You know you need more hobbies when you've decided that, after class and one last writing task, you're going to tool around with MATLAB... for fun. 🤦

Just about to enter a call with someone who often tries my patience via email - but who's easier to manage in person.

Leaning into a spot of gratitude first, though:

Even though we're all damaged little sods bumping up against each other's damage in this messy world... most of the time, for most of us, we really don't mean to make things worse for one another.

We're all just doing the best we can from the data and the experiences we have.

Thanks for being decent little sods together, eh? 💛

A few months back, I wrote on zero- and positive-sum thinking. Zero-sum thinkers struggle to imagine scenarios where one's "win" doesn't come at another's loss, or where paying attention to X doesn't mean neglecting Y. Positive-sum thinkers can hold multiple ideas in tension, and see mutual benefits more easily.

But the irony is that positive-summers need to account for zero-summers, too. We can't change all ways of perceiving. Still, the ideal is a world where even zero-summers are better off.

The way that I'm handling nutrition for the next few weeks is responsible for all these vivid dreams, but some are definitely more chaotic than others. 🙃

Last night I was trying to give a talk that had an A/V component, with three different tech systems that kept going on the fritz and interrupting with annoying audio playback.

Waking up was *so* peaceful after running around trying to get the mute to stay on each wayward system glitching during my presentation. 👌🏻 Morning, fellow nutters!

Tried to finish two reviews tonight, but somehow fictive horror just doesn't hold a candle to the real stuff anymore. Will try again after a class tomorrow morning.

Night all. Don't let the bedbugs bite, or the enemies of democracy win. 🤗

Trying to wrap my head around federal, state, and municipal firearms rules in this Kansas City case.

From what I gather, KC can require a permit for concealed carry, which tacitly allows some restrictions to people 19 and over. But it cannot *limit* concealed-carry, & even though municipal ordinances ban minors, that ban is superseded by state law, which *doesn't* ban minors, even though federal law does for hand- and machine-guns, not shotguns.

Y'all okay over there? 😕
https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article285716041.html

Freakin' love a "Yes, and" conversation.

CoSo does those so darned well. 🔥

@WordsmithFL, I already have you locked in for cake. :)

Everyone else needs to make their requests!

Now's a good time for a glimpse of my mountain post-fire damage. Two fires, actually: the upper left is still recovering from December, and the rest is from recent burning. (Screencapped the original photo, for those getting all antsy about Alfred, but if you find me, and visit, give me 4 hours notice to bake something nice!)

I feel terrible for everyday folks in Alabama today. (Just caught up on news out of the state, re: embryos now being "minor children" for lawsuit purposes.)

It's so easy to say "Alabama is a backwater, a lost cause", but most people there are just trying to get by, and there's so little hope right now of them being able to defend against the awful few striving to make the lives of women, families, and queer people even harder.

We could have built *such* a kinder world.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/02/20/alabama-supreme-court-frozen-embryos-ruling-ivf/72662533007/

👀 @WordsmithFL! I'm popping on a VOY today. Don't know if you can, too, but methinks the Trek chats have been sorely postponed. New week, new (old) voyages!

Vivid dreams the last few days, and ridiculously wholesome ones, too.

Last night someone dear to me, who's away for years trying to fix their life, showed up and we just went for a long walk where I heard about all the friends they'd made while away.

(Not real friends, but I learned a lot about a group of Aussie immigrants my brain made up. 🙃)

But that was it! The whole dream, one long chat checking in with a dear one.

Sometimes the body aches pretty cleanly for what it loves and misses, eh?

But hey, I guess I learned a new trigger for myself!

And that ain't nothin'.

We do a decent job of living fairly normal lives between hits of terrible news and run-ins with worldly suffering, don't we?

We really do.

So don't you dare feel bad for laughing where you can, loving where you can, and just being your full, silly, quirky selves where you can.

And if it hits harder than usual one day: the absolute *shittiness* of the world?

Don't you dare feel bad for taking a breather, too. 💙

I'm often surprised by what disheartens me the most about this world.

Last week, as per usual, I saw a lot of terrible things on the internet and a lot of hardship in real life.

I did not expect that *numbers* were going to break me - but the sheer size of certain penalties was an ugly reminder of how much of a game our world truly is, with *so, so* many bearing the everyday price of that inequality.

We have enough to do enough.

But we don't. And we won't.

And that just gutted me on Friday.

I *should* be disappointed by my last-minute cancelled class at day's end, but... I have a season finale to watch. 🎉

I've so enjoyed my time with Kali Reis (playing Evangeline Navarro, across from Jodie Foster as Liz Danvers). There was some good writing, too - especially in the Christmas episode, where everyone *tries* to be their best self but cannot help but fall back on hard-won routines of unkindness in the face of challenge and vulnerability.

Tough worlds make messy people, eh?

#CoSoTV