Blog o’ Gnosis

Now that more than a week has passed since my birthday, I believe I can give up my handy chocolate cake rationale. This is the rule that in the two-week period surrounding one’s birthday, any meal is best celebrated with a slice of chocolate cake. Otherwise, the terrorists have already won.

The weekend before my birthday I headed down to Santa Cruz. On the way, I had a delicious chocolate cupcake at a Peet’s in Berkeley, followed two days later by two (2!) chocolate cakes procured by my friends, who sadly couldn’t agree which bakery made the best one and so were forced to get them both.

Another two days and it was my actual birthday, which I celebrated by having my lovely niece and her boyfriend over to join Jojo and me for dinner, followed of course by a chocolate cake. Two days after that, the leftovers were finished and Jojo and I resumed our normal sugar-deprived existence. The memories of a birthday well-celebrated, we felt, would last us at least to May Day, if not Mother’s Day.

I ran across an interesting little article in the latest New Yorker this evening, about a Canadian woman named Sheila Heti who became interested in what people were dreaming about the presidential frontrunners. She has created a website, The Metaphysical Poll, explaining her Hillary in pineapplesproject and linking to archives of the dreams she has collected so far. From her website:

The question we’re asking here is: what role do Barack and Hillary and John play in the collective unconscious? What can that tell us about where they might lead us — and which one does more coke when we sleep?

I may hate myself later for doing this; in fact, maybe I already do. But I seem to have lost the struggle against my better judgment, so will say a little bit today about the Democratic presidential primaries.
I have been trying to view the candidates by two criteria: the content of the policies they are [...]