Why whatever do you mean?

What’s the matter? You look distressed. Are you ok?

Nothing is the matter. I look how I look. Sure, I’m fine.

That’s one of the recent Q and A exchanges. There are too many like this to count. It’s endless. If I were to tell the truth, the A would look something like…

Everything. Yep. Nope.

Everything is the matter, I am distressed. No. I am not ok. It’s that fucking simple.

If you don’t feel like anything’s hugely wrong or distressing, you don’t need to be reading this. You also need to check your understanding of current events. Even if you hate politics. Everything is political. Because the money bought the politics and the politics impacts all of us whether we want to accept it or not.

Why whatever do I mean?

Well. There are abductions being carried out every fucking day. The people who are supposed to keep the public safe have been tasked with removing people from their day-to-day lives and loading them onto airplanes bound for incredibly random places. These are not deportations. These are humans being taken from their lives, their families, their kids, their parents in the name of public safety but it’s bullshit. No masses needed to be deported. What the fuck did all those people want mass deportations for anyway? What the fuck is wrong with letting others carry on about their lives without racist people fucking with them. Racist nihilists who think they’ll live forever because of peptides or cryogenic bullshit want to be superior. So they have to put people in concentration camps to feel ok? How small and petty do you have to be to have all the resources in the world but still want to hurt and punish humans you perceive to be inferior?

There is absolutely no reason for the wealthiest to prey on the poorest. It’s sick and twisted. It’s psychopathic.

What we coulda had

There were solar panels on the roof of the White House.

We coulda had a cure or a treatment for so many diseases. We coulda had a well-fed, highly-educated, compassionate, creative, considerate society. We coulda had permanently clean air and water and smooth transportation. We coulda had progress and we coulda helped everyone prosper. We coulda led the way and brought the world closer. We coulda saved ourselves.

It didn’t need to be this way. There is plenty of money to go around. And no, saying that doesn’t make me a communist socialist marxist whateverthefuck some would like to label me as. It makes me aware. Dare I say, WOKE.

Woke doesn’t mean what you think it means if you think it means something other than being aware of the entire system being mostly against the majority of people functioning within it. The entire system is working overtime to fulfill a nefarious design. The system is not designed to reward anything other than those who have already won.

No one wants to take away anything from you (mostly) guys. Keep your millions and billions. You can. You wouldn’t ever notice if some small percentage of the millions and billions was peeled off to do things that would benefit the whole of society. Guess what? You live in the society with the rest of us whether you want to admit that – or even acknowledge it – or not. Stay in your gated community. You don’t even have to see the rest of us. The people who keep everything going so you can run your homes, your businesses, your utilities, your flights of fancy don’t want much.

I’ll speak for myself. Would I love to have the well-fed, highly-educated, compassionate, creative, considerate society? Sure. But don’t the rest of you? Or, do you think that’s bullshit and I’m describing something weak when I say compassionate? Do you think if we’re scraping by to feed and educate ourselves, we just aren’t working hard enough? Is the remedy to work harder, and maybe get some chickens if we’re struggling to buy eggs?

I don’t want a chicken. I want to be able to buy eggs without wondering if I’ll be able to save for what’s left of the future. Hell, if they paid just a small amount in taxes, we coulda had community gardens, with chickens. So what the fuck do I want?

I want the antitrust laws of the 1990’s back. I want the Sarbanes – Oxley Act back. I want to repeal Citizen’s United and the terrible ruling that came before it with the name I can’t remember. I want the impeachment of the corrupt justices who took the theory of the unitary executive all the way to full blown authoritarianism. I want houses for everyone who needs one. I want my six figure paycheck back.

All the things I want are what most people want even if they don’t know the names of the laws or the things. They just want to be able to work one job and have a comfortable life. Comfort is not too much to ask for and it costs those who don’t pay next to nothing. But no, you want to keep all the everything. No matter the cost to the whole of society – to the planet. Where do you really think you’re going to live? Fucking Mars? Do you think your kids want to live on fucking Mars?

There were solar panels on the roof of White House.

No plans. What could go wrong

The thing the barons of industry don’t want to say out loud is that, while anything “AI” is “new-ish”, it’s still software. They’ve built a new thing. Sort of. We’ve been in 20+ years of move fast and fuck things up so now that they got us used to accepting (cuz monopolies) enshittified tech, they can keep building more – but by doing it even SHITTIER…one of the things that fell by the wayside (for the most part) more than 10 years ago, was the idea that ‘agile (and other words like ‘lean’) software development would save companies time and money and deliver value to customers faster therefore, making the software easier for sales to sell.

Now we have product managers who might know how to do some of the things a software development delivery pro knows how to do but have they actually done the start to finish of delivering decent software?

So it is NOT surprising to hear how flimsy their plans were before 🫂😊 got pulled into the story..

😳 didn’t have plans. They mighta had concepts of a plan and more than one person involved which makes it a recipe for disaster from before the ‘test’ or ‘task’ that resulted in ‘agents going rogue’. But. Come on. You can’t tell me there was a plan.

No one wrote requirements. No one thought about the myriad possibilities for error or failure. No one had back up or QA checks in place. Show me some workflow. Nah. Too cumbersome. They’re hyper scalers. They don’t need to write shit down.

This is the equivalent of a healthcare provider, taking out the defibrillator, pulling out the paddles, rubbing that shit on top of the paddles then not yelling clear while everyone’s hands are all over the patient.

Which leads to the bottom line. Human beings were involved throughout this whole process until they merged the code that didn’t do what the humans expected.

One area of questioning: what was it (the software/AI/whateverthefuck it’s called today) expected to do…? What did the humans design (intentionally or otherwise) intend for it to do?

Another big question is, who decided this is ok? The code (AI, software, LLM, network, etc.) didn’t do this without humans deciding to make it so…who did that?!??

The trivial shit that adds up

When one is just, one. Alone. No significant other. No additional human household members. One pays for a lot of trivial shit that adds up. Some call this the single tax. I just call it fucking obnoxious. I don’t have the ability to clearly express how infuriating this is to live with. Fuck you who make millions when the rest of us pay and pay again. Will you ever be ashamed?

Publishers, professors and perplexity

Tracking down digital textbooks sounds easy until you learn just how many ways it can get confusing and fucked up. Contact bookstore, contact publisher, sign off on compliance, contact professor, confuse professor because they already have the textbook in digital format but I’ve spent more than two weeks trying to get a copy of said digital textbook. Then there are the super-specialized publishers who only create content for sterile compounding. They want money before they’ll even entertain providing access to a digital textbook. I get it. But why make this so hard? Not to mention the outrageous price tags these textbooks have. Nothing is under a hundred bucks and most are about $200 to rent for a semester and then they add a fee for accessing the digital version. What the actual fuck? A fee for access? When you’ve already paid the hundreds for the book? That makes no sense except that everyone is making money except me, of course. I make less than most Trader Joe’s employees and how do I know that? I’ve worked at Trader Joe’s and I know how much everyone makes.

So now what do we have? Perplexed professor. Bitchy publisher. Anxious students. But the ones I have coming to me are almost always anxious, over thinkers. I get it, I’m one too. But the whole thing is easily solved by doing this in August. September is too late because classes started already making for a scramble. I feel like scrambled eggs. Exhausted.

And me, grouchy as fuck, not only because this job pays me shit but because I have to drive here and sit here and get fatter here in this office.

At least I won’t be in here again until next Wednesday. If I get written into the book of life that is. I’d rather not be but that’s a different topic. I hope all others in my orbit are, they want to be. I kinda don’t care except for the fact that I haven’t written a formal will so that the material things are accounted for and the beasties have a place to go if I’m not around.

DITL

Collab w faculty and learning specialists how to support a blind student through a medical coding and billing program to become a competent medical coder…my job is to track down digital textbooks, still waiting for a code for one effin book, no one seems to get that this student can’t scratch off and read a code unless it’s braille then what good would it be to cover it, he can’t read it, omg, get braille labeling on biology lab equipment, make sure I know what software the student uses for text to speech then request said software (JAWS) from IT, again, review IT software install request from last week for: lockdown browser (Respondus), NVDA, Kortext, Speechify chrome extension approval and, something else but I can’t recall

Schedule testing for multiple students for tomorrow, receive specs from faculty, review for accuracy

Digital textbook acquisition for sterile compounding, technical writing and health insurance claims courses, all different publishers, look on bookshare, bookstore, publishers

Schedule meetings with 5 new students, get all data into case management software, look at courses, accommodation areas, general disability area AIM, bkstr

Organize usability testing using blackboard ultra plus lockdown browser using NVDA by collaborating with faculty, gaining access to specific blackboard course, await response from student

Discuss emotional support animals and reptiles, yes, snakes and raise issue to leadership after using a snake as an example just yesterday

living on the outside

Gratitude…

(without an iPhone means I can’t send this to AJ unless I leave it here then send a smoke signal (ok, being dramatic, an email will work)

Got all my fingers and thumbs.

Guitar.

Turned off the iPhone after it freaked out. It took a while for it to come back to life but at least it did. Saved me a ton of money.

Hole In My Pocket

So why don’t you…

Show me ways to save my soul

Show me ways to save my soul

I got a hole in my pocket

Where it all slips away

How I Really Feel

Like I was once in a pocket but the fuckin thing had a big hole in it…

Miss ya more CT

It’s so outta control. I started reading The Nerd Reich by Gil Durán this week and while I already know a ton of the tech bro fascism I now know way more and I’m sure it’s why I’ve been feeling so flattened-by-a-truck.

It’s just so so so fucking bad. BUT. I’m grateful to have this spot cuz when I really feel like i might step off the deep end of whatever, I can tell you (sorry, I’m from ’68, is this trauma dumping? Am I just being THAT lady?!)

I noticed today that the hydrangeas are a disaster from neglect. I’ve been too afraid of hurting them. So I haven’t done anything to them. Some still bloom anyway.

Lesson: put that book down, step away from the scroll, sit outside even if it’s raining. Cut a hydrangea bloom or two. It’s ok to wander in the rain.

No matter what

No matter what I do it’s always lame and unimportant.

No matter what I think it’s never original and therefore not worth writing or speaking about.

No matter what I say it’s never delivered in a way that makes sense.

Comparison? Yep. High expectations? Yeah. Definitely. Unrealistic ideas? No doubt. It’s all a lie. My life feels pointless. And many others have felt the same way so I’m not gonna equivocate. I’m not the first human on this precious planet of ours.

Books

Bored? Read a book. Or many books.

Work is so slow. (How slow is it?) It’s so fucking slow that all I do lately is fill the time with movies, TV series, YouTube and, reading. Lots of reading. Last week I finished one memoir, read another memoir and, started another – you guessed it – memoir.

Here’s a list from the last eight months:

  1. You With The Sad Eyes, Christina Applegate
  2. Body Leaping Backward: Memoir of a Delinquent Girlhood, Maureen Stanton
  3. Coming Up Short, Robert Reich
  4. Careless People, Sarah Wynn-Williams
  5. Nobody’s Girl, Virginia Roberts Giuffre
  6. Unemployable: The Psychological Toll of Proving Your Worth, Leslie Barber
  7. Don’t Believe Everything You Think, Joseph Ngyuen
  8. Shrill, Lindy West
  9. How To Stand Up To A Dictator, Maria Ressa
  10. Conversion Therapy Dropout, Timothy Schraeder
  11. We Burned So Bright, TJ Klune
  12. In Pieces, Sally Field
  13. Big Dumb Eyes, Nate Bargatze
  14. Not My Type, E. Jean Carroll
  15. Dirtbag Queen, Andy Cohen
  16. Into The Woodchipper, Nicholas Enrich
  17. How To Lose Your Mother, Molly Jong-Fast
  18. Dirtbag Billionaire, David Gelles
  19. The Source, James A Michener
  20. Look For Me There, Luke Russert
  21. Rehab, Shoshana Walter
  22. Say Everything, Ione Skye
  23. Waiting For The Moon, Peter Wolf
  24. Blood In The Machine, Brian Merchant
  25. We Are The Leaders We’ve Been Looking For, Eddie S. Glaude Jr.
  26. Prequel, Rachel Maddow
  27. Playing With Fire, Lawrence O’Donnell
  28. Brothers, Alex Van Halen
  29. Starry Messenger, Neil deGrasse Tyson
  30. Lessons In Chemistry, Bonnie Garmus
  31. From Under The Truck, Josh Brolin
  32. The Woman In Me, Britney Spears

Burn it up

How much horrible shit can I possibly tell myself? I’ll find out soon. Just one page burned yesterday. (Sorry for adding to the pollution.)

The ‘cover’ of my book where all the mean shit I say to myself goes to be burned up and set free.

I’m having pain

BECAUSE YOU WON’T STOP SAYING ‘PAIN POINT’!

What a bullshit euphemism: ‘pain point’. The softening of truth is hard for me to understand. Why can’t we call something what it is? When something is hard we say it’s a challenge. When software is hard to use someone started saying there were ‘pain points’. I’m having a huge pain point because of laziness. This is just lazy and pathetic. Oh. Sorry. It’s giving me a little pain and I’m having a challenging time reading it. How’s that?

Why is it so hard challenging to keep words together?

This is a company that makes millions and they can’t make a word show up on one line, with all its letters, all together.

Why are we still saying . . .

WEBMASTER. Why the hell are we still saying and using the word webmaster? It’s 2026. Even real estate agents refer to bedrooms as primary NOT master. How is webmaster still ok? Especially in places that claim to be inclusive and progressive.

A college using the word webmaster has completely lost the fucking plot. Not a plot twist, a completely fucking lost plot line. It’s been more than 30 years of the web and webmaster isn’t a developer who knows how to code or a designer who knows how to create a comprehensive experience a webmaster is just (usually) the guy who makes the thing work well enough to keep his job.

I was a webmaster when there was a guy who was The Webmaster. But, he didn’t do anything but keep the servers going. Administrator is a fine title. Web or Network Administrator are fine titles. Just stop saying shit like webmaster.

When you’re caught in the death spiral

What happens to people who find their expertise caught in the death spiral of “everyone can design anything”? Finding my expertise marginalized makes me kinda cranky. I know my expertise in seeing an extra space between two words from a mile away is trivial to most people (at best) and irritating as fuck (to some) but when you asked for “attention to detail”, what the actual fuck did you expect?

While we’re at it

If we’re talking about design, there is still no such thing as UX/UI. User Experience (UX) is inclusive of User Interface (UI). Without an interface, there is no experience. Being a designer of either experiences or interfaces or both is fine but saying user experience/user interface is just fucking stupid so why would people keep saying UX/UI? Because they’re fucking stupid. Sorry for climbing the ladder of inference but I have experience to back up the assumption.

There is still no such thing as UX/UI or UI/UX.

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Bart Simpson at a green chalkboard writing THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS UX/UI OR UI/UX over and over and over.
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS UX/UI OR UI/UX.

You know what also really blows? About ten years ago, we could get away with just saying There is no such thing as UX/UI but then some fucking genius started with UI/UX. What a stupid phase of human history. We really are caught in the death spiral. If enough of us wake up – hence the word WOKE – we can stop it but that’s not for today.

Thanks for your attention to this matter. ME!

Sowing seeds

It’s an act of faith

Wildflowers and sunflowers

Last years seeds, warm dirt

Giant sunflower seeds are now under warm dirt in the front yard

Vaporware

Amazing to see how little shame there is out there in the world of software (product) design, development, and delivery. I am well aware of the rot; I’ve lived through the struggles against enshittification – so well named by Cory Doctorow – and I’ve left the world of bigass paychecks and bullshiters behind. Do I miss the paychecks? As a state worker making a little more than what I started at when I worked at Trader Joe’s, I absolutely miss the money. I miss the work, too, I was actually good at it and I like being a middle manager. Plus, get this, I’m actually trained to be a manager. I know I just dated myself but who the fuck is reading this anyway?

So when I see that there’s a dude, once again, hired into a job for which I was passed over, I gotta see if there’s anything there and – drumroll – there is not. He’s got a cool lookin’ website which is 80% of the deal, the other 10% is having an contact where you wanna get hired and guess what? Bigass paycheck!

Here’s some digital evidence for his worthiness and success. If you think he’s blinking at you from the screen, he is. Sort of.

FPO.

Will there be anything to show for that money provided to this guy? Here’s another drumroll moment. NO. He absolutely will not deliver anything that will become a revenue-driving aspect of the business.

I can basically guarantee he won’t. Can I promise he’ll acknowledge that? I promise he’ll have some story to tell about increasing revenue or decreasing friction or delivering some boost in sales but it won’t be true. I’ll freely admit it if I end up wrong. Gladly. Prove me wrong, bro. Someone’s gotta be first.

I’ll circle back with ya in 24-36 months.

Vast and sharp inequities

From “Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger” by Rebecca Traister, published in 2018…

In the fury of women lies the power to change the world.

“Here was the beating heart of how to continue to fight for a better country when the country is designed to quash fights. And here was where the past offered lessons.

I thought about the vast and sharp inequities on which the United States had been built, and how structurally improbable it was that they had ever been corrected to any degree. How do you fight to end slavery in a country whose economic and political systems were built on top of it?

How do you demand humane treatment for workers from workplaces that profit from the exploitation of those workers?

In short, the eternal American question: How do you reform systems designed from the start to rebuff and punish reformers?

How do you enfranchise women when many white women opposed their own enfranchisement?”

medallia

stop stop stop. you know who you are selling into everything. life is too short for all this unnecessary electronic data collection couched as caring for customers. we know. people have written whole books about this. we know you suck. we have limited options. and you have the power to actually stop sucking the life out of us.

Crashing

MacBook keeps crashing

Pride Luminance wallpaper

No one asked for this

The crash out. The crashing. The crash. Crash out used to mean, going to sleep. Now it means, going to freak or currently freaking the fuck out. It doesn’t really matter, the distinction isn’t relevant. It’s just an odd shift of language which isn’t new but it’s increasingly making life more confusing for most humans. The laptop crashing. That means it’s fucking broken. That’s not usually a big deal for me, I can diagnose and fix the crashing. Usually. Not this time. It’s chronic, the crashing.

The fucking iPhone is to the left of me and my crashy MacBook Pro from 2020. iPhone is currently updating for the bazillionth time this year and according to the update notes, I’m getting Pride Luminance wallpaper. I have a feeling it’s a fucking rainbow. No one needs their “phone” operating system to add in bloated bullshit so Apple can feel good about themselves. Yes, Pride Month is in June but come the fuck on Apple you’re not fooling anyone. An image forced onto every iPhone? That’s assault not pride.

I consented to none of this deliberately but I’m getting it anyway because I did agree when I said “yes, I agree” since there is no other way to use these devices without agreeing to be bombarded with absolute useless bullshit day in and day out. So, now that today’s update is done, where is my fucking forced wallpaper.

Someone is going to sue Apple about this wallpaper because “Apple says the visuals symbolize diversity, individuality, and solidarity with LGBTQ+ communities worldwide” and in 2026 all of those things have been deemed horrible and damaging to society so look out Tim Apple. Might wanna take your marbles and get outta there before the regime decides rainbow wallpaper is a step too far.

That’s her name

Yes. Her name is long. But she doesn’t care so why should anyone else.

Gilda Gingerbean Little Miss Sunshine Catner

Yes. She has lots of nicknames. Whatever works for us.

Gingybeanybabie

You know you’re wrong when…

When a billionaire tells other billionaires they’re wrong, things are really askew. Especially when those billionaires don’t bother listening to the first guy. And yes, it’s almost always a guy. In this case, it was a guy saying the truth well over a decade ago, before the debacle became an abject failure for the majority of us. Here’s the truth: capitalism left unchecked tends toward concentration and collapse.

But. Capitalism, when well managed, is the greatest social technology ever invented to create prosperity in human societies. The key, in my mind, is the part about capitalism being well managed. What we have now is worse than ever.

Capitalism, when well managed, is the greatest social technology ever invented to create prosperity in human societies. But capitalism left unchecked tends toward concentration and collapse.

Nick Hanauer, 2014

Back in the 1990’s when I studied with Peter Drucker, I didn’t realize why so many CEO’s disliked him intensely. Now I know it’s because he was saying then what we now know to be completely true. When a society becomes dominated by the ultra wealthy on the backs of the majority of the people doing the labor to support that society, it will start to disintegrate, either quietly or violently – or both. It’s hard to say how ours will continue given where we are now.

But when one says the word management in the post-move-fast-and-break-things world, one is almost always castigated and either shown the exit or parked in a corner, whichever is cheaper for the company or context. How dare you raise the issue of entropy or chaos or organization or management. Especially if you’re me (female and not young, subservient or beautiful).

I am only the messenger. I see what’s coming, I point it out, I get told I’m crazy or looked at like I have two heads. What comes after that? A lot of dudes saying what I already said but because they realized it, now it’s a real thing.

I thank you for your 2014 memo, Mr. Hanauer. If I’d had a few connections or friends like yours in the late-1990’s, maybe we’d be friends. We both saw the same things coming in the early days of the internet. I wasn’t in a position to make decent money back then, so here I am working for someone else at an age when I could be winding down or investing time in volunteering my skills to help others get a toe hold in this backwards economic system we’ve been tethered to. You’ve done quite well for yourself and in case it’s not clear, I’m envious. I don’t want more things, I simply don’t want to have to worry about whether I have enough money to live on while my parents go through their later years. Do I resent them sometimes for benefitting from this system and not seeing how they were pulling the ladder up behind them? I do. But I can’t do much about it now except work to help people understand that there is a better way. Stakeholder capitalism.

My point of view is heavily shaped by Drucker, my former mentor and teacher. In a Forbes article from 2022, the author rightfully titled the piece “Peter Drucker: Prophet Of Stakeholder Capitalism” where he writes about the difference between shareholders and stakeholders. Clearly, the powerful and ultra-wealthy don’t want to hear any of this but if they’re not careful, the fate of Brian Thompson could be theirs in the not too distant future.

How lazy can Microsoft get?

Information Architecture shouldn’t be dead. Organizating words, buttons, links, and lists really isn’t that hard. There has to be a product manager on some platform team who *should* make this kind of list of links easier on users. I know, I know. No one cares. There’s no incentive for doing it. But what the fuck.

18 items to choose from. thanks Microsoft

I wonder if it’s even accessible for someone with any kind of vision impairment. Considering how a screen reader would function, it might even be easier to use via audio. Why can’t we have both? One can dream.

Ripoff

Starts out pretty and ends up a shredded pile of paper. Metaphor for some of life’s peaks and troughs? Maybe. Rip off. Ripoff.

Don’t keep things that can be shredded

Building 19

My soul is dying in building 19 of the first federal armory. It’s the epitome of hundreds of years this system we call civilized, modern, necessary, and sometimes still deeply derailed by dumb debates about the Oxford comma.

This building, as long as the Prudential building in Boston is tall, housed big stuff like wagons full of horse shit, the horses and cows and all the things needed to support the people building guns and ammunition.

It’s quiet there most days even if there are lots of people around. Something about the brick, concrete, and glass both holds 248 years of sound and absorbs today’s.

Building 19

A mighty fortress ish structure. Worth appreciating for what it was and is but not from inside the thing every weekday. Five days a week in an office – even the most spectacular office – will crush my soul before I get my first measly paycheck.

I’m not wired for rules without end and I think now that I’m seeing state workers unions from half inside, I see how easy it is to make them seem like utterly useless layers of more rules that don’t fit everyone’s needs.

Reserving judgement for a while about the union but I did join and pay my dues so it’s an experiment. Hope it’s not too costly for me.

I’ll just say it

Another one bites the dust. Rude! But it’s my website so I’ll say whateverthefuck I want. She went to the hospital on her birthday, March 17th, just a few days before mine, and she died this past Sunday. What the actual fucking fuck? My taco Tuesday buddy and wife to one of my oldest friends is no longer alive. I feel things but it’s my dear friend I’m most worried about. He loved her, he cared for her, he took care of her daughter and grandkids.

Pretty blonde woman standing on a balcony overlooking Waikiki in Honolulu Hawaii

They were good together and I could tell when she was irritated with how her husband and I would talk and talk and talk and…ok, point made. She was quiet, an introvert who loved nice things including comfy cars and expensive dinners out. She wasn’t snobby or mean but she had a mean streak that she’d earned the hard way. I learned recently – many years after meeting her – that her mom was incredibly unkind to her. Mean and nasty is how she described her. No wonder I could sense it, even though she worked hard to overcome the genetic tendency to be cruel. Bitchy? Sure she was like that but she wasn’t mean just for the sake of getting some thought out of her head while it was there. I’m glad I had the chance to know her better these last several years.

I’ll miss you HT. Thank you for letting me be the taco Tuesday tagalong.

Happy 19th annual 39th

Miss you and the comfort of knowing you disliked your birthday in the same way I don’t care for mine. Don’t you dare sing – especially in a restaurant.

It’s also Easter Sunday which is an odd coincidence. Feeling the strange energy and wondering what’s next.

Pussy willow blooms

It’s hard to believe you’re gone. Thanks for all the years.

Addition

It’s good to be thinking about an addition today. All of you would be happy to see that we’ve added a cat. Today is Day 2. We’re not sure what to call her yet. Bella isn’t quite right so it’s nice that she doesn’t seem to care that she’s been called that since she was picked up off the cold streets of Belchertown, MA – sometime in January. They think she’s about two so I’ll take their word for it. Hard to understand how she was left for a couple months at the place. She’s freaking awesome and I love her. Hoping TC loves her too so they can be friends. To be continued. . .

That’s one purrrrrdy cat

Old lives

She said she missed the old life. I wondered what life she meant. A place. A house. Both. Another world. All of it. I think she meant California by the way she asked if I ever felt that way, a longing for home. She knows the answer to that question. She’s always been one to deflect and project and pick and reflect that she may have been listening all along.

Who asks questions they know the answers to? Why do that in the first place? If you want to fill the space with sounds just talk, say something thoughtful or not thoughtful I don’t care just don’t ask me a question that’s already been answered especially when it’s a sensitive topic like ‘home’.

Be blue. Be depressed. But don’t make it about me. I’m just not here for that. I’m. Fine. Everything is fine.