Good morning. Hello. How are you? #672
Political bitching and moaning, gardening, closet cleaning, State House races in Alaska, expat dreams, loving your neighbors.
Good morning, friend. How are you this fine Monday AM? Did you have a good weekend? I hope so. I hope you got away from the computer, maybe did some gardening. I shouldn’t say computer, no one is glued to their computer on the weekend anymore, even I don’t do that and I was the worst about it back in “the day.” People are glued to their phones now. I would say “I hope you got away from your phone” but who are we kidding, none of us did that. Maybe “I hope you stayed off social media.” Yeah, that’s better. Jane has a new habit of saying “stop looking at your phone” when she wants you to pay attention to her which is simultaneously humiliating and also extraordinarily reasonable and helpful.
In hindsight, even though it was so obviously political, so obviously craven, so obviously an attempt at a Friday afternoon news dump, I’m glad that (if they were gonna do it, of course) the Supreme Court overturned Roe on a Friday. For one, I got to look like a fuckin Nostradamus over here predicting it that morning, but there was nothing special about that, it’s easy. Just ask yourself what’s the most craven, anti-democratic thing this court can do, and that’s what they’ll do! But I am definitely glad I did not have to write to you guys the very next day. Probably woulda garndered some attention from the Secret Service or something. I’m still pretty ripshit. Not quite to the “I am choosing hope as an act of rebellion” schtick of anything. Not even to the “hope and optimism different” schtick. I’m still in the “I’m fucking pissed and there is no hope” phase.
Of course there is hope, but once again, I’m realizing the heavy lifting the word “long” does in Martin Luther King Jr’s famous quote. Yeah, the arc of justice is long, so long you will die in a dark age. I really do feel that this is one of the things adults lied to me about in my upbringing: the world is not always getting better in any meaningful way: not on a timeframe useful to an individual human. That whole notion that the world would be a better place when we got older, just utter bollucks.
They also lied about the world being a meritocracy, but I suppose that’s not super relevant at this moment.
I’m not so far gone that I don’t accept our role as people who are now working to make the world a better place for future generations, though. I mean, I always knew that: most of the benefits of progress are conferred on our descendents, and that’s okay. That, alone, is reason to not give up. But, man, it sure sucks facing the prospect of living in a theocracy for the rest of my days. Wasn’t really part of my life plan.
A big problem is that I don’t especially know what to do. Money, sure, but there is an influx of money at the moment, and it’s not clear to me exactly where it’s most useful, I super hate giving money to weird Venmo-based direct aid groups cuz I never know which one is real, even though that seems to be the most likely place it’s useful. The Democrats are in the time-out corner at the moment. No pocky for kitty. Just utterly useless. And I HATE saying that, I hate blaming the whole party because of this or that minority within the party, I hate it when people blame them instead of the Republicans, but even now, even after it’s fallen, I don’t get the strong sense that the leaders of the party in the House, Senate or our President, really grasp the situation. Not a single one us would be particularly surprised if Biden, tomorrow, said that he thought he could work with the Republicans on this. Chris Hayes said it best:
They’re old, their children are old, these are not their problems anymore, they think it’s a blip, they have no acknowlegement that they are partly responsible for this. They didn’t codify Roe when they had the chance. RBG didn’t retire when she had the chance. All of this was predictable, plenty of people saw it coming, plenty of people knew this Republican party was not joking. But our leaders did not know or care.
Also, here is an article about how abortion was indeed so deeply rooted in the American tradition, Ben freakin Franklin included a “recipe” for it in his popular Almanac. I don’t know why anyone would be shocked that Thomas just included an a-historical, bald-faced lie in his decision. It’d be fun to bring this all the way to the Supreme Court, have a series of historians show him the evidence and drive home the point that they are far, far more qualified than him to judge hisoricity and “deeply rooted’ traditions. Not that it would do any good, but it’d be fun to see what new argument he came up with.
Clarence Thomas is like your toddler. Reality has no meaning, when arguing for something he wants. Shoot down one argument, he will just make a new, more-nonsensical one.
Anyway.
Right now my focus is to get back to where I feel like this is a world worth living in, to get my stability back. And sure, that probably sounds hyperbolic to some of you — plenty of Tweets out there about how men don’t care about this enough, and they don’t, it’s true. But I do. I do. And I need to be, you know, stable before I can do anything else.
Emma was great. Friday night we didn’t watch TV or anything, we just sat and drank some wine — two whole tiny wines total — like the old days back when we were first dating and we’d go to Noir and sit there alone with a bottle of champagne and just talk at a table in an empty bar until 1 AM hit and all the other nearby bars let out and Noir filled up in five minutes and then for the last hour the place was packed and it was super fun.
I had spent literally four hours Friday learning about how to leave America, what countries are easiest, which ones are best. Short answer: Portugal if you care about the EU, several small Carribbean countries like St. Kitts and Nevis if you want to do it cheap and fast and want citizenship. Got really obsessed with this 200 year-old property in a suburb of Barcelona, a super walkable little village. Spain is a bit more expensive and difficult than Portugal to get citizenship, but the residency visa is pretty straightforward: Buy a house for more than 500k Euros and you’re good to go. It’s cheaper in Portugal but they have all these geographic limitations, you can’t do it in Porto or Lisbon or the southern coast, basically gotta buy inland. Which isn’t so bad, I watch some YouTubers that live in inland Portugal on a farm and it looks positively bucolic.
I was explaining to Emma that it’s not that I want to give up, but it’s that I want a backup. When we get to full fascism, I want to be able to leave then. I’m ALSO getting tired of the pervasive sense of speaking out leads to violence. Republicans go on about cancel culture and the loss of freedom of speech online waaah waaah waaah meanwhile this weekend, there was a constant report of cars running into abortion rights protestors, it happened like three times. My main weapon in these battles are words, but what good are words when people just shoot you when they’re pissed. What good are words when the police are armed to the gills and your political opponents can SWAT you. Words and money, those are my main skills in these battles, plus some operational, organizational stuff. I could do all that from anywhere with an internet connection.
In the meantime, though, North Carolina is in a tough place, and it makes sense to stay. We have a Republican majority in the House and in the Senate. We have a Democratic governor. Abortion is legal, though barely, and I’m a little shocked no one is arguing our muddled laws mean abortion is illegal here, god, I shouldn’t give them any ideas. It seems as if, at the moment, both parties agree it is currently legal here. Which means North Carolina is the only state in the South with legal abortion. And the Republicans are only a couple seats from a supermajority in both houses (thanks to their decade of gerrymandering, which has repeatedly been ruled unconstitutional in both the State and Federal Supreme Court but lol, so what, they’ll just go to the Federal Supreme Court one more time and get their fascism hall pass any day now). And there is a mid term coming. There is so much money in these races here, and I’m not exactly sure what I can do, but there’s gotta be something, I suppose. In any case, all is not lost here yet, and this state needs blue voters.
The weekend, then, was spent trying to, you know, keep it together, get my mind off of things for a bit, be productive, be healthy, enjoy life to not lose it completely. This, of course, meant gardening, and gardening was great. I am trying to save three grape plants that have been ravaged by both deer and Japanese beetles. I moved them, re-potted them, sprayed them with neem oil and HOPEFULLY they will bounce back. I have a few backup grape plants that did not leave the hoophouse, and they’re doing much better, though also still hit hard by Japanese beetles. Man, grapes take years to get going, it is not helping that I have to start over because of these animals.
The tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce and potatoes are killing it though. Well, hopefully on the potatoes. I am still in fear that my soil is a bit too anerobic, but their foliage looks great. Oh and I have actual corn growing! It is happening! It is crazy. Corn! The onions look to be doing well, and, excitingly, the carrots, because I have had bad luck with carrots in the past. The cucumbers, though, are insane. Just completely goign wild, literally dozens of giant, eight-inch long cucumbers. So many cucumbers I don’t know what to do with them all. Food bank, I guess, which was always my goal with all of this but I never thought I’d get there.
Tell me that picture of Jane isn’t adorable.
Also did a walk-through of the property with Emma, trying to decide where to plant the apple and pear trees and the blueberry bush, which are all currently in pots in the hoop house. I think we have a plan. I am excited. It’ll be great. Hopefully.
Got my podcast done, if you are into that sort of thing. Topics include: Day 839, Chatham heat Waves, Covid Peaking, Jan 6 Committe, Supreme Court BS, It’s been hard, NYC Trip planning, flying sucks, AK trip planning, Jane, Gardening, Victoria and Abdul, Another Round, The Batman, Lego Movie Second Part, Meanwhile, Walter Hus, Bee Gees, Tears for Fears and Garbage live in Charlotte, Bright Eyes, Blanck Mass, My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult, neu Wax Trax, Jane’s Addiction, Flaming Lips, Sun’s Signature, James, Vox Low, Willard Grant Conspiracy, Calla, Ride, Freezepop, Wilco, Weird Nightmare, Julee Cruise, Shearwater, Andrew Bird, Trementina, Deafcult, Florist, Bartees Strange, Yaya Bey, Perfume Genius, Hercules and Love Affair, Neneh Cherry, 700 Bliss, Geoff Barrow and Ben Salisbury, Magma, Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs, Stars, Muna, Kids in the Hall, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Star Trek Strange New Worlds, The Orville, Ms Marvel, Stranger Things, The Boys, Moonfall, Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, How The World Really Works by Vaclav Smil, My Body by Emily Ratajkowski, Freedom’s Laboratory by Audra J WolfeThe greatest gift I can give Emma right now is another 10 minutes of living in a world where Roe still stands.
Oh! I also reorganized my closet, Emma gave me some more room in it, and wow that was absurdly cathartic. It involved an absolutely perfect Walmart run to buy 100 more hangers cuz I desperately need all my hangers to match now, and the whole thing was exactly what I needed to maintain my sanity and find an even keel. Closet reorganiation, just the thing. I love my closet so much more now it is just great. When the world turns to shit, and you gonna lose yours, go clean out a closet.
Has anyone been to Anthem in DC? How is it? How big is it? What is it like? How is the sound? Dead Can Dance is playing there, seems like it might be a nice alternative to Boston. I was talking to my friend Todd this weekend, he lives in Baltimore, we were thinking of going. Any insight would be appreciated.
I have two high school acquaintances running for state house in Alaska. One was a friend, he is running as a Democrat, good for him. The other wasn’t a friend, just a classmate. One time, Frank and I were in his back yard and we heard these voices from the woods next door. We all got to talking and the voices figured out we went to West Valley and they asked us what we thought about this certain person. I said I didn’t like said person and used a bad word. It was dumb, I was fourteen. Also it was absurdly obvious that this person was probably amongst the group asking us this from the dark woods. And sure enough, they were, and they narc’d on me to adults and I got in tons of trouble for it, and rightly so. I mean, as much trouble as one should get in for desparaging a hoodlum, who was hiding in the woods doing probably nefarious things. Anyway, now they are running for State House as a total MAGA head so, I dunno. Feeling a bit sad but also… a bit vindicated? And now I’ll probably get shot next time I go home because America also got rid of all its gun laws last week, even as we tried to pass more, but I’m sure those will get overturned ASAP don’t worry.
We have taken to visiting the neighbors at the end of our street every day during our walk. They are out in their driveway, enjoying the weather, and when we get to the cul de sac, Jane walks up their driveway and says hi. The wife in the couple is suffering from a debilitating disease. I don’t know what it is, exactly. Parkinsons or MS or maybe, like my father had, PSP. It is very similar. But Jane doesn’t mind, she just chats with her, tells her she likes her outfit. On Saturday as we were leaving Jane said “I love you,” which marks the second time Jane has said she loved one of the neighbors. Regular, actual Christian sentiments there, from the mouth of babes and whatnot. Little on the nose for this day and age, but we’ll take it.
OK we’re gonna do an old goth mix today. It is a mastering nightmare, so much of this stuff is on Spotify and hasn’t been remastered. I have that volume correction thingy turned off on Spotify. Maybe you don’t. Maybe it actually works and all of these will sound loud enough. I put the two remastered songs at the end so the mix gets louder, which isn’t great, but it’s better than a mix getting quieter. Todd hipped me to “Tower of Strength” this week, it is great. But the live version is better. But we’re saving that for our next live playlist. Rest of these are childhood favorites. The Cure played “Figurehead” at the Worcester Centrum on the Wish tour it was awesome. Actually I think that’s the only song on here I’ve seen live. I’ve seen Xymox, Siouxsie, The Wolfgang Press and the Sisters but not any of these songs.
Wow that was a long one. I held back on, like, six different things too. Gotta spread it out throughout the week. Gonna need all those quirky, positive anecdotes as an antidote for whatever batshit rulings the Supreme Court delivers this week, because they’re still not done! Woo! Until tomorrow, then.