I am on

the train beside a madwoman. I hope she doesn’t read this. She is very small, has long straggly hair -- constantly runs her fingers through it -- then waves those fingers in my general vicinity. She also has a gigantic suitcase about the same size as she is, and when she arrived she tried  to shove it into the bin above the seat. Everyone around said — ‘No No! It won’t fit!" I refused to help her for that reason. The suitcase almost crushed her; she almost fell to the floor, but I rescued her, and then insisted she put the suitcase somewhere else. Whew. She doesn’t seem to know anything about train protocol (‘Where is the bathroom ? Am I permitted to go now?’) She is now slumped down in her seat in her track suit sleeping(?), I think she just craves attention before mainlining whatever drug is the cause of her crazy. She is part of the new normal. During COVID-19 no one traveled, and when we did, we weren’t allowed to sit together — now we are packed together like sardines wacko beside wacko. Speaking of the future, here’s what to expect:
1. People Will Be More Divided
It looks like ‘health’ will take the place of race, and gender and sexuality as the primary issue of the day — i.e. maskers vs anti-maskers. Like all excellent polarisation issues, this one is a matter of life and death Those who hate homosexuality think we are killing you with AIDS, those who hate abortion think women are killing babies, those who want to give their children puberty blockers believe that if we don’t we are killing trans children, and now those who do not wear masks are killing you -- but especially your children — even though children don’t even get very sick with COVID-19 (don’t listen to anything they tell you about kids and COVID-19, it’s just  news porn, and fun for you to worry about, but that’s all it is, trust me). Add to that each ‘side’ has been online chumming it up with their dumb counterparts, the thickheaded numskulls on Facebook who scream  ‘Anit-vaxers should be shot!’ or, conversely ’Vaccinations will kill you.” Well they can eat each other for all I care, but they may accidentally munch on me in the process; so I am forced to pay attention. It’s all about conspiracy theories — the Anti-vaxers believe the government is trying to kill its citizens, and the Vaccinators think the Anti-vaxers are trying to kill everyone. But you may say— ‘The  anti-vax movement is a lie.’ It is, But everyone’s lying these days anyway, and that doesn’t give you the right to hate someone who doesn’t want to get vaxed, or to want to kill them. But you will, anyway. That is the new normal.
2. People Will Hate Other People More
If there’s one thing COVID-19 taught us, is that we don’t need other people. Don’t believe any of those commercials where vaccinated people are running into each other’s arms — hugs, kisses and certainly oral sex are now officially suspicious activities. You see, humans work like this: they fear everything until it becomes humanised. (The Nazis were able to kill Jews because they became un-human to them.)  As the world becomes less human,  it becomes more dangerous. You have spent a year in a half being  told the only way we will survive is by not reaching out and touching a person of another colour, a queer, or just anyone outside your little tribe. This is going to screw us up.
4. Nothing Works
You will have to go online for everything now, and nobody is going to answer the phone anymore, because they work from home. Everything will break i.e. be hacked, and no one will know how to fix it. The world will become more and more dysfunctional. Now that we have been told our lives revolve around the internet — bad people will try and destroy our lives by destroying it.
5. The best way to survive is be  human if you  can, i.e — have lots of sex with lots of strangers, talk to strangers, assume anyone who is different from you is probably a good person, and constantly touch other people, and — most important — stay off social media at all costs, and avoid the internet when you can. You must see Pig — a new movie with Nicholas Cage.(It’s funny that people are falling all over themselves to assure us this is not a ‘Nicholas Cage movie.’) In one scene (in a restaurant) Cage talks to a chef — and in doing so, says it all. I don’t want to spoil it, but Pig is about a man who loves a specific pig more than anything else (he specifies that he does not have sex with the pig it's not that.) In this movie, you must read  'a pig’ -- as 'a human being' (remember pigs are nearly as smart as us, and for sure smarter than the guy who is cursing you on Facebook presently!). Last night I did my bit to survive the new normal, I went to a strip club and happened upon a young man there who was once in a play I directed. He is now a porn star. Wow. Please don’t rush to be in one of my plays. His case is quite unique. When I worked with him, I found him very ‘interesting’ -- kinda beautiful in an odd way, very original, and perhaps on the autism scale. I really liked him. So I got his phone number. I don’t want to screw him necessarily. But he is doing his part to keep us all human by having as much sex as possible. You can rant all you want to against porn, but sex trade workers are kind of like Gods, so please try and be nice — even if being nice is  not part of the 'new normal.'
6. I think the very strange woman beside me on the train is masturbating. I think the man in the couple in front of me is talking to the baby in his wife’s belly. These are people. We must somehow learn to live with them. It's the only way,