(That said, if anyone's so inclined, please do eat a pecan or butter tart for me today. I have *such* a craving, and I've only made them once for myself in my six years away from Canuckistan. 🙃)

When I was younger, wishing anyone a happy Canada Day was rightfully loaded, especially before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which *began* our work of reckoning with cultural genocide.

But I'd always frame it this way:

I think of the children and migrants who are given an ideal to aspire towards, and I think of the people trying to improve on the social contract that we have, and I see such days as a chance for us all to imagine building better from the rough roots we've been given.

Park time with the family.

Amusingly, even two of these beauties were beefing today. White-and-black kept backing their junk up to push the youngest of the browns away, but then the young'un beefed back, so white-and-black has put herself into a huffy time-out, snorting and grumbling and grazing elsewhere.

Good to know it's not just people who need a moment. 👌🏻

#CoSoNature
#PuppersOnTheHoof

And thank you, folks, for your patience with me this weekend. 💙

I feel beyond useless. Everything I've committed myself to has amounted to precious little, and there's precious little I can do about it. But that "precious little" still matters.

I made the mistake of trying to catch up right away on correspondence with people who don't know me & just enjoy using me as a sounding board for their own bugbears. That flipped another despair-switch.

Still catching up, but calmer now. Thanks again.

Last week, there was... a lot.

I was in the middle of finishing a project on a crunch deadline after a week of illness, but behind me, the news was filled with reminders of the world's crushing mediocrity and cruelty.

So today, for Monday Media Review, we start with a reflection on recommitting to the tedious everyday work of better-world-building amid anger and despair.

If simply being teed off were enough to make it better, what a great world we'd have today!

https://open.substack.com/pub/mlclark/p/how-we-keep-it-all-together

But also, hello, good morning, don't forget to hydrate, and remember to touch grass once in a while.

#DontDoWhatCrankyMLDoes

Like I said a year ago, I should've stopped writing by now and found a place to go where no one knows me, to live in as much peace as any of us can scrape out in this awful world.

A lot of people want so much based on flat-out wrong assumptions of me. I miss the one person who actually knows me, and I'd say that's just "depression" talking, but I think a lot of us are walking wounded right now. We're gonna need a bigger word.

#ImTheSnickersBeforeCommerialTheyNeverAired
https://youtu.be/wVXiZoQsvEs

😂

Well. Newsletter drafting last night led to a 3,000-word screed nowhere near ready to post.

Then this morning I burst into tears halfway through recording, and then the second chapter was made impossible by two dogs barking in audible vicinity.

So... I'm going to try to finish the overdue book review and circle back to the rest of this nonsense.

At some point I also need to be out and explain my two-week absence from the world to neighbours, but I'm not ready to people yet. I'm just done.

Next up:

1) Newsletter (in-progress)
2) Recordings for Patreon
3) Overdue book review
4) Monday morning walk in the park, catching up on a whole whack of messages, including another 30 min of VM from one uncle. 🙃
5) Dirty limericks for CoSo
6) Find my 42 / * again. Maybe it's under the couch cushions...?

I'm in the "hangover" part of having submitted the project to my client.

It's not the fact that this piece is probably going to get trad-published to great acclaim (for them) that gets me.

It's that I did a lot of client therapy during this project, & the cognitive dissonance of sitting with someone's panic over fancy industry goals considering the state of the world is... well, it ain't nothing.

I feel ashamed that I ever cared about goals of my own, TBH. There's just no point to most of it.

I doubt I'm the only one feeling super low this morning. Our world is shaped by a lot of malevolence, stupidity, and entrenched mediocrity, and personally, I find it hard to care about most things I once did anymore. Lost a lot of interest & ambition these last few years. Biggest "goal" is a nice day in the park, since I can't fix anything else.

Anyway. One more day on this editing project. 4 chaps and a read-through, then out it goes.

Hold on to yer hearts.

#CoSoMusic
https://youtu.be/9jK-NcRmVcw

Also, when this project is out to the client, and I'm back from making sweet sweet love to Mother Nature, I'm writing everyone who wants one a dirty limerick.

I SERIOUSLY need to get the "serious" out of my system.

#ThatIsAll
#BackToWork

And when it's finished and out?

I haven't left the apartment for more than the smallest grocery runs in a week, and I've been eating two hot sauce and egg sammies a day for sustenance for just as long, like some kind of experientially atrophied middle-aged bachelor. (Which, okay, fair, isn't far from the mark. 🙃)

When it's finished and out I am going for a long run, a tinto with street friends, and then a day in beautiful nature.

Away from all things tech.

Touching grass.

#BarefootYouSay? 🌱

We're coming down to the wire with this project. Two more 3/4er nighters ahead, but I think I can make it.

Things are a lot smoother at this juncture, after weeks of detangling misused texts to figure out what core of a narrative could be salvaged & recrafted to stand on its own. This was part editing, part Storytelling 101 & 102. Wildest coaching job yet.

But I know the client *wanted* to figure out the real story for their once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Will be super happy if it works out.

For Rewind Wednesday, we're looking at the backstory of the term "genocide" through its fiercest advocate, Raphael Lemkin, and the state interests that were deeply anxious in the 1940s about constraining the definition to make sure they couldn't be found too culpable for crimes against humanity all their own.

(So, y'know, another cheery one. But who here is surprised? If I ever write about, say, the history of cotton candy, you'll still know to expect something grim.)

https://open.substack.com/pub/mlclark/p/raphael-lemkin-on-genocide-and-why

Nice try, power outage!

I have a full battery and my editing work for the evening is all offline.

(But it did kill the half-episode of something I was watching with my daily meal. Now I have to use my own imagination to entertain myself instead, like a sucker. Pff.)

(Off now to a noon-hour Zoom meeting! Thank you for letting me drive-by vent without being able to reciprocate fully! 🤗 I hope you're keeping well, and that you've got all the community and resources you need to bear up to all current struggles in your lives.

And if you need to hear it: You're doing the best you can! Keep breathing, and keep swimming! 🐟)