I think one reason I’m finding it hard to blog of late is this: Every hour or so, I read something like this, and I’m struck dumb:

President Donald Trump again blamed California for the year’s dangerous and deadly wildfires and threatened to withhold federal funding from the state.

During a cabinet meeting Wednesday, he said the state needs to clear old trees to prevent fires.

“What’s happening should never happen. I go all over the country and I meet with governors. The first thing they say is there’s no reason for forest fires like that in California. So I say to the governor, or whoever is going to be the governor of California, you’d better get your act together because California, we’re just not going to continue to pay the kind of money that we’re paying because of fires that should never be to that extent,” he said.

Nineteen days before the election. Maybe 18, 17 by the time you read this. I’m just numb at this point. I have Battered Voter Syndrome.

But all is not lost. From time to time, when I feel like my life needs more complications in it, I read Dan Savage’s column, and it clears right up. I love “Savage Love,” because it makes me feel very suburban and boring. I have never, for example, considered the conundrum of being a straight guy with a yen for receiving oral sex, who’s been letting his gay friend do the job:

My problem is I am starting to feel guilty and worry I am using Sam. He’s a very good buddy, and I’m concerned this lopsided sexual arrangement might be bad for our friendship. Sam knows I am not into guys and I’m never going to reciprocate, and I feel like this is probably not really fair to him. But these are literally the only bl*wj*bs I’ve received since I was a teenager. What should I do?

Savage contacted Sam, and Sam said, hey, not a problem! Problem solved. (I asterisked that word, just in case any of you have content filters at your offices.)

I’m amazed at how many people have polyamorous or otherwise open relationships, and the kinks? Wow:

I’ve been dating this guy for almost a year. Everything is great, except one thing: He wants me to kick him in the nuts. It really bothers me, and I’m not sure what to do.

I would…not know how to answer that compassionately. My advice would be one word: Leave. Not that I wish to kink-shame, but um, wow.

Nineteen days. Remember that. I’m off for a very long Friday and — I devoutly hope — a pleasant weekend. Hope yours is, too.

I was just thinking about how, as the fall colors peak at our latitude and the lovely crescendo of autumn takes us inexorably into winter, just a few weeks away, we have this to look forward to:

A new season at Mar-a-Lago.

And a new season at Mar-a-Lago means new press photos of the Trumpettes!

See, the older I get, the more I notice bad plastic surgery on women of a certain age. Take a look at the taut puss of Toni Holt Kramer, self-identified leader of the Trumpettes. I see…nose work, lip fillers, maybe a chin implant and certainly those weird cheekbone puffs that make a woman’s face look like a freshly restuffed saddle, not to mention the shiny skin that screams Botox.

Actually, the entire Gallery pulldown on their website is worth your time, but especially Ms. Kramer’s birthday lunch, which looks positively surreal. Also, her busy time is split between her homes in Bel Air, California and Palm Springs, where she lives with her husband Robert and her beloved poodle, Caviar Deux.

I bet her hero never called her Horseface.

How’s everyone’s midweek? I had to take Wendy to the vet today — she caught one of her dewclaws in the leash ring on her collar, and it was sticking straight out, bloody and sore. She wouldn’t let me touch it, but by the time we arrived at the vet, she’d self-cared by biting it off, and seemed to be feeling pretty good again. The vet clipped her nails all around, said she’d be fine once it grew out, and didn’t charge me a dime.

“Don’t you want to amputate?” I asked. He looked startled.

“Not her paws,” I said. “Her dewclaws.”

No, he didn’t. Most breeders who do that do it when they’re three-day-old pups, because it actually requires snapping off a bone. Ouch, not for my sweetie pie. She has a natural tail, and I guess she’ll have a natural set of toenails, too.

And then I had a very long phone interview with a fascinating person that I hope grows into a story worth reading, and by then it was early afternoon, so I worked from home the rest of the day.

Do I have some bloggage? A bit:

Remember how shutting down Backpage was going to thwart online sex trafficking? And how sex workers said it wouldn’t work that way? Listen to the experts, because they were right.

Meanwhile, this pimp is dead — and after partying with Grover Norquist, no less. Of course, he still may be elected, because:

Nevada law specifies that candidates who die after the fourth Friday in July will still appear there, but the county clerk must post a notice that the candidate is deceased at every polling place.

And that, I think, is all. Three weeks until Nov. 6. A little less, actually.

Anyone who’s knows a person with bipolar disorder knows how hard it is to treat — how hard any mental illness is to treat. Medication is imperfect, dosages have to be tweaked and adjusted regularly, and in the case of bipolar, often patients don’t like how they feel when they’re free of the cycles of the illness, at least the manic, “good” parts.

Many people heading into a full-blown manic episode go through a phase called hypomania. Here are some of the symptoms: Elevated mood, increased activity, decreased need for sleep, feelings of creativity and power. If you could bottle that, I’d buy it, and I bet you would, too. Who would want to cut it short with some dumb old drug that makes you feel like everyone else?

I was thinking about Kanye West over the weekend, and what bothered me about the Oval Office shitshow last week. West has said he was “mistakenly” diagnosed with bipolar disorder after a breakdown last year. In a New York Times story early this summer, he had this to say:

…(O)ver time, he began “learning how to not be on meds,” adding proudly, “I took one pill in the last seven days.” …On “Yikes,” from “Ye,” he announced the bipolar disorder diagnosis. “That’s my superpower,” he scream-rapped. “Ain’t no disability/I’m a superhero! I’m a superhero!”

Yeah, that person is most definitely of sound mind. I mean, it’s so obvious.

So WTF was he doing meeting face-to-face with the president of the United States, a man with plenty of more important things to do, and in front of a mob of cameras to boot? I can only conclude West was feeding POTUS’ bottomless need for approval, to cozy up to his true peers (celebrities), to feel like he has black friends. Why the media covered it like it was some sort of light, whoa-check-out-this-daffy-artist episode and not a mentally ill man off his meds, well, you’ll have to ask the people in that room. If he were in a full-blown schizophrenic episode, raving to unseen demons, I doubt the coverage would have been the same.

And while I know this is utterly prejudiced and speculative, I simply can’t believe Barack Obama would have allowed such a thing. I have to think his staff would have advised against it, instead of capering for selfies with the celebrity:

Every day, a new bottom.

So how was everyone’s weekend? Mine was pretty good, although I am working on Sunday and probably will be until the election is over. Have an assignment coming up at the end of the week that should be fun, so that will enliven things. We had friends over last night to watch “The Romanoffs,” the new series by Matt Weiner, the “Mad Men” creator, so that prompted us to get the house tidied up and all the weekend chores done. Alan is off at the marina stripping the boat before it’s pulled from the water week after next. It’s a beautiful day, and I should be on a bike ride, but the doughnuts have to be made, and make them I will.

As we draw closer to the election, I warn you, I’m going to find very little politically oriented news to post here. Of course the comments are your playground, but honestly, at this point? It’s mostly just a distraction. Locally, the coverage is all about horserace-y stuff — ad buys, polling nuances, endorsements. And I simply Do Not Care. I probably should vote absentee and get it over with, but I expect we’ll be covering stuff at Deadline Detroit, and that involves going to polling places, so I might as well start with my own. Nationally, it’s beginning to blur — this House race, that Senate seat — and I figure there will be time after it’s all settled to figure it out. Right now, I’m focused on November 6, and I’m mostly skimming past stories that don’t grab me with the headline.

The story I’m most looking forward to today? Tom & Lorenzo’s examination of the outfits worn to Princess Eugenie’s wedding. For the record, I thought her dress was basic, but I liked the tiara very much; all redheads should have the opportunity to wear giant emeralds, and this one actually has access to some. And boy, does Randy Andy look old now.

Remember how Mitt Romney mourned the 47 percent of Americans who paid no income taxes? Yeah, me too. Crickets from Mitt on this story, natch.

With that, let’s get out of here and let the weekend wind down to a close. Happy week ahead, all.

You guys are the best readers in the world, continuing to show up when I don’t, and I really appreciate it. It was another fairly ridiculous week, work wise, punctuated by two weeknights out, so something had to fall by the wayside.

But it was so fun to get out two weeknights, even if it was a little exhausting. Man, how do people do it night after night? Probably not by getting up at 5:30 to work out.

And I missed today’s. Eh, no biggie.

Once again, it’s a week when the news gallops so quickly it’s hard to remember, on Thursday, what was outraging all of us on Tuesday. Today’s meeting with Kanye West, a walking case of untreated bipolar illness? I lack the shock juice to do more than point you at the annotated transcript of what he said in his 10-minute monologue, or whatever the hell it was. Me, I noticed something I’ve noticed before, in photo ops of our president meeting with people in the Oval: He always sits behind the desk.

Maybe not every time, but often enough that it made me google “trump meeting in oval office” and compare it with “obama meeting in oval office” and boy, there’s a difference. Obama favored — at least in these photo ops — putting people on the couches around that modern coffee table I never really liked, the one that always had a bowl of apples on it. Trump sits behind the Resolute Desk, while people either sit on the other side, or fan out from his elbows for photo ops. He doesn’t stand for the photo ops. He sits, visitors stand.

Some of these photos are ghastly. Have you ever seen so many miserable, doomed people in your life?

So, a quick run by the bloggage:

The president and a weary nation that raises its middle fingers in response. An interesting read.

Kara Swisher on good and bad bosses. The worst? John McLaughlin:

That asshole of a human being. I got the sense he sort of respected me because I didn’t put up with his shit. Because I wasn’t a Republican. I was a liberal, obviously. All these people were weird acolytes to him because he was a big deal during the Reagan administration. That was his power. So he used that. These people would do everything to work for one of the top Republican people, and I was like, I don’t give a fuck. My whole history is not going to depend on this. He enjoyed a smart woman in a weird, sick way.

He was awful and abusive and terrible—and as it turned out, he was like Sexual Harasser 101. He was harassing a woman on the staff who was a friend of mine. But he was abusive to the whole staff. He would line people up by height and then make them look for a dust ball under his couch. Stuff like that. This was Captain Queeg kind of behavior. He was just super crazy. Everyone had a beeper—he had to know where you were.

Once again, a Silicon Valley whale decides he knows how to do something better than people who’ve done it for years. Once again, he’s proven wrong.

Happy weekend to all, and to all a good night.

Having enjoyed a few days of not having to be under the same roof as her husband, the First Lady of this once-great country wishes people would stop paying so much attention to what she wears. To which I reply: Then stop dressing so goddamn weird.

I have Tim Gunn and “Project Runway” to thank for introducing me to the concept of an outfit being “costume-y.” That is to say, it moves beyond style — which flatters and communicates something about the wearer — and becomes something that calls attention to itself alone. Also, it makes people looking on say, essentially, WTF?

Lady Gaga’s meat dress is an easy example of this, in contrast to, say, one of her other many fun evening outfits.

Lots of attention was paid to FLOTUS’ overseas wardrobe, but perhaps most to the meet-your-British-overlords equestrian ensemble, complete with pith helmet. Especially the pith helmet, which scholars explained elsewhere has a particular attachment to colonialism, but honestly? I don’t think that entered FLOTUS’ head for even a second. I don’t think she was sending a message to white nationalists or anything like that. I think she’s playing dress-up. She saw a picture of a Kenyan coffee plantation in a book and duplicated the look.

I mean, she’s also wearing riding boots; why? Is she getting on a horse? Walking somewhere that snakebite might be feared? No. Any old broad-brimmed hat could shield her face from the sun, but the picture of the coffee plantation had a pith helmet, so a pith helmet it is.

Where does anyone even buy one of those things? It’s a puzzle.

Then there was the other outfit, which she saved for the pyramids of Egypt:

I think this one came out of an Indiana Jones movie. It makes absolutely no sense to me. The hat is fine — again, strong sun — and there’s nothing wrong with a pantsuit, but the hat with the pantsuit and then the windblown necktie? Hello, Dr. René Emile Belloq.

It’s really baffling. If we’re all supposed to pretend that Melania Knauss entered this country as a “model,” shouldn’t she have learned something about clothing along the way?

Ugh, a Sunday after a tough week with another one ahead. I am coping by arranging as much as possible ahead of time, a to-do list and food prep and all laundry done and all the rest of it. I’m also avoiding the news even more than I did last weekend. I went to the library and checked out three books, all of them novels. This isn’t avoiding reality, it’s bolstering sanity. There comes a point where you just can’t take this crap another day.

One bit of news I did see this weekend is about the melee that broke out after the Ultimate Fighting Championship in Vegas Saturday night. The bout was between Irishman Conor McGregor and Russian Khabib Nurmagomedov, which made me reflect, first, that Ireland was the old source of great-white-hope fighters, and Russia is the new one. Besides the Ukrainians (Wladimir Klitchko and his brother Vitali) and the famous Triple-G (Gennady Gennadyovich Golovkin, aka Triple G, and boy do the announcers like to draw that one out in the introductions), there are a shitload of ferocious fighters from the north Caucasus, i.e. Muslim Russia. When we saw Claressa Shields fight here in Detroit in June, the undercard had a couple of Chechens on it, and Nurmagomedov is from Dagestan, right next door.

And now that I think about it, Dearborn has a little bit of a boxing community, which makes me wonder why Russia and why Muslim Russia. Anyone have any ideas?

OK, I think I’m done for now, and I hope this week brings you peace, quiet and as little static as possible. God knows we need it after last week.

It’s impossible to get through life without offending someone, but this feels like a particularly wearisome week for offense.

There’s this lady:

Linda Dwire was outraged over two women speaking Spanish in the aisle of a grocery store in Rifle, Colo., on Monday. She confronted them over what she believed was an erosion of American values.

Then another woman intervened to restore civility in a personal moment inflamed by national tension over immigration policy and American identity.

“I’m calling the cops. You leave these women alone! Get out!” Kamira Trent roared in a video taken by one of the women.

Man, I hear languages other than English spoken in public all the time. In fact, most aren’t even Spanish. I recognize Spanish. I’m pretty good with most of the other common tongues around here, too — Arabic being the big one, but in a typical week, it’s not unusual to hear many, many others. My favorite is when you hear some version of Whatever-glish; I once eavesdropped on a Latina in a Mexican restaurant who was switching, at top speed, between Spanish, English and slang that almost qualified as its own dialect. It was dizzying, blahblahblahblahBITCHPLEASEblahblahblah. It didn’t make me worry about American values. But you knew that.

And there’s this oft-remarked-upon plague, the leaf blower. (Disclosure: I own one. But it’s the far, FAR quieter electric version:

A bunch of neighbors were sitting around the other night, talking yard work, and the conversation returned to a frequent target: a certain ex-neighbor, now long gone, who was unduly fond of his leaf blower. This is a familiar tale, how he tormented the block every autumn weekend chasing leaves around his small yard with his shrieking machine, leaving behind the lingering stench of gasoline fumes and resentment. I never met this fellow—he moved out before I moved in—but his legacy is secure: He is The Asshole With the Leaf Blower.

Perhaps that’s redundant. The tragedy of the leaf blower is that it makes assholes of us all, users and neighbors alike.

You can say that again.

And then there’s this column. Headline: I watched a rape. For five decades, I did nothing. Yep, it’s pretty raw. Read at your own risk.

Guys, I’m trying to get back into the groove of three entries a week, and I know this is pretty thin, but it’s been a far busier week than I anticipated. So go and have a weekend, and I’ll see you here afterward.

I think it was a few weeks back, writing about vomit, that I wondered whether adults older than college age are still drinking like they are in college. Which no one should do, because college drinking is insane.

(Yes, this has to do with Brett Kavanaugh.)

After reading the latest sheaf of stories, most of them in the NYT, and summarized well in today’s edition of their podcast, The Daily, I’m more convinced he’s likely an alcoholic. It’s possible he stopped or cut way back when the full responsibilities of adulthood settled on his shoulders, but if he had, I’d think he’d have enough distance from his college years to speak frankly about them — how much he drank, how he feels about it, etc.

But he can’t. As classmate after classmate comes forward to offer eyewitness testimony that suggests this man was no boy scout, I’m convinced his reaction would be the same: Liars! Liars, all of them!

Which sounds kinda, I dunno, alcoholic-y.

After I worked on the college-drinking package that we did for Bridge a few years ago, I wondered if we were pearl-clutching, that what we’d reported on is just the ol’ Kids Being Kids, aka It Was Ever Thus. But the more I see the way post-college adults drink these days, I think not. I think the emphasis on puke-and-rally/Animal House-style drinking sets a pattern that can be hard to break. Some days, I look at the $15 craft-cocktail trend as being almost a form of temperance, in the sense that it’s almost impossible for a standard middle-income person to drink very many of those, unless they have a very thick wallet.

But often, when I go to those in-between bars — not a dive, not a twee cocktail lounge — I see grown-ass adults with graying temples drinking like DKE bros at the end of pledge week. Candy-flavored vodkas, shots, the whole nine. That sort of pattern is dangerous. Once that becomes your normal, you’re a giant step closer to an AA meeting.

I think so, anyway.

I have to hit Publish and get this thing on its way, but before I do, I have to say I haven’t read the New York Times’ ginormous investigation on how the Trump family worked the loopholes — and in some cases, engaged in outright fraud — to accumulate and protect its wealth. But I did listen to the Daily podcast, which summarized it, and it’s pretty appalling. Reading 14,000 words will take some time, but the Daily will only take 30 minutes. I highly recommend it.

Gotta run. Happy Wednesday.

I spent part of a busy weekend migrating my photos to Google’s photo app. I’m trying to extend the life of my phone a while longer; at four, it’s apparently ancient, at least according to the tech writers covering the new generation of iPhones, who assume everyone in the world wants a new phone every year.

Anyway, with G-photo doing auto backups at the default quality, I can delete all the ones on my phone and free up some space for more crap, like scooter-rental apps. Twice in the last week I’ve wanted to grab a scooter and spare my aching feet (plantar fasciitis acting up), only to find the available ones were from the company I don’t have the app for, dammit.

But that’s a tangent. Google photos are amazing. As soon as it synced with my phone, it started sorting everything, with almost terrifying accuracy. It recognized Kate’s face in pix taken from age 3 to present day. It recognized our old neighbor Allie with a full set of dreadlocks and a shaved head. At first it thought Spriggy and Wendy were the same dog, but once I corrected it, boom, two folders. Then, sometime overnight, it got into “things.” There are 41 Things folders; and I’m sure more are coming. It sorted food pix into Baking and Cooking. Landforms are divided by Beaches, Cliffs, Waterfalls, Caves, etc.

It’s not 100 percent accurate — it put all my sunrise pix into a folder called Sunsets, which bugged me, because what, it can spot my daughter’s eyebrows in a group picture from a homecoming dance six years ago, but not read a time stamp? The Flowers folder includes shots of a birthday cake for J.C., which included a frosting flower on top. But that cake is also in Baking, so no biggie.

It got me to spend some time with old photos this weekend, which most of us don’t do. It also dug up pix I thought had long been deleted, including this one, which I’m calling “selfies are stupid:”

(There are about three dozen selfies in my G-photo account.)

Here’s the view from the top floor of Michigan Central Station, after the official launch event Ford put on in June:

That’s going to be nice when it’s finished, assuming it gets finished.

It was a pretty good weekend — dinner with friends, a bike ride, and a Saturday-night stop at an after-hours party, whoop di do for a person who’s generally asleep by 11. I regret to say the after-hours was nothing much, though — fun enough, but I’ve been to a million of these so far, and the only difference between the legal, before-closing variety and this one was: Open marijuana smoking and nitrous balloons for recreational gas-sipping. Not my thing, although I do remember a party in Fort Wayne where a friend offered that particular canapé, and ran into his landlord when he was carrying the tank in — “Carl, I didn’t know you were a scuba diver!,” etc.

I don’t really have any bloggage today. I stopped reading Kavanaugh takes Friday afternoon, because I’m full-up and only awaiting the inevitable confirmation vote. And Kavanaugh takes were all there were to read this weekend.

Well, there was Tom & Lorenzo on Lady Gaga. I generally agree, although I think her boobs look like they’re in pain.

So let’s face the week ahead with strength and honor. It beats cowardice and scandal.

You know? Thursday was such a god-awful day, so full, beginning to end, with the worst this country has on offer, that I think the best thing to do today is declare an open thread and say go ahead and get it out.

Happy weekend, everyone. At least a tolerable one.

To add to yesterday’s comment-thread discussion about Caitlin Flanagan: Yes, she’s one of those annoying “contrarians” who made her rep yelling at other women for a variety of perceived offenses – working while having young children, enjoying marital sex less than she does, etc. (At least this is what I’m recalling; I don’t have time to go spelunking for those links.)

That said, she’s an excellent writer, and she’s done a couple of outstanding pieces for the Atlantic in the last few years — one on fraternity drinking culture and the legal steps frats have taken to insulate themselves from any liability connected to that, and another on a death at Penn State related to, yes, fraternity drinking.

So you takes the good with the irritating, I guess.

Wednesday already. Big week, only halfway done. Tomorrow I have an evening event for one job, and the guest of honor can’t attend. Fortunately, his wife will stand in for him, and the only duty I’m down for is “assist the photographer,” so I guess I can handle it. I’m dressing for that one at my other job, but will be one of those women shlepping through downtown in a nice dress and sneakers, because man, me and heels don’t get along anymore. I’ll put them on at the venue and take them off the instant I leave.

Now that you’re full up with my wardrobe notes, what else is there to discuss today?

The Kavanaugh situation, obviously.

And this, of course:

A little song, a little dance/ a little mushroom…no, I can't profane the memory of Chuckles this way.

— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) September 18, 2018

Oh, and this, something I wrote yesterday. It’s about those annoying rental scooters.

And with that, I have to leave early. Sorry, but you should see my to-do list.