Yes, to all of the above.

We're going out tonight to celebrate our 6th anniversary, and we're taking Mom out to celebrate her birthday on Sunday. I'm having trouble getting into a celebratory mood.

I'm having trouble getting into a celebratory mood.

Seriously.

I was doing okay yesterday, but it was really fucking hard to get out of bed today. And then I had to force myself to take the dog for a run. I feel better having done so, but I'm not liking the new normal already.

Folks: please remember to take care of yourselves, and that means getting as much exercise as you can. It's vital for your mental health, and will help your physical health, too. In a stressful world, it'll make a big difference.

I wonder if there's a November Project for middle-aged people with middle-aged levels of fitness? The November Project is free and by all accounts it's a super-supportive group of folks.

STOP EMAILING ME TED CRUZ YOU SLIMY MUTHERFUCKER I HAVE UNSUBSCRIBED FOUR TIMES

State Department has been increasingly convinced that the key unit of government is the city, not the state, and that that will become more and more the case.

City/state makes sense to me, because a region can only get so big before you start losing a sense of community with the people on the other side of the political entity. I don't know how you can efficiently get rural areas to identify with a city state. I'm going to need to see how Renaissance Italy handled their farm lands. They may have had small enough populations that the farm lands and the country people were close enough to the city--or they didn't care and the rural population was ignored, and we know how that turns out.

I think I'm increasing my donations to HIAS. I'm scared about what will happen with refugees.

I went for a walk at the local botanical gardens this morning. It soothed my soul a bit.

ION, I like watching the PGS cooking shows on a Saturday Morning, and Martha Bakes is on. She placed a lemon tart on a cake plate, and I noticed in the overhead shot that it was off-center. She finished off topping the tart, with the shot cutting to the overhead and back, and just before the segment ended she nudged the tart into the middle of the cake plate. There was no overhead shot after that, but it tickled me that Martha Stewart noticed and corrected the issue, even though the segment was done. I think Martha Stewart is cool.

State Department has been increasingly convinced that the key unit of government is the city, not the state

That's interesting. My city is ~30k people and doesn't even have a newspaper, it's hard to think of it as politically important at all, but, if I am honest, one of the reasons I haven't been as involved with local government stuff as I might have been is because there is this thread of conservatism (small c deliberate, I mean an unwillingness to change) in the loudest voices that the socially responsible thing to do would be to counter rather than avoid. I'm willing to make attending city council meetings a priority, at least. That's definitely something I can do.

November Project

Also interesting!

City/state makes sense to me, because a region can only get so big before you start losing a sense of community with the people on the other side of the political entity. I don't know how you can efficiently get rural areas to identify with a city state. I'm going to need to see how Renaissance Italy handled their farm lands.

I think the way to get rural areas to identify with the local city-state is through sports.

I think the way to get rural areas to identify with the local city-state is through sports

That is an excellent idea. How many small Texas regions are tied together with local football?