Wake Me When There Are Consequences

Things are happening every day, but nothing ever comes of it.

As a politician, Trump is a piece of saran wrap attempting to sheath a porcupine — transparent and utterly ineffectual. But as an expression of America, he is its culture realized: crass, loud, idiotic, and petulant. He leads the charge of democratizing information, rendering most of it useless. He is ennui incarnate — the sound and the fury, signifying nothing.

Do you subscribe to Leah Letter yet? This week it’s about how our dyspepsia has become the new normal and lately it’s gotten very boring. So boring in fact that the only real option for many has been going to sleep. Maybe you’ve read about depression naps, or anxiety sleeping? I know that many of you have trouble sleeping at night precisely because of the news, and it must feel very unfair that some of us just escape behind our eyelids. Personally I have always been an advocate of early bedtimes , if only because it means 1) less time in this stupid waking nightmare, and 2) you get to wake up long before Twitter gets interesting and that reminds you how stupid it is!

Look, I’m not saying everyone can do it—sleep is absolutely a luxury and a privilege. But wouldn’t it be nice to be in a deep sleep until they figure this whole thing out? My own personal solution to my ennui is usually to sleep, where at least I don’t have to think about it all, at least not actively, and I can wallow in the weird synapse flashes and buried desires that constitute my dreams. In one of the great episodes of “Sex and the City” (cameos from Wallace Shawn AND Kristen Johnston!), the last woman in New York who’s single, unmarried, and doing coke at parties announces to a room full of Upper East Siders, “I’m so bored I could die!”

That’s me, except I’m so bored I could go to sleep. Wake me when it’s over.