120424 1733452235 (started typing up notes for a planned “retort” on OTP, but then dbk already posted something that put it all more concisely and sanely, and also wtf, ROW’s not going to give a shit or be convinced anyway. Right?) why we hate the rich might have to do with how they behave more than how they got there admire the successful sure but maybe include “doesnt treat vast swathes of the population like shit” under the broad category of success if becoming rich is something you did, it should be considered as part of your whole portfolio of things you do, not in itself as a reason to admire you plus its dangerous to just admire them. can lull you into a false sense of camaraderie, youll overlook the nefarious tricks and strategies and ways they rewrite the system within which they were so successful in the first place. on Survivor you can only be friends with someone until the last episode at the latest, right? to brains and talent we must add organization and cooperation some strategies arise and sometimes work whether the participants are aware or not. if it’s might=right then cynicism or moral superiority are every bit as legit strategies as for example regulatory capture or union busting its not just that theyre rich, its that too many of them are assholes , have too much power, not enough checks on said power Alex Heath, writing at The Verge: > "I'm actually very optimistic this time around," Bezos said of Trump during a rare public appearance at The New York Times DealBook Summit on Wednesday. "He seems to have a lot of energy around reducing regulation. If I can help him do that, I'm going to help him." thats another problem. should be separation of church and state and also of rich and state. i didnt vote for fucking bezos either but there you go there cant ever be a level playing field cuz theres never any perfectly level field, ever. only in our minds, not in nature. and we are all (just) part of nature theres no universal or divine force making ppl play the game by the same rules forever. hell, sometimes were not even playing the same game. if we think we are but we arent, of course theres gonna be bitterness and cynicism it’s more like calvinball where at some point the rich said “now that we’re rich we get to change the rules and part of the rules is we get to keep some of the most important rules a secret” ppl who dont have shit might be less inclined to even look at it as a game tho regardless, the concept of a playing field, level or not, rests on an assumption of cooperation. its a structure that can take us one or two levels outside of raw animal combat. it can also be made to look level to placate the nostalgic or appease the desperate and potentially dnagerous even while it is wildly, almost hyperdimensionally NOT level. thats why we came up with the FTC and CFPB and so on, and why it matters if billionaires can use their outsized influence to place certain people in certain regulatory agencies—or, what the hey, abolish the agencies altogether because, you know, government is inefficient and wasting yor tax dollers herp derp beowulf-- even in a world of (), the normies should have a say in who is “a good king”; its not just theyre rich so they must have done something right, oh well, i guess i’mmjust inferior Chocolate runs in my veins; I am emotionally dysregulated. I don’t want to eat; I want to be eating. Something’s eating me. A disembodied voice (love those) said something nigh impossibly coincidental (entropy sink) and I burst into ragged throaty tears on the parkway. 1734221048 $this is what the guages are telling me: the loneliness is killing me it will make me weaker, sicker, and eventually dead if i don’t do something about it that’s what i was drinking and smoking and eating and buying to not see, over the last 20+ years well, now i can see it pretty clearly, more clearly now that i’ve changed some things about my habits and my pov so the question arises and hangs there: so what? what now? 1734320463 I’ve been feeling almost overwhelming levels of stress and a bunch of other emotional shit lately, obvs that’s not y’alls fault and i’m going to find ways to work on it, but i believe it would also help (maybe a lot) if i didn’t feel like virtually every single time i open the door and come back in here, there’s someone else’s mess waiting for me in some way shape or form—whether it’s a human that made it or a cat (which isn’t yr fault but if you came out of your room and checked on things you could deal with at least some of the piss piles in the kitchen) 121724 1734449773 # new house rule: you gotta get out of bed ## (if for no other reason than anyone bedrotting in my house feels bad for MY health) - take a walk - ride a bus - ask for a ride somewhere - go see someone - cook something - clean something - do a project - do homework - take a mke rec class - work on finding a therapist - volunteer - go to the library/museums/domes/whatever - find a support group - paint the garage (lol) - research a career - somethin’, anythin’ basically 121924 1734669998 I've said "when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail" to myself for so many times, it's started to become... a hammer? But it's also perhaps the case that "when all you have is nails, everything looks like a hammer." In other words, if you say THAT'S IT, I'M GIVING UP HAMMERS FOR GOOD! but then you turn around and start waling away at your nails--they're still there! They haven't gone away!--with the handle of a screwdriver, you know you still have some work to do. I have some other things to work on. You can't feel AMAZING ALL THE TIME! And it won't do to hide from that fact by eating snacks and watching TV until my frontal lobes are polished smooth. So, what am I gonna do instead? How do I find where the work to be done is at, and then how do I dig in? What kind of help do I need? How do I figure out what question to ask, and whom to ask it? 1734636489 444444444444444444444444444444444444444444 The spacer-repeater sounds a little rough on the XL and the 4 was stiff but loosened up. There is something about how those facts make me tense up that is relevant here. Something about control, something I already know but always kind of forget. What would the mythical perfect typewriter do? What problem would it solve or discomfort would it dispell? What deep hideous fear is it a talisman against? ** I miss my mac. I miss *the* mac. My LC475 in all its humble educational airconditioned glory. Today's macs aren't macs--not that kind, anyway. Today we have impenetrable aluminum obelisks of corporate savoir-faire--but whatever, let's not go there, shall we? Done there, been that, so boring, omfg. What also seems to have gone missing, along with the cool hard plastic of my (real) ate data capacit mayo in exes and the next mo ento on tea ron- being as far away as the distance to the next star: that is to say, right here, juxtaposed, and lightyears away at the same time; the distance from one side of a door to the other, illuminAted by an incandescent porch light. I think I am working on something here. I feel like a lily pad, a dragonfly; wishing this XL could have a fresh application of the factory original lubri- cation, because I can smell the original smell but only faintly. It's tanta- lizing, really. Now we're talking going way back, obviously, before even the real mac, back to the particle board shelf, the paper-thin rug over hardwood, the warbled weighted windows. Pink erasers, a black and white TV as a set piece, with rabbit ears, a quiet rabbit perched there, watching, not actually watched. Ah, the days when the threat of TV could be contained in a box and shut off at will. "seven languages..." ** follow the music that followed you here Take a simple, concise, prepackaged phrase like "city lights" and crack it open like a geode. What do you find? Besides a thin layer of fine rock dust on your desk, in which you can draw with your finger, draw the shapes of absence, of what is lost, what lies across the howling empty plains, what collects in the shadows of the city lights #* amber windows of a skyscraper; an ashtray: the impudent glow of the the jet stream ring around the elevator button: the one rolling off the timbales perfect moment and ** SNAP: ** it's gone 122024 6 lb whole pekin duck 2 lemons balsamic vinegar 1 or 2 butternut squashes brussels sprouts (like 1-2 of those net bag things) 1 lb elbow macaroni 8 oz white cheddar 8 oz sharp cheddar 8 oz gouda 6 oz cheddar (mild) 3 cups heavy cream 4 oz cream cheese unsalted butter (1 package is fine) 1 shallot couple garlic HEADS 123124 I was never meant to be a drinker. “Do whatever the fuck you want, just be yourself” is right. Took me a while to realize this part of “myself,” I guess because of the ubiquity of drinking messaging, insecurity, etc, blah blah blah, but yeah—that shit—that was never fully me.