Laundry, as a task, is perhaps the perfect marriage of OCD and ADHD.
The OCD is satisfied by the sorting, by the matching of socks, by getting everything folded just so, and finally put in their proper space.
The ADHD is satisfied by the process: you can’t get bogged down because the task requires you to merely hop in and out of the laundry room; loading and transferring and unloading and folding and hiding away in drawers and closets.

I am in the middle of a collection of short works by Thomas Mann, a German writer active from the late 1800’s. This collection begins with a short story from 1897 and ends with a piece acknowledged as the pinnacle of his achievement, written in 1912. He continued to write after this for decades, but was apparently never again quite satisfied with his output. I have yet to reach this piece, being forced to pause a moment to acknowledge certain thoughts corresponding to what I have already read.

You might notice the alteration to my elocution – an alteration which is entirely in sympathy with the works to which I have so recently been exposed. A certain stilted formality, perhaps. Further reading of this piece might render transparent a definite and nearly inflexible morality.
These are hallmarks of Mann’s writing, at least at this stage of his career.
He is a powerful writer, gripping in spite of the austere subject matter, the overbearing morality, the lack of plot in deference to basic character study.

These facts of Mann’s writing begin to inform opinions, thoughts on possible social and moral lines connecting the world in which Mann wrote to that in which Durrenmatt wrote some 50 years later. You may recall, or may wish to revisit or even visit for the first time, what I wrote on Durrenmatt some three months ago.
Granted that Mann was German and Durrenmatt was Swiss, there are definite sympathies in style, in tone, and even in subtext. I look forward to reaching the “grand piece” of Mann’s collection; it should prove informative and perhaps conclusive on the subject of those potential sympathies. I suspect that I will have more to say on the subject at such time as I am able to complete my perusal of this current collection.

Even in the middle of an emergency, and especially in the middle of a drawn-out slow-rolling emergency, it is incredibly important to interact with one’s support network in ways that bear no relation to that emergency. That reminder of what “normal” is supposed to look like is one of the keys to getting back to that state of normality. Someday.

What’s on my mind, you ask? Well, since you ask….

Proselytizing religious folks. Super-judgy religious types. You want to tell me how to worship? You want to prescribe the rituals and words, the intentions and manners? You want to control how I express my relationship with god?

Why would you want that? Is it the case that you don’t trust your all-knowing, all-powerful god to KNOW effortlessly what is in my heart and in my mind? You fear that I’m doing it all wrong and god won’t know?

You don’t trust the power of god?

You. Don’t trust god?

You?

You, sad little mortal that you are. Dare to pass judgement on how god handles his own affairs.

I won’t go into any further details of the implications of this line of reasoning. If you can’t figure it out, I won’t be able to dumb it down enough for you.

But all the rest of you out there, I wish you could experience the day you deserve. You probably won’t, but I sincerely wish you could.

Here’s a thing to think about.
Living in the United States right now is weird.
Like, there are shittier places to be alive – more ecologically degraded, more polluted, and so on.
And there are more dangerous places to be alive – Ukraine and Israel/Palestine spring readily to mind.
The United States is more a sort of rolling, low grade panic -attack kind of place to be alive right now.

Because, get this. The US is this great big shining beacon of freedom and safety, right? It’s this idea, and an ideal, supposedly made real.
Except when it isn’t. Which is, like, all the time.

At any moment, you could be lying in bed asleep, and
the police could burst in, guns blazing, because they got the address wrong.
the police could burst in, guns blazing, because some kid decided to play a stupid prank.
a neighbor could burst in, guns blazing, because he doesn’t like the way you mow your lawn.
some random stranger could burst in, guns blazing, because he doesn’t like your bumper sticker.
or your preference for a life partner.
or your preference for reading material.
or the color of your skin.
or, you know, mix and match any of the above conditions. Or all of them all at once.

It’s maybe not terrifically likely. But it happens. It happens to someone almost every single day. And the longer you are alive in the United States, the more odds stack up. And so, living here, you have to wonder:

When is it going to be your turn?

Anyway, here’s to mental health. You find any, let me know.