Space Force

Donald Spacewalker maneuvered his space fighter alongside the massive capital ship USS Trump, the fastest, strongest, hugest ship in the entire US Space Force. Donald was part of an elite group of space fighter pilots tasked with protecting the space realm from attack from the Dems, an evil band of space losers headed by the whacko nut job Nan-si Pulossi. The pirates were a constant headache to the Space Force, harassing the mission of the fifth branch with annoying, yet ultimately impotent attacks.

But the true enemy of the Space Force was the Klinton Intergalactic Initiative, a deep state conglomerate that wanted nothing more than to bring down the Axis of Freedom that Donald had personally assembled from the greatest powers on the planet. He chuckled to himself as he thought about his diplomatic prowess. Not only was he the greatest space fighter pilot in the history of the Space Force, but he was also the most accomplished diplomat the world had ever known. Thanks to Donald, the US had joined forces with North Korea and Russia, put some sick burns on the failing European Union, and created a lasting peace that benefited the entire solar system.

"Donald!" came a frantic voice over his space communicator, breaking his nostalgic revelry. "Donald, come in! It's an emergency that only you can solve with your great brain and amazing skills!"

"I'm here," Donald replied. "What's up?"

"We've just intercepted some Klinton emails," the voice said over the space communicator.

"Emails?" Donald spat. "Looks like she's up to it again. Won't that nasty woman ever learn her lesson?"

"I've space-tweeted everything at you," the voice told him. "Godspeed you Donald Spacewalker!"

Tweets flashed across Donald's space console. It was worse than he thought. Those damnable Klintons! He looked at his console where he had taped up a holographic space photo of the beautiful Princess Ivanka. "This one's for you, you smoking hot piece of ass," he said, winking at the photo.

Without another thought, he punched the throttle and his space fighter zipped around the USS Trump, twirling in a beautiful display of ultimate spacemanship. As he came around the big part of the ship where there were a lot of guns and stuff, he saw them: a small band of weak and pathetic Klinton space fighters. Donald shot straight into the cluster of fighters with the sort of bravado and skill that no other human being could ever hope to match. The other space fighters scattered as he fired his space guns - PEW PEW PEW -- PEW PEW PEW!

The Klinton space fighters exploded all around Donald, but they fought desperately to take him down. His space fighter moved like a lion, or like a space tiger or something, cutting through the weak, sad Klinton space fighters. After a few punishing moments, the Klinton space fighters gave up and started to run, but Donald wasn't going to let them off that easy. He gave chase, easily catching them because his space fighter was the fastest and most best space fighter ever. He shot them down, one after the other, PEW PEW PEW -- PEW PEW PEW -- PEW PEW PEW!

"Don't mess with the Space Force!" Donald crowed triumphantly.

Based on a true story.

Empress Theresa

I just watched this interesting video on the book Empress Theresa by Norman Boutin. I skimmed a bit of the book, and honestly it's pretty terrible, BUT I applaud Boutin for both hacking the internet and getting a bunch of people to read/review his book and also for sticking to his guns and being completely uncompromising.

I'd written a post a few months ago about being an uncompromising, singularly focused, solitary writer. tl;dr just write your book, proof it, and get it published. Stop pussyfooting around with honing your art or whatever. Granted, Boutin apparently spent upwards of four decades putting this book together, so he took his sweet time; but in the end, he published something and didn't bother perverting his writing the the ideas and judgments of other people.

What you write should be your own. Don't apologize. Don't capitulate. Stick to your fucking guns and shamelessly defend your work to the bitter end. But FYI your writing is probably really terrible and you'll die in obscurity.

Bookclub!

I recently joined a bookclub on WanKani. The first book on the list to read is よつばと! This is the first time I've participated in a legit bookclub, so I'm pretty excited. If you're interested (and can read 日本語) then come and join me. お疲れ様です!

Compliance

“I just hate my job,” Kevin sighed.”I just hate being here. I hate the work I do. I hate the people I work with. I hate the color of my office. I hate the smell of the place. I hate the sound of the words that people use to describe the work we do. I just hate every aspect of this place.”

 “Just leave,” Chelsea replied. “If you hate it so much, just quit. Don’t come in tomorrow, or ever again.”

“I want to,” Kevin said, grimacing. “But I’m not ready. I haven’t got all my ducks in a row.”

“When will they be in a row?” Chelsea asked.

“Soon, I hope,” Kevin said. “I don’t know how much longer I can stomach this fucking place. Being here sucks the life out of me. It sucks the joy out of living. I know that this is a First World problem. I know other people have it so much worse than I do. But…” He chewed his lip, searching for the words to describe what he was feeling. “I just really hate being here,” he said at last, unable to frame his argument any other way.

 “I don’t know,” Chelsea said. “I like this office stuff. I think it’s nice. I like just chilling out in my cube, listening to music and browsing Facebook. It’s a pretty sweet job.”

 “But don’t you want more than that?” Kevin asked. “I mean… we come in here, and we trade away our lives for a shitty paycheck. We’re basically giving away our painfully finite time in exchange for an abstraction of value that isn’t even worth that much. We will never ever get our lives back. Every second we spend here is a second gone. It’s a second we could have spent living, enjoying life and the world. Doesn’t that make you sick?”

Chelsea thought for a moment. “Not really. I get paid pretty well. And I’m young, I have a lot of time to move up or change jobs or whatever. You’re young too. Why do you think about all this shit? Just be happy where you are.”

Kevin shook his head. “I can’t be happy,” he said. “I can’t be happy doing this fucking stupid meaningless busy-work for the rest of my life. Think about all the other people, all the older people, and how they’re so fixated on retirement. Remember Joanna? She was going to retire and have this great life. But then she had a stroke two months before retirement and she died. Remember Karen? She was going to travel the world with her husband. But then her husband had a massive heart attack and died before she retired.”

“Yeah, but they were old,” Chelsea said. “We’re young. I’m not even thirty. And you’re only like thirty-three?”

"I’m thirty-four,” Kevin sighed. “But that’s not the point. What I’m getting at is that those people used to be young like us. And they felt the same way as you. But then suddenly they were old, and then they were too old to enjoy life without being chained to a desk. I’ve already been here for seven years. Fuck. Just think of all that I could have done in that seven years. But what have I done instead? I’ve traded away my hours, my life, for a paycheck. I haven’t contributed anything to society. I haven’t done anything.”

“You do compliance work,” Chelsea smiled. “That’s important.”

 “Is it?” Kevin said, his voice heavy with sarcasm. “Think about how much money they spend on all this compliance bullshit. Millions of dollars every quarter gets burned up in the compliance bureaucracy. I haven’t crunched the numbers, but I have a strong suspicion that we spend a lot more on compliance than this company ever lost from researchers misusing funds. It’s fucking stupid. Our compliance work is a joke. We’re leeches, sucking up research dollars that would be better spent fighting cancer or whatever.”

“Just leave then,” Chelsea said, rolling her eyes. “I like working here. It’s easy. I get paid well. And I get to take long lunches. I don’t know why you can’t be happy like everyone else.”

“I don’t know either,” Kevin mumbled. “I wish I could, but I just can’t.”

He let her words sink into his brain for a few moments. It was true, everyone else in the office really was happy. They loved their work and believed in what they were doing. Kevin didn’t understand why he couldn’t go with the herd, why he couldn’t love the mindless, meaningless work as much as everyone else. "I really just hate being here,” he said at last. “I need to get the fuck out of here.”