The common denominator of toxic people is not their chosen tribe or the identity assigned by the folks that love that sort of thing. The common element is power—either the possession of it or the overwhelming desire to acquire it.

A lot of my recent past is due for some serious reframing.

I figure, in keeping with my bizarre rolling stone trajectory to date, these objects (lamp, moon dust, and figurine) will be sold, sit in some of the tackiest homes in America, resold at other garage sales, and on and on. I will still be dancing through the world like an idiot.

For the same reason elevating the status of children to functioning adults in deference to some need to validate ideology it is likewise counterproductive to infantilize racial minorities as if they are simply too burdened by historical horrors to know the difference between right and wrong.

When I was in high school in the 80’s, it was Spencer’s Gifts that provided the Whoopee Cushions, the palm-sized squirt guns, and anything you could imagine covered in glitter. It was like a Nirvana for Morons.

I believed Fauci, knew that vaccines were coming from Big Pharma, but was also watching Michael Keaton deal with the pernicious greed of that corporate monster in Hulu’s Dopesick and I had a hard time squaring the fact that the villains in the opioid crisis would come to our collective rescue with a vaccine.