chat

I just wanted to say, thank you so much to the people here who made it possible. Without your help it wouldn't be over and done with now. Life has been hard and miserable for a while now but at least this is one problem crossed off the list.

But god-damn it is expensive. Automatic cutters are like $250, a decent printer is like $500 (not including ink refills), then all the paper. I just want to draw shit and stick it on stuff!

Stickers would be a cool outlet for drawing stuff. Give me an end product instead of just doodling aimlessly.

When I'm lyin' in my bed at night
I don't wanna grow up
Nothin' ever seems to turn out right
I don't wanna grow up
How do you move in a world of fog
That's always changing things
Makes me wish that I could be a dog
When I see the price that you pay
I don't wanna grow up
I don't ever wanna be that way
I don't wanna grow up
Seems like folks turn into things
That they'd never want
The only thing to live for
Is today...
I'm gonna put a hole in my TV set
I don't wanna grow up
Open up the medicine chest
And I don't wanna grow up
I don't wanna have to shout it out
I don't want my hair to fall out
I don't wanna be filled with doubt
I don't wanna be a good boy scout
I don't wanna have to learn to count
I don't wanna have the biggest amount
I don't wanna grow up
Well when I see my parents fight
I don't wanna grow up
They all go out and drinking all night. And I don't wanna grow up
I'd rather stay here in my room
Nothin' out there but sad and gloom
I don't wanna live in a big old Tomb
On Grand Street
When I see the 5 o'clock news
I don't wanna grow up
Comb their hair and shine their shoes
I don't wanna grow up
Stay around in my old hometown
I don't wanna put no money down
I don't wanna get me a big old loan
Work them fingers to the bone
I don't wanna float a broom
Fall in love and get married then boom
How the hell did I get here so soon
I don't wanna grow up

• Tom Waits

This song came out the year before i hit highschool. Ive listen to TW off and on, he was a little out there for me during my teens but this song has always resonated with me.

Now, i am grown up. Im 46. I have children who are the age i was when this song came out. I have this overwhelming feeling like this is it. I have a home, and loans, and kids, and a medicine chest. Im floating the broom. Feeling like ive lost my way.

How the hell did i get here so soon?

Shit is hitting really hard this morning. Bricks on my chest. Anyway.

About an $1,800 kitchen faucet that doesnt interface with Alexa properly.

Im liable to take the faucet and beat him with it til his legs dont work any more. The disconnect here may as well be the Grand Canyon and im Evel Knievel.

This implies that the US never stopped committing genocide, and now even the most far-left American looks identical to the average Israeli leftist. At least in my view. But this view seems consistent with many others studying the same exact problem.

That begs the question, really: if we saw mass unionization and people going on strike in Israel, or if we saw a left-wing opposition win against Netanyahu and the far-right, or if a bunch of Israelis starting showing support for people in Africa... would we be cheering them on and getting excited? Does it really matter what they read, whether that be Lenin, Marx, Engels, etc., if many of their "Marxist" forefathers read the same work while gunning down Palestinians in 1947, or stealing their homes in 1948?

Better yet, if you were at a concert and your friends fell victim to an "attack" by some natives, would you have more sympathy for your friends, or for the people that attacked them? Regardless of whether or not it served some broader strategy?

And when you consider the many indigenous people who go on to serve in the US military, or the vocal minority that align with the current (and past) administration(s) of the US, would you use that as an excuse in the same manner Israelis point to Ethiopian, Arab and Muslim, Druze, etc. participants in Israeli society and/or military operation to the same extent?

Should we just ask right-wing Navajos what they think, and throw our hands in the air saying "see, indigenous people don't care, it's not a real genocide, our Communists are doing just fine"? Or should we ask Jay-Z about it, or maybe some old-school Chicano nationalists who want their own Aztlan?

I feel like most of the other excuses just remind me of the same Israeli (and former French Algerian) talking points, about how long the settlers lived there and how they have no where else to go, or statements/claims that anyone who doesn't like it should just go to Gaza, go to another country, die, "just don't vote"/"vote for the lesser evil"/"fix the system from within"/"settlers should just get along with the indigenous (and vice versa)"/"it's not a real nation and will never be"/"there's too many settlers"/"it's just impossible or unrealistic"/"liberation will never happen"/"why can't we all just work together"/"share the land"/"the natives aren't ready for independence"/"their resistance isn't good enough"/"they just want to get rid of (or kill) all the settlers", or they point to the well-assimilated non-white/non-french/non-jewish population who speak positively of and enjoy/support the governing colonial entity, etc etc etc.

Let's be real here. Does anyone actually believe a left-wing American organization is possible? Or should we look at Israel's Labor Zionism, or Rhodesia's Labor Party.

Better yet, should we be looking at the "Marxist" now running Sri Lanka, or to the Communist Party of Israel (Maki) and try to use them as legitimate examples?

Not a day goes by that I don't think of him in some way. I always go outside and visit his grave. I miss him a lot and I don't think I'm ready to get a new cat yet, I still want him and I'd just be looking for another Wolfie.

Miss you my little peanut head.

Pictured: A large mural of the Palestinian flag with a reference to Geurnika by Pablo Picasso.

Basque word of the Day: Askatu- Freedom/Liberation

Things are going well here. The Chinese friend I mentioned in the previous post is now my bestie. We’ve been hanging out daily and she even offered to host me in China so I could visit her family! I told her I plan to take her up on this once I get my Spanish citizenship in a few months.

She knows I’m gay/trans and she wants to be a matchmaker, “I will help you find a good man!”

I’ve been thriving here and every day I’m so happy that I managed to escape Burger Land.

HOWEVER: By having a Chinese friend I have been exposed to good ole sinophobia and racism. A dude at the bar asked me “why the Chinese? Why are you with Chinese people?”

We’ve been harassed by the elderly when we tried to study in a cafe. I’ve been pestered for looking not Basque enough (though I think in this case it’s because of anti-tourism sentiment in the region), and we’ve gotten dirty looks for just… hanging out?

Granted, most of it is from cranky old men. The rest is from general assholes. Most people have been chill, especially younger people, but after coming from the USA the bold racism is a culture shock and frankly- fucking annoying.

It was just laying in the middle of the street, not attached to anything. It was laminated and didn't look as if it had been taped or stapled to anything.

It had a link to a website with other ready to print flyer templates.

Knew this would probably happen and im lucky that my new partner is so supportive and understanding but holy shit im sobbing at my favorite hangout spot trying to play Mario and cool down. Texting a few friends.

Im sure I'll bounce back and enjoy the rest of my night and eat and watch one piece im just super teary eyed rn

Transferring to a Community College to finish my Associates, since I couldn't really handle all the annoying liberalism of my local 4-year (plus, I had a medical emergency every mid-semester, which wasn't fun.) Once I finish my apprenticeship and my Associate's, I was wondering what college is actually decent for socialism/communism?

Obviously, there's a lot of factors like tuition, student demographic, faculty, ect. But, this is mostly hypothetical. I've heard Evergreen was pretty good, emphasis on the was.

it's okay

i'm a thug

😢

(her rejection wasn't even an explicit no... it was really just a non-answer, like she totally ignored it and responded by bringing up a totally different topic, made it even worse but once again i'm a thug

i'll get through it

hugs and kisses all appreciated)

I never knew just how much walking around outside improved my mental health until I lost the ability. While going through this benefit appeal, cancer treatment and recovering from a stroke, everything has been so hard but being able to walk down to the beach and spend some time outside with my landlady’s little dog each day, made life tolerable. Then I got stuck inside for a while due to my foot surgery, and this other one coming up on Thursday. Being stuck indoors has made life much more frustrating and stressful and given me nothing to look forward to, but at least this had an end date. After recovery from the surgeries I would be able to walk around again. But now I have developed achilles tendonitis. It’s the second time I’ve had it, the first time I was in a plaster cast for 10 days and couldn’t walk properly for months. This time who knows how long it will last. Google says it could take a year to improve, or it might never get better. I’m a lot older and sicker than the first time I had it, at best I could be stuck indoors for a year, at worst, forever. I just feel like this is the final straw. It’s too much on top of everything else. Potentially spending a year stuck inside doing nothing, staring at 4 walls. Getting more frustrated every day. And all for what? It’s not like I’ll even have a good life to look forward to afterwards. I feel like I just don’t even care about anything any more, not even whether or not I win my benefit appeal. I don’t even have a friend in the world to talk to or spend time with in real life, everyone abandoned me when I became disabled. What is the point of even struggling on with this shitty life any more?

I keep wondering why my life turned out to be so hopeless and miserable. Did I do something in a past life and this is my punishment? Is it bad karma? But then karma has never made sense to me. If you murder someone, and karma decides you then need to be murdered to pay for that, it requires someone else to commit murder so you get your karma. The cycle would never end.

Is the New Age idea that we choose our lives before birth true? Do we choose everything that will happen to us in advance so we can learn something from it? Or is that just cope?

Are we just evolved pondslime who mutated into humans by chance and none of this means anything?

Why is life so incredibly awful for so many people?

I'm posting this partially for advice but mostly to vent bc I have no idea if there's much that can be done from my situation.

Also, any opsec advice to improve the description is appreciated.

What machine are you using? What mask do you use? Hows it going for you? Any OSCAR users? SleepHQ?

Solidarity with all my snorebois and snoregals.

The fucking entitlement of some people. It boils my piss that people my age are trying to do the same sort of gaslighting to young people as others did to my generation.

Young people, please don't fall for it. They're just trying to get you to be a good little workhorse. My peers fell for it and they're all burnt out tired husks now.

My skin crawls whenever I hear people my age talk about "Lazy young workers." As if ten years ago people weren't saying the same shit about us. Maybe your spirit got broken and now you want to break the spirit of the next lot, I don't know. Whatever it is it annoys me.

The funny thing is, the kinds of assholes that complain about "lazy entitled sensitive workers not getting shit done" are usually the ones making the workplace less productive imo. They make everyone miserable because they turn the place into a panopticon of "am I working hard enough?" And if you joke or show any kind of joy at work you're not working hard enough so the workplace becomes depressing.

I hate generational warfare, I hate protestant work ethic, so mix the two and I become rage incarnate.

The worst part is when you get a young "pick me" who is like "I'M NOT SENSITIVE LIKE THE REST OF MY GENERATION I THINK YOU'RE RIGHT WE ARE LAZY." It's fucking sad.

EDIT: AND ANOTHER THING! It's fucking ableist too! No Darren, the kid isn't too sensitive, he has fucking PTSD.

I went to church today for the first time in a few years (I may have attended other Easters, I don't remember) and I was not exactly impressed. I started noticing the hypocrisy more and more. And I know Christians are fond of the whole "Seeing hypocrites at a church is like seeing out-of-shape people at a gym," but it's more like meeting your new personal trainer, and they're really unhealthy, however that looks for them. There's one member who if there's an -ism or -phobia associated with it, he's on the wrong side of it. Yeah, they went and made him a deacon. They all just pick and choose which bits of scripture are literal and which are just metaphorical. Like helping the poor? Well, they mean the poor in spirit, which means I just have to spread Jesus, not actually materially help them. And there's no idea that the concept of capitalism as we know it was not even conceived of during the time of the Biblical stories. Or a good chunk of the church's history. They're worshipping a god they made up that is only tangentially related to the Bible. I almost wish I could go back to not seeing this, but that is no longer an option. It's just sad becoming disillusioned with something that was a huge part of my life for so long.

im at a loss for words i dont understand anything anymore. it just got dark enough here so it was definitely a planned out thing. i hate fireworks on the “normal holidays” to have them but come on now

It's getting to the point where I can't spend under $100 anymore for the week. I remember when $50 was like 5-6 days worth of stuff for a single person like me. Thanks Drumpf.

How's your Easter going?

26 years later and it's still happening and literally nothing is being done about it at all.

No, Game of Thrones didn't take place in Medieval times lmao. Dragons and wizards didn't exist in ye olde England.

It would be funny if people did this with more recent time periods and fiction. Like people genuinely thinking that victorian times had giant steampunk spider robots.

I will say it is a little concerning how often I hear people say shit unchallenged like "It takes place in the old days" about something that is a fantasy world that never actually existed. Makes me worried people can't tell fantasy from reality.

Edit: This petty rant is because I was talking about GoT with a friend and told them that the constant sexual assault put me off watching it and they were like "Yeah, but that's what it was like back then."

It was my birthday party and almost everyone who attended was a gender freak named Alex who I didn’t know but introduced themself with an elaborate story

Edit: ClimateChangeAnxiety send me a private message to say I had things the wrong interpretation of things. They simply recycled their account for opsec reasons. They also said they appreciated everyone's comments!

On this post where I talked about an awful situation I had with my brother, there was a comment siding with my brother suggesting fervent agreement with him and a strong sense on blame on me.

And while I absolutely do understand the point of the comment and was just going to "leave it to the side," especially since the post is a few days ago, I absolutely can't. I can be extremely obsessive when I feel as if I've done something wrong. I can feel even lower self-esteem than I already do in your every day life when I make a mistake, especially one this bad, and while I don't think it's ever appropriate for me to reach out to my brother again and apologize, I can at least learn to live with myself. Unfortunately, I couldn't see myself doing that without making this follow-up.

So, to clarify, the way I responded to him wasn't the best way, and I can acknowledge that. I also want to clarify that my intention of my response wasn't that I wanted to neglect his request. Regardless of how I interpreted the response at face value, I wouldn't have minded taking his request into consideration, but it's understandable how the way I responded would've suggested otherwise. I admit that I was immediately kind of thrown off when he brought it up because, like I said, it was a first time complaint, and my immediate thought simply was that there are numerous ways a person could navigate this situation on their own end.

However, that doesn't justify the way I handled this situation, and I didn't mean to go about it so poorly. I don't know if that's a neurodivergent thing, but something that's always triggered my feelings of inferiority is the fact that I sometimes do or say bad things with a whole lack of awareness because of neurodivergence. I've been getting better, but because of me processing this criticism, such a wave of insecurity is hitting me as harsh as it's done in the past.

I don't know what to do. I don't know if I can do anything to make up for the wrong words I told my older brother.

But if there is nothing, then there is nothing. Like I said, though, one thing I can do is try to live comfortably with this mistake because being totally silent about it wasn't helping me.

I'd be focusing on one task and then jump into an immediate depressive episode because this incident suddenly pops back up in my mind. I talked to my therapist about it, but I can't take his input at face value.

I always felt like I come off as an insufferable person to most people, and my guesses don't tend to be wrong.

I don't know what else to do or say. I don't know how to stop making mistakes like this.