Still, I don’t think that would’ve happened prior to the pandemic. She was obviously glad to be out, glad to be seen, happy to be appreciated for her fitness and her humanity, wearing her nicest dress and looking like a queen doing it.

People, I heard a roar! I made a roar! Let the roaring begin.

Was just thinking that time that I said this to a journalist who was working on a pitch that she was about to present: “I hope your pitch is pitch perfect.”

Readers, I thought she was gonna slap me. And I would’ve deserved it.

In a sharp turnabout, federal health officials on Thursday advised that Americans who are fully vaccinated against the coronavirus may stop wearing masks or maintaining social distance in most indoor and outdoor settings, regardless of size.

Whoa, wasn’t expecting that. Something actually sensible. How often does that happen?

I can’t handle how upsetting this map is https://t.co/vLAXAugNhx

— Susannah Tysor (@scisus) May 13, 2021

There is absolutely nothing right about this. No one who made this map has ever had good barbecue or would know it if they found it.

The best BBQ I’ve ever had was from some smoker pulled behind a 1960s Ford pickup in an abandoned K-Mart parking lot down in the ass end of Georgia. Now that’s the kind of place you find real BBQ. I still think about that BBQ sometimes, and sigh.

You know Hertz is getting desperate for people when I get a mass/spam email from them for these sorts of positions, which I have never received before. But not desperate enough as look how appallingly bad the pay is:

I think that is about what those positions were paying (in nominal dollars) in the 1990s — so effectively in real dollars, about half as much now.

Oh no, now the libs are considering “having working eyes” as sex trafficking.

😉

One thing that argues against some of my ideas about “human nature” being a strongly fixed thing is how differently we live now compared to our recent evolutionary past, and how many people seem to crave existing in ways that no human has ever lived before — such as the pod life aficionados and those who are afraid of the world and vow to continue pandemic-instantiated behaviors forever.

No human in history (outside of a few very rare monks) has ever lived as disconnected from humanity as these people seem fine with, though of course the poor social simulation allowed by the internet make the actual case on the ground somewhat different.

Unlike most, though I strike a strident tone on this blog, I like thinking of things that knock down my ideas and dearly-held assumptions. I’ve changed my mind on tons of things over the years, and altered a lot of my presuppositions and conclusions.

I mean, why wouldn’t you in light of stronger evidence?

The world is waking up again. Too many people want to keep it asleep.

We need to resist those people really goddamn hard. We all need to be a bit more like Margaret Qualley and less like wanky whiny prudish dipshits.