as far as I’ve come in the last few years, I can still feel the yearning out of how little of my life I’ve been able to really live, for lack of money, of purpose, of anything approaching personal satisfaction. and how many beautiful things I’ve dismantled or drifted away from because at root I could never be satisfied with — never even be myself. Trained and broken on the shores of hope, never dry, always shivering and looking for shelter from both moon and sun. Always wishing. Then I stopped wishing. And I had the desperation to hope again, but to include effort, excruciating effort because I had every reason to expect I’d fail again. That getting in the robot could just as easily end the world.

How many of us live this way?

I’ve started a new job, one that I hope will be my job, one I can grow into and bloom within. I’m a ragged houseplant re-potted once again. It’s strange to feel like there might be room here. But I’m nowhere near healed from everything I’ve endured as well as I could. And I’m not sure when or whether I’ll really be able to feel like I’m living, rather than… whatever this has been.

lil nas x — sun goes down

I really like the album!!!

Watch this.

I don't know how, but we have to dismantle the American police state.

Brave Saint Saturn — "Titan"

I've always loved the stomping piano on this song

still true nower than ever

Foxy Shazam — (It's) Too Late Baby

every foxy shazam album still feels like it came out last year. absolute ripper

Five Iron Frenzy — While Supplies Last

Look...... I just really like it when people go after conservative christians, especially from within the faith! 🤷‍♀️

Did you waste your prayers protecting snipers
While you hoarded all the Lysol and diapers?
Save some profits for your cadre of vipers
Because your God only favors survivors
If you vote to stop abortions
Damn the pregnant girls and orphans
Blame your decline on the LGBTQ
Offer platitudes not portions
Then your rancor is your fortune
And your poison is what’s poisoning you

You said “we all deserve this”
For not forcing kids to pray-
While your party loots the earth
And you tell us “Jesus saves”
You’re ignoring half the gospel
Wearing clothing made by slaves
You never “rendered unto Caesar”
Now you, now you fear the fever
Fear the bottom dropping out of your stocks-
You voted for the devil
Let that narcissist embezzle
Put the hen-house in the mouth of the fox

like.... yeah, dude. it's all bullshit, but just let 'em have it!!!!!!!

Paerish — Journey of the Prairie King

this album c r u s h e s

Okay, two things, because even though I hate Apple Music's most recent incarnations, I'm using it for specific albums today:

ONE!

It always takes me too long to figure out whether I'm searching my Library, the Apple Music catalog (which I don't subscribe to), or the iTunes Store. Why is that? Because for some reason the selector for those 3 sources is way the fuck over on the other side of the app window for some reason??????

TWO!

Apparently, in Artists view, you can't sort by Year, Descending. I want to see the most recent album by a band at the top of the list. You can't... do this?

See here, I've clicked "Year", and then I've opened the dropdown again in order to click "Descending", because Apple hates us using their software and would prefer we never click on anything, so they make it fucking annoying to do so:

Now, you may notice, that despite showing the correct options, it's not working. It's showing the earliest Five Iron Frenzy album at the top. Clicking "Ascending," just as a sanity check, shows the exact same thing.

Now, having clicked Descending, if I close the View Options and then open it again, look what it has selected:

... what??? WHAT?????? That's not what I...

THIS IS A COINCIDENCE, because "Winter Wonder Rock" is the last alphabetical entry, too! BECAUSE APPARENTLY clicking "Ascending" or "Descending" overrides all other choices, and sorts by Title and then up or down?????? are you fucking kidding me????????????????????

Can I achieve this in the Albums view? nnnnnnope! You can sort by Artist and then by Year, but there's no further option to ascend or descend. Just... can't do it! Not because a computer can't do these things; not because there's no reason anyone would ever want to do this, not because you could never do this because it used to be possible in iTunes..........

but just because, at Apple, you are no longer required to think about what the people who use your software might want to reasonably do with it!

Dear Apple,

Thanh Neville, M.D., M.S.H.S., in "I'm An ICU Doctor And I Cannot Believe The Things Unvaccinated Patients Are Telling Me":

But the relief was short-lived, the hope was fleeting, and we are amid another surge. A surge that is fueled by a highly transmissible variant and those unvaccinated. My experiences in the ICU these past weeks have left me surprised, disheartened, but most of all, angry.

I am angry that the tragic scenes of prior surges are being played out yet again, but now with ICUs primarily filled with patients who have chosen not to be vaccinated. I am angry that it takes me over an hour to explain to an anti-vaxxer full of misinformation that intubation isn’t what “kills patients” and that their wish for chest compressions without intubation in the event of a respiratory arrest makes no sense. I am angry at those who refuse to wear “muzzles” when grocery shopping for half an hour a week, as I have been so-called “muzzled” for much of the past 18 months.

I cannot understand the simultaneous decision to not get vaccinated and the demand to end the restrictions imposed by a pandemic. I cannot help but recoil as if I’ve been slapped in the face when my ICU patient tells me they didn’t get vaccinated because they “just didn’t get around to it.” Although such individuals do not consider themselves anti-vaxxers, their inaction itself is a decision — a decision to not protect themselves or their families, to fill a precious ICU bed, to let new variants flourish, and to endanger the health care workers and immunosuppressed people around them. Their inaction is a decision to let this pandemic continue to rage.

And meanwhile, immunocompromised people, for whom vaccines don’t generate much immunity, are desperately waiting for herd immunity. I have no way to comfort my rightfully outraged transplant patients who contracted COVID-19 after isolating for over a year and getting fully vaccinated as soon as they could. With angry tears, these patients tell me it’s not fair that there are people who are choosing to endanger both themselves and the vulnerable people around them. They feel betrayed by their fellow citizens and they are bitter and angry. I cannot blame them.

I am at a loss to understand how anyone can look at these past months of the pandemic — more than 600,000 lives lost in the U.S. and more than 4 million worldwide — and not believe it’s real or take it seriously. But the unhappy truth is that there are people who do not. They did not in the beginning and many are doubling down now.