I realized the wealthy had too much loot when the CEO of Bank of America purchased a restaurant he enjoyed and had it moved closer to the BOA office building so he wouldn’t have to walk the half mile to eat there.
That was in 2005 or so (at least when I found out about it), and that pretty much sealed it for me.
“In a world that seeks connection, we oddly avoid eye contact, we time our text responses in order to protect ourselves from seeming too eager or interested, and we hold our feelings back because we don’t want to seem overly emotional or unreasonable. We silence our instincts, and at the end of the day instead of feeling good about ourselves, we feel alone, we feel misunderstood. Remember — it is okay to be emotional, to seek help, to confidently tell someone you enjoy being around that you are infatuated with them. There is nothing wrong with vulnerability, with being human, for that is what created depth within our relationships, and that is what ultimately unifies us.”
-Bianca Sparacino
I just want to say that I regret nothing in my life. I did what I had to do. Made many hard decisions. They got my where I am now. I have an amazing partner who delights me every single day and my life is immensely better with her in it. We fight every battle together and share every joy. She makes me a better person and she’s a dazzling wonder to behold in every way.
Everything I enjoyed and endured got me here. Change the path, the here is somewhere else. I want to be here.
A lot of men treat women so fawningly and/or insultingly (often at the same time), that it surprises many women when you do not.
In some ways it’s worse, because then they have no script to follow. No script == many people just utterly malfunction.
One thing that I can say about my dad is that he was an excellent judge of character. Far better than I was and am. It was his special gift and he was never wrong.
After I’d known Tia for about a year, she and I went over to my dad’s house to pick up some food from his garden on a sunny weekend morning. She liked his unruly free-ranging chickens as she’d never been around any and I enjoyed being out in the country again. We stayed and visited for a few hours, just walking the backwoods and hanging out. She wandered around and looked at everything that she could find or touch, which was her way.
During the visit as I was meandering along the fenceline with my dad, he nodded over to where Tia was, way across the yard and said, “Son, is she your girlfriend?”
I said, “No, dad, not my girlfriend. She’s had some very bad experiences with men and is not really interested in that right now.” I didn’t want to go into detail and violate my friend’s privacy, nor tell him that it was more complicated than that. But Tia wasn’t at the time my (or anyone’s) girlfriend.
Then he said, “Well, I can tell you she’s a good one. You should spend more time around her and away from some of your other friends. She’s something else.”
When my dad said a person was “something else,” that was high praise. The very highest. He said that about maybe three people in my life that I’d ever heard. And looking back, he was annoyingly enough always right in that one little area, whether about praise or disdain. A girlfriend of mine that he’d met earlier he’d judged to be exploitative and horrible, and he was 100% correct. She was damaged and damaging and he figured that out in about 10 minutes when it took me six months. (And no, he wasn’t talking about Tia being beautiful, though she was. My dad, much like me, didn’t care about that or really notice it much at all and never had. Anyway, most of what made her deeply and profoundly beautiful was her personality and immeasurable kindness, which no picture can convey. That was what my dad had picked up on.)
He was right, right yet again. I wish I’d told Tia what he said. She was indeed something else.
A jacket that I used to wear comfortably is now too tight to allow me to easily bend my elbow and hand toward my face to take a drink. It’s too snug, mainly in the forearm area (my forearms have gotten a whole lot bigger).
Too bad. I liked this jacket.
When I left grad school in 2008, I owed $70k in federal student loans. (A poor choice I wouldn’t make again.) For the past 11 years, I’ve been making payments (except for a period of under employment), totaling about $60,000 in payments. Guess how much I still owe.
$70,000.
— Lacy M. Johnson (@lacymjohnson) December 12, 2019
Completely sustainable and normal. There will be no political consequences resulting from this.
It’s going to be ugly in ways that Brits can scarcely comprehend. They’ve never had to call up an “HMO” and beg for life saving healthcare or have a hedge fund “raid” their savings. Those things are coming now, and they’re going to be literally incomprehensible to many.
— ❤️ (@umairh) December 12, 2019
That’s the short of it. The long of it will be even worse. I wonder what many people will do when they realize they’ve stabbed their own fool self in the heart?
Certainly won’t be able to go the NHS and get it dealt with.
The biggest difference I see between young men today versus 10 years ago is the risk aversion
When I started lifting, it was exciting to push your body to the limit
Now I get these concerned questions of "I dont want to HURT my body, what should I do?"
Bro, You're 20 FFS
— Alexander J.A Cortes (@AJA_Cortes) December 12, 2019
I think everyone has gotten more risk averse. I don’t know the full explanation and there is no one factor that can account for it I’d guess, but it’s been an enormous change in my lifetime.
The best movie of 2019 was Jordan Peele’s Us. The rest weren’t even close. Ambitious and hilarious, terrifying and dexterous in action and stillness, it defied conventions while bringing them in for a slimy hug.
I intended to write a full review, and perhaps I will one day, but right now I can’t because my brain is too full of thoughts from long ago.
We are generous of mind, spirit and riches, so much so that we wish to open borders. It is with this same spirit of generosity that we crush dissent.
— Aimee Terese (@aimeeterese) December 12, 2019
Evergreen tweet. Open borders is just a Santa Claus wish anyway, by those who’d be least harmed by it.
The UK can say goodbye to the NHS. It will be gutted, and what a loss that will be for those least able to bear it.
The difference between the dissident right and the dissident left, is that there is no dissident left, structurally, institutionally. The left wing of capital has taken everything, academia, unions, there isn't even a single publication. They even took our terminology.
— Aimee Terese (@aimeeterese) December 13, 2019
I’ve been saying this for years. There’s no Left left. It’s all neoliberal blather and rhetorical executions of those who stray.
The solution is that there is not one.
In a very different context, a philosopher said the best of us didn’t make it out. That’s true of where I grew up. They are all in the ground now like my friend.
Just thinking about dancing around like fools with Tia to the Red Hot Chili Peppers, free. Before her, I didn’t know that you could be just free with another person. She taught me that. She let me be that. It’s a debt I can never repay.
Does anyone really believe the 2020 election is going to improve anything, no matter who wins? I don’t. The divisions are too ingrained and intractable. There is a chasm that cannot be bridged.