thought bubbles
- I can’t stand baseball caps. Not quite as loathsome as pick up trucks, but a close runner up. Unless something is loaded up in it frequently. Then it becomes functional instead of a statement. Pickup trucks, that is.
- I have been off the Amazon purchasing crack since December. Yay me!
- I’m taking a break from news. The shit is just too bizarre.
- Spring is finally here. now for the warm weather to catch up. 🌞 Let’s do this!
My jamly-jam
village idiot
This is our mayor. 🥴
The bluster would be less scary if not for other missteps already made under Trump. In trying to effectively shut down the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the administration nearly cut off access to an essential tool for the mortgage market. Team Trump also is scrambling to rehire nuclear safety workers it fired in the name of saving money.
https://www.reuters.com/breakingviews/white-house-plays-with-social-security-fire-2025-02-19
Election Truth Alliance
What is the Election Truth Alliance?
The Election Truth Alliance is a non-profit, non-partisan organization founded in December of 2024 when multiple individuals came together to share independent data, analysis, and research into the results of the 2024 US Presidential Election. As concerning trends emerged from our shared data we moved quickly, at the speed of trust, to make our findings more accessible and understandable to the broader public.
We are a non-profit corporation.
the way we never were
One guy pointed out that this isn’t the way the USA treats human beings, regarding the shipment of humans in the middle of the night to El Salvador. Human trafficking.
Yes. It’s what USA does. The orange stain has just brought all of it out in the open. While good is mixed with the bad in this country, we were NEVER truly a role model for human rights.
The School of Americas trained dictators in torture techniques for years.
i must be evil
i must be evil
but, lord, i must be evil. people have told me i’m evil?
i can totally relate to this clip; therefore, i’m evil.
giddy
Although I don’t partake, this is a favorite picture. My girls were actually GIDDY that they had persuaded their mother into two puffs. After years of listening to me preach about the stuff, an unexpected temporary reversal, and they were thrilled. [I giggled for a bit, ate ravenously, then took a nap.]
association
Biker culture ruined the Blues for me.
Whenever I think of the Blues, I think of tall, hairy white guys that smell like onions and greasy hair. I think of overflowing ashtrays, stifling air, and stale beer. After decades long passed, the feeling returns. The feeling that I should’ve left this dump hours ago.
They ruined a perfectly beautiful genre of music for me.
it worked
Russia’s propaganda machine uses a calculated strategy—dismiss, distort, distract, and dismay—to manipulate perceptions and erode trust in truth worldwide.
Four Key Instruments of Russian Propaganda: Dismiss, Distort, Distract, Dismay
the precariat
This did not age well as it ended on an optimistic note— most non-fiction books do. It was 2011. But this guy was/is onto something….
The first faction of this trifecta certainly paved the way for the orange stain and the chainsaw wielding robber baron.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1536504214558209
The precariat is the new dangerous class, because all elements in it reject mainstream political establishments.
he’s a gift to the world
Chompsky is relevant now more than ever…
drifter with the silver spoon
I was beginning to feel like a lecherous old woman looking at images of Robert Plant in his 20s when he was half naked. To rectify that I got something more age-appropriate. When I am feeling overwhelmed with work, I’ll just look to the right and say three hail Roberts and all is well again. 🥴 look at those nice forearms and gypsy eyes.
Don’t judge me. It’s inexpensive therapy.
women’s history month
One half of the species preys on the other half. Violence against females is such a common and global occurrence that it’s become blase. We are living in the Upside Down.
Chopsticks and banal pop songs
I’m learning piano. With my arthritis I found out real quick that I have to warm up first. Pulled out that old workbook from storage.
I’m training to sing too. Alto Monique.
It will drive my roommate up the wall, although she denies it. But the catharsis is in the doing. It’s soul work. Must do it.
Signing off with EL-P.
complicit
Former presidents and secretaries of state are completely silent on the betrayal of Ukraine by King Orange and his court jester. This is how we got here. Complicity. Biz as usual. Absolutely shameful.
Union Square
some tracks take you to a higher plane
the profundity of Tupac
On the drive home, I told them that I wasn’t supposed to be here at my age. I was supposed to be in Ireland, on the edge of a forest, in a cottage with a cat, and a bicycle parked outside. I explained this place, where we are now, is a cultural wasteland. Mid-America, where people crawl to die. “You wouldn’t understand though,” I say to them, “you grew up here and don’t know anything else. I came here from California.”
As if on que, my grown daughters start singing Tupac’s California. Very effectively taking the sail out of my forlorn monologue.
“self care” after the bills get paid
the secret to creativity
I found a beautiful and haunting watercolor painting done by my youngest daughter. I complimented her and lamented that I have no creativity.
“Mom, I did that in a manic episode.”
Gee. If that’s all it takes, I’m going to stop sleeping for four days. Then I’ll pickup a paint brush and we’ll see what happens.
Facebook contributed to genocide
Abstract: Facebook contributed to a genocide in Myanmar. Scholars, reporters, and United Nations investigators agree that the social media giant played a role in an explosion of ethnic conflict in 2017 that led to the death and displacement of hundreds of thousands Rohingya Muslims in Northern Myanmar.
Being Concave
A primordial feeling at the back of your head. 
An echo of survival, connection, and lust, etched into me/us.
It’s older than thought, an undercurrent pulling you toward what is essential.
I ain’t got time for feminism lite
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_feminism
Know the difference between liberal feminism and radical feminism. Radical as in – root (think mathematically). Females are a class of people and must organize as such. Liberal feminism works within the framework of patriarchy and, therefore, will never achieve complete liberation for women. Liberal feminism also focuses on the individual, which conveniently aligns with American exceptionalism and capitalism.
Being female isn’t something you wear. It isn’t a feeling. It’s the material realty that has been used to oppress the People of Women.
Radfems are politically homeless. We don’t align with liberal feminism and we don’t align with the red hat conservatives. And so I’m a silent and solitary practitioner.
Ernest Becker
a parking lot in Seattle
God put a call in my life at an airport, in parking lot, in Seattle. He said, “I’m calling you to holiness.” And I said, “But, Lord, aren’t I holy? I mean, but, people have told me I’m holy. I must be holy.”
But there wasn’t any answer.
Naw, I wasn’t holy. I was serving myself.
I was serving myself…
I was serving myself…
if you’ve got it
“There are two kinds of people in the world. Those who say, “If you’ve got it, flaunt it,” and those who say, “If you’ve got it, spare a thought for those who haven’t.” ~ Guy Pearce
Trope #35: The Woman Behind The Man
This wily female makes an otherwise good man go rogue. Her whispers are barbed with goads of what it takes to be a real man. “Don’t do it!,” you say. But the spell is solid. He can’t be blamed for his actions.
Trope #34: The Office Mommy
She hands you your coffee — just the way you like it — as you walk in the door. She adjusts your tie and tends to your owie. It’s uncanny the way she anticipates your requests. A pillar of efficiency, she wields great power[sic]…on shit wages. She’s your buffer. Her loyalty is complete.
She takes good care of you.
bucket list
In no particular order but more likely than not — after retirement.
- Cultivate my backyard into a garden. So much potential.
- Do the Stephen King Bangor tour. ✅ done
- Learn piano. The keyboard has been collecting dust for a decade. ✅ WIP
- Do yoga every morning. ✅ WIP
- Make basement a livable area.
- See Stephen Lang at a public speaking event.
- Live to see my granddaughter as a grown woman and happy.
- Learn Spanish.
- See Radiohead, Robert Plant, or AfroCelt Sound System in concert.
- Travel to someplace — anyplace — where the scenery is breathtaking.
- Do mushrooms in my backyard and have some sort of epiphany – expand perception. ✅ done. no epiphany, but one hell of a hangover. Meditation only induces a nap. So I guess a spiritual awakening just ain’t in the cards for me. 
The Ghost
When I was a toddler, still unable to form complete sentences, I shared my room with a ghost. It wasn't the friendly kind. I learned to live with it. What else could I do? I couldn't see it but there it was: living in the upper part of a corner, on the other side of the room from my crib. I don't know how long my mother and I lived in that apartment -- it was somewhere in one of the New York boroughs.
That was the only paranormal experience I've ever had. I'm 59 now. My oldest speculates that animal and children have this extra sensory perception and children outgrow it. May be.
She argues that if I know other sentients exist, then I should believe in god. I do not see a correlation. It can be true that there are deeper realities and also true that "god" doesn't exist. If there is an omnipotent being, it would be a god of chaos. No benign being would be a-ok with all of the atrocities in this world. Certainly the god of the bible -- and all Abrahamic religions -- is a bat-shit crazy character. A temperamental god-toddler. This isn't a bitter perspective; it's a logical one. Epicurus' trilemma and all that.