DNA Lounge reluctantly stops checking vaccination status, not because it’s safe, but because nobody else is doing it.

There are lots of things that we could be doing to bring this pandemic to an end, but we as a society are simply not doing most of them.

We can all look forward to years of people telling us, "It's just a cold, everybody gets it twice a year, whatever." And your personal experience may support that in the short term, because with vaccinations, probably very few people you know will be hospitalized. But Long COVID is a god damned hurricane of multiple sclerosis, diabetes, chronic fatigue, weird clots, loss of lung capacity, brain damage, and inexplicable neurological conditions, and it's coming right at us.

And in this hurricane, instead of building levees and storm drains, the government is telling us, "everybody should take personal responsibility for deciding what level of moistness they are comfortable with".

And in this hurricane, as it uproots trees and batters your storm windows, your friend rolls their eyes and asks, "Are you just going to stay home forever?"

Five Iron Frenzy — Huerfano

I know I've posted this one before. I could post the whole album, because I'm listening to it again for the 200th time. It's hard to believe Five Iron Frenzy has continued to transform and make new-feeling music that also happens to be exactly what I want to listen to, for so many years.

I'm so tired. But I can also rest, which is very different from where I was a year ago, two years ago, ten years ago. I want to feel my fighting spirit return. It flickers and whispers sometimes. These songs help.

The Strokes — One Way Trigger

just listened to this album for the first time yesterday. it feels messy and strange, but it grew on me immediately. this song immediately embedded itself. upbeat, hard-to-parse song about discontent? guess i have a type

I'm excited to read this new collection of essays about Mark Z. Danielewski's The Familiar. One of my favorite set of books. The last essay is by Mark. I dread (pleasantly) reading it.

I collected all of the separate articles into one PDF for my convenience. So if you want that, here's a link.

half•alive — "back around"

great song, great album. this is the only thing I've ever heard that resembles the production on The Velvet Teen's "Cum Laude," particularly the synths and overblown bullhorn vocals on "gyzm kid." If it's not a direct reference, I'd be very surprised!

which track is, by the way, a tour de force:

Do the people you love still come greet you like you'd never left off? Or has your skin become too rough? Is it too hard to even keep in touch?

Yeah, i try my best, but when i can't
And i'm away, know you've all my love
In this sea turtle moment
To have and to hold
As our bodies burden
This returning torrent

it's fucked up that this album is approaching 20 years old

apropos of nothing, since I have this song in my head:

fuck the confederacy and its mewling idiot modern-day supporters :)

but also fuck the imperial united states, all wars of aggression, and all institutions of oppression :)))

This track, and this whole album, have really become hall of famers in my solitary household.

Now you say, "I see your face every turn I make
I find no comfort there"
I add, "I hear your voice with every mistake
It's like you're always here"

I feel I've stood here once before
Would you run after me?
Would you run or do we disappear?

My web site broke for a few weeks because of a hosting issue, and I couldn't be bothered to fix it. I barely have energy for the bare minimum right now. I entirely self-isolated from mid-December until last week, not sharing physical space with other people for longer than was necessary, because I was much more worried about covid than almost everyone around me. I hate this virus, this place, this incessant parade of obvious malfunction.

I'm unfortunately reflecting on how many people I've let down in my life, because I had one of my periodic self-destructive breaks. So many friendships I truly loved, exploded because something broke in me while struggling to maintain daily life. I'm pretty sure 90% of the people I've ever met think of me as "that fuckin' guy," when they think of me at all. I'm not just projecting; I've heard secondhand from several people in recent years that former friends I just couldn't keep up with for some reason have very low opinions of me.

I've been trying, the whole time. I'm gonna keep trying. But I keep coming back to a fundamentally unpleasant experience of day to day life. It's terrible in here, being me. Antidepressants kept me alive and functional for the last couple of years, even as I accidentally lost touch with most of the people I was closest to. I started taking them, my emotions went haywire, a long relationship ended, I couldn't bear the group chats, and almost nobody even asked me how I felt about the collapse. Maybe I should have spoken up for myself. I haven't felt like I could, there's no excuse, I just don't function properly. Maybe I need to ask to try different drugs, because it's not looking like daily life is really gonna get any more fun, anytime soon.

Anyway, here's a good song. Bad Suns is one of my favorite bands, both for their sound, and for the words which express this kind of deep discontent alongside an insistent, unfounded optimism.

"Try tuning out all of my doubts and my mistakes
A streetlight intersection moment of reflection
I can’t live my life this way
Silently screaming, lies on the phone,
Every reason to let go of every demon clutching my bones
But this unbearable feeling feels like home"