Tag: Capitalism

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Aesthetics Culture

Day 1907 and Blurred Velvet Glove in Their Iron Fist

I’m on what appears to be family spring break in Washington D.C. I have conferences and dinners and I think it’s lovely that everyone is doing their level best to get the county through the moment to a better end.

The cherry blossoms are in bloom, the weather is warm, and I am trying those trendy serum coral blush that are apparently in style. That’s code for every brand has a version and quality varies greatly. Also no one likes the millennial dewy white bitch. She is dead. So I must carry on with the a new look says Vogue.

The last 12 months have made clear that matte is definitely back, but it’s been rebranded a bit. Dry, cakey formulas have been swapped for ones that offer hydration while diffusing the look of pores and fine lines. The result is a velvet, satin, or cashmere effect that reads softly blurred.

Thanks Vogue! I am not entirely sure of what kind of events I’ll be attending this week but more than one is the sort of where you want to look up to the moment and polite.

So I’ve been playing with new foundations and lipsticks and putting on spring dresses. It’s a lovely way to spend time the first weekend of spring.

I do see a way forward if we can focus on the ingenuity of American people. We are the end beneficiaries of a host of technological innovations that we paid to produce. I see new kinds of ways we could use that compute in clever and intermediate ways. Maybe I’m an old cyberpunk but banks are now with us.

So I try to remember the changing of trends are are also changing realities of how we must remember the coalition to take compute and speech from Americans is doing everything it can by making you afraid.

It comes from a patrician sense and you want to question if it passes your shit test. I don’t think anything good comes from believing scare tactics. We’ve had a good example of long forecast expert doom being completely wrong.

Which is probably why there are still magazines at all, if life were changing so sharply maybe we would still have a Vogue to tell tell us that it’s nice to have a smart sharp gloss that blurs to matte.

And it’s nice to have a Sunday with blousy colorful dress with the perfect handbag. It’s just a nice spring day in any city. This one is just right on time. Montana might take a little longer to get to spring dresses.

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Travel

Day 1906 and Woo Spring Break

Starting a journey from a small regional airport subsided by billionaires is the way to go when airports are understaffed for lack of pay.

A partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security means the TSA isn’t getting paid because of a lack of agreement on annual appropriations from Congress.

You may dislike the TSA, but most Americans are sympathetic to the pain of missed paychecks. And if you are headed somewhere for spring break you will feel their pain as the lines through security are getting worse and worse at the major hubs.

Getting out of Bozeman was a breeze. Sure my first flight was 8am but that’s the second round of flights for the day. Chicago O’Hare on the other hand, was a bit more chaotic.

The Dinosaur is a hockey fan

Families with multiple children hoping for quality time together on their spring break looked exhausted coming through the security lines.

Little girls pulling sparkling backpacks behind them on the ground or riding dinosaur shaped luggage tugged by their exhausted parents clogged the tight “under construction” hallways.

My flight to Washington D.C. didn’t have as many kids as I would have expected. Maybe touring our national monuments isn’t as exciting as going to Disneyland.

Co-branding for citrus 🍊not history

The original gate was reallocated to an Orlando based flight and based on the number of families with three kids headed to Florida our natalism issue isn’t so bad among the six figure vacation set.

The workers that keep Disneyland the happiest place on work might be struggling with other issues based on the terrifying bathroom signage. I wonder if the men’s bathrooms have these signs

Servile marriages?

May you all enjoy spring break without weather delays, labor issues, geopolitical conflict, or basic operational problems like crew and aircraft shortages as reset flight legs and fuel costs begin to get in the way.

I’m looking forward to getting to the capital. Maybe I’ll see more spring breakers at the Smithsonian. Just deposit your cannabis if headed to a destination where it’s illegal.

Categories
Aesthetics Startups Travel

Day 1905 and Run of Show

I have very particular traveling habits. I like things to be packed in cubes, labeled with contents and in a cascade of backpack, carry on and checked bags should something go awry.

As I’m heading to our nation’s capital soon I am taking extra care with my “run of show“ as I’ll have more varieties of events to account for over my stay. I expect humidity and rain so that should be fun for hair and makeup. All men need to worry about is sunscreen and maybe a bit of hair gel.

Now my travel wardrobe must account for visits to historical sites, nice dinners, late night parties, internet friend meetups (see you at the Polymarket’s Monitoring the Situation bar?) and a conference that is somewhere between startup event and defense contractor conference.

If you are a woman, you are probably nodding your head and thinking well that’s at least 4 different pairs of shoes and two purses. Then there is evening wear, day blazers and skirt suits, sweaters and other mix and match separates, and heaven forbid I find time to exercise so sweats and all the undergarments.

All that packing must work with the additional run rate risks of TSA slow downs (can Congress pass a budget) while presumably needing additional care and attention to security. Given we are embroiled in a war with Israel in Iran it’s hard to count on smooth sailing. So I pack as if I will encounter unexpected difficulties. Hopefully none more irksome than long lines.

As a woman who mostly spends her time in Montana or otherwise in the middle of nowhere, you can imagine that my makeup these days has a bit more in common with tinted sunscreen than it does with a smoky eye with a cut crease let alone a full powdered contoured beat fit for television. However I’ve heard polished full makeup is the preferred look on the hill including eye makeup basics.

I’m hoping I’ll be able to rely on my skills without additional practice, but I won’t lie I did a couple dry runs on new palettes I’d picked up and a few new colors. Very little new made the cut. When traveling, rely on what is reliable.

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Aesthetics Politics Startups

Day 1898 and Please Copy Our Homework

Today has been a very gratifying day for a very strange intersecting set of reasons. You may know that I have spent several years working to pass a “right to compute” law in Montana. It was signed into law in August of 2025 by Governor Gianforte.

I was so grateful that a campaign I initiated became not only become a bipartisan policy but a law supported by many Montana citizens & legislators. Now to see it go national not only model policy for the American Legislative Exchange Council but now have a second state, New Hampshire, pass it in their house, gives me indescribable joy.

Just forty eight more states to go. Though I believe it’s going to be an uphill climb as the topic of artificial intelligence has well and truly become politicized which makes stating simple cases of shared values much harder.

Except this isn’t really about artificial intelligence. Compute is a much broader and bigger thing than AI. It’s the stuff of the modern world. But that doesn’t mean we can’t apply what we know to be core American values as the lens through which we see it. Indeed it’s crucial we do.

Last year people could easily see that this was a sensible law that reflected our American values. Because of this sensible approach “the right to compute” is a winning coalition. It was bipartisan. So naturally it became a culture war.

I urge you not to adopt that frame. The right to compute speaks to American’s most cherished beliefs. Recognizing that it is not a novel legal theory. It is the application of the Constitution’s oldest commitments—to expression, to property, to liberty against government coercion

Even if you do not understand how all of its parts work, most understand that the entire digital world, in its constituent parts, is mathematics executed on physical hardware.

When government restricts computation, it does not merely regulate an industry. It restricts the tools through which people think, express themselves, and make use of their own property. Through that lens it’s clear we as Americans decide ourselves how to use it.

I hope we can remember this as the world changes and political actors look to change your mind. I do expect this to become a very complicated and uncomfortable position to have staked out.

Yet I feel confident that we will be able to make the case that this is not only the most American way of handling our future challenges, but is also practically the best way to bring abundance in a chaotic world. America is a land of reinvention that changes material conditions. We need not seek doom.

I believe that I have articulated that vision over the last five years of writing and investing so you can see my revealed preferences. I called our fund chaotic.capital for a reason. It’s hard, weird, difficult and scary but it’s also possible to be a lot better in the digital world such that we can use those gains to make the material world better. We can be more than productive primates with jobs

From nuclear energy to compute, this is what I believe and where I have put my time and money. We are organizing our world of atoms through the power of compute. And that can bring about a materially better world for everyone. Which I want.

I have been thrilled to see so many different people come together around the basic premise that we are empowered to do things.

We can lean in to the accelerating changes, all while holding fast to the reins of the values that built America, so that we may steer ourselves to material success.

Travis Kalanick of Uber may be among the best founders to have ever played the venture startup game. Today he has espoused our thesis & reinforced the work of my friends & founders. To see a cultural program written by a big coalition be part of his return to startup life (though he was never gone) is validating. We’ve found a rallying call.

The way forward is through the application of math on real problems. We can dramatically reimagine outcomes and the pace at which we do it. It’s scary and will look different but our grandparents lived through a lot of change too. Their grandparents as well. It’s the human condition.

I believe all of this is grounded in a philosophical foundation that is a recommitment to America’s core constitutional values. We are free to make things. And sometimes, when we apply ourselves, the world really does change.

If you are a canny socialist thinking look at this useful idiot for capital, I am honestly surprised that dialectical materialism has become so disliked by its own movement. If states with conservative libertarians can see that culture only changes when material conditions improve why don’t you want to improve them? Please feel free to copy our work as we have studied yours. You can find model policy here.

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Aesthetics Politics Travel

Day 1891 and So Much for Santorini or Status Hierarchies for Abundant Ages

If you watch me closely (which would be weird but I make it easy enough) you have surely noticed I spend much of my life traveling.

I’ve got no training in psychology but it sure seems like a certain personality type takes their childhood traumas and does exposure therapy till it becomes enjoyable.

I had intended for another trip to the general Mediterranean area in the spring to see family and work undisturbed by the American media timezone distractions. Now I am unsure if that will be feasible.

I am guessing that the sort of people who go to Sicily, Santorini and Cyprus to soak up the sun may find this Iranian conflict putting a wrench in their island hopping. Where will they go instead? Cartel wars bleed into the Caribbean and Bitcoin zillionaires setting up economic zones might make other things tricky. And oh the fuel costs will be ruinous.

War certainly makes me reconsider standard air bus style flying near any seas that connect to conflict areas but not too long ago I sat in a Turkish airport where “final boarding for Damascus” went over the loud speaker so maybe I’m making too much of it. Though I’m glad I enjoyed Istanbul over the winter as anything bordering Iran is now unnecessary risk.

For a world where speculative fiction bull case for artificial intelligence wiped off billions in market capitalization, we sure aren’t taking very seriously the kinetic effects of extreme uncertainty and change. Well, ironically maybe Pete Hegseth might be.

If we do make it through the Jackpot to the other side of the singularity, or just through this regional war situation, I would bet humans will find ourselves getting back to status hierarchies and power games.

If all our consumption needs are met, there will always be hierarchies. Wait your best friend summers in Block Island too? Or are those the Finnish slides from the Comme des Garçons show? Let me just call up “insert social scene’s patron billionaire” as everyone is headed to Big Sky for fresh powder this weekend.

It’s endlessly that sort of thing if you are inclined towards Bourdieu’s Distinction: a social critique of the judgment of taste. If class predicts taste then we mimic the taste we think we ought to have to be a certain kind of person. I came across a sweet hand illustrated essay on the matter recently.

If we can have anything we like, then taste becomes finer and finer grained. The rich know this already and the rest of us just might find out if we survive to an abundance era. And as I’d like to do that maybe I be reconsidering heading out to sea. Caribbean, Ionian, Bosphorus or otherwise.

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Politics Preparedness Startups

Day 1887 and Trust Me Bro

I don’t feel terrific so I’ll keep this as a ramble but with some links. I fear some sort of Rubicon has was crossed, which we will only recognize in hindsight, in the fight for property rights in America versus the tyranny of failing state capacity.

I am referring to the contract dispute between foundation model developer Anthropic and American Secretary of War Hegseth that boiled over on Friday night as some sort of Murderbot surveillance subplot parsed only by lawyers, policy wonks and anyone who remembers the patriotism of Chelsea Manning.

Right before America and Israel went all Epic Fury on Iran over the weekend, somehow it was felt a messy public fight between defense contractor and the civilian oversight of our military was ok? Good thing everyone is too distracted to care.

Funny how one can go from cheering on our military’s capacity for innovation one week and the next to be waving one’s arms screaming “no oh no no no” but that’s just politics as run by the instincts of reality television I suppose.

The best writing on this so far has been Dean Ball (who worked in this Trump administration on its AI position statement not so long ago) who feels that Hegseth took an approach on renegotiating a contract with a frontier AI model developer that has consequences.

Loosely and I am missing much Anthropic had its previous contract to parse classified documents in the Department of Defense (now the Department of War) negotiated by the prior administration. Some aspects of this contract wasn’t going to work for the Trump administration. Anthropic didn’t want to change it and Hegseth threatened to call Anthropic a supply chain risk unless it complied. They didn’t and Sam Altman signed a deal.

Wrapped up in this is that of course we all eventually comply with Leviathan who has the monopoly on violence. I don’t claim any expertise here but lots of people understand defense contractor law.

On its face Anthropic looks like the moral high ground and the position all capitalists and private property respected would prefer. However, it’s in Dean’s words, a bit weird for a company to tell the state that a private corporation has a say in policy as opposed to our democratic institutions.

Anthropic is essentially using the contractual vehicle to impose what feel less like technical constraints and more like policy constraints on the military

This is all complicated by the model developer having wishes for frontier AI development to be nationalized and for their work in particular to be safeguarded by a different political administration. It has become a right versus left thing as it was bound to do.

Now Anthropic gets to enjoy the full throated defense of its industry peers and even conservative policy makers like Dean, because our current state capacity is not what I’d call excellent when it comes to our civilian government capacity. Honestly our military still seems to be crushing it.

Secretary Hegseth looked a bit like he was over reaching in his command that he get his demands met. Americans are very touchy about surveillance of if’s citizens and much less touchy about autonomous weapons so it’s natural to be a bit suspicious if you are a millennial who remembers the Global War on Terror. If you are Zoomer who doesn’t know who Chelsea Manning is please go ask Claude.

However it’s not at all clear that Hegseth’s original negotiations were out of hand as of course it’s the state who decides legal use not the private company and we are meant to have laws, judicial process and all the rest. It’s just that we don’t. So what on earth do we do about it? Trust me bro is not a policy.

Categories
Preparedness Travel

Day 1879 and Costco versus Cartels vs The State

I have more than one founder in my portfolio who has struggled with basing their businesses in America because U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is barely functional. My own family has been affected on the personal front.

I’m proud America is so desirable a destination. But we can’t be such a dysfunctional one. That makes me feel shamed. I want us to bring the best and brightest here to build.

I’ve never felt such patriotism as we begin to invest in industry and energy again. The America that makes it to its 250th birthday is at another turning point. When hasn’t she been?

My phone showed me memories of the last big birthday trip we took with my father for his 80th. He passed this year. Smiling photos of my brother and I and our spouses with my father a little bemused but happy to be in Puerto Vallarta.

It was cheap boomer luxury provided by a Costco vacation plan. Today the Costco in Puerto Vallarta is on fire. Cartel infighting they say. That detente is done

The last time I saw a Costco on fire my hometown lost a third of its housing stock in a freak prairie fire. In a sick twist of fate those homes housed scientists who did work on weather stations and forecasting work for NIST, NCAR and NOAA.

One of my friends owns an Airstream which they use to go from job to job. They park it in front of their home. A elderly neighbor called in a complaint.

Despite many destitute disorderly trailers and tents on sidewalks, now my friend is the one to get ticked and towed from his own parking spot. A simple ordinance broke and now it’s a fight with the city.

Rentals sit in an uneasy tension with elderly populations sitting housing wealth. They rent their second homes whose property taxes haven’t been reappraised for decades to those of us who might appreciate an opportunity to arbitrage one home’s desirable location for ski season for a break in the winter.

Freedom to transact with one’s own property in an era where property tilts to the elderly feels uncertain. The struggling homeless can’t be moved, but the legal tenant can’t park his van in front of his own home. In Airbnbs they don’t want you to stay more than 14 days. I guess that’s when you get squatters.

I want our institutions to function. I want a viable state capable of doing the business of its citizens. Instead it’s renter classes and public employee unions and right outside (and inside too) our borders we see corporations, crime syndicates and subsidies for the thee and not me for me. Normalcy bias until the Costco is on fire. And then we forget all over again.

Categories
Aesthetics Travel

Day 1878 and Checking Into Hotel California

Yesterday I was on about the “ride share” and gig economy intermediaries, but today it’s the “home share” economy. The short term rental world of permanent vacation properties amid a housing crisis for the rest of us.

Having had a streak of bad luck at hotels in California I am back to my old faithful of Airbnb. Except I seem to have accidentally checked myself into Hotel California. It’s such a lovely place.

But everyone else here is a Boomer but me. I’ve not seen any children or grandchildren. Everyone is over sixty. It’s a heaven ban paradise for those who can afford to live a permanent coastal lifestyle. And for those of us who can rent it for a few days on business.

The Airbnb is in a large complex that is above a stretch of beach one can hike down to for walks. Nearby amenities are yuppie in nature with bistros, coffee shops and Pilates studies. While it is easy driving to its most proximate big city, it doesn’t feel like anyone is going to an office in this suburb.

The Airbnb is run by a management company seemingly owned by an enterprising woman who got prime real estate when rates were lower. I deduced this by scraping all her listings and when they first went online.

I doubt she is interested in letting her investment properties take any damage as no one under 25 is allowed to book and she explicitly states that “it is not child proofed” so you are liable for any issues. Which would explain the demographics.

This is a place for adults, and more specifically adults who have the freedom to work where and when they like.

Or perhaps more accurately are not obliged to work any longer. What a seductive life to live. No wonder there are so many slim, fit, smiling Patagonia swaddled mature people.

“Hotel California” is, according to the Eagles’ Don Henley, a metaphorical song about the dark side of the American dream, particularly the excess and decadence of 1970s Los Angeles. Via Wikipedia

It’s definitely not a Margaritaville sort of place. With koi ponds and soft beiges and tasteful landscaping, it’s too costal grandmother in its aesthetics. But it is certainly decadent. Maybe the American dream of thirty year retirement is the decadence they warned us about in Hotel California. It’s not that they can’t check out. It’s that they won’t.

If you walk among the promenade that overlooks the ocean, you will notice many of the townhomes have signs in their windows advertising their management company. It is all second homes and beach cottages and handled by professionals.

If it weren’t a gate community with guards and a lot of security cameras I’d honestly be terrified to advertise that folks might not be home. But then again, what is anyone going to steal that these denizens can’t easily replace?

They sold out the future already. The thieves are inside the complex. It’s the rest of us looking in who should wonder why it is that no one can check out. It’s just such a lovely place.

Categories
Startups Travel

Day 1877 and Driving Miss Julie

When Uber first hit San Francisco, most of the hype in my circles was that it was finally possible to go out at night like New Yorkers always had. In Manhattan hailing a cab was simple. One was always going by.

San Francisco was neither so dense nor so populous, so maybe you got lucky; but mostly you called cab companies and waited outside of parties for for ages just to be sure someone wouldn’t steal your ride.

Talking to your taxi driver was more interesting in New York. It was the quintessential immigrants job where one worked their way up to a taxi medallion. Different neighborhoods had different demographics. You’d learn a lot about the American dream.

Now that ride sharing and piece work contracting applications are entrenched in our social fabric, the relationship between customer and provider is entirely different.

Using an interface that cuts down interaction is a big part of the appeal. Maybe no one wants to hear about hopes and dreams anymore.

Except that I do. I am one of those chatty Cathy types who wants to let the conversation roam. Uber and Lyft drivers (and whatever other delivery services they may also pick up) tend to be intermittent workers looking to patch up the cracks in the drivers budget or circumstances.

I’ve had a number of veterans (as in military not as in experienced drivers) on my recent trip. This is also a typical demographic in Montana where it’s either former military or college kids looking for extra money.

Times rally must be changing as I’ve not had a prototypical immigrant driver in America for some time now. It’s largely white native born men looking to make ends meet.

New York probably still has that old school style of driver but working class Americans of all stripes are now thoroughly integrated into application intermediary work flows.

Odd jobs used to be paid in cash and maybe some didn’t get reported. Now you’ve got 1099 income from every piece work source of income imaginable. No one is all that reasonable to anyone else.

The companies are just the layer between customer and provider. I’m sure the governments must love this (despite protests to the contrary) as it makes it very easy to collect the taxes.

Categories
Travel

Day 1875 and Between Heaven and Hell

I had a stupid day. Maybe things have been simmering for a bit and a blow up was to be expected. I hit a limit for humiliation and simply didn’t want to keep paying for that kind of treatment. I did not consent.

I’m doing some business in California and am paying an exorbitant fee for the privilege. And I will eat a lot of shit to do the work I love, but I will not pay to be insulted at a premium price point. A Best Western is good enough for me.

This is going to be a ramble as I am so irritated by it as it felt like every single aspect of the hotel did not function. Their bumbling ineptitude would make a Motel 6 blush, let alone a supposedly upper market hotel.

Alas, somewhere between a maid barging in on me naked and the fourth or filth time a staff member knocked on the door confused about the status of my reservation I snapped. I wanted out of my reservation which is spent hours trying to sort.

If they didn’t want to do their jobs, offer me privacy or take my money, well then I didn’t need to be there. I wanted to be literally anywhere else.

I had a late checkout and half an hour before it hit so I went full Karen. I huffed and puffed and demanded a refund. I packed up, dazed and underfed from a busy morning and went to another less glamorous hotel. And it reads like a comedy of errors.

The hotel was charging prices equivalent to five star luxury hotels in other parts of the world and couldn’t deliver on so much as taking out the trash or keeping the changes in the reservation straight. The Keystone cops were better coordinated.

A kerfuffle had developed around extending the stay yesterday. At issue was that I didn’t have the authority to extend the reservation as it has been booked under my husband’s account and not mine.

Alright fine, but plans change and sometimes (often times) my husband and I have to change on short notice. It wasn’t even as if there were amenities on offer that he was entitled to on his account versus mine. I want being sneaky.

There was no breakfast to abuse. No special amenities for the status guests. Hell there wasn’t even a pair of slippers. But somehow it became a thing. Multiple calls to the manager, confirmation details being emailed around and trips to the front desk did not fix the problem.

The front desk manager acted like she was doing me a favor by letting me pay $300 bucks to extend the stay as “she’s really not supposed to do this!” You see I didn’t book the reservation myself.

This bizarre “account owner” issue is now a regular issue for both Marriot and Hyatt owned hotels. And if they didn’t want to take my money I didn’t feel at all bad about losing my cool and walking out.

The chains simply cannot seem to provide hospitality if it is outside of their parameters and their staff is not enabled to do much of anything beyond try to calm you down while never delivering on what you paid. If you happen to have a change of plans then being the wrong spouse counts against you in their dance of protocal.

I was annoyed but alright I’ll let inconvenience him and have Alex change it and move on. I won’t try to shock them by saying m that married couples commingle many things like airline status, Costco accounts and hotel loyalty programs. You’d be shocked at what other stuff we share. It’s almost like being married means sharing your life.

Today was meant to be the first day of the “new” reservation but despite being charged for it, not a single member of the hotel staff could figure it out. I went down multiple times to change keycards and put down deposits and all kinds of rigamoral.

Because I’d been so jet lagged yesterday I didn’t get any housekeeping service nor had I done much beyond work at the desk. So once I thought the extended reservation was sorted I went to visit a sort of luxury concept mall of the likes that combines Dior and Cartier with a billion other amenities from movie theaters and fine dining with staples like a Sephora. I told the hotel I’d give them time to clean as I was going to pick up a few things.

I return three hours later to the room not being cleaned. I am irked but find I call and ask if they can send housekeeping. “Oh we thought you were checking out?!” My response was “well a cleaning woman came in around 10am without knocking while I was naked.” I was wrong to presume that she would come back despite my AI assisted explainer translating my English to her Spanish. I thought she’d understood I was leaving and she could clean. How wrong I was.

“Oh no we have you listed as checking out at 2pm which is why we didn’t clean! Ok but then why did a maid come in earlier without so much as a knock? No explanation was offered.

This goes on for another half an hour as various people come to the room, none of whom communicated with anyone else on the staff.

A gentleman came knocking to ask when I’m checking out (I am not see this is the reservation). Another came to see when I wanted them to clean (two hours ago but now is fine) and then finally on the fourth person to try to sort it out if I had a reservation (look at the barcode I beg you!) I got angry enough that they let me cancel the reservation. They seemed totally flummoxed by my upset.

Somewhere around “just send up a vacuum I’ll clean myself” and “it’s against union policies to let the guests use the cleaning equipment” we’d clearly reached an impasse on what I needed and what they would do (nothing) and they wanted me gone as much as I wanted to be gone.

I know all of this is stupid and very petty, but we’ve reached a point in many industries where everyone is paying out their noses for services meant to be delivered in an expected manner and almost never are. And the prices only ever go up. if I had ever behaved in the manner that they did when I was managing a marketing agency for a luxury hotel in New York I would’ve promptly been fired.

I didn’t need to be insulted about not being my husband. I didn’t need to work my schedule around their cleaning staff or their front desk scheduling snafus or their various corporate policies on who is allowed to book what and when. 

I want to pay a fair price to stay somewhere I can get my work done and have the basics. Hospitality is about being hospitable. And somewhere between the armed guard at the mall and the baffled maid it just hit me that this heaven and hell interplay is all we can expect from here on out. You either pay a fortune or are lucky for what you can get.

It’s not even premium mediocre now. It’s just shitty. And only Karens stand between us and the total devolution of standards for fair exchanges of goods and services. And unfortunately that means I must don the armor of the Karen and hold my line. I refuse to cut my hair and get highlights though. I’ve had enough humiliation for one day.