021025 1739222494 the specific content is utterly meaningless until it says something or does something to or for someone or something YOU (or SOMEONE?) care(s?) about (“you gotta *serve* someone”) There are alt universes where ____ did die, and nobody cares but ____, and every time ____ look at a pile of gravel bunched up against a piling of a bridge over a recently flooded creek, 021625 when did i get so afraid of my own 022025 swallowed a slice of banana whole Why do we talk about “work” so much, as teachers? “I don’t have any work from them.” “They haven’t turned in any work.” Like it’s this quantity we can and must extract from them. What are we, fucking work-vampires? It’s kind of gross and weird, especially because most of the “work” isn’t really “work” according to any meaningful definition. 022125 gallons and gallons of hot black coffee a stupendous wheel of sharp, crumbly cheese the right look, the right sound the right feel time you have everything you ever wanted, and yet— so why do you feel so— oh. i see. the coffee bights your tung the wheel of cheese encumbers the look, the sound, the feel— all of these are prisoners of time, and you— you squandered the present while wanting was yet a harmless avocation ----- you have to get lonely to “be a writer” -- if you decide it’s not worth it this time, this one more time around after all this time, brother, that really, truly, no lie, would be ok. no shame, no harm, no crime, no foul. you’re not going to decide that though sigh might as well take a walk and get a little fresh air, get a deep breath in you’re going to need it 022225 #CITYBLOCK ========== Those moments when you jes’ kin’a stop in yer trax because yewain sure wut-da nex’ step sh’ be...….……...….….. OK, let me start that again. Those moments when you just kind of stop in your tracks, because you’ve come to a pause— It could be, you’ve finished constructing your second cup of coffee for the day; you’ve read the dumb shit you read at the little table in the morning; you’ve taken out the trash and the recycling; you’ve simmered down after the irritation of how the girls left the trash can; you’ve cleaned up the cat piss; washed the oat goo out of the little tan pan; you’ve taken the tiny can of WD-40 (it’s good for windshield wipers, that’s the only reason you want to keep it on hand) down to the basement; you’ve folded some laundry; you’ve done whatever it is you do to get through the quiet runway of a bright, cold Saturday morning in between global- and local- and personal-scale anxiety triggers; the tiny bright blood flow from the razor nick above your left earlobe has subsided; the garage is locked; the birds are fine eating the scattered oats on the crunchy surface of the snow; you’ve pulled the “del” keycap off the 30-year-old Apple Extended II Keyboard and cleaned the Alps Dampened Cream switch underneath so it would stop skipping; you have two perfect fountain pens and one almost perfect one and at least a half-dozen imperfect ones stashed away that you’ll probably never use again and despite all this you still have enough money left to pay your mortgage and bills—at least for now—; essentially, life is actually, you have to admit it, you can’t deny it, pretty good, except for those parts that are a slow-motion or a fast-motion nightmare or an impending catastrophe of utter devastation; where’s your sense of purpose? How do you fight back against the inner demons and outer monsters? These questions whip past faster than highway-shoulder weeds at road-trip speeds, and in their melancholy breezy wake you’re left with this— —this pause, wherein you’re not quite sure what the next step will be, should be, even could be. So what do you do then? 1. wait a minute; someone will probably have a problem that you could let them make your problem, and then you’ll be busy driving somewhere or processing a set of inputs both above and below the level of rational intent; the pause will be obliterated and you can go on being more or less successful or fulfilled or relaxed or accomplished by the end of the day when you do or don’t succumb to the craving for sweet treats at night and then do or don’t sleep OK and then do or don’t wake up ready to face the next day with a sufficient tank of energy so that you can start this whole fucking process again until you bump up against the next of these insidious little cute little existential pauses, or 2. go to the #CITYBLOCK. What’s on the block? Floating house, hotel, cafe, upstairs tête-à-tête, basement bar, workshop by the alley... skinny sidewalk that leads to the bazaar... 022625 As soon as the K5 arrived and was plugged in, I could see that RGB is a gimmick. Should have just got the plain white backlight. Also the setting for “use function keys as standard” in Keyboard settings does... wait for it... nothing at all. Yay. So glad I spent my money that I’m gonna need later when home ownership becomes a burden instead of the killer, can’t-go-wrong investment people blithely (it wasn’t THEIR problem) assured me it was going to be. Now I can’t get any work done today because I’ll be fucking with this instead, and I’m still exhausted, and I spent money on this, and it sounds fine but not just, like, amazing, and it feels OK but the keys bottom out too easy, and I spent money on this for no fucking reason, and did I mention the keycap surfaces are too wide, so I keep hitting two keys at once? Yeah. This is great. I quit drinking but I still do absolutely infuriatingly fucking stupid shit like this. Fucking great. And... https://launcher.keychron.com just... doesn’t work. Just plain old doesn’t work. Did I mention, YAY!?!?!? I’m so fucking smart. Oh, OK, it works on Opera browser. Sure. Because Safari and Firefox are just such fucking edge cases. And it’s actually kind of cool. But yeah. Whatever. That’s not the point. The point is the brain worm. None of any of this is the point. The point is I gotta relearn how to type now, because of the brain worm. Yes, it sounds nice. Yes, it’s almost impossible to type on. Yes I want harder switches. Whatever. They ship it with these weak ass little flimsy ones so you’ll end up spending more money, because they know their main clientele for repeat customers is... people that got the brain worm. Dumb fucks like me. And literally nobody cares in this world or the second or the third, which is what we’re about to be a part of. No that’s dumb. There is no third anymore. It’s just teeth-gritting power struggles; a RISK board in the throes of a combination that makes you want to sweep the table and stalk off to have an angry celery stick. 022825 if you make a shitty but edible omelet, you still fed your family brunch. try again tomorrow. Take your non-negotiables by the teaspoon-full. Having a non-negotiable, handling it, knowing how to wield it, this is something I’ve lately learned. It’s cool. I’m liking it. on the other hand, i am tortured by the compulsion to get rid of the VERY slight ticking noise on the right stabilizer of this spacebar. It doesn’t do any good to ask WHAT IS WRONG with me!? I’ve asked that many times before, and there is no answer. i can either have it be mushy or ticky, there is no third option so it seems. God this is stupid. This fucking keyboard hurts my hands anyway. If I hadn’t a watched that stupid asmr video, i wouldn’t be in this mess. Whatever. I think it may be a little bit better. Maybe. there is a house in new orleans. they call the stupid hat