#i came from kpop communities where there are closed networks

[bin1es]

random gifs from this video because he's just too cute 🎀

[canaryatlaw]

okay, well today was decent. I didn't have court until 11 and not much else to do, so I got up at 10:45 (I did set my alarm for every 30 minutes prior to that to check my email and make sure nothing came up, as is my usual practice when I'm sleeping in). we waited a while for court, but that much was expected after yesterday. things didn't go quite as planned, but the judge's objections seemed largely technical, and she didn't actually seem opposed to what we were really asking for, so I wasn't too upset over it. We had a work half day (for pre-labor day) so I was pretty much done for the day after that. I decided to be productive and put a load of laundry in, and went through a few boxes trying to do some unpacking, but felt kinda overwhelmed because there's just so much stuff I don't know what to do with (it was either stuffed under my bed or in a massive pile in my closet, and I don't really have the closet space for that here) so most of it ended up in the corner pile that we're planning on sticking in a storage unit. my back ended up bothering me pretty badly after a while so I took a break and watched the second most recent legends episode since I've been behind (I missed the last two episodes while I was in NY/flying back, or supposed to be flying back) and then around 4 pm I started dinner, because we were planning on watching the new girls planet 999 episode when my roommate got home from work around 4:45. The recipe was for cheesy chicken quesadillas, and I ended up spreading them out over more tortillas because they originally wouldn't stay closed haha but they came out pretty well, though for some reason most of the cheese and chicken kind of got pushed to the top of the tortilla? odd, but still delicious. we've been trying one of the dinner prep services (dinnerly), and some of the recipes have been good, but some have been kinda bland, so idk if we're going to stick with them or try another one. I know it'll be helpful when I'm in the office more days, and I initially picked them because they were on the cheaper side, but it may be worth investing a bit more for a better one. idk, we'll see how the next few weeks go and decide from there. once my roommate got home, we started watching the episode. it was the first elimination, and they were eliminating 45 out of the 99 girls, so it's obviously a bit one (the show is supposed to have a 3 month timeline, but it took until episode 5 to get to the first elimination because there are so many contestants, so the first few eliminations are gonna be pretty large- the second they announced is going to be another 30) and we had the rankings from last week, so we had a pretty good idea of where everyone stood. the whole concept of the show is they have 33 korean girls, 33 chinese girls, and 33 japanese girls, to ultimately form a 9 member girl group. for the first elimination, voting was by cell, each one containing one girl from each group, to try and keep things fairly even this far along. korean votes count for 50% and international votes count for 50%, so I think they were trying to avoid a ton of chinese and japanese girls from getting eliminated right off the bat. most of the girls we like we knew were pretty likely to be safe, but this one girl (her name is Kim Hyerim) I started liking over the last week or so, pretty late into the voting period, and she's SO GOOD but her cell was ranked really low, so I was high key concerned about it. They were keeping the top 17 cells, then they were going to save one girl from each group with the "planet pass" by the judges pick. so pretty much everyone I liked was in the top 17 cells, except Hyerim and like, she was the leader of the group that won the overall challenge out of all the teams and heavily featured in the episode, so I was going to be majorly pissed if she got eliminated, and THANK GOD she got the planet pass or I was seriously going to be so mad. so I was happy about that. they then announced the top 9 individual rankings, which were a bit of a surprise, because everyone expected it to be korean girls in the

higher ranks, but the three korean girls who made it (it was 3 from each group, not sure if that was intentional or not) were relatively low ranked, with the highest being #4, and that girl (her name is Yujin) pretty much everyone expected to be in first, because she was a member of a very well known kpop group named CLC that just disbanded, and has a huge fanbase, so that was a big upset, but the network kind of set themselves up for it by focusing on so many of the korean girls and relatively few of the chinese and japanese girls, so the votes for them were more focused around a few girls while the korean votes were more split. the whole thing was very emotional and I cried a lot lol like why did I get myself into this?? but I was overall pretty happy with how everything ended up. the episode was 2 hours long (they're pretty much all that long, if not longer), but once we finished we just did our usual watch music videos and such until roommate went to bed. I stayed up a little while longer before starting to get ready for bed and shower, and now I'm here. I'm trying not to stay up too late because I gotta get up in the morning and head down to church for a thing for the justice center- we're gonna go around to the community and spread info about it to hopefully get more clients to help, so that should be good, and on that note I'm gonna go to bed now since I have to get up earlier than I normally would on a Saturday. Goodnight friends. Happy weekend.

[violetsystems]

#personal

I watched most of the inauguration through Lady Gaga on Wednesday.  Regardless what you think about politics in America, we can all admit the moment changed decisively.  Or at least the side of us that don’t storm capitols with guns or anything.  My landlord stutters to find words for me other than “good” when I deliver the rent check early.  So by now, these kind of winds of change solidify something about me at least.  Regardless what you’ve heard about me people talk nonetheless.  Just like they talk shit about the president whoever it happens to be at the time.  America has always been extremely tribal.  You don’t have to watch Gangs of New York to figure that one out.  I live in a city with a well defined Sanctuary culture.  I’ve walked the walk and talked the talk the last four years.  Living under Trump with that kind of pressure and fear daily starts to turn neighborhoods into pressure cookers.  Everyone is on edge.  Nobody knows how to be nice.  Wednesday I decided to put my best foot forward in this new era and shovel the snow on the block.  It didn’t go unnoticed.  I definitely got some dirty looks which is something I’m used to by now trying to put some good in the world.  One of the gang members on the block came up to me later that day to thank me at least.  They don’t live here on this block but they also shovel the snow.  They’re named after a chess piece.  I’ve already told the story about footwork dj’s bragging they used to come over here and beat the crap out of them.  The savagery I’ve seen and heard about over the years doesn’t shock me.  Rich people have been pitting poor people against each other out here for years.  Some might call it the “Daley Way.”  Others might look to scandals surrounding machine politicians who’ve held offices for years on end.  Trump couldn’t get enough of calling us a corrupt city.  But generally he got away with a lot of dirty tricks on the ground here without much consequence.  Anyone with half a brain and street sense these days doesn’t trust much authority at all.  And yet I voted in this election pretty clearly for the current candidate.  So I do pay attention to the presidency a little more intently these days.  While watching some executive orders get signed the subject came up about the damage of what happened to people like myself.  It was a word I hadn’t heard.  The word was dignity.  Through the last six months, I seemingly lost it all.  My job, my entire friend network, the last twenty years of professional connections.  It vaporized as if it was never there in the first place.   Dignity is the right of a person to be valued and respected for their own sake, and to be treated ethically.  When I think about dignity it makes me cry.  Because it’s the thing I never had.  Most of us do not have it in this current climate even though we kid ourselves we do.  We don’t even bother to treat each other with dignity because we’re so busy looking out for ourselves.  Communities lose trust.  People become isolated and edgy.  Hope dies with the days that don’t change.  It is just me out here.  Or is it just us?  In that six month void of watching ancient history peel away and forget you even existed, I thought a lot.  I struggled and became something more resilient.  And I saw the same old problems staring back at me from a different vantage point I call home.  I kept my dignity intact paying the bills and keeping my mouth shut.  And yet things have not gotten much better other than my finances and my muscle tone.  I’m humble about everything by default because I’m still deeply hurt it was all taken away.  The dignity for others is pretty much linked to self respect.  Some people don’t know how to treat themselves better.  Some people don’t know how to be good because we reward absolute vapidity, selfishness and greed.

I will always strive to be good.  I’ve written here on my “vent blog” week after week to report that.  Only to have it joked about, ignored, copied, and dismissed by some people.  You can’t stop good connecting to the source.  If you stay focused and in the proverbial light you will some day make it through.  My birthday is next month.  A third birthday in a row where nobody other than my parents and the internet reach out.  One year I flew to New York during fashion week and spent the entire trip alone.  Of all the fourteen trips to Korea, none of them were with anyone but myself.  I’ve only had myself to rely on through all of this at times.  And yet through the process of trying to be better I’ve met better people.  Maybe through all this I’ve learned how to be a better person for people as well.  But for the most part I’m still just as invisible as I was.  Neglected and disrespected for years by people I trusted.  And whatever happened was a sort of forced letting go.  I was a black hole on a balance sheet during a pandemic.  My pension was a liability.  Friends that I still talk to now feel comfortable acknowledging that I was done dirty.  But that’s it.  No resolution.  No opportunities.  A period of intense exile.  Like I was being taught a lesson.  And the opposite happened.  As dumbfounding as it is to go through the entire process, I’ve found hope in bettering myself in small ways.  I didn’t close off or shut down.  I managed intense feelings of sadness and anger by pacing myself.  I wrote about what I felt week after week.  I made small corrections.  I added up my spending.  I tried to live my life without friends or company other than my cat.  A neighborhood exists around me that is persistent with characters of all backgrounds.  My mother is getting vaccinated next week.  Others will follow shortly after.  Chicago for the most part has adjusted to the hardships of the new normal.  We just keep pushing on like the song.  And yet people become callous, elite, and separate.  Two sides of a city.  The rich and the people who live and walk the streets here.  If you’ve held it down this long most people appreciate when you are still around.  And yet people around here are still deeply motivated by fear and scarcity.  America is the same way.  It judges people’s worth not on their singular talents but by comparison and control.  It’s nervous when you have the confidence to go it alone and embarrassed to admit it did so out of neglect.  America is worse.  Much like the army, it tries to break down your uniqueness for the benefit of the whole.  Herd you into groups that can be managed instead of celebrating the individual will.  The mediocrity that is celebrated is the celling in which you threaten to crash.  Everybody would rather sabotage your plans than see you succeed without them taking a cut.  Everybody would rather have a judgement to hang over your head when you creep past them in a race fair and square.  And when things start to get less dirty and the air clears, the history remains.  People still lie.  People still try to tarnish everything you have done out of a deep hatred.  A hatred that they couldn’t rub you out.  That you remind them how worthless they really are.  Being good gets you targeted time and time again by jealousy and lawlessness.  And I don’t want to be anything but good.

Lies and truth have their own infrastructure.  Blockchain as a technology is based on trust.  We keep secrets possibly because no one knows what we risk at the end of the day.  We tell lies instead of saying nothing at all because we feel pressured to be transparent.  Everyone wants to know every little thing for both good and bad reasons.  Being able to stand up to the lies and speak the truth can be subjective in a post truth era.  After all the things I’ve lost, I have no real time for games that are set up against me.  I play enough Hearthstone for that.  But communities are often to blame for proliferation of disinformation.  Sometimes people get manipulated.  Sometimes entire histories on a person get buried accidentally.  Sometimes people tell other people behind your back never to talk to you.  I’ve lived this.  I have never felt so isolated in my life.  As if the real intention was to break down my dignity to manipulate me further.  And largely that is what happened whether you want to process that or not.  I’m reminded when I deal with how fucked up my health insurance is that nobody really gives a shit.  But there’s a reason it persists.  And there’s no consequence to the lies that people uphold in the face of a fairly inconvenient truth.  We make a choice to support or ignore.  We make a choice to acknowledge the dignity of somebody being alive and in pain.  And I’ve seen people just walk away.  I’ve also seen people in my life grow closer in a way I cannot explain.  When I feel that feeling.  When I feel that love, I try to put more love back into the world.  I try to create a little bubble around me that protects all the good in my life I still have.  To make a place for us to all live with dignity regardless of what we believe, who we fuck or what kpop band we ship on the internet.  I literally fucking tried every day and then some.  And I literally have faced the worst kind of loneliness you could ever face.  Uselessness.  That whatever I do doesn’t matter much compared to what I used to be.  I used to be a slave.  A revenue generator for an investment scam maybe.  A body to manipulate for information.  A person to spy on all over the world without my consent.  I’ve lived all these situations in such damaging ways for years with no recourse and nobody to listen other than here.  Week after week on my vent blog people joke about behind my back.  No one really knowing that this is about the truest I could ever be with anyone.  And knowing after all the hell I’ve been through, that it matters.  What I say and what I write.  Because it’s the truth.  I am a good person.  I do try to be in the face of the worst kind of attack on my freedom.  They tried to take away my dignity.  They can lie about it all they want.  It doesn’t mean they’ll get anywhere further with me.  It’s already behind me.  That’s how you keep your dignity here in America.  By proving them wrong. <3 Tim