110120 you don’t have to be a pacifist to be a good liberal. don’t bring a moue to a gun fight. > When one thinks of all the people who support or have supported Fascism, one stands amazed at their diversity. What a crew! Think of a programme which at any rate for a while could bring Hitler, Pétain, Montagu Norman, Pavelitch, William Randolph Hearst, Streicher, Buchman, Ezra Pound, Juan March, Cocteau, Thyssen, Father Coughlin, the Mufti of Jerusalem, Arnold Lunn, Antonescu, Spengler, Beverley Nichols, Lady Houston, and Marinetti all into the same boat! But the clue is really very simple. They are all people with something to lose, or people who long for a hierarchical society and dread the prospect of a world of free and equal human beings. Behind all the ballyhoo that is talked about ‘godless’ Russia and the ‘materialism’ of the working class lies the simple intention of those with money or privileges to cling to them. https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/looking-back-on-the-spanish-war/ 110220 the dep’t feels more toxic now than before. it seems more stressed and potentially cutthroat now. KE’s plight has us all on edge(? or is that just me). to a certain extent it’s because this can happen; partially i feel he’s dragging us into it 110320 Megan voted. 110520 i didn’t know what i should do for her and i didn’t know what i could do for her. i prioritized her. that’s what i ended up doing and that’s a good thing. i’m ok with the consequences of that, whatever they may be. 110720 just passed two girls on the bike path and one of them said “There’s a deer right there.” and there was and he was cute and majestic in the reeds just standing there taking it all in drinking drumming writing and biking: its good cuz it doesn’t have to mean anything any assignment can be bullshitted. it’s not your job to police that with the concertina wire and the watchtower and all that angry shit. it’s your job to make it more fun *not* to bullshit it. 110920 Megan: 1. I can’t protect you from self-destructive choices. Those choices affect other people besides just you. For example, I am literally sick to my stomach with worry. As a parent, calling up random hospitals to find out where your daughter is, only to be denied any substantive information, is a very bad feeling. Please don’t tell me not to worry, as that would be an impossible and unfair request. 2. I think you’re going through a lot right now, and need to work on a lot. I think you need help from safe, qualified other human beings. Please prioritize finding that. Start with school resources and go from there. I can help search if you want me to, just let me know. 3. Please give me more information than just “i’m fine now.” Are you home? Are you safe, mentally & physically? Are you able to take care of school and work? I know you’re an adult and independence is an important thing, but please don’t shut me out altogether. 111120 they don’t have an emoji for someone getting raped. they don’t have a kristallnacht emoji. what combination of emoji could possibly depict the gnawing, creeping nightmare of a safe haven steadily being dismantled right in front of your stupid face megan - health stuff millie - health stuff cel & lib - shitty school experience, me less available me - drinking, money, social stuff work - insecurity in general, esp. due to political trends usa - civil war, another stolen election?, slide into fascism the real question is what do i, do we, does anyone do next i can’t just go on being dark repressed and silently miserable i think it has to with: - technology (not just any; think somewhere between cory doctorow and andy ihnatko) - kids, dogs, cats, etc - helping out in/trying to contribute to a real community - doing something helpful and positive instead of just being mad - probably quite a bit of weed and maybe a trip to oregon for some legal shrooms - drinking less, eating less, biking, being out in the cold & wind - maybe working towards any career change that seems to lead towards less bullshit and more of the essential questions - if possible, getting out of this shit stain of a “town” - i need to write something but i’m not sure what, but i’m pretty sure i’m not going to figure it out by being too precious about it... and also not by obsessing about whether it’s “good”? - pretty sure the solution isn’t just to spend money either—you’ll just get a slightly improved version of the same shit sandwich. you’re honestly probably (for example) better off with a “worse” computer, at least until the current bland industry stasis gets broken, again, somehow, if that’s still possible. but then again, maybe the computer you already have is best, regardless. cuz as we should already know by now, old is new when it comes to distracting yourself with hot bullshit - unconditional positive regard... - ...but then again why not slather on a touch of unconditional chaotic cynicism while you’re at it. but be nice about it, of course. smile and say hello to the farmers. let’s not get shot. but a sliver of a smile; a certain mercutio-style undying sense of humor; more bryan than erin, know what i mean? but ultimately openness. because that’s who you are - literally every day have a purpose. literally every day wake up and don’t be willing to give up. do you think you can do that? - read. postpone the inevitable it can’t ever be “done”; it can’t be neatly packaged up, any more than your notes “system” can. the mess is essential—JUST LIKE THE BISTRO SHIP FROM HITCHHIKERS GUIDE. god bless, mr adams we need you more than ever embrace the reality that the answer isn’t an answer. its not just set em up and knock em down, at least not forever without change. 111420 i feel it only took me 50 yrs to figure this out: bi, yes. want to be married to a woman, no. if you legit right now told me i had to pick one or the other to give up on ever having sexual intimacy with again, i’d give up women. but i wouldn’t be thrilled about it because for me, bi is less “either” and more “both.” Pretty simple, really, when you get right down to it. Basically, at this point, I just don’t want to end up decrepit and dying alone--but perhaps even more than that, I don’t ever EVER *EVER* want to feel that water-out-of-the-swimming-pool off-base dark slithery underworld wan faraway-sunset dismal feeling of something being just WRONG that I felt for most of the time leading up to being married and being married. Not ever. Never. 111420 hahahaha and then the next night i’m in the bath going, hmm, yknow but then again there is a special aura that women have that really can’t be reproduced any other way, and i’m like, OK—hold on— I guess what it really took me 50 years and a few months and a day to figure out (again) is that I’ll NEVER really “figure this out.” Never EVER. The main thing that’s changed in the last 10 is that I’ll also NEVER let anyone try to FORCE me to MAKE that choice (again). (including—especially!—myself) 111520 Matthew Schulte: you know especially after last week, i would just really be happy to hear from you, doesn’t have to be anything in depth Megan Schulte: just been working a lot at work rn Matthew Schulte: ok that’s fine Megan Schulte: kind just hurt seeing u say to get professional further help instead of like telling me u love me and hope i’m ok idk like i feel like u have some painted image of me in ur head now bc of one mistake i made and i don’t even want to try to explain myself bc it’s too much right now like i’m not an addict in any sense of the word Matthew Schulte: i didn’t mean for it to come across that way. i didn’t say you were an addict. i wanted you to look for a therapist for other reasons, such as we had been discussing earlier. the reason i said all that is because i do love you and hope you’re ok, and it’s scary to me how very little i can actually do about it. i’m not saying you have to explain yourself to me if you don’t want to. i just want to know you’re ok every now and then and if i say something that hurts you, if you could try to let me know instead of just not talking to me, that would be good too i feel like you have a picture of me that’s more judgmental than i really feel from my perspective, encouraging you to make sure you have a well rounded support system was supposed to be a loving thing to say i said that as well as i could under the circumstances and that’s all i can realistically do right now 111720 “so yeah, not sure if you’re still upset with me, but guessing you are. i miss your updates and pictures and stuff if there’s something you need from me in order to feel like you can communicate with me with more than the bare minimum...” --in the middle of working on the wording of that, she calls. and actually talks to me. I’m still worried obvs, but not the gnawing, aching as much. She was just kinda overwhelmed and scared of being judged and tired and a bunch of stuff. I mean there’s always the lurking fear that she’s lying; that’s partly me and partly her; the suspicion that she’s giving me a specially packaged version of the truth—i mean, i guess we all do that for our parents to some extent. but. 112620 kept worries smothered by a blanket of thc and purchases for a while but they’re still there SURPRISE as waking up at 4:30 with a dull shitty depression will always remind millie turned suddenly sullen after an encounter with cel having to do with whether or not to share expenses on xmas gifts megan i don’t even know; seems ok but hates job; just always a a background of waiting for the next crisis lib and cel seem mostly ok? wake up at mid day, go to bed at midnight maybe procrastinating dentist appointments. eye appointments. guilt over not connecting more with mom, dad, anne, anyone really. loneliness begets itself, awkwardness reigns supreme millie needs therapist. wants adhd screening. cornerstone doesn’t take poor people insurance. children’s hospital never called back about asthma second opinion. can they? are they one of the ones you read about, overrun by covid patients? trump still hasn’t conceded. they say the “formal transition process” has begun but what does that even mean? 70% of republicans think the election wasn’t fair? how broken are we and what’s it going to do to us i will never have any money. look at my student debt. it is literally never going away, which is why it feels pointless to not make pointless purchases which then make me feel even more hopeless after the dopamine wears off the illusion of freedom gained by getting rid of *her* feels expired, chewed up war is coming, the planet burns, long indignities are coming and i have no floor i have no bargaining chips for when they come for this nice suburban enclave i don’t mind being “poor”; i can conceivably even countenance being a peasant, but what about being ripped from the ones i love, by powerlessness, the chains of past magical thinking who the fuck is going to take care of me when i start shitting myself, when i smell like piss, when i can’t shuffle to the bathroom by myself in the middle of the night? who the fuck is going to be merciful enough to kill me? muttering about being a writer, being a teacher, all these great ideas that would have made me some kind of genius except that they’re just ideas, they were always just ideas in between reading on the internet about how smart people are smart and successful and so relieved that they managed to not be stupid and pointlessly poor like someone like me who was stupid. because who wants to read something like this?? and my kids can follow in my stupid footsteps and go deep in debt or else fuck the idea of going to college because i’ve set them up real good for virtual slavery too what should i get them for christmas? you know, now that i committed to spending $1000 for a computer for myself that’s don’t need and that’s not going to make a damn bit of difference in my life wanted to be to them like my dad was to me—at least in some ways, you know, with my own artsy sensitive gay spin on it—but i can’t. i can say the words but i can’t back it up with the resources. so insisting that they treat me the way a person “should” treat a parent is a cruelty i should probably divest myself of; at least i shouldn’t take it personally if they look elsewhere for answers diabolical: buying things is how you try to make yourself feel valid; the debt is what makes you feel ultimately invalid as a person absolutely the only thing i know how to do is refuse to completely 100% give up. and i only just barely know how to do that guessing—hoping—it has to do with non-impossible stuff that i can at least approach. doing stuff instead of wallowing. connecting with people for these last brief firefly years before it’s all over, instead of burning them up complaining about how pointless it all is when you put it like that, it sounds easy. when you put it like don’t go to bed tomorrow night feeling like you wasted another day, it suddenly sounds hard again “why am i so distant with millie” i asked myself the other day, and now here we are in the ER, getting ready to turn her over to the same kind of “monster hospital” megan had to go to almost five years ago guess i should have seen this coming? megan on the phone says “it’s such an internal, twisted, irrational thing; you can’t blame yourself” bless her there’s more but it’s not the right time right now but i do blame myself, at least some. but that gives me something real to work on 112820 millie seems to be doing okay there after a day and a half. seemed super calm on the phone. are they druggin her, lol. seems overall more sanguine or i guess you could say compliant about it so far. second city vs. minecraft: would you rather have a janky uncanny-valley metaverse, or a fluid blocky, more tactical/symbolic one? I know I would prefer the latter; maybe that correlates with my love of text? hey that also correlates with the current popularity of roblox! something can be true without my feeling compelled to say it or type it you don’t need to be the best guitar player in the world to play three beautiful, liquid notes at exactly the right place in the song. you do need to get good at listening though. here’s what i wonder about the inpatient model—the way they whisk you away for a week or so after you swallow a bunch of pills. What if what’s needed is found at home? What if you need to be with the people you love, and re-form a connection? Why is it a one-size-fits-all intervention? It is possible that the week apart will give us time individually to recalibrate, and be more ready to reconnect when it’s over. but is that, if it happens, by design or by chance? does anyone know if this is ACTUALLY the best way? i guess it’s closer to a hospital than a prison, but nevertheless it feels a lot like a prison to me. i miss drumming so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so much you know what i love the most about mike? I mean besides his insanely elegant mammalian wife? is how much he loves it when we all play together. when he hears somebody ELSE do something freaking awesome--the way that makes his craggly smile light up his face, the room i accidentally kicked alexa off the end of my bed. i wish i could make her know it was an accident. because i feel horrible. (and yes, i see the parallel. i’m not an idiot. she’s millies cat after all) she was just a little girl and i left her alone similar in a way to the guilt-haunt-ache of how i feel about her mom but worse, because so much closer to home 112920 to “quit trying to be impressive; start trying to be warm” i would add “get back to trying to nurture your garden because of the reasons you wanted to grow the garden in the first place, not just so you could be like look at how impressive my garden is!” 113020 this article about app store rules said something about how disturbing it is when people say apple isn’t stifling innovation because surely they’ll make an exception when something truly innovative comes along! which yeah, that is disturbing because they’re missing the whole point of what innovation is. the gatekeepers by definition cannot define it; cannot predict it; it literally will never happen if all we have is a 100% sacrosanct sandbox to play in where the “teachers” are the only ones who get to decide when it’s time to break a rule. no company can be so utterly composed of pure geniuses that they, as individuals or a collective, can claim to have already imagined every possible happy accident, every serendipitous unintended consequence of random people using your shit the way you never intended. and it’s the same for the gun loving trumpies. “i love guns, dems love voters” the muskego business asshole’s sign reads. in other words, the rules don’t matter because dear leader will just do the right thing--by force--when the time comes