hey, don’t cry. get some white miso paste, vegetable broth, green onions, and some dried seaweed. dissolve the miso paste in hot water and set aside. bring the broth to a boil on the stove. chop up the green onions and the seaweed, add to the broth, and cook for a few minutes. then stir in the miso and water mixture. you now have miso soup.
the ratio is about 1 TBSP of miso paste to 1 cup of broth, okay?
God what i would give for a clawhammer banjo
Well I’m still out here
With the pills and the dogs
If you need me, dear
I’m the same as I was, it’s all okay
There ain’t a drop of bad blood
It’s all my love
You got all my love
It’s still out here
With the pills and the dogs
Wind chill this year
Stole the words from my tongue
It’s all okay
There ain’t a drop of bad blood
It’s all my love
You got all my love…
“All My Love.” Noah Kahan. We’ll All Be Here Forever. 2022.
I’ve had this pin for years, but I almost never wear the darned thing. Too shy, maybe.
Anyway I found it in the back of the cabinet behind the bathroom mirror recently.
Might start wearing it again, sometimes, as a direct answer to all of this violently anti-trans rhetoric. Certain elements of the culture seem to want any deviation from patriarchal cis/heteronormativity to go away and stop existing and be invisible and like 🖕🖕 that actually. So.
.
“Tough time to be joining the ranks,” as a friend would say.
Travel safely everybody
Wrote an absolutely scathing angry letter to our landlord this morning. Didn’t send it. Woke up from an immensely satisfying dream – in the dream I was in a nasty, brutal fistfight with a person that I genuinely cannot stand and in the dream I fought this man with tooth and nail until I knew he was going to leave me alone, until I knew he was never going to bother me again, and I knew that I was safe from him forever, and it felt good. Crucially, nobody got hurt in real life, I am not capable of hurting anyone in this way in real life, I am not strong enough or mean enough to do that in real life, but the catharsis of imaginary safety in the dream made me feel better somehow.
Woke up more angry than I have ever been, I think, which is to say that I woke up grieving. Took all the upset energy and bundled up and went out to clean off a thick covering of snow and a stubborn layer of ice on two of the cars, turned on Steve’s car and sat inside until the ice melted away from the windshield and walked up and down the sidewalk a few times between the front door and the car so he wouldn’t have to break a new path through the snow and this is how we love each other in the winter in the north.
I get home from work night after night covered in the greasy stench of scalding hot dishwater and scorched cooking oil that never really washes out of my hair and skin, smelling like my own blood, carrying the humiliation of being constantly spoken to with a kind of self important contempt that is not new or unfamiliar to anybody who has ever had to tolerate a certain kind of man, only to have to walk across a flooded living room floor with a carpet that is so saturated with cold water from the winter storms that it squelches through my socks and splashes as though I have stepped in a puddle on the sidewalk outside after the rain and I am tired and all I want is to walk over to the kitchen and get myself a cup of coffee and some food but to do that, to walk across the floor of my home, I will have to put on my mudboots.
I am so tired.
You know that death come knockin’ on my brother’s door
Singin’, “Come on, brother, ain’t you ready to go?”
And my brother stooped down, buckled up his shoes
And he moved on down by the Jordan stream
And then he shout, “Hallelujah, done, done my duty
Got on my travelin’ shoes…
.
From “Death came a-knockin.’”
.
O, death
O, death
Won’t you spare me over
For another year?
.
From “O Death,” a traditional Appalachian folk song.
.
for our Sam, whose death came much too early and whose body was found in a field that was much too close to home.
Be at peace now.
Just asked Steve how to burn a CD and he said “well, first you have to light it on fire…”
Sometimes – not all the time, but sometimes – it takes a lot of energy for me to parse out what people actually mean when they’re talking to me.
For whatever reason, people often don’t say what they mean. They say one thing when they actually mean something else.
[To be clear, this is not some backwards incel notion of “she said no, but actually, I know she meant yes.” Unless y’all have sat down together and explicitly picked a safe word that stands in for the word “no,” that’s generally a really good time to take someone at their word.]
This difficulty with saying one thing when you really mean something else is not a matter of honesty or lies, it’s about directness. I am thinking more and more that directness in communication is more about a sense of safety than anything else.
And, like. I can almost always understand what’s being said to me. I can translate the words that people are saying out loud to what they actually mean. There is nothing wrong with my comprehension skills. Those work fine. This is partly because words aren’t the only way that people communicate, and the thing that most often tells me that more interpretative work needs to be done is the mismatch between body language or tone of voice and the meaning of words.
(i.e., someone saying “I’m fine” when it’s very clear from the way they’re hyperventilating that they are really not fine.)
But sorting through that much, ah – ambiguity is almost the right word here? – I don’t know, this interpretative work takes a certain amount of effort. It takes energy for me. And then, you know – especially when it seems like a person has gone out of their way not to say what they actually mean, burying it like a shameful secret under layers of clues and hints like a game where you’re meant to connect the dots and wake up in a cold sweat at three in the morning when comprehension dawns – what do I do then? Do I nod and smile and wink and respond to the literal meaning of what they’ve just said out loud, just to be safe? Or do I respond to what I can tell they actually mean?
This is not to say that I am always capable of saying exactly what I mean, either. That takes energy, too, plus a sense of safety that traumatized, shell-shocked people like me often struggle to access.
This is also not to say that I’m an infallible interpretation machine. I don’t think anyone is.
I think the kindest thing to do is work towards making a space where speaking directly is a safe thing for everybody. I don’t know for sure how to do that. I’m good at some of them, like listening carefully when people talk without judgement and trying to be respectful of boundaries once I know where they are. I know I’m not perfect.
I just know that having a space where it’s okay and safe to just say what you mean – not just between two people, but also in the world surrounding that connection – is something that helps me and is worth it.
“Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”
from Matthew 25:40-45
“The Revolution ‘Bout To Be Televised.”
Kendrick Lamar, live at the beginning of his Superbowl LIX Halftime Show in New Orleans, Louisiana. Broadcast on live television worldwide on Sunday, February 9th, 2025.
The Philadelphia Eagles beat the Kansas City Cheifs with a score of 40 to 22.
Gosh, I wish I had access to a good quality copy machine that could make color and black and white duplicates of personal documents – medical prescriptions, birth certificate, drivers license, passport, contact information for people in my community, important photographs. Just in case I ever needed those for any reason.
I wish I had a copy of the Constitution of the United States.
I wish I had two extra pairs of afforable up to date prescription glasses kicking around in case one of them was ever lost or damaged.
I also wish I had an unlimited supply of coffee, toothpaste, ibuprofen, feminine hygiene products, and non-perishable food items whose long term storage does not depend on electricity in my home.
And boy wouldn’t it be nice to have a way to safely remove the risk of unwanted pregnancy for up to two presidential terms with minimal side effects that did not depend on a prescription medication, in case I ever wanted to have any agency whatsoever in the timing of the birth of a future generation of my family or the size of the next generation of my family line. I wish I had a way to do this which depended on nobody else’s decision making but my own, no matter how much I trust my partner.
I wish I had a solar panel, maybe even some portable chargers, and a tent and sleeping bag system.
I wish I had a really good quality USB memory drive.
I wish I had multiple methods for recording information which are not digital or anywhere on the internet, such as a notebook.
I wish I had a car whose repairs were up to date and taken care of, with an extra tank of gasoline in the back.
And I wish I had somewhere safe and remote and difficult to access where I could run away and hide if I ever needed to do that which I knew how to get to without using a map.
“I don’t know you, but I want you
All the more for that
Words fall through me and always fool me
And I can’t react
And games that never amount
To more than they’re meant
Will play themselves out
Take this sinking boat and point it home
We’ve still got time
Raise your hopeful voice, you have a choice
You’ve made it now
Falling slowly, eyes that know me
And I can’t go back
And moods that take me and erase me
And I’m painted black
Well, you have suffered enough
And warred with yourself
It’s time that you won
Take this sinking boat and point it home
We’ve still got time
Raise your hopeful voice, you had a choice
You’ve made it now
Take this sinking boat and point it home
We’ve still got time
Raise your hopeful voice, you had a choice
You’ve made it now
Falling slowly, sing your melody
I’ll sing it loud
Only love survive the fall.”
.
“Falling Slowly,” a song from this random old musical called Once. Sung by Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglova. 2006.
—
I used to sing this all the time back in the day. I almost remember the accompanying chords on the guitar and I would genuinely like to sing it with the band but, like – I don’t know if I could actually do that without ugly crying in front of people? Anyway. The players at the café tonight did this number near the end of the set and I was not expecting that and it kinda got me good
“I understood that reference.”
🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄🥄
“This machine kills fascists”
~ Woody Guthrie, in reference to his guitar.
Alright lads where is the tea and which harbor are we throwing it into
“Dearest, I beg of you, sleep properly and go for walks.”
~ Franz Kafka
“The scenery’s changing and it warms my soul
I’m 200 miles down and a long way yet to go
So, get your boots on and your walking coat
And we’ll together leave our footprints upon a virgin snow
That ancient sunrise will soon descend
And we’ll be left here pondering on the things which you cannot change
So, let’s start over with no means to an end
Just in love and out of hope and a closed hand, full of friends
Yeah, well, livin’ was alright, but I was dead in the water
Couldn’t see it in its light, I couldn’t kneel in its altar
All I wanted was to tear it right down to the ground
But I’m feeling alright now, yeah, I’m feeling alright
Every morning when the coffee’s on
And I rediscover that color in your eyes, in its gold and its bronze
And in the moonlight go get the camera, just go
With the recitations of the parish poets popping on our scrolls
Yeah, well, I was alright but I was dead in the water
Couldn’t see its light, I couldn’t kneel at its altar
All I wanted was to tear it right down to the ground
Through this fleeting culture
And hide away from wolves and the vultures
All they wanted was to tear me right down to the ground
Oh, I’m feeling alright, I am now, yeah, I’m feeling alright
In the recitations of the parish poets
In the buildings, in the burrows, in the locked boats
I will find my means to an end
With an open hearted hope and a closed hand, full of friends.”
Foy Vance. “Closed Hand Full Of Friends.” Joy of Nothing. 2013.
I painted my nails with clear nail polish and let them grow out ever so slightly longer than the shorter length I usually maintain because I have been too tired to do maintenance tasks like cut my fingernails. They look kind of pretty. Painted Steve’s nails too, which he let me do because the clear coat doesn’t look particularly incriminating.
Everything hurts right now.
I made a mistake and drank a chai latte with a shot of espresso at like 9pm last night at work. It was so, so good and it got me through the shift. Didn’t sleep a wink or like blink at all for many hours. Ended up in a kind of panicked rumination spiral in the very early morning before sunrise. Steve held me through the worst of this. Wondered what the hell was in that chai mix but honestly my body has a certain way of responding to substances so it could really have just been the stress and sugar and caffeine.
To distract myself I am entertaining a hyperfixation on genealogy. Calling in the grandmothers, one might say.
I am still in an absurd amount of pain.