#because nobody else wants to fly to nyc today

[acornered]

If I'm not reblogging enough 9/11 memes today, it's because-- and I swear to god this is true-- I am on a flight to New York City and the infight wifi is bad.

[battleangel]

Who Cares About a Bunch of Dead Black & Brown People?

"Canadian wildfires" from this summer, if you remember them, were a "100 wildfires that started simultaneously in Canada". Yeah, okay.

Yet, if you recall, all the videos on the news and social media were of the smoke that completely filled and covered the sky on the east coast of the U.S. like a literal alien attack movie, like ID4.

People on social media reported seeing mushroom clouds and bombs being tested in NYC.

This is because the government was testing alien weaponry including bombs.

Right after the "Canadian wildfires", a former CIA director admitted in a Congressional hearing that "non-human remains" aka alien remains had been found by the government for years.

During this time this past summer, record levels of air pollution and toxicity were reported on the east coast as well as record humidity.

Yes, due to climate change but also due to government testing of confiscated alien weaponry and bombs that polluted the air and created unheard of levels of humidity.

Climate change has been known for decades and yet nothing real has been done about capitalism which drives every aspect of climate change, from the destruction of the rainforest by fast food conglomerates, to greenhouse gas emissions fueled by the auto industry, factory farming practices responsible for ethane from animal feces which is a huge climate change contributor plus all the millions of gallons of water required, drilling for oil, oil spills, oceanic pollution from non-biodegradable trash that ends up in the ocean, endless Amazon warehouses, endless SHEIN & Amazon landfills, air conditioning house at 70 degrees at all times, endless cars clogging the highway all rushing to nowhere to sit in traffic to waste the day away inside in a building wasting your life away for a paycheck & benefits, emitting pollutants out of your exhaust pipe smoke smog killing the environment depleting the ozone layer creating smog difficult to breathe, dirty machines belching smoke and gas on concrete highways to hell.

Yet noone does anything about rampant overconsumption, wastefulness, mindless spending, mindless buying, keeping up with the joneses, wasting money at IKEA, buying furniture to impress guests that never even come over, consumerism, materialism, oversized portions of food at restaurants, fast fashion worn today thrown in a landfill tomorrow, private jets killing the environment flying to nowhere for nothing, drones delivering Amazon packages that nobody needed in a day much less an hour and nobody does anything but to demand Amazon Prime deliveries in half an hour and Elon Musk is colonizing Mars and Bezos is flying rich wypipo to the moon.

This weekend, IGN via Bloomberg  reported 50k year old zombie viruses being released due to climate change causing Siberian glaciers to melt.

Government wants disabled, immunocompromised, elderly, lower income black and brown people gone. As many as possible.

Whoever else dies is just collateral damage.

Why?

Because by 2030, white people will become the minority in the US if current birthing trends continue and they will be replaced with blacks and hispanics making up the majority as their birth rates are much higher than white peoples especially amongst hispanics.

The elites are using the government to do whatever it can to reduce and delay this trend before white people become the minority in the US.

The government also wants to reduce Medicaid and Medicare enrollment as well as the money spent on these programs and what better way to do that than weaponizing viruses (COVID & 50k year old "zombie" viruses) via policies to kill off lower income food service, fast food and big box retail employees, people living in inner cities, disabled and the elderly, the majority of whom are black and hispanic?

Look at Beyonces and Taylor Swifts concerts over the summer, all the crowds and unmasking despite an increase in COVID cases, mutated COVID cases and long COVID cases with severe health consequences including extended hospitalizations and lung damage.

Why did noone care that this COVID resurgence was happening alongside the Eras and Renaissance tours with literally over a million people in attendance, extremely large crowds gathering with a real chance of concert attendees infecting one other?

Because, as we saw with George Floyd and the temporary black squares on Instagram, once the performative virtue signaling stage of COVID was over, nobody gave a fuck anymore and the elites know most people dont really gaf about poor, disabled, elderly black & brown people so the new COVID mantra became "stay tf inside if youre vulnerable, I aint wearing a mask to Eras or Renaissance cuz I look tew cute".

They correctly surmised people were o-v-a-h it and most had been summoned back to their wage slave 9 to 5 life of drudgery so they knew people wouldnt complain about the concerts as they had already done their "say her name Breonna Taylor" performative virtue signalling bullshit and now they wanted to shake their dreads to Slayonce and Taylor.

Who cares about a bunch of dead poor, disabled, elderly black & brown people anyway?

[themiddlelayer]

This is the world we live in...

Or as they called it in the old Genesis song the Land of Confusion. 

Things seem to be getting weirder and weirder by the day. MM changed his profile pic to one of him on the way to go grocery shopping with a mask on. That’s the latest recommendation, that we ALL wear masks regardless of whether or not we’re sick or immunocompromised. I’m planning on getting into my fabric stash and pulling out the sewing machine tonight. 

I’m finding myself really noticing all the hugging and casual touching when I watch movies and TV. It almost seems foreign. And I wonder how long it will be before new media can be filmed again... like in studios and not just in basements and via facetime. Bizarre, right?

Faust had one of his slaves down from a county with a MUCH higher number of COVID-19 cases on Friday night. Despite the fact that he’s law enforcement and still working which makes him a high-risk for exposure already, having someone else in the house felt like the quarantin’cule had been opened without Cookie’s or my consent. He really wanted me to come for game night but I declined. He later got drunk and started pushing boundaries with me. I ended up calling ‘yellow’ then ‘red’ in our conversation via Letterkenny gifs. 

Cookie cancelled our plans to hang out yesterday because she’s got a runny nose and cough which really set me spinning. They are the only human contact I’ve had since the ‘quarantine’ suggestions and my contact had been relatively limited in general before that. Plus, I’ve been doing laundry there so now I’ve got to deal with the apartment laundry room. Public transit for my panties. Yay.

The loneliness and skin hunger was bad and then exacerbated by chatting with yet another guy from my teenage years telling me how much he misses me and going on about how I ‘made him a man.’ He’s been in a closed LTR for almost a decade, but said he wants to fly out from CA to see me once the plague passes, or whatever. That opened another can of emotional worms that I’m not touching right now. 

The thing that struck me today was a picture a friend posted on FB of her baby. Excuse the poor editing. 

Seeing pictures like this makes me really realize that this really is a major historical moment and these kids are being shaped by it. They are dealing with school closures and stripped grocery store shelves but only understanding that their parents couldn’t get bread or milk either because there simply wasn’t any at the store or because they aren’t working all of a sudden and can’t afford it. 

The lucky ones have parents who are able to work from home or otherwise be there to help them navigate the digital version of ‘school’ that’s taken the place of their regular routines. The less fortunate ones are in homes where they are either left home alone, or in a home that has suddenly lost their source income. 

All this creates the perfect storm for an increase in substance abuse and mental health issues which, in turn, increase domestic violence and self-harm. It’s scary. 

And all of that assumes that nobody actually gets sick. And I say ‘sick’ in general and not specifically the virus because regardless of whether it’s COVID, the flu, or any other illness that warrants medical attention the healthcare systems are an even bigger mess than usual. Regular doctor appointments have gone to tele-med appointments in a lot of places. Hospitals are filling up and not allowing visitors so people are suffering alone, without family or friends to support them. 

I had to have Byron mail me a thermometer and tylenol because I couldn’t find any online and I wasn’t about to try to go out scavenging if I could get them any other way. When I picked up my grocery order on Sunday, that I placed a week in advance, they didn’t have bread or toilet paper and they substituted my 18 pack of eggs and single large container of almond milk with 2 dozen and 2 half-gallons. 

I’m seriously in a place of privilege that these are my biggest worries right now. 

McT’s partner is a nurse up in New York. She’s been working 12 hour shifts and when we chatted last, he said she was working a COVID unit. Jersey is a firefighter right outside of NYC. He said that people are ‘dying left and right.’ 

Jersey also said that fire duty has been busier than usual because of an increase in kitchen fires. Talk about an unexpected side-effect of the restaurant closures and quarantines! (I’ve got to giggle a little at that... sorry.)

I know I’ll survive this, but the normal we once knew is gone. 

It’s all just so fucking surreal. 

[inkofamethyst]

February 17, 2022

Today on Nina’s Sliding Scale of Aromaticism: I think I have fallen hard and fast for Vaughn from the New York Times’ cooking channel.  I don’t know what his sexuality is (...he is not exactly giving me straight man vibes, I must say), but he’s so charismatic on camera, and as someone who tends to be too busy to cook for oneself but when I do cook for myself (and I mean like, cookin forreal, not no chicken nuggets) I like to go all out,,,,, I find this man to be incredibly relatable (aside from the fact that he lives in NYC and has a job and, well, everything else).  He’s also very pretty.  These were NOT the feelings I was expecting to have upon watching a youtube video about cooking for one but they truly came out of nowhere (note for clarity: yea he’s good lookin n charismatic n knows things (aka he’s showing up at a solid 2.5/3 by my attraction standards (normally I look for a hint of passion wrapped up in the “knows things” category for a perfect score)) but my reaction is purely hyperbolic I promise; I’m not about to start a parasocial relationship with nobody, calm down).

Key changes are out.  Time signature changes are in.  Dr. Sunshine is Dead hit me with that change from an even meter (probably 4/4) to an odd one (almost definitely 5/4) and it scratches my brain every time.  And that half time bit toward the end?  Oh yeah.  You know what else works?  Sun Spat, where technically the time signature stays the same, but the listener has a false sense of confidence about where the downbeat is at the beginning until the rest of the band comes in.

I haven’t done a covid update for Future!Nina in a while, and I think we’re coming to an interesting point.  I’ve been hearing about this here and there over the past week or so and just read a Washington Post article on it: mask mandates are being removed again.  Why is this an interesting point?  Well, the omicron variant ran, like, really wild over the holiday season, from about October to the present, seriously peaking somewhere around the beginning of January.  Perhaps you’ll recall, during finals week last semester, there were a ton of extra precautions taken at my uni, and that was because Omicron, a more transmissible but generally less deadly variant compared to Delta, the previously-leading variant in the States, was flying around everywhere (check out this cool site on covid strain phylogenies).  Cases went way up real quick (”flattening the curve,” sure, but along the y-axis).  Anyway, public health measures were reinstated then.  And now, cases are falling super fast (deaths not so much, however), and people are seeing that, and elections are coming up this fall, and people are exhausted of living this way, and governors are loosening mandates.

To summarize the W.P., there really are about three schools of thought right now toward the pandemic.  There are the people who have been anti-mask, anti-vax, anti-restriction etc. since the beginning of the pandemic, generally comprised of Republicans (and Libertarians, apparently).  Then there are those who were initially very supportive of public health measures, but are now ready to throw out all restrictions and return to normal.  Finally, there are individuals who are prepared to hold on “a little longer” to get the virus thoroughly under control, and this group is made mostly of, well, scientists (and myself, actually).  This group is receiving a lot of backlash, being labeled “covid dead-enders” and things like that.  No one wants to keep living like this, and we’ve been hearing the “just a little longer” ever since the beginning.  Remember the “two weeks to stop the spread” commercials?  We thought this was going to be two weeks.  Then we thought it would die out in that first summer.  We even thought we’d almost gotten close to stamping it out for good a year later.

Everyone’s tired.  I’m tired.  I can’t even wear masks that match my outfits anymore because fabric ones are apparently not effective ~at all~ (yes, I’m still butthurt that I spent so much money and time on making so many and they’re not even useful) so there’s really nothing in it for me now at all.  Except, you know, the hope that maybe, just maybe, we can stamp it out.  And that’s what I’m clinging to.  Desperately.  (Part of me wonders whether my introversion plays a role in my response.  That could be an interesting study.)  I’m afraid we’re going to end up like England-- loosening our restrictions early as the peak is falling fast, only then to have to reengage some of them because the fall begins to taper off.  Or worse, another dominant variant arises.

Today I’m thankful that I have tomorrow morning completely free so I can use it to get in some last minute biochem review.  I have a decent amount of the stuff down for tomorrow’s biochem exam at the moment.  Two more mechanisms to memorize, a few more things to review, and two practice exams to look at before I head off to bed.  Reasonable.  I intend to be in bed in two and a half hours.

[storywars-r]

4/13 - Once Upon A Time

Chapter 1 by R

A young person sits at their computer. It just so happens that today is the anniversary of the greatest adventure they've ever been on, and now, eight years after the fact, they sit down to type the story.

Your name is Alex, although this has not always been your name, nor will it always be your name, but it is your name for now, and back then it was your name as well.

The past eight years have been full of action and adventure and strange magics and alien worlds, yet it all began in a single room on a simple, April day. It feels so long ago, because it was so long ago, and to you it was the day that changed your life.

Now, where do you begin?

==> Describe Room

==> Get Straight In To That High Action

==> Reminisce About You And Your Friends (And Shenanigans)

Chapter 2 by Jess

==> Describe Room

You choose to describe the room you reside in.

The thin walls that surround you used to make you feel claustrophobic, now your claustrophobia lives in elevators and your grandmas kitchen.

Though the vertical flat surfaces are colored a different hue every month or so, (You like to change it up,) they rarely match your mood. I mean, it's not like there hasn't been a time where you weren't in a blue mood. Or a nice magenta.

You like to keep your room nice. Actually that's a lie, your father likes you to keep your room nice. Your father also likes 80's music. And with assorted posters and one of which is titled 'The police' hanging in his room, it borderlines on obsession.

Speaking of your dad, you see his car pull up now.

Oh god that's his car pulling up now.

What do you do??

==> Ignore your dad. Chat up some chums on whatever generic chat room you can get a hold of.

==> Frantically attempt to finish your chores, hoping to avoid your fathers blistering rage.

==> Jump out of your window and try to compensate for your laziness and utter failure as a son by sticking a wicked landing.

Chapter 3 by Adam Isawesome

==> Jump out of your window and try to compensate for your laziness and utter failure as a son by sticking a wicked landing.

You pull down your window and quickly glance around the room to make sure that your dad isn't looking, then you try to front flip out of the window.

Unfortunately, you slam into a bush full of sharp branches and probably ruin your hair for life.

Then, as you near the ground, you curl up and end up landing in a roll. You roll over and over for a couple feet before, suddenly, you hit a tree in your front yard and lie sprawling under it's branches.

Not exactly a graceful landing.

The worst part is, all the noise you made had attracted your dad's attention, something you really didn't want to happen. Your dad walks up to you and you expect him to shout at you, inquiring why you didn't do your chores. Instead his face is gripped with fear.

"Uh, what's wrong?" you ask hesitantly, hoping that your dad isn't scared of dirty dishes. That would be weird.

Your dad simply stares at you. "Haven't you heard the news?"

"Dad," you say blandly, "I live under a rock."

"Remember all those years ago? When you and your friends closed a portal that trapped those monsters in a different dimension?"

"No," you say while rolling your eyes. "I've forgotten."

Your dad stares at you blankly. He has really bad comprehension when it comes to sarcasm.

"I'm being sarcastic."

"Oh," says your dad, embarrassed. "Anyways, another portal has appeared, just like the one before. Only..."

"Only?" you inquire.

"It's not in a harmless field miles from civilization. It's in the middle of New York."

You hear yourself gasping. Thousands of people's lives are at risk.

What do you do???

==> Gather your friends together and go to see the portal.

==> Run into your room and curl up in the fetal position for the rest of your life.

==> Head straight for the portal without your friends.

Chapter 4 by Jay Ray

==> Run into your room and curl up in the fetal position for the rest of your life.

I mean who would blame you? You completely lucked out on the other portal and now this one's right in the middle of New York City? Can't some other more qualified person do it? Wheres the military in all this any way?

Cowering in your room is actually quite a good way to spend time before the apocalypse. Very enjoyable. You have your nice bed, your cat, your box of tissues for relentless crying. You were about to give up before you began and when all hope seemed lost, a song came on the radio.

It was a song from the 70's. Another old song. Whatever, at least it's not from the 80's. It was a weird song talking about a man who sold the world. The song seemed oddly relatable. You know there's nobody else in the world that knows how to close a portal. If you just up and didn't do anything you'd just be selling the world to monsters.

Maybe you can do this you think you yourself, becoming very pumped up. You just have to make a few calls. Time to assemble the old team.

Charlie - The Brains

Rose - Distraction Artist

Anthony - Weapons Expert

Jake - Comic Relief

All jokes aside, you need them. You couldn't have closed the first portal without them and you wont be able to close the new one without them either. Plus, Jake is the only one with a car.

Of course they all say yes. This is the first big adventure they've had since the original portal. That and the fact that the lives of countless people rests in a group of teenager's hands. But that's besides the point.

You've got everybody together. You're all piled into Jake's car when you get news that the path to New York has received flash floods and is dangerous to traverse. Anthony offers a solution.

You see, Anthony is weird kid; a sweet kid, but a weird one. He practices this thing called dark magic. He was the one that found out about the portal in the first place. He just needed our help to seal it. He said if we all get on our bikes he can create a spell that will let us fly our bikes à la E.T. style. You'd love to, but you're torn.

What do you do????

==> Ride across the sky using Anthony's witchcraft.

==> Have epic flooded country side adventures in Jake's Honda Civic.

The answer is quite obvious ; )

Chapter 5 by ArtemisNine

==> Have epic flooded country side adventures in Jake's Honda Civic.

As if there was ever a choice.

You pile into the car, the five of you, young adventurers all. Jake drives, of course.

Charlie is your mapman, as well as being the man with a travel plan. You would quite literally be lost without him.

Anthony is in charge of your arsenal. By arsenal, you mean the large stack of guns, grenades, bullets, and knives stacked in the very back of the car. You aren't exactly- wait. Is that a rocket launcher?

Best to leave Anthony to Anthony, you reason.

Naturally, Rose is in charge of making sure you don't all go crazy on this multi-state multi-day road trip. She has a backpack full of books, games, and some device that gives you all great wi-fi. Plus, she brought all the chargers.

And you?

Well, your in charge of snacks.

What did you bring?

==> The most poppin snacks a young human such as yourself can get their hands on, of course!

==> Whatever was in your cabinet at the time. You're on a time limit, don't expect miracles.

==> Nothing. You forgot, you moron.

Chapter 6 by Armadillo

==> Nothing. You forgot, you moron.

In all the excitement, you forgot to bring snacks. Jake sighs loudly.

Anthony levels the rocket launcher at you. Charlie begins looking for convenience stores by the roadside.

Everyone agrees with Charlie's idea. They begin scanning the nearby countryside for shops or gas stations. You begin to feel a little better about yourself. What are friends for, after all?

It is Rose who provides the practical statement and bursts your bubble. "New York is flooded, guys."

You freeze. Anthony pulls out the rocket launcher again.

Your mind races. The snacks are the most important part, especially because who knows how long you'll be out there fighting monsters and closing portals. What could you do?

==> Surrender to Anthony and have Jake turn the Civic around, drive five hours back the way you came, and get the snacks.

==> Procrastinate and tell your friends, "It's NYC, guys, someone's gonna be open even during a flood.

==> Tell them they can munch on the monsters they kill and "HURRY UP JAKE"

Chapter 7 by Armadillo

==> Procrastinate and tell your friends, "It's NYC, guys, someone's gonna be open even during a flood."

Jake smirks. "Actually, you're probably right."

Rose sighs and leans over Charlie's shoulder to look at the map. "We should be there in a few more hours if we take this route." She traces her finger along the map.

"Without traffic and obstacles factored in," Charlie adds.

Jake chooses that moment to respond. "I guess the 'few hours' thing is out, then. This is one hell of an obstacle."

You lean in front to catch a glimpse of what Jake is talking about. What you see in front of you is so big, you have to rub your eyes a few times before you realize it's not a hallucination.

==> Have Anthony take the lead and defeat the 'obstacle' with his weapons and dark magic, and the rest of the team as back up.

==> Try to avoid the obstacle, even though that might take longer than vanquishing it.

==> Screw the world and go back home. It's not worth it.

Chapter 8 by Shasta

==> Screw the world and go back home. It's not worth it.

It wasn't worth it the first time, either. Rose almost died before you got to tell her you loved her and when you all realized you'd be okay, your unyielding love still remained a secret.

Besides, there had to be more qualified personnel on the portal by know? Hadn't the people in the last portal tell you never to go looking for another one again?

You sigh, slumping in your seat. You didn't know. You had tried to supress all memories of the portal, the last one. This one. . . you didn't know.

You voiced your opinions, getting shot down by Anthony.

"I really want to blow something up," was all he said, and Charlie kept driving. No one was going to argue with the dude with all the fire powers. Smart choice, really, but you wanted to go home.

You felt that if you were going to die, you wanted to be surrounded by those you love.

==> Kiss Rose and finally tell her how much you love her.

==> Point out that you're being followed from the air by a suspicious looking airborne object.

==> Take a nap. Try and talk to your contacts from the first portal. See if they have the info or if they've forgotten you as well.

Chapter 9 by Saluex-ander

==> Kiss Rose and finally tell her how much you love her.

You feel the overwhelming urge to kiss Rose, your best friend, your greatest ally, the person you've had a crush on for years. In order to subdue this urge, you bang your head into the window multiple times. That was a terrible idea! She'd never forgive you! Besides, she's into girls, and you're... a hot mess. Yes. That is your gender. Your gender is 'hot mess.'

At least you're hot.

The car keeps heading straight for the portal, even as the water gets higher and the wheels stop turning. Rain drifts upwards. Buildings dance with the wind and you're upside down but gravity's holding you. Physics gets weird from here, kids.

The portal is getting closer, and so is your destiny (again). What do you do?

==> Cry. You are feeling lots of things, and none of them are good!

==> Accept your destiny. Enter the Portal.

==> Flee. You didn't sign up for this!

Chapter 10 by Adam Isawesome

==> Cry. You are feeling lots of things, and none of them are good!

"I thought we were going back home!" says Charlie.

"That's what I thought too..." says Anthony.

"Just shut, Anthony, and shoot something with a bazooka; no one cares about your opinion anyway," Jake snarls.

Everyone goes silent.

"Sorry," Jake says, sighing. "I'm just stressed. I mean, I still don't even technically have a driver's license and this is much more difficult than driving slowly in a parking lot in the middle of the night."

You could see how driving through the road while water flowed almost up to the windshield and random bits of debris floated upwards into the air would be much more difficult than driving slowly in a parking lot in the middle of the night.

At that moment that everyone notices your sobbing. It had started out quiet, but now it was unignorably loud.

"Uh, Alex, are you good?" Jake was looking backward at me.

"Keep your eyes on the road!" screams Charlie, who was sitting next to Jake. You look up and see tumbling rocks and trees and large plastic hamburgers meant to sit on top of fast food restaurants rocketing towards your group.

"Right, okay!" Jake swerves the car to the right and off the road.

"LEFT!" shouts Charlie. The car swerves left and back onto the road.

As Charlie and Jake desperately dodge rocks and hamburgers in the front of the car (there is an unusually large amount of fast food restaurants in New Jersey and NYC), Rose puts her arm around you. "Hey, it's okay Alex. You stopped the portal last time you can do it again." At least something good has come out of the day.

"Thanks," you say. Your crying stops. "It's just, with everything happening today."

"Nothing you can't handle," says Rose, smiling. You smile back.

"I feel like a third wheel," says Anthony, who's also sitting in the back.

"Uh, Anthony?" comes Jake's call from the front of the car.

"Yeah?"

"The obstacle's back. We might need your witchcraft or grenades." Then Jake thinks for a second, and adds, "Where does a kid your age get grenades anyway?"

What do you do???

==> Have Anthony fight and (hopefully) defeat the obstacle.

==> Have someone distract the obstacle while everyone else sneaks past, and, by someone, you mean yourself because no one else is as stupid as you are.

Chapter 11 by Tricia L - Got to go, goodbye...

==> Have Anthony fight and (hopefully) defeat the obstacle.

Immediately, a smile so horrifying you will never forget it spreads on his face and his eyes turn an eerie red. This makes you cry again, but no one notices because they are staring, equally terrified. A foul smell comes from the bottom of the car, and you look down at your pants.

At least they're dry.

"Sure, I'll go defeat the evil monster in front of us." He hops out of the car and snaps his fingers. The monster keels over, dead.

Now your pants are wet.

He hops back into the car, and you proceed to the portal.

It's a lot bigger than you remembered the other one being. The water that is flooding New York comes from the portal, and droves of creatures are marching out. Everyone is shocked, including Anthony. Actually, he seems a bit more than shocked.

His tiny child body is shivering. At first, you thought it was shock, but then he fell to his knees, grabbing and shaking his head, half muttering, "No... this can't be happening. No no no no no! I don't see it! I don't see them! They aren't there. That's not them. Nope. But it is!"

You didn't know much about him except that he had found the portal for you, but he seemed to know of this creature army that was coming out of the portal.

"Anthony, what's wrong?" You ask, grabbing his hands in yours to get his attention.

He starts to cry. "They invaded my world when I was young, but I escaped. They just keep coming, following me as I try to escape! I thought that the cycle had ended when we closed the portal so long ago, but they're back! How can they be back?"

A huge, heavily accented English voice booms out, coming from one of the creatures- it looked to be the leader. "Where are the humans Charlie, Rose, Jake, and Alex?"

There is some sort of huge army that looks to be pretty threatening, and they apparently tried to take over here before. Plus, they're looking for you.

What do you do?

==> Make a full blown frontal assault, knowing everyone will probably die.

==> Get some intelligence from Anthony on these creatures.

==>Kill yourselves now; the end they have planned is surely going to be more painful.

Chapter 12 by Adam Isawesome

==>Kill yourselves now; the end they have planned is surely going to be more painful.

Rose wades through the water that is now up to her waste. She looks at you, fear in her eyes. "Alex, what will we do?"

"Give up! What else?" You whip out your ceremonial knife for hara-kiri that you had specifically ready in your pocket.

"What's that?" asks Anthony, still whimpering.

"It's a ceremonial knife for hara-kiri that I had specifically ready in my pocket."

"Ah," says Charlie, "Much more honorable than jumping off a cliff."

"I'll have one, please," whimpers Anthony, reaching feebly up.

"Alright, that's enough!" declares Rose, standing up. "If all of you are going to curl up and die, then so be it, but I, for one, am going to go out and do something about it!"

Rose stands up dramatically, her long hair flowing majestically in the wind. You stare at her majestic-ness love struck. You have another inexplicable urge to kiss her.

"I have another inexplicable urge to kiss you," you say.

"Ew! You're the wimp that just gave up and tried to commit suicide! I can't believe you!" Rose slowly deflates. "You know, Alex, when we were saving the world all those years ago, I was madly in love with you! The way you lead the team with strength and discipline inspired me to be a better person. But you never noticed me, all you cared about was saving the world! Now you don't even care about saving the world! You just want to die a dignified death via Harry and Carrie or whatever you said. How far you've fallen, you coward. I'm sorry, I can't love someone who backs away from a fight like you!"

"I feel like a third wheel," says Jake.

"Does that make me a fourth wheel?" replied Charlie.

Anthony whimpered something quietly and shook back and forth.

"Wow," you say. "Wow, Rose, I don't know what to say. I loved you too, but I was always just too scared... Too scared to ever tell you my feelings. You're right, I am a coward."

Rose huffs and turns her head away, chin up. "Go ahead and commit seppuku, like I care." A tear slides down her cheek.

"Look out!" you scream. One of the creatures, a gray-skinned, faceless humanoid monsters, had snuck up on the group. It slashed at Rose with its three claws. You dive forwards with your hara-kiri knife and stab into the chest of the creature, who screeches an unearthly screech and dissolves into dust in a truly Thanos-snap-esque style.

Rose stares in awe at you stare in disbelief at the knife in your hands.

"Wow!" says Rose in a truly feminine voice. "I always believed in you! You're so strong and brave!"

She flings herself upon you and gives you the kiss you'd been waiting for your whole life.

"I'm just going to go do things over here," says Jake, and Charlie and Anthony follow suit.

Rose continues to kiss you, and you feel like more of a hot mess than ever before.

Rose suddenly pulls away. "Did you brush your teeth today?"

"We were racing through the countryside trying to save the world," you respond. Rose shrugs and starts kissing you again.

"AHHHH!" You hear the uncanny screeches of Jake.

"But I still needed to develop a quantum equation that defined the limitations of sub-atomic light speed!" screeched Charlie.

==> Go help Jake, Charlie, and Anthony

==> Continue kissing Rose

Chapter 13 by Tricia L - Got to go, goodbye...

==> Go help Jake, Charlie, and Anthony

You hesitate for a second before pulling away. What? Of course you never even thought of abandoning your friends to the creatures. The two of you rush to your friends' aid, you slashing with the hara-kiri knife and Rose rescuing the others.

"Ah! Glad you stopped your kissing session and decided to start helping," Charlie said. He turned to Anthony. "You were saying you know these things? Also, why didn't they say your name with the rest of ours earlier?"

"I do know them," Anthony conceded. "They used to be my friends."

"Are you not a human being?" Charlie asked.

You're getting awfully bored of this detailed information. At first, you were thinking you should listen in, but then you realized: That's why Charlie's here! He's the brains, after all. I don't need to know this stuff... I think.

What do you do?

==> Listen to Charlie's questioning of Anthony to finally get information on all of this.

==> Do the chicken dance, not listening to the information.

==> Nothing. Why should you have to do everything?

Chapter 14 by Tricia L - Got to go, goodbye...

==> Do the chicken dance, not listening to the information.

With a perfectly reasonable, rational mind, you cautiously begin to raise your arms in front of where your shoulders are, then open and close your hands as if they were beaks. No one seems to notice- they are too focused on interrogating Anthony.

You wonder if you're doing it right. You haven't done the chicken dance in forever and you're pulling the steps from the deep (some would argue shallow) recesses of your mind.

Next, you tuck your hands beneath their respective armpits and waggle both, emulating wings. This too is done in hesitant, slow motions, and no one notices.

They only notice when you're rapidly wiggling your butt back and forth for the last part of the dance.

"Alex! What are you doing?! Pay attention, you idiot!"

You proceed to listen to a brief recap of Anthony's past. Apparently, he's an alien that was pursued by other aliens through many worlds, all of which were destroyed until he came to Earth. That was the first portal, and they stopped it before it escalated. The Earth people had been underestimated.

This time, the full forces were rallied to attack, and the only way to close the portal would be to smear it with Anthony's blood because his power was apparently partially stolen to open the portals.

More on Anthony's species: they generally led peaceful lives despite their incredible powers, so they did not fight back as they were slaughtered by their antagonists. Anthony escaped but they wanted to kill and harvest all of his species, as their power is greater the less of them there are. He knew he couldn't fight on his own, so he ran for his life. Now they've cornered him on the final world that still has life other than their own.

They want to raze it to the ground.

You interrupt Charlie's excited ramblings. "So they want us so that they can draw you in? They want us as hostages?"

Anthony and Charlie nodded. Jake just shrugged, his version of yes.

"I'm proud of you, Alex, "Rose said. "You have an ounce of intelligence in you."

"So, what do you guys think? What should our strategy be?" you ask, looking for suggestions.

"Well," Jake started, "We can't just sacrifice Anthony... maybe we could do a blood sample or something? Then we cut off the rest in their world."

"How about you, Charlie?"

Charlie was deep in thought, but he looked up at the mention of his name. "What if we just gave them a fake Anthony filled with some of his blood? Presumably they want to kill him so they'll stab him or something and the blood can spread on the portal, closing it."

Anthony looks mildly perturbed at the continued mentions of his blood, but he raises his hand.

"Yeah?" you ask.

His eyes turn red. "I say we don't bother closing the portal. If none are left to use it, there's no crisis."

You pause for a second. "So you're saying..."

"Revenge."

"Um..."

You're fresh out of ideas, so you turn to Rose. "Do you have any clue?" I ask, hoping everyone will forget Anthony's idea.

"Get help, catch all of the minor troops one by one, or unit by unit until all that is left is the undefended king. Shove them all back through and close the portal."

"So you're thinking a long-term thing?" you reply.

"If that's how long it takes," she replies.

"Weeeeelp."

You're at a loss for words.

But what if...

==>Jake's plan

==>Charlie's plan

==>Anthony's plan

==>Rose's plan

==>You...???

[canaryatlaw]

Alright, I’m sitting on a train heading home from nyc to my parents’ place. Today’s been wild, to put it mildly, lol, so lots to explain there. To begin, my alarm went off at 3:45 am this morning, at which point I had to convince myself that I did actually want to get out of bed, then proceeded to do so and get dressed, throw my toothbrush in my bag and confirm that Jess was ready to go before calling the Uber. It was a few minutes out but I wanted to be ready, so I walked down the stairs in my apartment building and about three steps short of the bottom my brain somehow short-circuited, probably because I was still half asleep, and decided that there were no more steps there, so instead of walking down the rest of the steps I just took a giant plunge forward which landed me smacking my knees into the ground just in front of the door with a giant OW. My first observation though was relief it was just my knees that hurt from getting smacked and not any other parts of my body (like a foot or wrist that are known to break) that had been injured and could’ve been a much bigger issue. Don’t need one of those derailing the day to say the least, the amount of ice that’s been on the ground lately has made me really skittish about slipping and falling outside so that’s been on my mind a lot.

But I picked myself up and proceeded to actually leave the building and enter the Uber that pulled up a minute later. Picked Jess up and was on our way to the airport. I rolled my sweatpants up to check my knees, I had a fairly large scrape on my left one but my right one was ok, it wasn’t really bleeding though thankfully and I’m prepared for everything so I had bandaids and bacitracin within reaching distance. So I patched myself up a bit and we were on our way. Made it to the airport and since we had our boarding passes printed out and weren’t checking any bags (we were flying Spirit so just doing a backpack each) we just went straight to security, which proved to be a bit of a longer work than initially predicted, but once we got through successfully we saw we had no need to worry because the plane was not going anywhere fast lol. We ended up being a bit delayed, and then there was a whole hoopla where the lady on the speaker initially said we needed 23 people to switch to another flight that was leaving soon after and that there was gonna be a $250 voucher available for every person that switched, which led to a large amount of people rushing over to try to claim this, only to be followed up with a minute later that oh wait, actually there’s no voucher available but we still needed 23 people to switch to another flight. So naturally that put a bit of a damper on people’s willingness, but eventually we figured it out and actually did get onboard. Once we were onboard the pilot got on the speaker and explained that the issue had been that they had overfilled our plane’s fuel tank and that instead of removing fuel they instead transferred the weight of the extra fuel (apparently about 23 people’s worth) to another flight to make up for it, which made a lot more sense because I was like even for Spirit overbooking a flight by 23 people is wildly irresponsible, so I felt better knowing that didn’t occur. Once we were in the air I took out my make up bag and proceeded to do my make up, and when I was done with that I just closed my eyes while listening to music and didn’t sleep but at least rested my eyes for most of the trip. We ended up making decent time, got there at like 9:20 when our initial landing time was supposed to be 9, so not bad.

Once on the ground we headed to the nearest bathroom where we both changed our sweatpants into jeans and Jess did some make up before we left. Headed to the taxis (because easier that Ubers in NY) and gave them the address for Juniors, which was serving breakfast until 10:45, and headed there. The ride wasn’t bad, had to eat the midtown tunnel toll which was like $6 but that was unavoidable. But we got there pretty soon and waited for about ten minutes before getting seated and having breakfast. I had an omelet for the first time in quite a while, not because I don’t like omelets (because I do) but generally when given the option I preferred something breadier and sweeter (so pretty much waffles and French toast, occasionally with pancakes thrown in) but they had a corned beef omelet and you can’t get that every day so I went for that. They were good and fast of course, they know what their gig is and they play it well. After that we headed out and ended up going to a stuffed animal store on the corner that apparently was featuring the stuffed animals from the members of BTS which Jess is like obsessively against (she’s an anti-fan, basically) so we had to go and check that out and see all the very, very weird products they had (and they were very weird) and eventually took a picture with a giant teddy bear at the front of the store. We didn’t have much else to do at that point so we went to the Forever 21 in Times Square and ran around there for a while, Jess grabbed a few things and while we were checking out there were like best friends matching keychains that we were joking at and we were like oh if they were something more relevant to us maybe we’d get them, and under them they just had normal keychains of like a pineapple I lifted one of them which revealed an avocado keychain which then caused us to freak out because this was clearly Fate, so now we own best friend avocado keychains that weren’t supposed to be a best friend thing but they are now.

Once we finished there we really didn’t have anywhere else to go, so we ended up just chilling in the Starbucks on 47th until it was closer to the show time at which point we walked to the theatre on 43rd and stood in line briefly before getting to our seats. We were in the literal last row of the orchestra, where I have been before but have never complained about because I knew the important part was being in the orchestra to begin with, even the last row are good seats. And then it was time for the play (a bit of a change since we generally do musicals, but for Harry Potter you change things up) and so we were off. When the script had been released I had heard reports that it was very weird and a lot of people didn’t like it, but I had it on good authority that the play version was worth watching, so there we were. And oh, it was very much worth watching.

Heavy spoilers from here on, obviously, because I’m gonna freak out about how good it was now. Like, agh, all of it was done so well. I totally see how it wouldn’t transfer to paper well in the means where people were expecting to read it like a novel but plays aren’t meant to be read they’re meant to be performed, and this definitely needed to be performed to reach its full artistic genius. The technical effects were excellent, but unlike shows like King Kong and Spider-Man (the musical!) the effects didn’t far outshine the story but only served to elevate the story (as they should). They used music for a lot of the transitions, not unlike a musical except of course nobody’s going to start singing at some point. Everything was done very smoothly and they often left you with a “how did they do that....” as the scene goes on (and I mean, I’ve seen a lot of effects, but there were several I was quite taken with). Storywise of course I’ll only go through this for the first half of the show since it’s split into two actually separate shows (like first starts at 2 second starts at 7:30, each of which had an act one and act two). Okay so, act one. We open on the well-known scene that is pretty much all we know about the future of the HP-verse up until this point: the epilogue. We see Albus Severus talk nervously about potentially getting sorted into slytherin, then goes on the train with his cousin Rose (Granger-Weasley). Much like the opening of the original (as Rose points out was where their parents met) they come across one Scorpius Malfoy in his train compartment. I hadn’t imagined Scorpius as much other than existing from the epilogue up until this moment, yet I instantly recognized he was nothing like what I would’ve expected from him and was also 100% as he should be. The actor playing him was fucking hilarious but made it work with so much more than just the funny lines. So Rose gets sorted into gryffindor and Albus gets sorted into slytherin, where him and Scorpius become best friends. There’s also the establishment of a crucial plot point, being that there were rumors that Draco couldn’t get his wife pregnant and to keep the Malfoy line going they used a time turner to go have a love child with Voldemort and Scorpius is actually Voldemort’s child, something he gets teased about and Draco is trying to get Harry to tell people the ministry destroyed all the time turners but Harry won’t get involved.

We get shown a few scenes indicating the passing of the years, Albus having a deteriorating relationship with his father who can’t seem to relate to his middle son, up until right before he’s starting his 4th year. Harry, who works for the ministry, gets a visit at home from old Mr Diggory who is fairly unhinged and is begging Harry to use the time turner that just showed up at the ministry to go save Cedric. Albus is listening from the stairs in the back and gets introduced to Delphi, Diggory’s niece who is taking care of him in his old age. The scene ends, Albus and Harry have a fight where not nice things are said (mostly by Harry), Albus decides on the train the next day he was done with this crap and convinces Scorpius to abscond with him on a mission to steal the timeturner and go save Cedric. Now, some character commentary. Albus and Scorpius are fucking great together. From the first scene I legit just leaned over to Jess and was like GAYYYYYYYYYY because they’re legit just the entire plot and all of it was just them basically being in love with each other (🤷🏻‍♀️).

So the show up at the old wizard’s center Diggory is at And they run into Delphi who they conscript into their adventure to save her cousin. They manage to break into the ministry and do manage to steal the time turner, where they plan to go back to the first task of the tri-Wizard tournament which is of course flawed thinking because they only would’ve needed to intervene in the last one, but there had to be a whole show here. So they go back and interfere, they steal his wand and when they come back Ron and Hermione aren’t married and Albus is sorted into gryffindor, apparently the result of some prodding from Ron’s son he had had with Padma Patil. Meanwhile there’s parental angst and Harry tries to keep them apart because he thinks Scorpius is a bad influence on Albus. So these lovable dorks are like let’s go back again and interfere with the second task (again, not the point), but when they get back Albus is gone and Scorpius is greeted by headmaster Umbridge, who explains Harry died at the battle of hogwarts and the wizarding world is under Voldemort’s control, close curtain end of part one. So that was wild.

After the show we went back to Juniors and had more food, then ended up going back to the theatre because it was cold outside and back to the story because that’s where we wanted to be. Meanwhile in the theatre they had switched all the merch and stuff over to the dark insignia (not the traditional dark mark, a new snake thingy) because it’s all under that now. So the play opens, everything’s very militaristic, under a despot, and Scorpius is VERY STRESSED, he keeps getting hassled because he was asking about Harry, and talking about Cedric, where he is able to find out Cedric was so humiliated by his terrible loss in the second task of the triwizard tournament he went down a dark path and became a deatheater, but “wasn’t even very effective because he only killed one wizard, some loser named Neville Longbottom.” Oh. The future of the free world rests on Neville Longbottom. That tracks. So he eventually goes to Snape who’s still a teacher at the school and spills everything, including him knowing about Snape loving Lily from the other world, which leads Snape to take him into the room of requirement (didn’t spell that right) where we find Ron and Hermione and that’s about it, there’s a whole confrontation with the dementors which they did much more effectively than the movies, that basically led to all the adults sacrificing their lives in this reality so Scorpius can go set it right in the real world (at which point I was like legends season 2 finale much??), which he manages to do and yay Albus is back! So everything is good except Harry’s scar has been hurting and there’s some issue going on.

So they make the adults think they lost the time turner but Scorpius then reveals he had it and wouldn’t give it back to the adults because they would just lie and keep it again and since he had seen the true horror he knew they had to destroy it. So Albus sends an owl to Delphi because she was there with them to begin with and she should be there to see them destroy it, and manages to get the time turner from them and upon hearing of the alternate reality Scorpius was telling of she reveals she’s actually the child of Voldemort and is actually a very powerful witch who takes them back to the night of the final task of the tournament where they’re supposed to be stop Cedric from winning so he’ll become a deatheater, something about a prophecy, she’s crucio’ing Scorpius so Albus will comply but they manage to get away from her, for a second ACTUAL CEDRIC shows up and gets her away and I swear to fuck I fucking cried it was beautiful and so I’m home now and didn’t mean to get into explaining this much plot shit because as you can see it gets quite complicated and takes a lot to explain but we’re here now so I guess we’re going the rest of the way home. So the boys are missing again and parents are distraught again, they manage to foil her plans for that night but then she grabs them and takes them to a day and then smashes the time turner so they’re stuck. Meanwhile parents figure out who Delphi is and they go to her room which looks normal but when you turn the lights out there’s like glow in the dark words written all over about the prophecy except instead of just being on her walls they were all over the entire theatre like under the balcony right back where we were sitting EVERYWHERE it was so good and also Harry was having weird flashback dreams that never happened that mostly just consisted of him going weird places with the Dursley’s but one of them was at his parents’ graves and there was a jump scare that scared the shit out of both of us, so that was fun.

So boys figure out they’re stuck the day before Voldemort tries to kill Harry as a baby so they figure Delphi’s gonna stop him from getting destroyed, so they stake it out and with some creative choices they manage to get a message back to Harry and everyone about where they are and Draco reveals his dad had been hoarding a much better quality time turner (at which point I just leaned over and was like “a very potter sequel?”) so the adults (meaning Harry, Ginny, Ron, Hermione, and Draco) all go back and find the boys and make a plan to corner Delphi when she shows up, but then they figure she’s waiting for Voldy to show so she can introduce herself, so Harry transfigures into Voldy and tricks her into where they all were except it starts failing at the last minute and so they’re fighting and at first she manages to lock everyone else out so it’s just her and Harry and she got his wand so he’s fucked but Albus is tiny and like climbs through a grate in the floor (they’re supposed to be in the old church in Godric’s Hollow), gets his dad his wand back and lets everyone else back into the fight where they defeat her. It was revealed when she was talking to fake Voldy that apparently she was the love child of Voldemort and Bellatrix LeStrange born before the battle of hogwarts and raised by Rodolphus LeStrange when he was apparently let out of Azkaban (because that happened for some reason) and was basically confunding old man Diggory and tricking everybody into thinking she was his niece and nurse (there was a confrontation with Draco and Harry and Diggory where they’re like “we know they’re with your niece!!” and Diggory is like “I don’t have a niece, I was an only child and so was my wife????”) and then once they have her defeated actual Voldy comes in and they have to watch his parents get killed (we hear it and see them watching) which was very sad. But then they get back to the present where they get yelled at a lot by McGonagall (well-deserved) and then some eventual cheering and improvement in father-son relationships for both boys and like, I’m sure the plot I just explained sounded really nuts but it was honestly such a sweet and sincere story that was so incredibly well-executed. If Angels in America hadn’t been playing on broadway last year, I’m convinced they would’ve swept the (play) Tonys, and while AiA won the actor focused awards (for best leading and featured as Andrew Garfield and Nathan Lane, because of course), cursed child won for best play, best director, scenic design, costume design, lighting design, and sound design, which is honestly a huge feat in itself so they should be very proud, though I maintain Scorpius’ performance very much deserved a Tony (upon consulting with British friends since almost all the main cast was taken from the original west end production the actor did in fact with the Olivier for the role so that brought me comfort). But yeah, that was wild.

And since then, we left, walked back to penn, chilled at shake shack until the train was ready to go, rode the train home where I started writing this, and I’ve since gotten off the train, into an Uber, back to my parents house, got ready for bed, and am now sitting on my bed with the lights out ready to go to sleep as soon as I finish writing this, it’s almost 2 am so I think it’s safe to say this is a good spot to finish. Goodnight loves. Hope you had a wonderful Saturday as well.

[un-enfant-immature]

The infrastructural humiliation of America

I’m flying back to the USA today, and as an infrastructure aficionado, it’s nice to be going home, but I’m dreading the disappointment. I just spent two weeks in Singapore and Thailand; last year I spent time in Hong Kong and Shenzhen; and compared to modern Asia, so much American infrastructure is now so contemptible that it’s hard not to wince when I see it.

The USA is nine times wealthier than Thailand, per capita, but I’d far rather ride Bangkok’s SkyTrain than deal with NYC’s subway nowadays. I’d much prefer to fly into Don Muang, Bangkok’s ancient second-tier airport — which was actually closed for years, before being reopened to handle domestic flights and low-cost airlines — than the hostile nightmare that is LAX. And those are America’s two primary gateway cities!

So imagine what it’s like coming to America from wealthy Asian nations, and their gleaming, polished, metronomically reliable subways, trains, and airports. I don’t think Americans understand just how that comparison has become a quiet ongoing national humiliation. If they did, sheer national (and civic) pride would make them want to do something about it. Instead there’s a learned helplessness about most American infrastructure nowadays, a wrong but certain belief that it’s unrealistic to dream of anything better.

It’s not just those two cities. Compare Boston’s T to, say, Taipei, or San Francisco’s mishmash of messed-up systems — Muni, where I have waited 45 minutes for a T-Third; CalTrain, which only runs every 90 minutes on weekends; BART, which squandered millions on its useless white-elephant Millbrae station — to Shenzhen. And it’s not just age; Paris’s metro was inaugurated in 1900, but its well-maintained system continues to run excellently and expand continuously.

Americans still tend to think of themselves as an example to other nations. Ha. I assure you, over the last few years nobody has flown from Seoul or Taipei or Tokyo or Singapore or Hong Kong or Shenzhen into Newark Airport; taken the AirTrain to the NJ Transit station; waited for the rattling, decrepit train into the city; walked through the repellent ugliness of Penn Station to the subway; waited for its ever-increasing delays; ridden to their destination; and finally emerged into New York City — the nation’s alpha city! — still thinking of the USA as anything other than a counterexample, or maybe a cautionary tale.

This goes beyond transport infrastructure. Airport security measures are much more sensible in Asia. Payments are increasingly separately structured, and better, too — in many places, credit cards (which already barely exist as a concept in China) are beginning to slowly wither away, replaced by Alipay and to a lesser extent WeChat Pay. (Not least because an ever-growing proportion of the tourist population is Chinese rather than Western, nowadays.)

That’s admittedly an example of leapfrogging, not decay, and American infrastructure does still have some bright spots. American roads are mostly still superb. Lyft and Uber are much better than their Southeast Asian equivalent Grab, which, whenever I checked it during this latest trip, was invariably both slower and more expensive than a taxi (never mind a tuk-tuk) despite the infamous Thai taxi mafias. International mobile connectivity is excellent and user-friendly and reasonably priced, at least if you’re on T-Mobile like me, and as an added bonus, due to a technical quirk, mobile data roaming bypasses China’s Great Firewall.

But that doesn’t change the fact that the state of much of America’s infrastructure is appalling on its face, and even moreso when compared to nations which are on paper nowhere near as rich. The money other nations spend on urban infrastructure (don’t even get me started on intercity trains) is instead siphoned off to somewhere else. It makes the USA — still by far the wealthiest country in the world! — seem like an dying empire, one beginning to visibly crack and crumble as it is slowly hollowed out from within.

What happened? A cascading series of failures of imagination; failures to invest in the future; paralyzed or ideologically blinkered or simply idiotic governance; and, perhaps most of all, cost disease. (It frequently costs a whopping 4x as much per mile to build a subway in the USA as it costs in, say, Paris or Seoul. Sometimes even more.) What can be done? I’m pretty sure the first step is for Americans to believe that something can be done. Clearly it can. Just look across the Pacific.

[bountyofbeads]

Virginia’s Black Lawmakers to Boycott Trump at Jamestown Ceremony https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/30/us/politics/trump-jamestown-race.html

"The real story here isn’t that Trump is trashing an African American whose reputation is something less than admirable. It’s that the President of the United States—the President!—is purposefully stoking racial tensions and animosity for political gain. Trump has no interest in uniting Americans. He never did. He is the destroyer of comity, civility, compromise, common sense, and, if left unchecked, democracy."

JACKSON, SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

"How Americans are letting that man get away with this increasingly, overtly racist nonsense is disturbing. What, exactly, does Mr Trump have to say before your politicians and citizens find a spine and (at the very least) remove that man from office, if not send him to jail? I never thought I’d see the day when America would surrender so meekly to its own worst, cowardly impulses, leaving someone doing his best to divide and inflame the nation sitting there, unchallenged."

JOE, DUBLIN IRELAND

" Nobody is pretending there's no problem in Baltimore. Taking revenge on a well-respected congressman by ranting and raving like a 6 year old is hardly a pathway to solutions. "Disgusting, rat and rodent infested" district where no human being would want to live?! In fact many live in District 7, which stretches north to a well-to-do suburban area on both sides - and the area Trump is specifically calling out as disgusting is home to my synagogue and many of our congregants. It's a big stretch to even contemplate that Trump had the best interests of our beloved city in mind when he let loose his impulsive and churish tweets. If he wants to be part of the solution, he needs to shut up and get to work. And yes, when someone has a pattern of behavior labeling people of color it's not hard to see that singling out as racism. I'm really very confident that when DT was spewing his hatred towards Cummings and the 'hellhole' he represents, he wasn't thinking about my synagogue, but about the residents of color we call our neighbors." JANE ADDAMS, BALTIMORE

"Trump has positioned himself right where he wants to be -- the center of media attention with a diversion from adverse publicity related to his impeachable offenses and involvement with Russians and other autocrats. His base won't desert him and everyone else already despises him, so he gains by the diversions and 24-hour news cycle coverage. The media writes and talks about little other than "racist" Trump. Maybe he is or isn't a racist, but he is the Master of Ceremonies of the greatest sham on earth. PT Barnum could have learned much from the circus master." NATE GRAY, PITTSBURGH

"He is an ineffective President. Trump uses these Twitter tactics to deflect from his own broken promises. He is not a great negotiator, he was clearly snookered by Nancy Pelosi and Charles Schumer earlier this year. No doubt the Chinese will do the same-- or worse. He has done nothing to improve healthcare or lower the cost. The economy got a small boost but at the cost of $2trillion in extra deficit. Worse he picks a fight with our Nato allies and then unilaterally withdraws from the Iranian nuclear agreement. He loves the North Korea and and they continue to shoot missiles towards Japan. Who feels safer with him in charge? I understand he was elected as a wild card to shake things up but what has he accomplished ? Has he brought the country together to solve global warming or the national debt ? He does not have the temperament to look past his own self image or his own wallet. He has little if any self control and that's why he does these childish tweets." GLEN D, LINCOLN PARK, NJ

"So he brings in a group of right wing evangelicals who just happen to be black to say that he is not a racist. Oh, really? And this was all staged by Kushner who just happens to be the biggest slum lord in Baltimore?" ACM, BALTIMORE

"This is neither about Baltimore nor Al Sharpton. so don't be misled. This is about Trump increasingly relying on outrage and racism to win over many Americans who are themselves racist." RX, NYC

"I wish I could publish photographs here because then I'd post one of the Confederate flaggers who now plague our downtown every Saturday, intimidating everyone, looking for conflicts and spreading their message of white supremacy. Before this President, their presence had become less. Now they are there every weekend and wherever they can find a place to demean, hurt, and spread their poison. Here in the South, every single day this hateful, ignorant man is President, the worst elements in our small towns become more emboldened—and more dangerous. I hope right-thinking people in Washington understand this and know that their failure to act swiftly against this man is causing havoc and real harm in real people's lives." ME, NC

"Divide, divide, divide. That's all the President knows how to do. Will we ever get someone in the White House who can unite? And Mr. Trump knows full well that this is what gets him the Electoral College win We can only expect more of it. Also, this type of psychological projection fits his authoritarian personality to a tee. And among the leaders of other nations, he seems to be most comfortable with those of a similar inclination." T MORRIS FLORIDA

"This is exhausting. Trump's Twitter account is nothing but a toxic stew of hatred, resentment, and xenophobia designed to keep his base energized. He is clearly happiest when he is stirring the pot and able to keep the outrage boiling. But how much longer before all this rage leads to actual violence? The cost to America's soul will be immeasurable." MARTHA, PHILADELPHIA

"The politics of racism is the politics of separation and exclusivity. Mocking one area of the inner city and who lives there is a way of making those who do not live there feel superior. And that feeling of superiority is the root of racism. Trump has never walked down streets in a struggling neighborhood, taught in an inner city school or felt the struggles of the people living there. Criticizing from the outside is easy and a convenient way to divert once again attention from his own aberrant behavior which comes not from personal struggles, but a life of privilege and egotism."JUST ROBERT, NC

"So what is Trump as POTUS doing to revitalize urban policy? NOTHING. This isn't just the job of liberals. POTUS needs to set the agenda--if he's truly the president of the "united states" and not just his base. But who has Trump appointed to those cabinet posts to deal with the issues facing those "transitional" zones in cities? What are they doing? Ben Carson at HUD slashing housing programs and budgets? I don't even know who's in charge at Health and Human Welfare. Then again, since when has Trump ever cared about that--health and human welfare? Trump is not delivering a "hard truth" to us when he maligns Baltimore, Elijah Cummings, and now Al Sharpton. Trump has power as POTUS to do something about the conditions he mocks, but he chooses not to. Why is that? What it tells me: Trump is ginning up his base like the racist shock jock he is. He's unabashedly making racism an appeal in the 2020 campaign. Full stop. If you align yourself with Trump's hatreds and cynicism, that's on you." JACKIE, HAMDEN CT

"Baltimore, under the leadership of Elija Cummings?" Does Trump even know how government works?" ELLA, USA

" I have come to believe that Trump is driven by a combination of fear and survival. He did not intend to win the presidency but when he did, realized with horror that the murky history across all aspects of his life would eventually be revealed. He now has to stay in power and under the legal protection of the presidency for the survival of his family and brand. As such he will do and say anything to further that aim, without any regard for the consequences or collateral damage. He doesn’t care about the moral responsibilities of his position, the Republican Party, conservatism or any grounding principle - simply a strategy to consolidate his reliable base and to divide his enemies. It’s that simple - he has to stay in power to stay out of jail. That’s quite a motivator and it’s that simple." IAN, NORTH CAROLINA

Virginia's black lawmakers to boycott Trump's speech at Jamestown ceremony TODAY.

Virginia’s Black Lawmakers to Boycott Trump at Jamestown Ceremony

By Peter Baker | Published July 30, 2019 | New York Times | Posted July 30, 2019 9:57 AM ET |

WASHINGTON — African-American state lawmakers from Virginia will boycott President Trump’s scheduled speech in Jamestown on Tuesday at a ceremony to commemorate the 400th anniversary of representative democracy in the Western Hemisphere, citing the president’s inflammatory comments about critics of color.

The Virginia Legislative Black Caucus, which represents members of the House of Delegates and State Senate, said in a statement that its members cannot “in good conscience sit silently” as a president who has promoted racial divisions is given such a prominent platform. Mr. Trump is due to fly to Virginia and speak at the Jamestown Settlement Museum at 11:15 a.m.

“It is impossible to ignore the emblem of hate and disdain that the president represents,” the caucus said in its statement. The statement added that Mr. Trump’s “repeated attacks on black legislators and comments about black communities” make him “ill-suited to honor and commemorate such a monumental period in history, especially if this nation is to move forward with the ideals of ‘democracy, inclusion, and opportunity.’”

The lawmakers’ protest came as Mr. Trump has employed racist tropes in a caustic war of words with critics. He told four Democratic congresswomen of color to “go back” to their home countries, even though three were born in the United States and the fourth was naturalized as a teenager. In recent days, he has repeatedly assailed Representative Elijah E. Cummings, Democrat of Maryland, and his “rat and rodent infested” majority-black district and targeted other foes like the Rev. Al Sharpton, who he said “Hates Whites & Cops.”

The ceremony on Tuesday is meant to mark the first meeting of elected legislators in the new world. On July 30, 1619, a group of 22 representatives of plantations or settlements gathered in a church in Jamestown for the first time in what would be known as the House of Burgesses, the precursor to state legislatures and Congress in the centuries to come.

The Tuesday event already was fraught for African-American lawmakers because in those days only white male property holders were eligible to vote. Moreover, this year also represents the 400th anniversary of the first slaves brought to the colonies that would later become the United States.

The caucus is holding alternative events in Richmond and will focus “on those individuals who fought for a more just, equitable, and inclusive democracy,” said Senator Jennifer McClellan, the group’s vice chair.

But Lt. Gov. Justin E. Fairfax, Virginia’s only African-American statewide elected official, will attend Tuesday’s ceremony, saying the twin anniversaries “far supersede the petty and racist actions of the current occupant of the White House.”

In an essay posted on Medium, he said, “The bigoted words of the current president will thankfully soon be swept into the dustbin of history. Our democracy, born in Virginia, will live on.”

Virginia has been roiled by its own controversies this year. Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat, has rebuffed widespread calls to resign after the discovery of a 1984 medical school yearbook that included a picture of a man in blackface and another in Ku Klux Klan robes on his personal page. Mr. Northam at first admitted being in the photograph, then denied that he was either man.

The state’s attorney general, Mark R. Herring, later admitted that he once wore blackface at a party as a college student. And Mr. Fairfax has been accused of sexual assault by two women.

[toomanysinks]

The infrastructural humiliation of America

I’m flying back to the USA today, and as an infrastructure aficionado, it’s nice to be going home, but I’m dreading the disappointment. I just spent two weeks in Singapore and Thailand; last year I spent time in Hong Kong and Shenzhen; and compared to modern Asia, so much American infrastructure is now so contemptible that it’s hard not to wince when I see it.

The USA is nine times wealthier than Thailand, per capita, but I’d far rather ride Bangkok’s SkyTrain than deal with NYC’s subway nowadays. I’d much prefer to fly into Don Muang, Bangkok’s ancient second-tier airport — which was actually closed for years, before being reopened to handle domestic flights and low-cost airlines — than the hostile nightmare that is LAX. And those are America’s two primary gateway cities!

So imagine what it’s like coming to America from wealthy Asian nations, and their gleaming, polished, metronomically reliable subways, trains, and airports. I don’t think Americans understand just how that comparison has become a quiet ongoing national humiliation. If they did, sheer national (and civic) pride would make them want to do something about it. Instead there’s a learned helplessness about most American infrastructure nowadays, a wrong but certain belief that it’s unrealistic to dream of anything better.

It’s not just those two cities. Compare Boston’s T to, say, Taipei, or San Francisco’s mishmash of messed-up systems — Muni, where I have waited 45 minutes for a T-Third; CalTrain, which only runs every 90 minutes on weekends; BART, which squandered millions on its useless white-elephant Millbrae station — to Shenzhen. And it’s not just age; Paris’s metro was inaugurated in 1900, but its well-maintained system continues to run excellently and expand continuously.

Americans still tend to think of themselves as an example to other nations. Ha. I assure you, over the last few years nobody has flown from Seoul or Taipei or Tokyo or Singapore or Hong Kong or Shenzhen into Newark Airport; taken the AirTrain to the NJ Transit station; waited for the rattling, decrepit train into the city; walked through the repellent ugliness of Penn Station to the subway; waited for its ever-increasing delays; ridden to their destination; and finally emerged into New York City — the nation’s alpha city! — still thinking of the USA as anything other than a counterexample, or maybe a cautionary tale.

This goes beyond transport infrastructure. Airport security measures are much more sensible in Asia. Payments are increasingly separately structured, and better, too — in many places, credit cards (which already barely exist as a concept in China) are beginning to slowly wither away, replaced by Alipay and to a lesser extent WeChat Pay. (Not least because an ever-growing proportion of the tourist population is Chinese rather than Western, nowadays.)

That’s admittedly an example of leapfrogging, not decay, and American infrastructure does still have some bright spots. American roads are mostly still superb. Lyft and Uber are much better than their Southeast Asian equivalent Grab, which, whenever I checked it during this latest trip, was invariably both slower and more expensive than a taxi (never mind a tuk-tuk) despite the infamous Thai taxi mafias. International mobile connectivity is excellent and user-friendly and reasonably priced, at least if you’re on T-Mobile like me, and as an added bonus, due to a technical quirk, mobile data roaming bypasses China’s Great Firewall.

But that doesn’t change the fact that the state of much of America’s infrastructure is appalling on its face, and even moreso when compared to nations which are on paper nowhere near as rich. The money other nations spend on urban infrastructure (don’t even get me started on intercity trains) is instead siphoned off to somewhere else. It makes the USA — still by far the wealthiest country in the world! — seem like an dying empire, one beginning to visibly crack and crumble as it is slowly hollowed out from within.

What happened? A cascading series of failures of imagination; failures to invest in the future; paralyzed or ideologically blinkered or simply idiotic governance; and, perhaps most of all, cost disease. (It frequently costs a whopping 4x as much per mile to build a subway in the USA as it costs in, say, Paris or Seoul. Sometimes even more.) What can be done? I’m pretty sure the first step is for Americans to believe that something can be done. Clearly it can. Just look across the Pacific.

source https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/03/the-infrastructural-humiliation-of-america/

[fmservers]

The infrastructural humiliation of America

I’m flying back to the USA today, and as an infrastructure aficionado, it’s nice to be going home, but I’m dreading the disappointment. I just spent two weeks in Singapore and Thailand; last year I spent time in Hong Kong and Shenzhen; and compared to modern Asia, so much American infrastructure is now so contemptible that it’s hard not to wince when I see it.

The USA is nine times wealthier than Thailand, per capita, but I’d far rather ride Bangkok’s SkyTrain than deal with NYC’s subway nowadays. I’d much prefer to fly into Don Muang, Bangkok’s ancient second-tier airport — which was actually closed for years, before being reopened to handle domestic flights and low-cost airlines — than the hostile nightmare that is LAX. And those are America’s two primary gateway cities!

So imagine what it’s like coming to America from wealthy Asian nations, and their gleaming, polished, metronomically reliable subways, trains, and airports. I don’t think Americans understand just how that comparison has become a quiet ongoing national humiliation. If they did, sheer national (and civic) pride would make them want to do something about it. Instead there’s a learned helplessness about most American infrastructure nowadays, a wrong but certain belief that it’s unrealistic to dream of anything better.

It’s not just those two cities. Compare Boston’s T to, say, Taipei, or San Francisco’s mishmash of messed-up systems — Muni, where I have waited 45 minutes for a T-Third; CalTrain, which only runs every 90 minutes on weekends; BART, which squandered millions on its useless white-elephant Millbrae station — to Shenzhen. And it’s not just age; Paris’s metro was inaugurated in 1900, but its well-maintained system continues to run excellently and expand continuously.

Americans still tend to think of themselves as an example to other nations. Ha. I assure you, over the last few years nobody has flown from Seoul or Taipei or Tokyo or Singapore or Hong Kong or Shenzhen into Newark Airport; taken the AirTrain to the NJ Transit station; waited for the rattling, decrepit train into the city; walked through the repellent ugliness of Penn Station to the subway; waited for its ever-increasing delays; ridden to their destination; and finally emerged into New York City — the nation’s alpha city! — still thinking of the USA as anything other than a counterexample, or maybe a cautionary tale.

This goes beyond transport infrastructure. Airport security measures are much more sensible in Asia. Payments are increasingly separately structured, and better, too — in many places, credit cards (which already barely exist as a concept in China) are beginning to slowly wither away, replaced by Alipay and to a lesser extent WeChat Pay. (Not least because an ever-growing proportion of the tourist population is Chinese rather than Western, nowadays.)

That’s admittedly an example of leapfrogging, not decay, and American infrastructure does still have some bright spots. American roads are mostly still superb. Lyft and Uber are much better than their Southeast Asian equivalent Grab, which, whenever I checked it during this latest trip, was invariably both slower and more expensive than a taxi (never mind a tuk-tuk) despite the infamous Thai taxi mafias. International mobile connectivity is excellent and user-friendly and reasonably priced, at least if you’re on T-Mobile like me, and as an added bonus, due to a technical quirk, mobile data roaming bypasses China’s Great Firewall.

But that doesn’t change the fact that the state of much of America’s infrastructure is appalling on its face, and even moreso when compared to nations which are on paper nowhere near as rich. The money other nations spend on urban infrastructure (don’t even get me started on intercity trains) is instead siphoned off to somewhere else. It makes the USA — still by far the wealthiest country in the world! — seem like an dying empire, one beginning to visibly crack and crumble as it is slowly hollowed out from within.

What happened? A cascading series of failures of imagination; failures to invest in the future; paralyzed or ideologically blinkered or simply idiotic governance; and, perhaps most of all, cost disease. (It frequently costs a whopping 4x as much per mile to build a subway in the USA as it costs in, say, Paris or Seoul. Sometimes even more.) What can be done? I’m pretty sure the first step is for Americans to believe that something can be done. Clearly it can. Just look across the Pacific.

Via Jon Evans https://techcrunch.com

[chroniclesofawkwardness]

Yellow Bird

Last Friday, I witnessed something I'd always thought would be funny to see in person. I laughed, but not as heartily as I thought I would.

Working second shift means I'm still in the building long after most other employees have gone home. Fortunately, summertime affords more hours of daylight to accompany the stillness that often envelops the building after six o'clock in the evening. I usually take lunch around six o'clock because I like to walk the quarter mile from one end of the building to the other in relative peace an quiet instead of having to play Frogger with my co-workers in the atrium. During business hours, I can usually spot three distinct types of employees. The first type is someone using his or her cell phone, head down, yet bent slightly forward, eyes and/or thumbs transfixed on a screen. It's amazing that people in this state don't account for more workplace accidents. I want to startle them like a caged animal who occasionally has to tap on the glass walls of his cell to remind the hordes of gawking humans who he is. I imagine a mass of humanity piling up like cars on the freeway after one wintery fender bender causes more chaos then it should. In the words of Talking Heads, as things fell apart, nobody paid much attention.

The second type of employee travels in horizontal packs of usually three, but sometimes as many as five or six across. These people are impossible to maneuver around whether I'm simply trying to get from point A to point B, or I've decided to just walk on a break instead of visiting Starbucks. My Fitbit has a unique way of making me feel like less of a man if I don't take 117 more steps to win the hour. The frustration of not being able to maneuver around type two is only compounded by the fact that if I do manage to find a clear path beyond a chorus line of co-workers, I immediately find myself on a collision course with a member of type one. Naturally, this person is oblivious to his or her surroundings. I have no choice to fall back in line behind type two before an incidental touch with a warrior from type one causes all hell to break loose. For all I know, such a tangible moment could result in a sexual harassment complaint to Human Resources, or accusations of attempted theft of a personal electronic device.      

Employees in the third group must all have Fitbits because I can spot them just by looking at their shoes. This group changes into tennis shoes on breaks or lunches and power walks up and down the atrium. I don't mess with this bunch. Who am I to interfere with someone else's mission? Truth be told, some days I like to just people watch, especially when power walkers swing their arms while walking or insist on demonstratively touching a wall to prove that they made it to the end of a given segment of their journey. I have yet to see an instructor compelling them to do so by yelling words of encouragement into a microphone, though this would admittedly be hilarious.

Quarter miles in solitude are also meaningful because they remind me of my teenage years. This was the time when my taste in music began to take shape, owing to far too many hours in my room listening to bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots, and Soundgarden. Choosing to take steps as an adult in my free time is as empowering today as choosing the next track on my favorite CDs was then. Whether chaos stems from puberty or the workplace, there are few things one can control in life. Among these are musical preferences and the use of one's own body.

Initially, I was drawn to the bands I mentioned earlier because their music was popular at the time. Many of my friends were listening to the same songs, and I wanted to fit in. Or so I thought. Pearl Jam's Jeremy and Soundgarden's Black Hole Sun were all over the radio and MTV, so being into them seemed like just the thing to do. I'll always be able to say that Superunknown was the first CD I bought with my own money and that Pearl Jam's Ten was one of two cassettes I still owned long after even CDs were turning into an antiquity. (The other one is The Joshua Tree by U2.) Though childhood nostalgia will always be tied to those bands that came out of the Pacific Northwest in the late 80s and early 90s, my attachment to the music has evolved as my own circumstances have changed along with the circumstances of the people who made the music.

Seventeen-year-old me was content to understand maybe one out of every five words of a given song as long as I liked the sound. I didn't think much about the subject matter as long as the beat resonated with me emotionally whether I was angry, sad, depressed, or something else.

Interpol's Turn on the Bright Lights (2002) began to change the way I thought about music. When I bought it, I was waist deep in my Master's thesis where I explored the directions of rock and folk music in Yugoslavia during the wars of the 1990s. As a graduate student, I began thinking about not only how music sounded and how it made me feel, but also what the musicians were saying in the lyrics of the songs. NYC from Turn on the Bright Lights is a good example:

I had seven faces Thought I knew which one to wear But I'm sick of spending these lonely nights Training myself not to care

The song spoke to me at a time when I was still processing my parents' divorce, and reflecting on a childhood spent usually doing one of three things: Losing myself in a textbook, gazing up a stereo (most good Catholics were looking up to the Virgin Mary), or seeking sexual release through masturbation. It's amazing how hard some old habits die, and how lengthy the time of dying can be. Think of Unglued by Stone Temple Pilots:

Moderation is masturbation What is what and what makes you feel good? All these things I think about I think about Always come unglued Yeah I got this thing it's comin' over me I got this thing its comin' over me I got this feeling comin' over me Over me

When I got into Led Zeppelin, I began to wonder why many of the artists I'd grown up listening to hadn't included a few words of homage to these influential predecessors in their liner notes. As I discovered the blues of Robert Johnson and Junior Kimbrough, I wondered why Led Zeppelin hadn't done the same thing. More recently, I've come across artists such as Odesza and Pretty Lights, whose music is more electronic in nature. Yet something about the time in my life when I bought Superunknown still has hold of me.

Why do generations have to lose their heroes? Is the loss of such individuals as much a blow to the collective consciousness of men and women of a certain age as it is the true end of an era? I don't imagine musicians like Scott Wieland of Stone Temple Pilots and Chris Cornell of Soundgarden (both of whom haven't been gone all that long) ever set out to be placed on pedestals by throngs of adoring fans. I think their music spoke to a generation that largely wanted to be left alone to gaze up at the stereo. This is not because this generation is afraid of living. Maybe those like me, who can vaguely remember records, but were more concerned about filling the scratches on a randomly discovered copy of Nirvana's Unplugged in New York with toothpaste, found their voices through the music of the period in human history when cassettes were on the way out and filesharing was in its infancy. Maybe we didn't realize the influence their music had on us until we returned to it as adults to look beyond the sounds and into the lyrics. Until those who created it began to leave us.

As I drank a cup of coffee in the early evening of that Friday, I saw a small yellow bird fly full speed into the glass window nearest my desk. Being of a certain age, my first thought was of Soundgarden's song Like Suicide, which I'd read Chris wrote about a crow he killed to put it out of its misery after he heard the ill-fated bird crash into a window.

Dazed out in a garden bed With a broken neck Lays my broken gift

Just like suicide

I immediately thought the bird was dead. It lay there on its back without moving for what seemed like an eternity. His or her fellow birds probably thought so too. Moments after the collision, several even smaller birds hopped gingerly up to their fallen friend and began pecking at him or her. They say the animals are always the first to know.  Still, the comedian in me wondered if, in a darker more cynical sense, the birds were laughing hysterically to themselves. I imagined their dialogue going something like this: "Did you see what Steve's dumb ass did? There's no way he's coming back from that! LOL!"

On a more serious note, some of my concerned co-workers went outside to check on the bird. After several minutes, it managed to stand upright and waddle its way into the grass, having surely sustained one hell of a concussion if not worse. I even wondered if this particular bird had planned to end its life. After all,  just like with humans, one can never be too sure of exactly what goes through someone's mind right before making the ultimate decision.

One of the reasons I'd admired Chris Cornell was that whenever I'd return to the music of Soundgarden, be it after months or even years away, I'd discover a lyrical depth that both my academically-experienced ears and still-youthful soul could appreciate. I also felt that Chris had "made it" where many of his contemporaries had fallen short. He lived past age 27. He had children. Those aspects of his life reminded me that there was hope beyond the desire to  be left to gaze up at the stereo; that the desire to be left alone with your thoughts, to create, is not always a bad thing. Chris and others showed me whether they meant to or not, that you don't have to be a social butterfly or a Social Justice Warrior to be happy.

All these thoughts occurred to me within the five minutes that passed between the bird hitting the window and it staggering away what I assumed would be its final resting place. It's no wonder that those five minutes felt like twenty years.

During those five minutes, I'm sure singular employees were staring at their cell phones to catch up on text messages or wish their cousin's boyfriend's dog a happy third birthday. The last of the packs of five or six across were about to break up for the weekend. Hell, even the power walkers who so demonstratively swung their arms at every opportunity were making plans to meet up at Zumba class on Saturday morning followed immediately by reconvening at the bar to unplug the Wi-Fi, drink wine, and get housewife wasted. Still looking good in yoga pants after two kids, a tummy tuck and a breast lift had to be worth celebrating.

Oblivious to the plight of little yellow bird.

That evening, like most, I chose to walk the quarter mile alone, and enjoy the long days unique to summertime. The bird's sudden and violent ending reminded me of the fragility of life, and how important it is to spend yours doing things that bring you joy. I fall off the wagon sometimes. I don't always eat right, and I'm not ready to publicly disclose my browsing history. But, more often than not, I think I make good choices. I just try to be a decent human being. At some point, despite my nostalgia, I decided I wanted more out of life than being left alone to gaze up at the stereo, but I don't regret listening to music alone in my room. I discovered some damn good stuff in the process. Your taste in music is another of few things you can control in life.

I'm still here though many of those who crafted the soundtrack of my youth are going or have gone away. Knowing they’re gone is tough, but it’ll be okay. I’ll be okay. I still believe there's hope, and no one can take away my freedom to choose hope over despair, life over death, and joy over sadness. Regardless, I’ll embrace whatever life throws at me. No labels. Just an open mind. 

[iges]

2017 Journal Wrap Up

Decided to compile some of the most prominent thoughts of the year into one place to get a full look at how my thoughts evolved over time, while also pushing myself to continue this. it’s dope being able to see your own growth so tangibly. 

January

·        How are you doing?

Where are you going?

When are you growing?

What are you saying?

Who are you being?

Why are you creating?

·        I did not come to teach you / I came to love you / love will teach you

·        It’s easier to raise great children than it is to repair broken parents. But both are hard as hell.

·        Now can we fall in love with southernplayalistic bangin through the night? At least we fell in love with something greater than debating suicide

·        Family has taught and continues to teach me so much in the love and light of their company. I have learned most of all the power of peace. The power in community, how it builds for calm unity

·        “they won’t love you in boston like we do”

·        What we need are two lists. On the left side: This Is What Matters To Me. On the right side: This Is How I Spend My Time. In the middle, one resolution: to make the right side align with the left.

·        Peacock told me he loved me

·        "the difference between the successful man and the mediocre one is as simple as golf. If a mediocre man goes golfing and hits the ball into the pond, he immediately picks up his club and starts yelling blaming it. If a successful man does the same thing, he simply grabs another ball and tries again. Its that ability to bounce back" – Benoit

·        Talking about our parents and their lack of ability to understand a lot of mental and emotional health issues they've caused. "because they live on survival mode, and react by reflex. Like if someone punches towards you, you flinch. That’s how they live their lives. If someone punches towards me, I don’t flinch because experience in karate has taught me that you're too far to do anything to me." our reflexes evolve with our experiences.

·        And just like that I left for boston, he left for Hong Kong, and we’d see when the world brought us together again. Although we are both travelling, flying, free souls, we are never fleeting.

·        “At some point, you gotta decide for yourself who you gonn be”

 February

·        Bonds are elastic, allowing for molecules to vibrate with each other

·        It's like everyone's driving in one direction on the street and there's another road on the ceiling. And you're hanging from the car on the ceiling touching the people below you and there's the pressure of falling down into the bustle of the crowd below. So you've gotta figure out how to flip yourself upside down so you're in the driver's seat and driving in your own direction without the fear of falling. Until you flip your perception on its head you'll be stuck in the same position.

·        People will do anything, no matter how absurd, to avoid facing their own soul at the end of the day. Remember that.

·        I continuously find myself surrounded by great people that push me and help me grow. Challenge me and believe in me in the same breath. It’s beautiful but it also comes with a certain pressure. Pressure to not let them down, while also uplifting yourself.

·        Work on this book, Gesi.

·        I’d rather die of passion than boredom

·        I don’t want to be famous, I just want my work to be.

·        Thank god, thank self for growth. For finally loving who I’m becoming, finally becoming who I’ve always wanted to be.

·        Art and love are the same things. Both grant us the potential to conceive monsters, or to breathe tranquility. It's all there. 

When they don't love you the way     you want to, you mourn that for however long you need to. But then you get     back up and you remind yourself: you are not a reflection of the people     who can't love you.

·        I have come to know far too well the tug-of-war that exists between what is important to me and what is important to the rest of the world, and the friction that may cause.

·        Which do you want: the pain of staying where you are, or the pain of growth?

·        I have to fight for this. Art is the weapon

·        “I’m tryna get like you” “I’m tryna get back like me too”

·        I read something about how raids are going on in Brooklyn for immigrants. I started crying.

·        Curated and ran A Day Without Immigrants. In a matter of 5 hours I was able to mobilize a campus wide event. In the midst of classes and meetings all day. This is what activism, passion, and sacrifice looks like. I am so very proud of you, Gesi. And I love you always for being able to channel your energy in the way that you do. Keep grinding. Keep pushing. Keep creating. You are powerful.

·        Vision keeps growing clearer but I keep losing focus. Gotta change my lens maybe.

·        “I see you changing your M.O. – Mode of Operation”

·        Clear vision. Positive thoughts. Positive actions.

·        Don’t let your hometown limit you.

 March

·        Sometimes you realize things about the people you love that you wish you hadn't. you realize that they're not as strong as or as caring as you think they are. They're not as innocent as your love for them makes them seem. They're glamorous and complicated and cold. Sometimes the people you love don't love you back, or they don't know how to tell you they do. Love feels so young, so reckless and so blinding. Yet it can be so futile, so restless, and so binding. I wonder if it will ever stop feeling this way.

·        Don’t have other people believe in your journey more than you do.

·        This above all else: to thine own self be true.

·        I really don’t care about most things or people but I’m also not inconsiderate

·        Tumbled out of space / crawled out the sea / it’s just love / boundlessly

·        I kick it with my soulmates. All my homies reflect my soul in different forms

·        Mind processes through entrance, experience, evaluation

·        “On the NYC boardwalk” piece, later named The Roughest Kind of Gentle

·        Doesn’t complain so she must not feel pain. Lol

·        “jealous of your confidence”

·        Do something once a day to remind this city why the hell you’re here

·        “never fuck someone you wouldn’t wanna be tho”

·        2 of my friends dropped clothing lines this month, 1 dropped a book and a clothing line, and anotha one is launching next month! Support your friends in their endeavors!! Support them the way you support big name brands that don’t even know ya name. be their biggest fans first! The people I surround myself with motivate me daily to keep pushing and growing. Peace & love.

·        I’m here physically. But my heart and soul are restlessly elsewhere.

·        Need to be stronger. Somefuckinghow.

·        Energy circulates. Tap into your network  

 She said I seek true intimacy in      my relationships, to have someone want to know and understand me while      wanting to know and understand them. As well as being intellectually      challenged

 Traced back my pattern in      relationships with men and people in my life to how I used to do so much      for my parents. How I've always bore so much responsibility and so little      choices. And how they've relied on me for so much growing up that it's      become habitual to help people almost instinctively.

·        Went to ahzeme’s the other night. So as it turns out, he’s been in a relationship this whole time and has been cheating with me. Why would you ever put me in a position like this without my consent.

o   One thing I will not have is you having me out here looking stupid. “who’d I make you look stupid in front of?” “myself. And that’s all that matters.”

o   “because I feel like I can rely on you for anything. I know you’ll always be there and try to understand and help.”

·        “thank you for growing and still tryna be a good person regardless of how people treat you”

·        Isn’t it funny how people always love a free spirit until that spirit actually seeks to be free?

·        She has her mother’s quiet

·        Don’t hang out with people who make you justify your vibe. Black holes don’t give light back.

·        You don't want people to understand it you want them to wonder how the fuck you're making it work. And you carry on. And you fucking be great – Skepta

·        Trippy. Intimate. Beautiful.

·        I want me first and foremost, and nobody else.

And sometimes I keep my feelings     to myself because I can find no language to express them in.

Because no matter where you run,     you end up running into yourself. Remember that

Keep my best work on top of me at     all times to remind myself what I'm capable of

 April

·        Guys kept following me and pri. Guy tried to put a curse on me at pizzeria. Guy threw a sandwich at me mike and alozie lmaoooooo

·        Impact investment

·        Stop going through the motions and start moving.

·        Don’t nobody ask me for no more parts of me.

·        Another kid on campus committed suicide today. It's crazy the dark spaces this school and its environment can drive people into.

My     daddy taught me how to drink my pain away. My daddy taught me how to leave     somebody. My daddy taught me you don't need nobody

And     I aint never felt no way bout this life shit do or die

Lost     my god tonight?

·        All people are looking for is a trip in me

·        Life feels like a constant state of sobering up for other people. You're always on this higher journey. And others are disruptions that you get carried away in

·        The world operates on energy. You attract

·        I have always been too intense for others.

·        Rumeer trusts me enough to rest. And because he trusts me I feel like I have to look after him

·        I wanted to write but I just felt so much. That’s why you write. Because we’ve all got stories to tell, but how many of us will write the book?

·        I’m not angry because I take the time to understand things and people.

·        My mind is a web.

·        The situation with tommy reminded me of _______

·        It’s my job to create spaces where people can trip out in each other and their own creativity

·        "if there's ever a problem and I film it, it's no longer a problem. It's a film" - andy Warhol

·        i am of those women who keeps the shame our mothers braided into our hair

proudly wears the guilt they have sewn into the very fiber of our being

 i mean i get it,

the culture should have overpowered any foolish desire i may have had

even if this foolish desire is love.

i get it,

ignorance should have desiccated any feeling out of my blood and turned my body to salt

to by washed away by these other men

these more acceptable men

i get it,

my heartstrings are healing and you wanted to ask the doctor to take reign of them once again,

because some self proclaimed doctor told you this intermingling of races is an illness

so you can't believe the miracle happening in front of you,

proclaim it a chronic illness,

wonder how long it'll last before it kills you

i mean me.

 she asks me where this fear stems from.

where this guilt grows from.

you see, when every part of your identity is not represented in your culture

you become a latchkey child of the cosmos

when everything you do is a disappointment to those that created you

you run for cover,

hide every piece of you they wouldn't want to discover

let fear and guilt grow inwardly and hover

let that become your lover.

because you never know what the last string may be.

and you know all too well

how disappointment can sometimes smother love

 so i am of those women that hides behind love like fake innocence.

approach every situation with ambivalence

but it's hard when you see this fighting for love as militant

don't you know you raised a soldier?

don't you know she's only grown bolder?

don't you know as much as this love is militant, it is just as much imminent?

just as much limitless, just as much divine.

and so,

if all you see is race

Then I guess we'll see you at the finish line.

 May

·        3:03 am just watched Mustang. Very emotional. Hit even closer to home than I expected. Need to watch with significant other one day to show them the things I can’t explain about my upbringing

·        I’ve been thinking of Albania a lot lately

·        I think of home and my tongue tangos with exhaustion.

·        He is truly one of the most beautiful pure souls I have ever come across.

there you are. moonbeams and     madness. sunshine and chaos. how did they ever let you not love yourself?     i remember the hidden logs, hushed and griping beneath your energetic body     as you squirmed and squealed your way atop mountains, atop sins, atop     convictions. the rocks barely able to hold onto your soul, so they kept a     piece of your skin to remember you by each time you passed them. the way     water wanted every part of you so badly it clung onto you hoping to fill     your lungs with its presence each time you stepped in it. nature wanted to     be a part of you as much as you wanted to be a part of it. just before you     fell and drank all of the water from the Red Sea. Red from your skinned     knees. i saw you drown and come back baptized. Young girl full of sassy     sanctification, the water cycle churns inside your body since the moment     you entered it, since the moment it entered you; do you weep still because     no one seas you? there you are. i sea you, my dear gesea. waterfalls and     wings. do you sea you yet? how did they ever let you not love yourself? do     you finally?

·        Everyday above ground is a good day

·        We come from men who do not know when they were born

We come from women who do not know when they came alive

If they ever even did

They came together and had daughters full of all the misguided language.

·        I know what it is like to not be from here, to not be from anywhere

So I make myself a home for these boys to grow into men here

·        My blue passport makes me american but most days I don't feel it / in new york I am more ambiguous than I am american / in boston they think I am hispanic because of my accent and attitude

·        I have enough pages to stitch them into wings

·        "as an artist you have to keep reinventing yourself," he said. "in a marriage, you have to be consistent. It's difficult"

·        We got that….silent and confused kinda love

·        “when your boo is an artist, the visuals they can paint is insane”

·        A genuine beautiful soul. A connection far beyond what I have experienced before. He brings out the childlike curiosity in me again. I want to learn everything about him and indulge in his interests while showing him my own. I want us to be our own people while understanding and loving each other's person.

·        I have never believed in time, but I have always believed in your enabling of it / I have never believed in time but it tugs at my flesh, as I am reminded of how to love you from afar.

9:22 pm spines leaning into one     another, skin symphonies, soft percussion sounds seem like silk as it cups     us, encircles us, we will write love all over each other, how often will     we write? In a circumference of pain, I think there is nothing else worth     writing, worth loving.

·        I don’t do this just because it’s fun. I do it because I can’t shake the feeling

 And I think of how they think.      How they want the earth to swallow them because they couldn't swallow the      woman they wanted whole.

 Te      kendosh edhe te creosh

 Ne      qofte se nuk eshte cultura, nuk eshte kenga, nuk ke se ta shikosh dot veten

 If there is no culture, no songs,      you haven't got anything to look at yourself in

·        And what is a black boy / but a spectacle / a shimmy and a shake / a shuck and a jive / a shackle and a cry / a black thing only alive to entertain  

And what is a spectacle / but a lens / a glass to look both at and through / a perspective offered through transparency / a mirror that often wants to see other people / a lack of recognition of a reflection / a disheveled tornado dissipating right before your very eyes / an eye of a storm / an empty space filled with destroyed things  

And what is a woman / but a bolt of lightning / a brilliant streak of light in the midst of a storm / a rippling silent strength / one just as powerful as thunder, without all the noise

And what is a man / but a striking of thunder / a booming voice in the sky / an accumulation of noise / always trying to be the most powerful one in the room / one that cuts silence like a knife

And what is a language / but a knife / a collection of different sizes, shards, and blades / a dual blade with a hardwood handle / its power coming from the tongue that it weighed / used to cut, create, destroy, build, spread, hunt, attack, collapse / a manifestation of thoughts made blade

And what is a thought but a string / a connection / a concoction of ideas held together by the balance of belief and knowledge / a steady stringing, building of connection

And what is a connection / but mist / intangibility felt / a fluidity that melts at hearts / at hands / an energy that demands

And what is love / but an energy / chaos turned benevolence / suns devouring forests / in growth and flourishment / one that starts at the self and spreads in nourishment

           And what is energy / but the universe

And what are we / but the universe

  June

·        Making poetry people can forgive themselves to

·        At what point do you realize your influence? Impact? How is this different from your worth?

·        What is your soul food?

·        I run my fingers through my hair, looking for the splitting end of a poem

·        We clutch each other moreso out of the necessity for warmth than ever the desire for romance.

·        This time bomb of youth

·        Maybe there is no such thing as a country. Maybe there is just gutted land and sharp teeth that have torn at my flesh for so long I’m not exactly sure which wound is the one I belong to

·        “no one ever taught us how to introduce ourselves…our parents accidentally made us emotionally impoverished. I think that’s the true lesson behind materialism: that you lose sight of emotional wealth in a very serious way that goes unnoticed.”

o   And so we ain’t all grow up the same kinda poor.

·        Anything you do, could fail. Everything you don’t, will.

·        Consciousness is an unreliable narrator. It speaks endlessly. It comes with many voices. Not all are to be trusted. Consciousness comes with a person. or several. They all call themselves “self”. Not all are to be trusted.

·        Be careful what you say in that it tells you what you think (of yourself).

·        A lesson on empathy on the 2 train

·        I’m strong. But I’m also more than strong. At times, I am weak and lonely and afraid and anxious and angry and silly and happy and defiant and bored. Sometimes, I don’t even know what I am, and sometimes I don’t know what I am in English – I can only explain it in a different language.

·        Think I caught a vibe

·        Poetet dhe vajzat e bukura, shpesh jane njerzit me t’vetmuar ne bote.

·        “you will always be my beautiful blessing from the east. And you are still one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever laid my eyes on.”

·        This book is really coming together.

·        I wrote my heart in a poem. It made a home of itself there. It doesn't pay rent. It invites everyone over but takes up the whole room. There are bodies piled in here now, expecting, demanding a space in a heart that never belonged to them. This heart is a tricky thing. It gives and gives itself to everyone but still stands alone. And all these bodies lay there, pounding to its very rhythm in hopes of catching it when it falls. But there is no room for falling. We are standing in the love we grant and give others everyday. It takes up the whole room. It grows too big for itself. It makes its way onto the pavement, breathes its fire into the city and wraps itself around it, taking everyone it once loved with it and made a home of itself there

  July

·        Did u get my vibes man? I’m thinking we are all going to be alright.

·        I am my motherland free from bondage

·        This is one of the hardest summers to date

·        I know some things are better left unsaid and some people better left alone.

But I still pick up the phone.

·        There’s a future version of me who’s proud I was strong enough

·        All around there’s silence. Everyone decides for themselves whether that’s loneliness or freedom.

·        Distance, too, is good.

Because you are far away

I feel you are very close to me.

Yes—

But what of proximity? Of union?

When you come near, then, my love, you are far away. – truth

·        talking with mike about the concept of love. Love is an energy in that it can never be created or destroyed merely transformed into different forms for different people and things. Love is chaos turned benevolence. asked me to clarify. love, as an energy, when left untampered with exists in its purest form. but you take an energy and put it between two parties who each come with their own set of experiences, people, upbringings, pasts, etc. this turns it chaotic. but the benevolence comes in when we finally see this chaos as something beautiful.

so what is love in its purest form what does that look like?

honestly, self-love is i think the purest form of love.

so the goal of any love exchange or experience is to love the other person how you would love yourself; in this exchange you are treating someone as you would want to be treated and thus are showing them how you want to be loved and they in turn should do the same. this is the most ideal situation.

·        And I think that's the really peculiar part about being in your own company is the urge to both stay and go.

The only thing separating me from becoming who I know I can and need to be is the hard work and dedication. When you really get that, I mean when you really see that Beyonce isn't unique, she just works hard; Steve Jobs isn't really unique, he just works hard, perhaps that is what makes them unique. What sets people apart is their hard work. Once you see that, you can be exactly who you want to be. I don't want people to be offended by my need for solitude. I just feel like I have to become what I am. And ever since I realized I can be exactly what I want to be, it has really shaken me. And I just can't go back to a time where I thought about anything but writing, anything but making myself to be human. And it's scary because once you know that you have to become this thing, it means that you're plagued with the voice of possible failure, but that voice is pushing you so loud that you can't betray your future self.

·        I don't think I've ever felt more alone than I have these days. But I've also never loved it more, loved me more. I can't run away from this. I think oftentimes, that's what we do in times of loneliness, we automatically run from it and in an inability to escape, fill it. I plan on staying in this space for a while. I implore to explore it. But I think that's easy for me to say as someone who's never felt at home amongst other people. But it's still for everyone, this exploration of the self. Maybe I miss myself. Maybe I've missed myself this entire time. Truth is, I don't think I've ever truly met her before--myself. We've flirted a few times but I haven't taken her out to get to know her more until recently. I think I am trying to tell myself something even I don't know yet. But it sounds beautiful so far, from here. I plan on staying here for a while. Damn it feels good to bask in the glory of your own solitude. Kendrick had it right, this what god feel like. I think it is in these waking moments of solitude and silence that the self is born, discovered, and furthered. She is trying to push me deeper so I can be fully, wholeheartedly myself. And fall into the person I have always wanted to be. Thank God, thank Self for growth.

I     guess I just never thought, believed, was never taught to believe I could     be the one to do it. I guess it's because I could be the one to do it. I     guess it's because I come from spaces that do not teach us we can be what     we are meant to, want to, be. Only what they need us to be. I never     believed in all my years and love of reading, that I could be the one to     use language to craft pieces and experiences that evoke and provoke. I     mean, it all started somewhere, right? People created languages out of     nothing and gave them meaning. Shakespeare created his own language     because the preexisting one wasn't fitting enough to convey what he wanted     to express. And some call that ignorant and some call it creative, but     regardless it worked for him. He did it because he felt he had to, to be     able to go on. He created something out of a preexisting thing and gave it     meaning. This is what it's all about, I think. It all boils down to     creating your own rules. I come from such opposite cultures with different     languages that my tongue needs new rules to express because these exist on     opposite ends of a spectrum. The space in between all these differences is     comprised of nothing. We must make something out of it and give it     meaning.

·        What motivates the artist?

What gives the artist her voice?

What gives the artist her courage?

Who/what gives the artist the will to create?

·        But greatness, innovation, I do not believe these entities are entirely inspiration as they are digging-- digging both into one's craft and into one's self.

·        Bless the child that can hold his own, flesh and bone

And no matter where I roam, I feel right at home, and that's the real shit

-xzibit

·        Sins of a father make your life ten times harder

·        Be the person you needed when you were younger

o   When I was younger, I needed writers—authors, poets, artists, creatives—so I became just that.

·        How can they crave the fire but fear the flame?

·        You never know how many lives you impact by simply just being there.

 Lesson: thoughts and feelings      aren't everlasting but everchanging. Remember this next time you're      beating yourself up over something.

I say “sometimes to drown is the water entering your body looking for a home”

And I notice so many men in my life washed ashore at my temples

If the body is a temple, why do they come here drowning in sin?

If the body is an ocean, why do they never learn how to swim?

·        I put in my 10,000 hours and then some. I lived under a roof that didn’t support my craft for almost two decades. I wrote, at bare minimum, 200 words every day for the past three years. I still do. I featured in shows I didn’t pay a dime for and others that I invested a few dollars in. I put my money where my mouth is and supported nothing but artistry for years in college. I heard no and all of its echoes hundreds of times. I earned my yes’s. I sacrificed eating and sleeping for creating. I gave up just about every casual friendship because I didn’t have time to bullshit. I couldn’t cheat myself out of any possible opportunity. I’ve been to hell for this, and I’m almost back. If you overlook me now, you’re going to look foolish. I’m building something that will be here after I leave this place, and there’s space in it for all of you.

I love you.

-Ges

·        1st trip: discovery & purpose (DAMN.)

2nd trip: closure & arrival

·        Today traveling is home base. But we knew this already.

·        Fuck the lines. FUCK THE RULES.

·        I haven’t slept all summer long.

·        What is your vibe? What do you dedicate your vibe to?

·        I am Durim. But in the best way possible. In all the ways you couldn’t be.

·        And fuck fame that killed all my favorite artists. All my favorite artists (today) keep themselves out of the spotlight but make sure they’re not in the shadows.

·        “you are just enough”

·        Book is published. (07.27.17)

 August

·        Sitting in the airport with James Baldwin in my ears and in my bag, and my own book in my lap.

Being able to truly disconnect     from a world I've known for so long is exciting me so much.  I wanna disappear for a while, and need     it now more than ever. I do what I need to do quietly and then make noise     and dip. And I love living life this way; having no one know what I'm up     to until I announce and release. It's great having people think you're up to     nothing and then surprise them. Now for the next few weeks it's like I     have to learn how to do things without thinking about social media.     Without having my phone on me all the time, without all the constant     pressure to post everything I'm doing and perform for an audience that's     always watching your next move, I get to fully enjoy my time back home.     get to fell the authenticity of all these moments of intimacy between     myself and my motherland. It's been so long. We have so much to learn     about each other still to this day. We have both changed so much. Even the     journey here is the transition into the change in pace and lifestyle.     While most flights are riddled and filled with reading and writing and     constant productivity of sorts; the energy on this one is different.     Watched the first season of Atlanta, let jazz sounds play in my ears as I     drifted off into the sleep I haven't been able to get all summer, and     rested for the first time in a while. Thought about how talented Donald     Glover is, how he is an artist to the core of the word, to the core of his     person. Always creating something new. And you don't always have to be     doing the same thing forever. It's all about what we dedicate our vibe to.     That was the lesson I took from my last trip as I embark upon this one.     It's all about what we dedicate our vibe to. And that can be anything you     put your mind to, you've just got to make the choice.

Albums that have defined my year:     DAMN, At.Long.Last.A$AP, Blond

·        For the first time in a long time, I feel like I’m ready to go back home.

·        This is to say, there are parts of you even in the places you no longer consider home.

How do you know somethings before     you really even know them or are ready to? This kept tripping me out     during my last trip. I would think I was realizing something new     about myself or the world and then a random line of my poetry would pop in     my head and I would understand my words, myself a bit better each time.     And surprise myself.

And so I am awoken by a     breathtaking view of stars covering the sky, blanketing over the     mountains. A few hours later, the stars have faded, the sky lightened from     its former pitch black, but still not light out, and I am awoken by the     sounds of the rooster nearby. A call to the town to wake up and begin the     simple life they have always known as theirs.

This     is a beautiful place to grow up. But once you're grown, where do you go? (conversations with nuse lida)

And I wonder if there are any     other artists here awake at this time. Up creating to their souls content     at 5am. In the dark of course, hiding in the shadows under the stars. But     they don't have time for creativity here, they need to survive. Sometimes     it feels like that’s the only reason I'm still here.

I don't just do this because it's     fun, I do it because I can't shake the feeling.

·        A R T – Arrive Receive Transform

·        I was going to write down all the realizations I had this summer as I had them and got worried due to lack of time. But then I realized, once you realize something, it’s yours and stays with you forever.

·        I understand my gravitational energy better after watching my parents from afar.

·        I listen so much more than I speak here

·        This has been the most emotional trip of my life, for everyone.

 September

Do you remember the last time you     felt something for the last time?

Back on my "oh word that's ya     energy?" shit again

I am tired of raising men and them     then disrespecting me or acting like they don't wanna know me anymore.

Coming in with peaceful energy     this year. It's interesting to see how we've all grown and how sometimes     that makes people grow apart. I'm glad the people I keep close to me are     always looking to grow and prosper and find inner peace. It's interesting     how others switch up as soon as they've milked as much as they can/want     out of you. I am currently on the journey of learning to not be salty and     hold any hard feelings. He who acts, also bears the reaction they receive.     I gotta continue to focus and grow while they continue sleepin on me. I     promise you'll know about me one day and be mad you didn't earlier when     you had the chance.

I no longer struggle with my     mortality. It's like the homeless poet said to me "you can die     tomorrow and be fine because you put something of yours into the earth.     That's forever. You live forever in your creations" and I can't help     but feel so much thinking about that. About how big that is. And I get so     emotional. I've been thinking about death a lot lately. But I could really     die anytime and be okay with that because I created and concreted my mark.     And it's scary. And it's surreal. And it's beautiful.

And once again, I can't believe     this is my life. Whenever I used to think of death before, I always wanted     to be my own cause but was also too scared of myself and my potential to     ever do something like that. Now, I know that my life is in my hands but I     no longer want my death to be in my hands. And I'm no longer scared.

No     fear, what's stopping me?

·        Remember when you wanted what you currently have

·        The rage you feel? Listen to me carefully. It’s a gift. Use it, but don’t let anyone see it.

·        Support feels so beautiful. Wish I could feel it more often. Shit is breathtaking.

·        What is a win? A small quiet life? How do you measure that? What does freedom look like?

·        So yes…I’m really trying to write myself free.

·        “I asked God for it. and I got back ‘are you sure? Ok. Just know everyone can’t go’”

·        God willing. Your willing

I think this is what happened to     me this summer. For the first time in my life, I was forced to face my     pain in that I was finally processing and letting it go through the     process of writing and knowing I was going to share with others, that I     was going to articulate a pain that belonged to me and me only for so     long, but that I knew also belonged to others, and that in releasing it     out into the world I was freeing myself from it, and so many others. And     so I felt it more than ever in such a short amount of time, even more than     when it first pained me. And I think that is our jobs as artists, to mirror     Toni Morrison's shared notion, to free ourselves through expression and in     that process, free others. And this is the first time you truly see     yourself. It's such a trippy, crazy feeling, really. After all these years     of self-reflection, expression, feeling like you know yourself, growth,     after all this time- to not have known yourself at all, to not have faced     yourself once, to not have healed or freed yourself from all that weighs     down on you, this is perhaps the hardest realization to swallow and address     with yourself. To always wonder what it is to make yourself human, to     think you are in the process of doing so your whole life, only to realize     two decades later, you have just started.

·        These people really think I give a fuck about the shit they give a fuck about. Just need a moment of silence. Just close ya fuckin mouth

"It's just that every time I     hang out with you and I mean really spend time with you outside of just     tryna get in your pants. When I really spend time with you, you fuck with     me mentally. And idk no one else really does that to me.”

Rape is the reason I look at all     men as sexual opportunities. My father is the reason I’m numb to it all.     How the fuck do I combine the two in healing?

How do I disrupt an entire     culture?

Growth     doesn’t come in peace but for peace.

A     lot of people hate me because I love them more than they love themselves.

I’m     only out here just tryna impress myself now

 October

·        “life is a summary of your actions”

·        It’s all about what you dedicate your vibe to

·        “people are changing their perception of you quicker than you can process any of it” catch up and move accordingly

·        People are really trying to fuck with my energy lately

·        Art’repreneurship. I’m going to do this, with or without babson.

·        Self-investment is the best investment

·        I am an equation seeking its language, searching for its variables. I am steadily subtracting myself from situations, making alterations, building models, adding together messages I find at the bottom of empty bottles, dividing the self from multiplicitous absolutes, all while tracing my linear roots.

·        Short films as a trend in music is something I’m really interested in exploring and studying more of.

 I am grieving missing fatherhood      for both myself and my father. And his father. Ain't that some shit. How      does that not weigh down on you?

 The way my parents view my      creative career affects the way I live it in silence. I come from a      family of silence, I was raised by it, and that's how I try to raise      myself to the places I want to be. That's why I can't handle making too      much noise at once- I have to disappear immediately. But this is where      things conflict. I need to be heard, want to be heard, need to use my      voice for the power it is, but every once in a while am reminded of how I      never knew how to, forget how to.

 How far can I go if every few      months I have to act like it doesn't even exist? Like I don't even exist?      What does that do to one's confidence? To one's faith? To one's drive? To      one's dreams?

·        The place in which I’ll fit will not exist unless I make it.

·        “hopefully you can free me from this shit too”

·        “you’re in charge of keeping me in control”

·        “you might be just the right break I need to be quite honest”

·        “do you think drugs is a party of every creative?” “I think creativity is drugs”

It's been two years without you     gramps.

I can't believe I forgot your birthday. I can't believe I almost forgot about today. I can't believe I let myself get this wrapped up in this shit. Gotten so distracted from the real. Thank you for grounding me a bit more. For existing as you did. I'm gonna talk to dad today about you. I know he's still grieving every day. I know he's been crying today, in random spurs of moments. Like picking up a screwdriver at work and remembering your hunger for work, always finding something to do, to keep yourself occupied, to have something  to work towards, something to look forward to. He's been crying for you all summer. He made you and grandma a beautiful grave, lemme tell you. Everyone is so proud of him. Hopefully, you are too. Have you ever been proud of him? I made that presentation of your life, and showed everyone. We had a big lunch for you. Everyone was so proud of me. For the first time. Your own daughters never knew you sang. Ain't that some shit? How we manage to live these secret parts of our lives. And how sometimes, those parts are our entire life's purpose. I don't know how much longer I can live in secrecy gramps. I also realize we come from a lineage of abandoned parenthood and missing fathers. I am grieving for myself, for my father, and for you too. And for who knows how many years. I wonder how much generational trauma you have passed down to me. This was such an emotional trip. The other day, we went apple picking and orjada asked "did we bring one for grandpa?" and we laughed but I'm not sure it was funny. More like, one of those uncomfortable wow laughs. Like a that’s so silly but goddamn. You're really gone. But always here. Always with us. I've never seen dad love someone as much as he loved you. It's touching to know he's capable of such. It's beautiful and hurtful to witness. It is so many things gramps. This was such an emotional trip. I don't think one day passed without seeing mom or dad cry. Yet, we still live such separate lives. And now, you're no longer living in this life at all. Is there another one after this? I don't know how many more I can handle. I can't believe there is ever a point of just resting and peace. I'm striving for peace more than happiness these days, I think it's a nice adjustment. I think it's a growth adjustment. You're in my book, gramps. I wrote a book, gramps. I published it. mom and dad don't know. And if you were here, you wouldn't either. But I'm just saying it out into the world hoping someone will be proud of me, even if it isn't in this life. How do I make them proud gramps? How do I not let it kill my spirit? Is this all even worth it? People ask me what's going on lately and I pretend to complain about all this shit that isn't even real, pretend to care about these mediocre people. But what's really killing me is this secret life gramps. And the fear of them ever finding out. The fear of losing another piece of family, even tho it wasn't quite there before. There's not a day that goes by without me thinking about it. I went home recently and realized I'm so far detached from that place. There's almost nothing that draws me back besides devin and orjada. Mom is begging us to get married, gramps. I don't know how to tell her no, I don't know, how marriage ain't for everybody, how I don't know if I'll ever be capable of loving someone like that, how I don't know if someone will ever be able to love me in my wholesomeness. She doesn't care. Said we need to celebrate the new house. The one you built with your bare hands. You were so smart. You were so wise. You were so hard-working. You were so respected. You were so loved. All of the above still stands true, years later. You made your mark on that village, in cities, in another country even. I can only hope to continue to draw it out. I'm so glad you finally got a chance to rest. I hope you're resting easy, gramps, still restless as always but more peaceful. Rest in full peace. I love you.

"There's something about     making you smile and blush that gives me purpose. I definitely want to     feel that for the rest of my life"

·        How many soul do you touch a day?

·        I wear my vibe on my sleeve

·        F R E Q U E N C Y

·        Free cash flow

Free bands flow

Free man know

Ain’t nothing free no mo’

·        “I love you”

o   Something beyond language but not beyond notice

 November

·        Energy doesn’t lie

·        “you’ve got really great energy, you know that?” –from across the room

·        You know who a man truly is once he doesn’t get what he wants

·        Shared vibration / reincarnates conversations, maybe not had in this lifetime, but perhaps in another. Catch that feeling of familiar and let it uncover.

·        It’s 4 am and I’m tired of men making me feel guilty for the shit they do. Or the way I choose to live my life.

·        What’s a love poem but a pair of wings?

·        Break often-- not like porcelain, but like waves. So when you think everything is crashing down, remember that a wave must crash before a new one develops and rises.

·        Spirits doing this dance with one another and it feels like freedom

·        Every day I eclipse the me of yesterday. We come to what seems like toward each other, only to realize one of us is further ahead than we may have realized and ultimately comes to the forefront of character until it outshines the other, completely.

Writing always works for me, even lifts me out of     depressions. Because it is in writing that I (most) experience my     autonomy, my strength, my not needing other people.

Lots of people will tell you how     difficult it is to be an artist, but not many people will tell you how     difficult it is to not be an artist.

·        The men worry about her but she doesn’t stress any of them

·        Never has a show exposed me as much as She’s Gotta Have It has. Came for my whole neck and then some.

·        Content curation

  When someone shows you who they       are, believe them

   December

·        Fuller than the moon

·        Been doing a journal exercise where I go back into older months and look at the questions I was asking myself. Rewriting them and answering them in separate entries. It’s been a really interesting way of measuring growth and how I now have answers to questions I was once asking, wondering when I’d have them.

·        dancing vertigo around the centerline

i in my heart pour

too many people in line for the good life

too much aggression

40 degrees celsius (thats fuckin hot america)

my love for you is relative

i disappear and heal myself

i distance friends

i am a system to myself waking over gravity

i have loved and kept moving being a creature of the universe

whether that love loved me back or not

please expect nothing more

·        i mount the dissonance and dissassociation of this reclining northern hemisphere

certain of pole position and retro slack

certain of a silk view off curled road

the sterilization of isms and academic smirks

the mocking pop of business suits on a tuesday

i am not seeking a theme

i am not a font

these lines are not abstractions but concrete bombardments you are passing to fast over

hold a minute and watch this slow smooth walking

perhaps you oughta learn something

hold a minute and feel this gushing miracle existing for itself alone

i am in a good mood among meaninglessness

what does that do for you?

·        salvage my golden self and remind him hunting a vibe is something you can't discuss but if they cum while reading you, then fuck baby.

·        “Ms. Universe Juice”

·        “you’re a trippy person and people need something to trip out in”

·        You’ve gotta be careful who you pretend to be before it becomes who you are.

·        He tells me I remind him of his mother

Tells me he's never loved a woman like this since his mother

Tells me I remind him of her

Back home

Nothing but a trip away

It's not love that you're feeling darling,

it's a trip,

not a stay.

·        He buries his face in my neck and tells me I smell like his mother

Like memories from his childhood

Like times where he used to be held

Like a time travel to simpler times

Asks me to take him there

Wonders if he could trip out on the trip there.

·        You’ve got to be careful of the energy you carry with you. People always ask me why im so happy and shining and it's because the energy I carry with me everywhere I go affects everything and everyone around me; it affects the person who makes my coffee in the morning, it affects the person I walk by on my way to class, it affects my professor, it affects my friends and even strangers that watch from afar.

·        I need someone to stick around past the initial excitement. To not get blinded, shocked by it and assume it’s only temporary. I am always true to myself. Just because it shocks you, just because you’re not used to it doesn’t stop me in the slightest.

·        I need to be and feel like more than just a trip. Maybe this is the curse of being “too” independent. Whatever the fuck that is. No one ever sticks around for long/ long enough.

o   “you’re like the freeist bird flying out here. I thought I could never get a hold of you”

·        I don’t know what love is baby

So please don’t ask me now.

Love was a country he knew nothing about.

I don’t have the answers baby.

What you know about love? What love know about you?

Love knows me far better than I know it. perhaps because I haven’t taken the time and effort to get to know it really until recently. Much like myself. Perhaps that’s where all the answers lie—in myself. And we know this already. But how to dig deeply for answers within you, which you are too scared to face the questions of yet? But how else to go on? But what else is life, if not a constant state of searching, digging, discovering, only to question and dig deeper, in waves? If not a constant dissatisfaction with what already exists, a constant “but what else?” And what is the life of an artist but the constant reconfiguration of a frequency which seeks to create for the world, that which doesn’t already exist within it?

And so, what is the love of an artist but a constant rebirth of itself, the constant edits of a creation until it becomes an energy which satisfies both the artist and the world?

But isn’t energy always a changing force in our universe?

And so this, my dear, is why people are afraid to love artists. And though in denial, are even more terrified of an artist loving them with a never-ending, ever-lasting energy.

And yet, this is what makes my self-love so beautiful, so breathtaking, so exciting. I never know where this love will take me next. I am learning something new about myself every day. I learn by doing what I want and need to do to go on. And this going-on is what makes this love ongoing.

·        I think there is no better timing in how I’ve read through Another Country.