I don't usually wake up and immediately leap to swearing at my screen, but when I do, it's probably because the first headline of the day is a reminder that our world is in the hands of self-serving buffoons.

But good morning to everyone *not* trying to make this planet a hellscape for the next generation! 🤗 I'm sorry your efforts won't mean eff all if the big players don't change direction soon.

I'm in the "pacing" part of my workflow, because I have both a newsletter and a Patreon on the go. (Newsletter first. Patreon after.) I also want to make more progress on the novel, but sleep is apparently a human requirement.

There's a Borges story, "The Secret Miracle", where a man facing the firing squad prays for one more year to finish his play. His god provides by freezing time long enough for him to craft a mental masterpiece, though no one else will ever see it.

Tempting, right now! 🙃

🙂 I am *very* much Kirsten Dunst in Melancholia. When everyone's trying to deny a situation going south, I'm in depressive agony. When the cat's out of the bag and everyone knows how awful this sh[aving cream] is? That's my time to shine.

(Though don't expect shots of me bathing in the light of a ruinous planet! 😅 The only "nudes" I share are nudibranchs, TYVM. They're way more interesting anyway.)

2024 is going to be a challenge.
But I am not giving up.

Thanks for staying in the fight too. 🫂

One thing I'll never get over is how much street folk desperately need to be seen as human. Today a recently beaten fellow asked me for a coffee, but what happened next was the heartbreaker. As I was making eye contact, his eyes welled up & he apologized. For what? He said for burdening me, because it was his fault he'd been beaten, because he'd said bad words. Just meeting him human to human was enough to spark his shame. He limped off then like so many: in need of therapy that will never come.

Laptop acquired! Now home to finish a few pieces, and complete some volunteer tasks.

Tomorrow the plan is to do a thorough deep clean of the apartment, marking unneeded items for sale or donation as I go, and using the physical labour as "scheming time" for 2024.

Lots of writing work to finish this month for sure! But to pull off everything that needs doing, I need my head on straight first... and we all know mine hangs a little crooked as a matter of course. 🙃

One big thing at a time! 🤞🏻

How about you folks? 👀

How are your hearts?

How are your loved ones?

I got a message out of the blue from the tankie in my family claiming that Holodomor never happened, so... if you're battening down the hatches this season to protect from toxic family, I hear you & I'm proud of you.

And if you've got a backlog of work this weekend? Remember to take real breaks (doomscrolling doesn't count!), try to get some nature in, and hydrate.

🤗 Really glad you're still here in this mess of a world.

Two good things today:

Off to get my laptop back. Woo! It was just a fried BIOS chip after all. 85 CAD for the clean and replacement is *much* more manageable than a whole new machine.

And I heard from someone dear to me, who's been MIA for a few weeks while working super hard at multiple jobs in Canada. I didn't realize how much stress I was holding from not knowing if they were OK. How people managed when dear ones could only be reached by letter via boat then horseback I will NEVER know. 🙃

Gratitude for my health.

Gratitude for the many chances I've had to make something work.

Gratitude for the ability to help others on occasion.

Gratitude for the folks who help me in so many ways.

Gratitude for the mess of my experiences, which always deepen my perspective.

And gratitude for surviving them, to live to empathize another day.

Evening classes in 10. Then 2 writing tasks. No scheming 'til Sunday. Gotta put myself in the right headspace first. 👌

G'night you lovely weirdos, all.

Rats. Another shoe dropped during my writing window.

This is a shoe I've expected would drop for a while. Even then, it's still in mid-fall. It won't clatter to the floor until... early next year?

So. Time to reprioritize. This is going to be a December of figuring out how to make survival feasible in 2024.

...

But nothing else I can do right now, so... 🙃 Back to writing!

Then class, newsletter, and a *lot* of gratitude for what I have before I hash out this weekend what has to change/go. 🤞

Live footage of me sneaking out for 1.5 hours of novel time before evening class prep and newsletter drafting. #AmWriting

#Well
#ImAlwaysWriting #ButThisTimeItsPersonal!

🤦 I was today years old when I realized that "ponqué" is a Spanish bastardization of "pound cake", the same way that "rompoy" is "roundpoint"/roundabout.

Sometimes you can see a word a million times before its origins just hit you, you know? Like when I was a kid, and first realized that breakfast literally means the meal that breaks your (nightly) fast.

Mind blown. 😅

#LanguageIsFun

My first student is running late, so one other quick note:

Watch your hearts today. The ceasefire gave lots of journalists time to spin deeper analyses, which are now being thrown at the feed in conjunction with live reports: a whirlwind of data about who knew what when, how AI is playing a role, what the grid system will mean for ongoing civilian crises, who did what first...

In short, there's going to be a HUGE bid for your attention, anger, & despair.

Watch your hearts.
Hug your people. 🫂

Woo! I woke up thinking I hadn't met a project quota for November, panicking and wondering if I could haggle to have it extended for a day... but no, I'd made my project quota with room to spare. 🙃 Of course I did.

So that's a nice relief. Now I can tackle other writing between classes, while waiting on word about the laptop across town.

Coffee & teaching time. Happy Friday!

Fireworks are starting off now. They'll be wildest at midnight - visible from all over the city at the same time. Going to be up writing, but honestly, who can sleep with this noise anyway?

The fireworks repurpose a tradition by cartels, back in the bad days of Medellín.

Now they mark the start of Navidad. 100% not religious, but hot dog, do I enjoy seeing people lean into family, togetherness, & gratitude.

Big hugs and much love to all of you. May you always have reasons to be thankful. ❤️

I don't know if I mention it enough, but you folks inspire the heck out of me.

I've been in limbo for quite some time, & I know that if I have to make a change it'll mean giving up writing completely--which is why I'm okay treading water for now, finishing one last novel, & trying to make a difference while waiting out *gestures at whatever the end of the world is calling itself now*.

But if I have to rebuild from scratch, again? You've all been amazing examples. Thank you for your humanity. 💙

If I can stress one thing, though: it *is* laziness, built into the system through underfunded newsrooms & relentless pressure to cut corners & produce content that lands best in search results.

We need an economy of "slow media" so badly, but we're currently too hooked on this one's trauma cycle to switch off. If we can't get our fix on legacy media, then it's off to other info silos where disinformation reigns.

IOW: we're stuck until the satellites go down and force a hard cultural reboot. 🙃

You know you're getting fed up with the laziness of legacy media (with science, with medicine, with war events where the rush to press can and does cause harm...) when you look at a simple, cute article about penguins...

And immediately argue with it, because - hey! It's also possible they're living a tortured existence! You don't know, Phoebe! You didn't run tests to exclude the possibility!

(Cue Herzog's classic quote about how all of nature is crying out in pain...)

Okay, off for a walk. 🙃

David Runciman has been chatting often on Past Present Future with Lea Ypi, who wonderfully challenges him.

This is a follow-up to two other chats on democracy, but the ideas posed here invite huge reframes:

"[In] globalized societies like the kind we live in, we are so interconnected, power is so diffuse, one vulnerability in one place is felt ... in the rest of the world. It makes no sense to think about national democracy in a world that is not itself democratic."

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/democracy-q-a-w-lea-ypi/id1682047968

Today I've been waiting on "ahorita", a word that *should* mean "very soon" but in reality could be anything.

But I like my go-to tech specialist in Monterrey. The laptop is fried, but she thinks it's just the BIOS chip - so if the machine works when it's swapped out, I'm looking at a much more manageable $85 CAD for the deep clean and repair combined.

(If not, eh, I gambled.)

For now, still playing catch-up. It's fireworks day in Medellín. Going to be noisy from now until past midnight! 🎄 🎇