Echidne Thoughts, 2/13/2017

1.  Imagine opening a closet door and everything you have ever crammed there comes out in an avalanche.  That's how the topics on which I might write are like now:  Far, far too many.

Should I write about the sprouting fascism?  About the narcissist in power?  About the Russian connections?  About how woman-oppressing, pro-corporate theocracies are being created in many states which are today under complete Republican control?  About the way the Constitution is currently a victim of domestic abuse?

I know the answer to those questions:  I should write where my training and study might let me say something useful.   But when one wakes up every morning and asks, as Dorothy Parker did, what new hell might await us, well, it's then very difficult not to write about, say,  Michael "Vladimirovich" Flynn or about Stephen "Hitler" Bannon, or about the Trump war against Latinx and Muslims.  Or about this truly frightening clip from Stephen "Dead Eyes" Miller.

2.  But then who am I writing to?  And what is it that my imaginary readers want me to write?   There are times when I feel I'm yelling into an empty barrel, the echoes returning, full of loneliness.

3.  Why is the rise not given for women's jeans?  I spent some time measuring myself for jeans which I planned to buy online, and realized that the task is impossible.  The inch measurements that are given are supposed to be about the waist of the jeans, right?  But not all jeans come up to one's natural waist.  In fact, most do not.  So where am I exactly supposed to take that waist measurement?  How many inches above the widest part of my hips or below my natural waist?  The rise would tell me that.

So I made a wild guess and bought a pair online.  They arrived today.  They are vast.