Sau hai đêm cuối tuần ăn nhậu tôi vẫn còn lâng lâng. Già sức yếu, nhậu mau say lâu tĩnh. Nghỉ làm thứ Hai, ngủ bù để phục hồi sức khỏe.

Sáng thứ Bảy anh Trần Viết Tân nhắn tin anh vừa đáp xuống và hẹn gặp buổi tối. Mười hai giờ khuya, tôi gặp anh và anh Khôi, anh em bà con của anh Tân, ở quán nhậu Làng Văn trong khu Eden. Tôi biết anh Khôi qua anh Tân. Tuy anh Khôi và tôi ở cách nhau chừng mười phút lái xe nhưng chúng tôi chỉ đi chung những dịp anh Tân qua chơi. Anh Khôi cũng chịu chơi lắm. Anh Khôi thì khá đẹp trai còn anh Tân thì ăn nói vui vẻ nên mấy cô thích trò chuyện. Tôi thì không có cái nhìn cũng chẳng dẻo mồm nên chỉ ngồi một cục thưởng thức món ruột heo chiên giòn xào với cải chua và uống Heineken. Ba anh em ngồi nhậu đến lúc quán đóng cửa lúc hai giờ khuya. Tuy không xỉn nhưng tôi khó ngủ.

Sáng Chủ Nhật tôi nằm nướng được một chút rồi dọn dẹp nhà cửa. Mưa cả ngày nên chỉ ở nhà với vợ con đến năm giờ chiều anh Tân rủ tôi đi dự tiệc gây quỹ cho hội AA Success. Anh Tân được mời đến để giúp vui vài bản nhạc. Anh vừa đánh keyboard vừa hát những bài tiếng Anh đầy cảm xúc. Tan tiệc anh Tân rủ đi ăn hàu sống. Mười giờ đêm Chủ Nhật nhà hàng Mỹ vắng tanh và không có hàu sống nên chúng tôi đi bar New Season. Đây là quán bar của người Việt và tôi cũng khá ngạc nhiên khi thấy nhiều người Việt. Chẳng lẽ người Việt ngày mai khỏi cần đi cày hay sao mà vẫn ăn nhậu, hát hò, nhảy đầm thoải mái. Tôi hỏi anh Nguyên, anh của anh Khôi và tay ăn chơi có tiếng ở cộng đồng Việt khu Virginia, anh bảo phần đông là dân làm chủ nên không cần phải đi làm. Bốn anh em vừa uống bia vừa ực vodka shots nên tôi bị xỉn. Về đến nhà gần ba giờ sáng. Dĩ nhiên là phải xin nghỉ việc ngày thứ Hai để cố gắng ngủ và lấy lại sức.

Sau những lần say rượu là những cảm giác hổ thẹn và tự trách. Tuy cũng thích ăn nhậu nhưng nếp sống ăn chơi không thích hợp với tôi. Lâu lâu đi một lần thì còn tha thứ chứ đi mỗi tuần như dân chơi thì chết chắc. Tôi vẫn là một người của gia đình. Tôi hạnh phúc nhất khi được bên cạnh vợ con. Thằng con trai lớn hôm qua gọi điện thoại nói nhớ ba và muốn ba về ngủ chung. Thằng này chín tuổi rồi vẫn muốn ngủ với ba. Chắc chừng nào lấy vợ nó mới chịu ra riêng.

Mỗi lần ngồi vào bàn nhậu tôi cũng rất hăng hái, nhất là được cạn ly với anh Tân. Tôi rất phục tửu lượng của anh và rất quý trọng tính tình hoạt bát của anh. Là một bác sĩ, nhưng anh lại nghệ sĩ vô cùng. Lúc đầu gặp anh tôi cũng e ngại nhưng bây giờ thì rất quý mến tình bạn thân mật của chúng tôi. Cheers!

As someone who loves comedian, I have not seen any of Tom Papa’s stand-up specials, and yet I find his book entertaining. He writes about family life and parenting in a humorous perspective. A fun read for dads.

In her moving, engaging memoir, Dorey-Stein recounts her first-hand experience as a stenographer in the Obama administration as well as her personal affairs. She traveled the world with Obama, partied hard with a tight group of friends, and fell in love with the wrong guy. She is smart, funny, vulnerable, and emotional. Reading this book makes me laugh, envy, and “Obamasick.” She can fucking write.

Adam Goldman and Michael S. Schmidt report in the New York Times:

The deputy attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein, suggested last year that he secretly record President Trump in the White House to expose the chaos consuming the administration, and he discussed recruiting cabinet members to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Mr. Trump from office for being unfit.

Is this a satirical reporting? Very disappointed with New York Times. These guys are going to get Rosenstein fired and bring the Mueller investigation to an end.

From rape survivor to Nobel Peace Prize nominee, Amanda Nguyễn shares her personal story on the Makers.

Susan B. Glasser writes in the New Yorker:

In his twenty months as President, Trump has seen firsthand the shift on the Hill among formerly skeptical elected Republicans, most of whom (aside from Sessions) were not enthusiastic supporters of his Presidential campaign. The South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham called Trump a “kook” when he ran against him in the 2016 primaries, before becoming one of the President’s closest confidants in the Senate and his frequent public defender. Ted Cruz, another 2016 rival, called Trump “utterly amoral” and a “pathological liar” before endorsing him; now he’s bringing Trump to Texas to campaign for him in an unexpectedly close November race. Few senators, however, have flip-flopped on the subject of Trump more dramatically than Dean Heller, the highly vulnerable Nevada Republican who welcomed the President for a campaign rally in Las Vegas on Thursday. A few weeks before the 2016 election, Heller was quoted memorably as saying he was “a hundred per cent against Clinton” and “ninety-nine per cent against Trump.” But that was then. Today, Heller considers Trump a “great leader” and told Republicans in a call to drum up interest in the rally beforehand, the Times reported. “We’re so thrilled to have the President.”

What a bunch of Trump-suckers.

Jeremy W. Peters and Elizabeth Dias report in the New York Times:

Worried their chance to cement a conservative majority on the Supreme Court could slip away, a growing number of evangelical and anti-abortion leaders are expressing frustration that Senate Republicans and the White House are not protecting Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh more forcefully from a sexual assault allegation and warning that conservative voters may stay home in November if his nomination falls apart.

Yes, evangelical fuckers who don’t give a fuck about women’s right should just stay the fuck home. You will do a great service for this country by not voting for the GOP bag of dicks.

The GOP guys are nothing but a bag of dicks. They are anti-choice, anti-gay, anti-immigrant, and anti-women.

They will push that alleged rapist through whether Dr. Christine Blasey Ford testifies or not. She has put everything on the line for nothing. They don’t give a fuck about her even they know damn well that she is telling the truth.

Like Anita Hill, Dr. Blasey Ford will go down in history as a victim and her perpetrator will hold one of the most prestigious positions in this country. It’s fucked up, but we are still living in the white men’s world.

Jia Tolentino shares her own account of an incident happened to her when she was in high school. It is such a powerful story that I am going quote in length. She writes in the New Yorker:

Like Ford and Kavanaugh, I went to a private high school where excess and entitlement abounded. Reading the details of Ford’s account, and listening to Kavanaugh’s defenders since, I have found myself thinking about something I’d almost forgotten: a night when I was home from college for the summer, at a house party, where a group of friends drained a couple of bottles of tequila and bourbon. Late in the evening, one guy at the party asked me to come upstairs and tuck him in. I did, wasted and giggling, and then he pulled me onto the bed, briefly trapping me, kissing me, saying all sorts of things. I struggled against him, and after a fierce, alarming tussle—“rough horseplay”—I wrenched myself free. This did not traumatize me, but the feeling was unmistakable. He was trying to establish that he could make me do whatever he wanted—an essentially violent impulse, familiar to anyone who has ever been forced into an encounter she cannot control.

While writing this, I went back to my diary, to see how I described, at the time, what occurred. “That’s where I went wrong, agreeing to tuck him in,” I wrote. “But tucking people in is so adorable. I wish I could be tucked in, you know? . . .He pulled me on the bed and kissed me, and I had no idea what to do. I see him every night, even though we just met this summer. He’s a good guy. I couldn’t, like, slap him.” A few paragraphs later, I wrote, “Fuck. I kept trying to leave! He kept fucking pulling me on him. I finally got out. I keep asking myself how I could have handled it . . .I was afraid to be rude.” I decided that I was “an enormous idiot, and I feel taken advantage of. That’s what they call it, isn’t it? Unwanted sexual advances? I wish there was an absolute jury, to tell me how much is my fault. Because I feel so guilty that I feel like that’s a sign that it was my fault.” I continued to berate myself, even after writing that there was “no acquiescence. It was someone kissing me, and me trying to get away.”

Men are so afraid, in this moment, that they will suddenly be held accountable for things they always thought they could get away with. But look at how profoundly inertia is on their side. After this party, which took place not even a decade and a half ago, I told one friend and my boyfriend, about what happened. I didn’t tell anyone else. I knew, without anyone having to explain it to me, that this was a common and unremarkable incident—that everyone, including me, had been shaped by the disgraceful understanding that he had the right to make me uncomfortable but that I did not have the right to make him uncomfortable by telling them what he did. I think of Ford not telling anyone—“in any detail,” the Post reported—about what happened to her until 2012. Why would you tell someone about a stupid high-school party where some stupid kid pushed you down on a bed and groped you when you can summon a hundred voices reminding you that tons of guys do this, that it’s no big deal? I am certain that the boy who pulled me onto the bed has no memory of it now. I hope, sincerely, that he has a good life. But I wouldn’t put him on the Supreme Court.

Thank you for sharing such a painful past. I believe Dr. Ford as well.

George Mason relaunched its homepage two days ago. According to the Office of Communications and Marketing, “The new design is based on data analysis of visitor traffic on the homepage over the past three years and is intended to make the page more user-friendly for all visitors.”

The visual has not changed too much, but I do notice the big four action buttons: visit, apply, jobs, and give. A couple of years ago, our dean showed off our website to the president and the president immediately pointed out the action buttons we have on the Scalia Law website: visit, request information, and apply now. It makes me wonder if the president requested those buttons based on what he liked on our site.

Maybe it is just a coincidence, but I am glad they made that change. This is what the previous design of the GMU homepage looked like and this is the new homepage redesign.