this most precious

We're only a few short weeks from the end of the decade.
Time is a construct and yet somehow it matters.
Doesn't it? Does it?
If I have assigned the construct meaning, then I suppose it does.
All this to say, I have reflected and felt some deep feelings about the ending of this decade.
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I regained my freedom in so many ways, in this decade.
Became me again.
Became a new me.
I published stories and met new people and shed poisonous people.
I saw distant parts of the planet I never thought I'd see.
I was lonely and I made bad decisions and I scraped the bottom of my soul to create fiction and write about my childhood and say some true things.
I took a new job and a new 1/2 job and quit the new 1/2 job.
I learned things and forgot things.
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I sang, "I love myself" in a Ballard brewery and smiled, knowing all the while it was untrue.
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Meanwhile the world burns and sociopaths and billionaires are unashamed.
What does it all mean?
Meaning is also a construct, and the idea that my life has meaning or that existence has meaning -- well it's all a bit much for 12.43pm on a Saturday afternoon.
What means something today is friendship and a good night's rest and a completed crossword puzzle.
Dog boops and boo cuddles and laying on my couch with a good book.
What also means something is continuing to fight and giving money to the ACLU and standing on overpasses with signs.
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I don't have a cute or meaningful ending and probably, neither does life.

who's down

via GIPHY

flor de toloache

New to me mariachi band Flor de Toloache performed on KEXP just a few months ago. How I missed this I do not know but please enjoi.

white sands

One of the places I went on my trip was White Sands National Monument. I'd never heard of it (or maybe I had, vaguely, without thinking much about it). A friend drove us and his dog out there for a day trip. 40 minutes or so from Las Cruces, through the Organ Mountains, past a border patrol stop (I'm still WTF about that whole situation) and into acres and acres of cream-colored gypsum sand. You can walk on it, the dog rolled delightedly in it, you can even picnic and overnight in it. It is beautiful and eerie and sometimes Highway 70, which leads to it, is closed for nearby US military missile testing. This mysterious beauty and occasional state-sanctioned violence is a perfect microcosm of our conflicted world.

gallivantin

I spent about 10 days on holiday in the southwestern US. Getting away from work, home, the regular reg nature of things was exactly what I needed. I drove hundreds of miles through very unfamiliar landscapes, seeing new places and old friends. I wandered mountainous cities and read a Claire DeWitt detective novel and ate Hatch chilis a few different ways and wiggled my toes in cream-colored gypsum sand and came home on a train, exchanging the trials of airports and TSA for special brownies, spectacular West Coast views, naps, and the dining car.
What a treat.

new missy

New music from Missy Elliott. You know she's my girl. I wasn't sure about Sum1 and visually I didn't care for her part of the video but damn can she sing. The video is fly and sly and fresh too. You could write a master's thesis on her visual imagery. You could = maybe I should.

where u been

Gosh amighty, I been away for awhile, apparently.
Family in town last week.
Pedicures have been had.
Thrift shopping and early-Thanksgiving also done and had.
Folks are traveling but I'm not, yet anyway.
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I've been reading up a storm and that is traveling in a way, isn't it?
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The Kurt Cobain biography by Charles Cross.
Arresting. An obituary for a person, a soul, an ethos, a city.
Dervla Murphy's trek across Madagascar.
I marvel at her daughter's wry long-suffering.
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And laughing along with and marveling at the lo-fi, clever artistry of this Literal MSPaint joint.