I've been under the weather for several days, lacking any appetite. I brought this up to my ex over the course of our usual conversations, and her reaction was "fuck this, I'm ordering you food."

So I now have clam chowder and crab mashed potatoes from Red Lobster.

I seriously don't get it. If we are weeks away from never being able to meet again, why is she taking care of me like this?

I try not to overshare, but as I no longer have a career to focus on, my mind zeroes in on interpersonal relationships.

Getting a Lyft up to my ex-wife's was a last-minute thing, and this time it was only going to be for one night, which is not particularly cost-effective.

Usual delights ensue. We smoke and drink, and then, eventually, it's time for bed. I've been sleeping with her since 2009, and this is the first time she was aggressive about initiating.

Like, seriously aggressive. I'm used to the growls and ear nibbles; those are par for the course. I'm not going to regale you with what happened, but it ended up with both of us exhausted and ready for a good night's sleep.

I didn't wake up until 11. She'd been supposed to start work at 8 but called out. So I come to, her naked body next to mine, and I have to do what I frequently have to these days: assess where the fuck I woke up.

We watched a few episodes of Young Sheldon (Wallace Shawn is an ancillary character, and he's not missed a beat on line delivery since The Princess Bride) in the afternoon, hugged, had a brief peck for a kiss ... I was so rushed to get out of my van (An 8-minute estimate turned into 2.) that I forgot my teeth, leaving deep kisses off the table.

Thankfully, she also has full dentures, so this is not a point of contention.

The driver taking me up there apparently had a side gig of proselytizing, which was not welcome and resulted in a $0 tip. I rarely do that, despite deploring tipping culture in general. You are getting me from point A to point B, and that is the extent of our interaction.

I don't know what to do here. She's moving soon to be closer to one of her kids, and at that point, I can't be involved, as she successfully pawned off everything that went wrong in our marriage on me, and her boys believe I'm the devil incarnate as a result.

It is hell to be able to get along with someone both emotionally and physically and know that it has an expiration date.

There's a nonzero chance I will be heading up to Killeen tonight to visit my ex-wife.

This is not inherently wonderful.

It is hard, as we talk through how I'd get there, to forget that we already failed. I wish I didn't love her, but we don't get to choose these things.

so i was reading the linked article on MSN because i hate myself and it was discussing the recent drone attack that killed six US service members but focusing on one young man in particular, Declan Coady, who was only 20 years old when he died. it has the standard fluff you'd find in something written about a recently deceased person, but then it quotes US officials' response to Coady's death and i just.. honestly.. so many Americans are deeply brainwashed they have no clue what they are actually supporting implicitly.

first off, Coady was not a soldier. he was never going to see combat as his role was not "enemy" facing. he supported his unit by coordinating logistics and making sure rations were being provided, equipment was stocked and ready, etc. he had reason to believe he'd be in less danger than the soldiers directly facing combat.

here are parts of the federal press release i'd like to highlight:

• We honor our fallen Heroes, who served fearlessly and selflessly in defense of our nation...

to frame this event as a defensive response to an active aggressor is something a psychopath would do. i mean that in the clinical sense as well a general insult. for Lt. Gen. Robert Harter to say that it means he believed in it, and that disturbs and scares me. so many Americans think the military will not turn on its citizens. i don't know why. here we are, the US, a foreign invader, an aggressor of an internationally illegal hostility, all organized by our fascist president, and Lt. Generals are not willing to stick by their oath to defend against domestic "enemies."

• Our nation is kept safe by folks like these...

we were not unsafe before we attacked Iran and starting a war with Iran will not lead us anywhere positive. we are objectively less safe as evidenced by six military members being killed. standard nationalism though but i always hate when our invasions are portrayed this way.

• We will remember their names, their service, and their sacrifice...

but we won't. objectively so, we won't. the government is infamous for its mistreatment of veterans. it has proven time and time again they are seen as nothing more than used up resources to be discarded and ignored.

• They were the ultimate ambassadors for freedom. They represent the best of what our country stands for...

honestly, fuck you. again, these are all coming from the mouths of high ranking officials willingly. this one from Brig. Gen. Clint A. Barnes, Deputy Commanding General, 1st Theater Sustainment Command, Operational Command Post. mind you, it isn't the language i'm bothered by, this is all typical bullshit said by every administration when military deaths happen, however it is coming from literal fascists this time. it should be painfully clear to these leaders that Trump and his administration are using propaganda to usher in fascist control of the country. this should be a moment where everything clicks and falls into place for them. instead, they believe in the message so deeply that they can't see their way out. they're all fucking gone. this enrages me because people are depending on military members to stand up for us all and all the ones quoted in this article are failing to do so.

there's mention of God granting peace to the families of those lost. absolutely ridiculous. peace? they had that already when they were alive. then we sent them to die by illegally starting a war which has so far bombed schools and killed children, and you want me to accept your hope for a time of peace as genuine?

i'm so bothered by this response from our military. if so many of these officials accept being a literal fascist mouthpiece as part of the job then there's not much left that would cause them to pause. shit is already as bad as it needs to be to refuse orders or complacency. we don't need to wait for anything further.

Hello! I'm looking for someone to talk to since I have been very lonely lately and most of my friends I cannot talk to online. If this is the wrong community, sorry, but it's the best I could find. I can delete this if needed.

Looking for SFW chat, no romance or anything, just someone to talk to. I'm a young adult with a lot of interests. I like coding, history, music, languages, cultures, and I'm interested in learning new things. I'm okay with chatting in comments or in PMs.

I will probably delete this in a few hours or whenever.

This quote is from the February 2016 conversation where my ex-wife and I agreed to divorce. It didn't seem at all plausible ... if we'd tried to make it work for seven years (of which perhaps three were good) and failed, how the hell was that going to happen?

A decade later, we appear determined to find out. Neither of us has a car, which means Lyfts are the order of the day when I head up there (she has a kitchen and indoor plumbing, so she doesn't come down to my van).

And this is keeping things to a pretty steady monthly cadence (three data points is a trend, and she wants me there next week) of a few nights, which I think is the sweet spot.

I've taken myself off the market. She's pulling me in far more than pushing me away (though she still does do both). We're both in our mid-40's at this point and uninterested in starting our life stories from the top with a new partner.

Which means we could be settling for each other, just ground down by life and seeking familiarity. There's no way we work long term; her kids hate me, and as such, the windows where I can visit are dictated by being sure neither will knock on the door.

But at this point, we've been talking on the phone almost daily, usually for hours, since my dad died in November.

We are not the couple who hated each other in 2016. In 2026, we are something different. Almost curious ... prodding, seeing what's still there. And the answer is a lot; we've not kept things platonic.

But it isn't about the sex. As I've said before, it's about the touch.

So, I was ordered a Lyft up to a town an hour away, and when I got there, what I'd signed up for was not at all what I expected.

We can stick a pin in the interview with the researcher for Molly Ivins who I thought was not going to have a journalism background.

Now, I have a problem on my hands. What was sold as the story to assist with fundraisers is not, in fact, the story.

Queer activist from decades ago? Sure. I can deal with that and have questions ready to go.

You know more than I do about journalism was not expected.

And he does. I'm an asshole and full of myself, but you know when you're the student.

Trump is tedious to listen to for 30 seconds, so signing up for nearly two hours of his worst hits didn't seem a good use of time.

I seriously have no idea who the audience was for that.

Well, I've seen this fucking movie before. My ex wife had two boys, and the first thing she did was have me shower, then did my laundry, then cooked food ahead of getting me stoned.

Granted, this time, her husband is involved, and I'm not here for sex. I'm only an hour out of Austin because she thought I would be useful for a project she's working on.

So, I meet this guy, sold as an early queer activist in Texas, and, as such, I presume this will be the main focus. I have an hour of audio and still have no idea what my nut graf is.

Dude was a researcher for Molly Ivins. Oh, and worked at 60 Minutes. Oh, and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Rachelle is watching this play out and realizes she did connect two people, but she has no understanding of what she's hearing. This is not a slight; when you get two newsmen together, we start speaking in code.

He's got a few fundraisers going, as he's in rehabilitative care, and the core of my role here is to synthesize (I know, I know) his messaging so that they can focus on fewer (ideally one).

Under ordinary circumstances, I'd not touch this with a 10-foot pole; however, he seems to be the real deal, just trying to live out his life after imparting information to many.

It looks like we're going to meet up again tomorrow before Rachelle drives me home.

This could actually be worse than it seems. It's fucking cold tonight, and I have HVAC and comforters.

Mike is a character I can't quite yet pin down. But then again, I generally don't open with "How I Lost My Career."

For obvious reasons, I hate this branding.

The country, the state, the county and the city have failed us, not the other way around.

Am I drinking too much? Sure. Why? Because I lost purchasing power for 23 years and see no path forward. As I am 46, this means that it was only the first half of my life that I had hope.

I mean, I was already a journalist to start, so it was likely inevitable I'd end up steeped in alcoholism.

As folks pen breathless analyses of the fall of corporate media, those of us who lived it and didn't have expensive bylines are aghast at what is happening.

But that's not important right now.

So, I have been homeless since 2023. I have solar and batteries, but little else works at this point. My 5G hotspot, laptop and phone survive because my fridge died.

Homelessness is not a one-stop shop for blowing up your life; it's death from a thousand cuts, as one thing after another goes wrong.

I sort of get the impression that there's this idea of "I'm working three jobs; why are you so lazy?"

Well, that's on you. If you think six hours of sleep while you pay to drive to three different jobs is an acceptable life, I guess, hooray?

I won't.

Pay me what I'm worth, allow me to afford fixed housing, and we have a starting point. "You can just get a roommate" is not that. Fuck you and your usury.

And fuck you for normalizing this when you're happily housed with your income. This is not my failure; it is society's. You're not a millionaire waiting in the wings for your big break. Stop believing that!

bowsershark604 is a YouTube channel with 6 subscribers created in 2017, that uploaded a 2000s Windows Movie Maker-style lyric video on July 16 2020 of the song "Everybody Hurts" by R.E.M, that was posted to the r/DeepIntoYouTube subreddit a few years later. As of writing this post, the video currently has 1.4k views.

However, what made that lyric video stand out was the surprisingly incredible effects starting from 2:17.

Despite all of this, the user hasn't uploaded anything since, and has never responded to any comments left on their only video, and has never explained how they made those effects on Movie Maker, or what secondary software they used for the effects.

I have a theory that bowsershark604 was supposed to be an ARG that never had anything else come out of it. Because, in the past few years, there has been a relative abundance of ARGs that imitate the earlier days of YouTube, primarily games like Minecraft, Gmod and Team Fortress 2. Even the username itself is reminiscent of something you would have seen on YT back in the day.

I don't think I've ever admitted how I got Nichol's attention here. I mentioned sleeping with a stuffed animal in my profile. There was a bit of back and forth thereafter (and it basically turned out to be an afterthought), but by the time I showed up at her house, I was holding Snoopy.

See? I'm not full of shit.

There's an irony to this. I went full-bore with Snoopy, and she didn't believe that I was a newspaper editor. Odd thing to claim, as it comes with neither prestige nor income.

When I was staying with her last month, she was fine with the fact that I was playing with his ears in the living room, because she's used to that.

I think she finds it cute.

Teddy is another story. When I moved the family here from Oregon, she stopped to pee roadside, and, well, Teddy fell out. Which would not be realized for several hours.

I was already here, finding housing, and she was driving down with the boys and a whole harem of animals (mostly rabbits).

Every several years, Snoopy's ears run out. I've torn little bits out, and at a certain point, there's very little left to work with. And I have spare ears.

Only a couple of years ago, there's no way I would have trusted her to not mangle my stuffed animal. Oddly, now I don't think she has it in her to hurt me in that manner.

Time changes things.

My ex-wife (whom I've lately erroneously referred to as my wife, given recent events) is, well ... there are certain people you're made for, and then there's everyone else.

Explaining how something this somatic could happen has proven to be problematic over the course of the 16 years since we met. Charitably, I'm considered crazy.

You don't look for the other half of you. I mean, that's folly. There isn't another half ... until there is, and now, holy fuck, how did I survive before this?

I don't know that this sort of relationship is healthy, but holy shit, is it appealing. The sense of being home, that you're not alone, that someone has been waiting for you, and what the fuck took you so long?

I've been at her place a couple of times over the past two months, and, well ... we're really bad at confirming the divorce from a decade ago.

Knowing we can't work does not mean anything has happened physiologically, which is inconvenient. She kept my name and my collar.

It appears she also kept my heart.

My ex-wife's grandson hit a 104.7 fever, and she was not amused when I mentioned that was the frequency in MHz for KZZP in Phoenix in the '80s.

Like, when you've heard a jingle often enough, you can't just hear "104.7" and think "this is a terrible fever."

He's got Covid. Of course they didn't immunize him, because, well, I didn't marry for intellect. I'm not calling my wife an idiot; she just needs a bit of hand-holding to believe that she's come to the rational conclusion on her own.

It's somewhat excruciating to watch from afar. But once we start heading down the path of bad decisions that get us to this point, you'll be bored, and it won't excuse a fucking thing.

I'm feeling a pull back to her. She, back in 2009, warned me this would happen. She said that people somehow decide to be in her orbit, and she didn't understand why.

I know why, but ... no one else does. This ends up being a problem, as it makes our reconnection look arbitrary.

Over the course of 16 years, you learn to know what your partner is thinking, even if they haven't quite grokked it. You're ready to respond to the question that hasn't yet been asked.

I have been of late haunted by the image I see when trying to sleep. I'm at her door, crying and crumpling into a crouch, and I look up at her, and she kisses me deeply and then invites me inside.

I'd not head there if crying in reality, but I dislike the implication, because with her, we know how to make shit work.

For very brief periods of time.

Nonetheless, we are seemingly stuck with each other. Neither of us has found a better alternative in a fucking decade, which is twice as long as we were married.

We still do not use each others' names. If there's one thing that really stands out about our interaction, it's that names are the knives-out last resort. If we've gotten to names, someone's likely sleeping on the sofa.

And yet, though I don't want back into some fresh hell, I can't pull away from the other half of me. The one I can't feel via touch because it's just another limb.

Well, fuck.

Actually, if you have a moment, fuck, fuck, fuckitty fuck mcfuckface.

Despite having a very clear idea of the reasons we can't work, she and I have apparently decided (without the express written consent of the NFL) damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.

The ongoing problem is when we touch. I've been in her apartment for a total of five days over the past two months, and ... things did not go according to plan. We just ... I don't really know how to explain it, as it's ineffable.

My body does not register touching her. You might think this is a bad thing, and it is, but likely not for the reasons you imagine. Rather, neither of us recognizes the other as a foreign body. Touching her hand was like grabbing my right hand with my left the night we met, setting everything in motion.

We can still easily pull off "old married couple" interactions. Cards. A nice fire in the fireplace. Some cold beers. Good music. Getting into bed naked. For your listening pleasure, I'll stop there.

We did such a good job of hating each other for like eight years. This detente is welcome but also alarming, given why this has to remain a fantasy.

Let's hear your wins and whines!

First off, no, they won't. The journalism of 30 years ago isn't coming back in any form. May as well be hoping for a resurgence of semaphore (granted, there is a news site with a closely related name).

"Normal" is a rather tricky thing to nail down in news, in much the same way that NOAA produces new "average" temperatures each decade to include only the prior 30 years.

What was normal in 1986 is not normal 40 years later.

The problem is, to break the problem of shareholder value, you would need thousands of people willing to buy papers, take on printing costs, hire lawyers ...

"But some papers are digital only," you may respond. Yes, and the proportion increases each week. When I learned the paper I worked at from 2010-2011 went to publishing a print edition only three days a week a few years later, it was a sign.

Time was, we had the monopoly on the AP feed locally, grocery circulars, what kid got a Little League trophy, and of course, quilting bees. Not to mention "Drunk Driver Runs Into Pole" (and we have art).

There are economic, systemic and sociological reasons for this. You may be able to shift one with out a clutch, but all three is an impossibility.

It is up to each of us to maintain media literacy and understand we're not going back to where we were. Vigilance is indicated.

Longtime readers may expect this not to involve my ex-wife, but fret not; it does.

She has been working in insurance for six years at this point and works for a brokerage because apparently in that industry, brokerages pay for your ongoing certifications instead of that being out of pocket.

She makes a decent hourly wage (I'd not call $23/hour luxurious), but as with any sales job, the commission is the main event. They signed contracts that set commission rates.

And then came the end-of-year sprint for Medicare open enrollment, a six-week period from October to December where you work seven 16-hour days a week and make no small fraction of your annual income.

It's grueling.

That commission check is arriving in her account overnight. The issue is, it's $3,000 instead of $12,000. So, the planned car purchase and move to be closer to her grandson are off the table.

There was understandable consternation among the rank and file at an all-hands announcing this sudden change yesterday. Some are losing everything.

So, there's a breach of contract in play just itching for a class-action attorney, but with more information, this is a much larger problem.

As a brokerage, they sell plans through many different providers. This would turn out to be the issue at hand.

Before October's sprint, both Humana and United Health decided to do their own underwriting, severing her employer's ability to do sales. But did they tell the agents?

Of course not.

Jan. 1, everything resets. Both firms take control of their policies and everything sold by her team (which was 80% Humana and United Health), meaning that the people at her brokerage lost credit for the policies they'd sold.

In raw numbers, this is bad enough, but as anyone familiar with sales knows, there are compensation tiers. Losing 80% of her sales kicked her compensation from a $220/sale tier to $55.

And they fucking knew and still pushed agents hard. This is fraud.

ETA: They only paid half the reduced commission this month, promising the other half will be provided in four pay cycles. She now cannot pay her rent.

Pinch-hitting for Alyaza; no book club this week but how about a selection of music?

Amaranth

She stocks 50 vol, which is not fucking around. I never went above 40.

And when we were together, I never paid for haircuts. She did mine just as the boys and her own. A Nr. 6 was long for her.

So I sit with blond hair at a Nr. 6, which has been my standard since 1997 but fell by the wayside during Covid, sitting next to my ex-wife without talking as she watches a TV show and I peruse the internet.

It is a strange thing to graduate to that portion of your life where staying with friends means, for the most part, you self-entertain. Sure, meals, a bit of TV or games, but it's nothing like crashing somewhere in your 20s.

I have clean clothes, and this time I'll be headed back to Austin tomorrow wearing my own. Ahead of fighting possibly hourslong lines at HEB ahead of the deep freeze forecast for most of Texas starting Friday night.

I have a motel for the week already booked, so tomorrow will be rather busy. She's already paid for my Lyft back to the van, then I need to hit up HEB and hopefully can time things to be aligned for it not being frosty by the time I'm checking in.

I made dinner last night for the first time since 2023, cobbling together a red curry soup and mushroom tortelloni (with much garlic and pepper) into a very satisfying dinner. It felt really good to provide nourishment for someone else again.

A lot of "days since" signs have been reset to zero over the course of my visit, with some having previously resided in the four figures.

If I didn't know my own history, I'd be inclined to think this is a totally reasonable way to live. But we can't work right now. It's likely we'll never be able to.

This said, she told me off in 2004 on my first attempt at communication, we finally met via other accounts in 2009, got married in 2011 and divorced in 2016. If nothing else, this relationship scales in years. Not having resolution in a couple of months is not a concern.

She invites me up and into her bed, and then complains in the morning that she's been single for so long that it's difficult for her to sleep with someone else in bed ... even though when we met, sleeping alone was her hell.

I appreciate that she's restored my appearance to residual self-image. But we are back to "there's no fucking way this is over yet." I'm not going to repeat prior posts, but my gut has been telling me she's mine for more than 16 years.

There is a tattoo to that effect, in my handwriting, on her mons.

We make for an interesting couple. Pretty much the only thing we have in common is our last name.

People in Beehaw are nice (thank you all for that), but I am put off of the idea of reddit-like sites because of how toxic Reddit became (and also because of it lumping all USians as you-know-what), and when I select "All" for all lemmy instances in post view, it brings back bad memories of reddit.

I am very sorry if i anger anybody in Beehaw. this is also the reason why I am not active in beehaw.

Basically the usual setup here ... I get a Lyft up, she insists I do laundry, then she feeds me, then it's shower time. I'm wearing her clothes again because she pointed out that mine -- even having gone through the wash -- still smelled funky.

So I'll be doing the full cycle again tomorrow.

Not that we wear clothes to bed. Which this time led to the one kink activity that drew us together 16 years ago, but neither of us had done with others in years.

In the midst of this, as I'm twitching violently, she whispers into my ear "god, I fucking miss your body."

And here we get the separation of powers. In terms of interaction, we're a fucked-up mess; but when it comes to physical connection, I've not really heard a tale of what we intrinsically have.

We can literally touch each other without anyone realizing it. Hence her foot and my ankle. She's asleep, and she moved slightly at one point. It wasn't until getting out of bed that I realized I had to extricate her from my foot without waking her up.

We were lying down back-to-back (with fewer interruptions), And while I felt warmth from her body in my shoulder and hip to hip, it still, still doesn't feel like I'm touching someone else.

I'm still here for another night (possibly two) before heading back home so that I can stock up on food ahead of fleeing to a motel because of an ice storm.

Her sons do not like me. There are reasons for this, some more valid than others, that mean we can't reconcile. So we are trapped in this weird purgatory where our bodies just know each other, and our minds know why it can't work.

Meanwhile, when I come by, we just act like we never got divorced. I mean, I don't give her a deep kiss after knocking on the door, but practical matters are handled first, then some entertainment, and the intimacy doesn't come until bedtime.

Now, to provide a good example of the sanity of this relationship, three days before the "i miss your body" remark, she was canceling an offer to visit because she thought I was getting "too attached."

This is starting to feel like a movie.

It just occurred to me when calling my college roommate that basically, it's three. With my mom, I let it go all the way to voicemail, as she's nearly 80 and may be on the other end of the house.

But with most of my friends, if they don't answer in two rings, it's a lost cause absent external influences.

Each Wednesday, there is something referred to as "Church Night" at the regional burner warehouse that happens to be in walking distance.

It's really a salon. You break into a conversation when you have something of use to say after overhearing a conversation while other activities occur to a varying extent. Interrupting is almost encouraged if you have useful information or insight.

I wouldn't say I attend Church Night religiously.

But this week, I met someone new, and as it happens he can actually fucking spar at my level because of his writing background, but he also happens to work for a solar installation firm that may be in need of a writer.

I believe in this shit, so count me in. I don't want to start the chalk marks of 2026.