Well, it was Church Night again. The past couple of weeks had been uneventful given that Flipside occurred between them, and tonight was uneventful because I'm in.

I definitively no longer have imposter syndrome. I have long chats with people wherein we give each other shit, swear a fuckload, and then share a donut s'more.

Tiny Tim had brought s'mores makings alongside the burn barrel, and then another guy brought a 12-pack of glazed donuts. While this was unplanned, of course some burner is going to say "but what if we put the chocolate and marshmallow in the donut?"

The absurdity of it is what I love. We don't just escape default life; we get to act like kids.

Leonard gave me my customary ride home, and now I've taken my first dose of amoxicillin ahead of tomorrow's procedure.

In five days, I'll have new dentures that allow me to enjoy eating again. It's been a rough five years.

I've been enjoying TTRPGs for some time. A means to meet people. Have some fun. Escape the drudgery of life and get creative. Perhaps I've lived under a rock, or a boulder, but I've come across an entire ecosystem of Professional DMs selling table time. Literal pay to play in a creative world. Where, even with the cash grab of wizards of the coast or the negation of imagination in place of 3D extravagence, we now monetize play, too. Perhaps play isn't the right word. Something that combines camaraderie, enjoyment, a third space, imagination, and kindred spirits. Whatever that is, its monetization of the experience by a for profit dungeon master feels wrong in some way I can't quite place.

Why must everything devolve into this? What do we loose when we monetize creativity, community, meeting people to such a degree?

This isn't a something-just-happened screed; rather, I'm recognizing a pattern in past relationships.

And it has been in both directions. I'd posit from my rocking chair that this is a constant problem: You assist someone in a fundamental life change, but this inherently means your balance has changed.

I'm not saying there's sudden hatred or anything, but when you make a personal breakthrough because of someone else, you're often at least temporarily aloof.

In these situations, there is always an underlying teacher/student dynamic. In my experience, though, you don't see it happening. I never realized it was happening to me, and I basically told myself "well, fuck, someone has to help out."

And as such, you end up symbiotic for a sole purpose. Many friendships in life are like this, but it's a bit different when sex comes to town.

OK, I kinda lied at the top. I'm trying to convince myself not to ask my ex to let me crash at her place during a heat wave now that I've been made (financially) whole from a theft.

My ex called me last night to share the bad news: Despite seemingly getting somewhere with the corporate fixer brought into her complex after we eviscerated the property management company, she's leaving at the end of the month.

With nowhere to go.

The issues she faced meant 10 days not being able to work this month, costing her a promotion planned for months and instead resulting in a demotion. So, her request was half off this month's rent for her troubles. She doesn't have the funds for a full month, as she lost half her pay and still supports her adult kids.

The compromise the fixer offered was "no late fees, and we'll waive the junk fees."

So, some $200 instead of the $700 she was requesting. She's currently packing up.

"Babe, you did realize this was a plausible outcome, right? You did just fuck with the owners' investment."

Meanwhile, back in Austin, I'm finally not on edge after three full days at full adrenaline. I'd not say I'm relaxed, but I'm not on constant alert.

This said, I filed a police report, and the guy who stole my phone stupidly transferred my CashApp balance to someone, meaning I have her name. My friend in Temple kept the voicemail of the fake call he placed to convince me all was well before biking off with my phone, so we have audio and an accomplice.

However, this means my parking spot of two and a half years is no longer safe. He has a gun, and if that transfer is reversed, um, well, I don't want to be here for that.

But I have nowhere to go. I have a Monday appointment with an oral surgeon and need to stick around for that. Plus, losing the brewery means losing indoor plumbing and wildly outsized portions of food.

The beer isn't bad, either. I get a sixer from time to time.

Anyway, I headed over to 7-Eleven to grab some food a bit ago, and the guy who randomly brings me expired food happened to be working, gave me a few things off the roller grill and listened to my (abbreviated) story.

What you do not want to do in the homeless community is commit theft. I know it's a trope that we're all brawling in an encampment, but that's not how it works in this part of town. We look out for each other and help as we can.

So the thief will, in short order, be known as such in our little slice of heaven.

He also gave me a free donut.

As I am out of academia now I find the spare time I have rather overwhelming. I have 8 days left before rejoining my partner in Canada. I have an ereader and all my books are packed. I have an urge to read to offset the doom scroll tendency that rises now. I want to support good work and good writing; high quality journalism, and essays. Politics, History, Foreign Affairs, Urban Planing, Activism all interest me. But having been in pure read for work mode for...8 years? 10? Was it that long?...I don't know where to start.

I just want to read, any format, as I have plenty of video and podcast formats already. A format that was more white noise for working than anything else.

What do you recommend?

Majel Barrett's voice often was the intro into particularly tense two-parters wrapping up, usually spanning a season break.

My friend showed up at 10:15 p.m. with my new phone. Now the fun begins ... I swear, Google and Mint both acted like I was the first person to ever have a phone stolen. ("Just connect your old phone ..." No, you fucks, if I had my old phone, had it not been stolen, I wouldn't have a new phone in the first place.)

My home screen is shit, as I still need to set everything up, but Lyft and CashApp are installed and functioning as expected, which means tomorrow's dental appointment will proceed as planned, which was the whole point of this accelerated endeavour.

I got fucked out of $400, but dude didn't realize (or failed to execute) the lending leeway that I have. I'm going to have to pull more money out of my inheritance to cover bills, but all told, this was a three-figure problem sted four figures.

I suspect I'll sleep quite well tonight, and that's a good thing after getting two hours last night.

But I'm sure as fuck not opening the door if I see that asshole again.

Thanks to everyone for expressing concern and alarm -- it was both concerning and alarming on my end, and sometimes, commiseration means a lot in a crisis. So many moving parts at once in life can feel totally overwhelming.

It was with glee that after the grueling install and setup process, I called my college roommate. He's on Pacific Time, so when the time rolled around to be able to make calls, he was pretty much all that was left.

I thought my temporary ban from Beehaw was hell, but it turns out not having a phone for a day is far worse.

I've still got the anxiety of seeing a prosthodontist tomorrow, but one crisis at a time. Having no way to get there or pay was a bit much.

I hope y'all have a lovely week, and thanks again for all the support.

This ends my hour-by-hour dispatches.

So, new phone on the way, but the thief managed to drain my account to 53 cents in the time it took me to brick my old phone.

Given that he used my phone to steal all of my money, I don't really know what to do here.

I could get my mom to transfer emergency funds, but if he can bypass the security on my phone, it feels like she'd just be giving him more money.

Outside of Western Union, what are my options? I have no food and only learned about this development when trying to purchase said comestibles. I have no access to credit and would rather not starve.

The worst part is, I have a $350 short-term borrowing limit through them, and if he stole all my cash, it's entirely possible that he also maxed that out and took that cash. I can't find out what's going on because of 2FA blocking me from seeing my account without my phone.

I'd call customer service, but, you see ...

We could be looking at a $1,250 theft. That's not something I can just bounce back from.

Fuck, I wish I'd not answered the door.

I'm now in a full-on panic attack. I'd call 911, but you see ...

ETA: It turns out the "conversation with his girlfriend" complete with breaks to make it seem real, was a voicemail to one of my friends in the burner/mutual-aid community. She's giving tough love about the clear grooming and inability to think straight.

She's also posted the voicemail publicly such that others can start working on identifying the thief. Had I been smart, I'd have taken a picture of his birth certificate while it was still in storage here.

In slightly better news, my new phone has arrived at my friend's ... but it might be a bit late to get there tonight.

My post was removed, so I'll preserve it here for posterity. Come for the theft, stay for the stupid.

A mea culpa about the homeless problem

I've been unhoused for more than two years at this point. My van has been safe short of a couple of break-in attempts I was able to fend off.

Until 3:30 this morning.

I know a few homeless around me, and we generally work in a mutual-aid environment. As an example, there's a worker at a nearby convenience store who will randomly leave "best-by date was yesterday" food outside my door.

But this is where my patience ends. I'm woken up by a knock (you always have to answer a knock, because who knows what the situation is), and a guy I've helped a few times -- charging his phone, giving him water, that sort of thing -- asks to use my phone.

So, it's the wee hours, I'm disoriented, and I figure "what's the worst that could happen if his phone isn't working and he needs to call for a ride?"

I should mention that in one of his past visits, his backpack tipped over, and there was a handgun on the floor of my cab. I didn't feel threatened at the time, but it was certainly a data point to consider for future interaction.

I've actually been housing all his vital documents such as birth certificate, so I knew he'd be back at some point, but it had been well over a month since seeing him, so that kinda went to back of mind.

I'm sure you can see where all of this is leading: He takes my phone, places a call, and while I'm holding out my hand for him to give it back, he hops on his bike and pedals away. Of course retaining my phone.

So this theft is now my problem. I have a dental appointment tomorrow that I needed to order a Lyft for, which is rather inconvenient. But, being unhoused, it's not as simple as ordering a new phone off Amazon, especially as they demand 2FA to get back into my account, which requires a phone (the email option, for whatever reason, failed).

So, he hasn't just stolen a $500 item (I went cheap this time), but has complicated literally every portion of my life. And I don't think he has the capacity to feel guilt or shame. No good deed goes unpunished, I suppose. I offered to let him charge his phone in my van after meeting him at the Allandale bus stop outside HEB.

In my experience, the majority of the homeless nearby are decent humans, but I now get why one excruciating experience can change mindsets.

Thankfully, I have financial assistance from family out of state and a friend from the burner scene who was happy to have my phone shipped there. So long as I can get a couple of apps and figure out how to get back into my accounts, the appointment tomorrow shouldn't be an issue.

But dude, you just fucked up my life for a phone I was easily able to brick remotely. You gained nothing and left me holding the bag with a bill for a new phone.

Fucking asshole.

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So, there's a guy I've helped out a couple of times who knocked on the van at 3:30 a.m.

He asked if he could use my phone to make a call, and I stupidly agreed. I was concerned that this would be the outcome as he was on his bike. He makes his call, and then bikes off.

I have no way of contacting the police, but even if I did, they wouldn't care.

I'm supposed to make it to an appointment tomorrow, but it required a Lyft. Which, without a phone, can't be done.

I have no idea what to do. Even if I had Amazon Prime, I have no address.

ETA: So, there's now a Pixel 10a headed to a burner friend who let me use his address, ordered by my mom (who, because she's not in Austin herself, does not have the option of the locker nearby ... I was going to show her a screenshot, but my Amazon account has been dormant, so now they want to do 2FA for me to order anything, which is difficult without my phone). The window is 5-10 p.m., which is cutting things really close if it shows up past his bedtime (he's about as far from me as one can be while remaining in city limits).

I'd have preferred a straight 9a replacement, but Google is being Google, and the 10a is currently cheaper. I give zero shits about the supposed "AI" improvements, but I don't have a shitton of price elasticity.

I recently wrote about an ambush we initiated six days ago (me working remote on this).

There is a lot to unpack here.

The New York owners showing up led to the third owner flying in from Austria to see what the fuck was going on.

Essentially:

• The office manager has been fired.
• The pest-control service has been fired.
• The landscaping company has been fired.
• The maintenance guy has been fired.
• The entire property management company has been fired.
• The military has finalized removing the complex from its list of approved housing.
• New companies have been hired to start fixing shit, which she says has made a seachange in the prior 48 hours.
• The fire marshal shows up Monday to do a unit-by-unit inspection to ensure that each has functioning smoke detectors and a functioning fire extinguisher.
• A mysterious dotted-lined-to-the-owners woman has appeared to handle the boots-on-the-ground problems.
• Several tenants on illegal leases (i.e., signed in someone else's name) have been evicted.
• Narcotics is looking into the complex.
• The Killeen Police Department is stepping up patrols.
• The roaches are gone for now, the hot water is working again, and her grandson could be heard in the background (the "little bug" uses my old phone for games).

I mean, not bad for a couple of plebs.

The owners seem to have been caught totally off-guard and seem genuinely alarmed by the state the complex was allowed to get into, and they are not holding back on fixing things even though they've lost all their soldiers.

The military determination can be reversed with corrective action, and you really don't want to own a complex in Killeen when you're blacklisted from service members.

All in all, could have been a worse result. The funny thing is, the local reporter didn't show up to the ambush as scheduled, but all of this is happening all the same.

As I well know, you really don't want to get on my ex's bad side. Machiavellian is a kind term for what she can do, and when she brings me into the mix for plotting, we are a destructive force.

The complex pissed off the wrong person.

That's right, folks, it was Church Night again.

I had all sorts of ideas for this story, but I increasingly believe that absolutely everything is said in confidence.

The guy who introduced me to the burner scene actually came out for once. We chilled in the parking lot, with his former garage dweller.

So, we're all drinking beers and passing around a joint. Said ex-housemate has gone full-on MAGA, which basically led to me remaining silent. If it's racist or misogynist, he said it.

After spinning our wheels awhile, we joined the group. I spent the better part of two hours accidentally chatting with someone who lived in a van for three years and is looking to do so again.

My friend drives me back to my van with a ladder, and climbs up himself to put my roof vent back on its track. Then, it's back to the warehouse.

All of it was pleasant ... but these nights remind me of what I don't have the other six nights of the week.

Imagine you've just met someone, but both of you know that you are meant for each other. This actually happens all the time.

Well, not all the time, but we aren't unique. Things escalate wildly in timeframes that are not accepted by others.

People said I was moving too fast with my editor in college. It was eight days from hating each other to me waking up in her apartment. You just fucking know.

This was glacial.

Except you don't. It's viewed as hate. Trying to figure out what the fuck is going on takes cognition. While everyone else in the newsroom is well aware of the trajectory.

It takes love to hate. I'd have liked to learn that earlier.

And thus, I became a journalist. Seriously, it was one woman, not an interest in the field. But you know how it goes with your girlfriend when she knows how to design pages better than you.

This means war. And I of course went raver because I was too scared of having middle-age sorted out at 19.

But let's say you're not needing a career. Now the concerns are different.

And then you find out why the term "soulmate" exists. As with porn, you know it when you see it.

The main issue is you can't see what you're looking for. No one in their right mind is looking for the other half of them.

I suppose a better term is "twin flame," and what we proceeded to do suggests this as a more valid label. We still support each other.

I realize why we can't possibly work, but that doesn't change the physical feeling when she touches me or I touch her. This was initially alarming.

In 2009.

So we got married, This was not a great idea, as neither of us wanted what had happened. Sometimes, wants have to cave to reality.

We've been divorced for a decade, but this seems irrelevant once one considers the touch. It's, uh ... not what you expect out of life, but what ever is?

She remains Mrs. Powderhorn. And we are scrambling to figure out how the fuck we still can't detatch. There's no world in which we act any other way than as decadeslong partners.

This has made looking for new partners over the last decade difficult. When you have irritating, challenging perfection, what the fuck's the point of anything else?

I should likely stop here, as this sounds insane unless you've felt it.

To be clear, I am not asking for sympathy, but when I was very young, I talked about my life in Texas.

Problem was, I grew up in Arizona and had never been here short of a Dallas layover. Some 11 years into being in Austin, the fact that I could talk about living in Texas but could not provide details is to be expected when one first starts talking as a toddler.

Thing is, I don't really know much about the state outside of its climate and politics. This all feels rather circular.

One explanation is that not-quite-reincarnation is real, and I've hit the end of the cycle and will end up back in Phoenix in 1979, a la Groundhog Day. Do I believe that? No. But Occam would suggest such an explanation, because it's damn specific.

I sort of feel as though I've done what I was meant to do.

If I get towed tomorrow because of the paving being done on my street, where No Parking signs were erected Friday alongside heavy machinery being parked here all weekend, I no longer have the home I built out. My sole hope is that being in the van will mean I can't be towed, as it's illegal to tow an occupied vehicle.

I actually had a knock on the van today, and upon emerging, a guy asked me if I was interested in selling my van. I said I actually was. He asked how much I wanted, and I answered $16K, which was too rich for his blood. I personally designed and installed $8K of upgrades to a $12K vehicle that I only put 1,000 miles on, so that's a deal.

I'm not really sure what he was expecting. I pointed at the solar panels, the R-15 insulation on all sides in the living space and the 600Ah of LFP. I think he just wanted a tool truck, but seriously, who goes up to a van in the middle of a rainstorm and asks if you're looking to sell a 26-year-old Class 5 commercial vehicle?

One thought that occurred to me was offering to sign a waiver for any damage, and as I'm about 30 inches (~75cm) from the asphalt, having looked at the equipment hanging out roadside, nothing looks quite wide enough to actually do much damage.

But I have nowhere to go and my starter batteries are dead (I have a jump box, but also, have you seen diesel prices lately?).

To say nothing of the fact that I've been running a fever for a week and a half and have not been legal to drive in that time. I was actually, at my mom's urging, considering going to the ER, but once the temporary towing signs sprouted up, if I leave my van for that, I may have no home to come back to.

This is an ideal time to self-medicate.

I have altered policy in many places as a writer and editor. I interviewed (several more times than necessary) a queer activist and wrote the copy for his GoFundMe last month. I saved my ex from a decaying complex just this week.

I'm really good at saving others, but this isolation and shit continuing to go wrong while feverish is not an ideal circumstance.

Over the past 18 months, I've gotten now 22 direct offers of help and solutions, and zero have panned out. It's like job applications, but applied to mutual aid.

I'm exhausted, my sleep schedule is totally fucked, and god only knows when the paving starts in the morning.

I usually know how to pull off miracles, but there's too much here at once in a compromised state. I have six figures of debt, my dad died last fall, my fridge hasn't been reliable in over a year, and my roof vent went off the track last year, so if we have a south wind and rain, I have indoor rain. It also appears my insurance was canceled, which saved me $150 this month, but when I started my policy, I hadn't let my credit go to shit yet.

Oh, and I learned the place I had an appointment with for new dentures doesn't, you know, well, actually do dentures.

I'm sick of having hope. The geopolitics don't help. I live in a constant state of fear and anxiety, having been told by society my skills don't count. That's why I implored the admins to give me the U.S. News community when it started up three years ago. It's not exactly the same as being an editor, but selecting stories off the wire and presenting them to an audience is just ... what I know how to do. I just have more sources now.

I don't know what comes next, but as I said, I feel as though I've done what I was meant to do in life. Years in a choir, a semester as an exchange student and then winning national awards for editorial and column writing, hed writing, design, graphics ... you get the idea. I had no intention of going into journalism, but it tends to find you if you're the right person.

At least, it used to.

I hope my worst fears here aren't borne out, but I have too much data of late to believe otherwise. My little oven is squalor, but it's my squalor. Losing it won't end well.

This too shall pass, they say. And it would take a miracle. I'm too exhausted to storm the castle.

Im traveling to visit my parents next month for a few weeks, unfortunately home for them is Texas. It’s been three years and I’m not exactly thrilled to go back (only happy to see them & my sibling).

I’m stuck between having a list of things we need to bring back (ie: can’t buy abroad/cheaply), wanting to eat international food that can’t be found here, and really really really not wanting to support the government. I know it’s a drop in the bucket, but everything sounds so… expensive and destructive.

She's as hard-headed as I am, so when she asked me to help last month with the issues at her apartment complex by demanding I do nothing, I had to rely on the communication style one can only read decades in.

"I don't want to talk to a journalist."

Babe, what the fuck do you think you're doing right now?

The original issue was her water being about to be turned off in her apartment complex, and while she is my ex-wife, I can't just let her go without water.

After contacting two news outlets in her city counter to her explicit request, the water stayed on. No stories were published that I'm aware of.

Well, the situation has worsened, and the woman I fell in love with is back to her shenanigans. She's sleeping out on the porch tonight because of the German roach infestation that had been solved a few months back, but pest control does unit-by-unit spraying, thus sending the unwanted roaches into someone else's unit.

She does not have hot water after the maintenance guy broke her water pipes "fixing" a leak. As such, her grandson can't stay with her, as is customary for a weekend.

If you think pissing off a mother is bad, it's worse when it's Oma.

When we were together, years ago, and an emergency happened, we could handle it with blinding speed. Basically, triage, and we'll figure it out later. Just without the time in the waiting room.

Things have further deteriorated (roaches were not an improvement), and she has an appointment with her lawyer (via the EAP) at 2 p.m. today. At 4 p.m., the Herald reporter will be showing up. Meanwhile, she went so far up the flagpole that two of the complex's owners flew down from New York and will be there from 2 to 5 p.m.

This is not by accident.

It is, however, a reminder of why her independence and grit was such an attractive force. I mean, her manic-pixie look got my foot in the door, but when I realized she was just as manipulative as I am, I think the deal was sealed. We'd already agreed to lie to her brother the night before I met her, so this has a rich and storied tradition.

Some 15 years later, she has the city investigating multiple violations like not having smoke detectors or fire extinguishers in units. My initial work on her behalf last month meant this was a folo, not a random story for the Herald.

So, now it was time to plan the whole interaction. She smartly told the reporter to meet her at the leasing office instead of her unit. If they bring a photog along, that's not particularly useful, but she's now happy to let them in.

She has been amassing fellow residents beyond pissed to participate in this mutiny. The complex is 80% occupied by military, unsurprising given that Killeen essentially exists only because of Fort Hood. The military pays for off-base housing in certain situations (not my wheelhouse) and has decided the complex no longer meets their standards.

So, we've got the lawyer coming, the press coming, the owners coming and base commanders coming -- all at the same time. It almost sounds like a porn.

And, in a way, it is: competence porn.

Over the course of a two-hour call, I managed to steer her in the directions I thought would be most useful. First off, they have a community grill, so I asked if she had hot dogs and buns. The fastest way to a journalist's heart is through their stomach (she's assuming the reporter will be male, which exposes her latent bias, but I'm not going to gender ahead of time).

And if she's got at least six residents along with everyone else, it's always good to break bread in order to break the ice.

I also told her what part of the story to lead with. There are several concurrent problems here, and she was doing the whole manic thing of "oh, my god, the roaches!" Well, there are multiple lease violations, including forcing fees not listed in the lease.

"If you want to bring them down, babe, lead with the lease violations. Sure, being unable to bathe and the roaches is human interest, but that's not near as strong of a story as 'hundreds of people have been paying junk fees for months.' Make it a widespread issue."

The Herald only publishes a print edition on Sundays (I looked it up, trying to figure out what timeline to expect). So Saturday at 4 p.m. is about the sweetest spot you can hit. They may hang out for an hour or two, but if they're headed back to the office by 6, there's plenty of time for this to become Saturday for Sunday (newsroom jargon).

She assumed that meant it would have to wait a week. Well, I mean, they publish online daily, but a print edition still carries weight, and why the hell she thought a story couldn't go through the sausage machine in five hours is beyond me. I mean, I was married to the woman for years, and she still finds journalism to be a black box. To a certain extent, this isn't all that surprising since she doesn't care how a newsroom works.

Just that she can pull the strings.

Sound like anyone else you know?

I don't really operate in default society, which is important to note going forward.

I was totally on the fence about going to Church Night, a weekly event at the burner warehouse where I totally whiffed on getting involved. This week, it was RGB LED testing, and that's not something you walk into.

This places me outside, which isn't the worst. I'm watching the hot dogs grill, and then comes the unexpected item in burner area.

Apparently, as with the admins here, I've been identified as a rogue actor in a stable community. In both cases, we move forward.

I end up talking with a woman who happened to sit next to me for an hour. She teaches fifth grade and, well, she meets my physical interests. But we've talked before, so this is just shooting the shit while I'm getting weed from the right-hand side.

Then, it's back to the person tending the fire. Tiny Tim informs me that they've both flagged me as a risk within the community and subsequently de-escalated. "I got you wrong," they said.

We are still at the fist-bump level of physical interaction, but I doubt much more would be useful. It's a step up from vitriol.

From here, we head off to gallows humour. And by this I mean Gallows' humour. Oh, yeah, we all have burner names. There isn't much point in having you guess what mine is.

Anyway, Gallows is one of the leaders of the space. He's very much neurodivergent and has been encouraging me to explore that, because, once again, I'm being told my behavior only makes sense within that context

This is another hour or so wherein he give me a couple of cigarettes.

So, we're drinking and smoking, and Leonard comes up. We chat for a bit, he said he's tired, and would I like a ride home?

This always ends the same way. He knows where I'm parked, some three minutes away, but we talk for at least 30 minutes.

This week, Leonard brings up Young Sheldon. I leave it as an exercise for the reader as to why this is amusing.

You know you've truly become part of a community when people are basically fighting for your time when they see you idle. Hopefully, I won't wake up feeling the loss of community, but this was the first time I just pinballed from connection to connection.

No less than Stephen Pinker claiming this is news?

This happened with a fresh-out-of-college designer (god forbid copyeditors had editing skills) in 2015. In Austin. I was there that night.

I was on a different team, but come morning, yeah, we were all mocking her for her lack of a hyphen. At the same time, I was the only designer exempt from running a site's heds verbatim. Of course something like this was going to happen.

To claim this recently happened with a nonsensical upside-down folio is ... I usually reach for "absurd" here, and as I've already burned "nonsensical," I'll just go with "unhinged."

Pinker knows better, and I'm slightly inclined to point out the provenance that claims a local paper we neither owned nor designed (already an ethical violation) was responsible for what I saw happen in real time in Austin.

God, I hated those stylesheets, but they're rather damning when it comes to proving A) this was designed at the hub; and B) you're claiming local reporting -- complete with byline -- you didn't do.

Anyone still confused about why I walked away?

It appears I've used this hed before. But there's a reason for that.

Look, I like to spend most of my day letting everyone know things they need to know. That's why I basically told the admins to just hand it to me when U.S. News was created.

Thing is, informing people never gets old. So I'm going to keep doing it.

For those who came in late, Church Night is exactly the opposite of what you'd expect.

And this week? Well ... this is the week where we're finishing the effigy. I wrote my own piece on one of the pieces of wood, and I have to say, some of the others were just this side of heartbreaking. But I have no art of it because as I was trying to grab one to send to my ex, the project lead came up to me and asked if I'd received permission to take that photo.

Burners, amirite?

Now that I've completely confused you, this is a warehouse where burners create things. The meeting room was full of people turning aluminum cans into art, while the effigy itself was being worked on in the main space.

Out in the parking lot, I was initially being lazy. A couple of chicks (let's not play that game when they refer to themselves as such) seem to be spending entirely too much time on a painted wooden board.

As one does, I asked what the fuck they were doing. And upon getting closer, the issue was self-evident. These are message boards used annually at the regional burn, and, well, they've accrued a lot of staples.

And there are seven of them. And they're double-sided.

I worked on three sides before another participant asked me to tend to her burn-barrel fire while she was feeding the people working on the art in the conference room.

I get that this sounds weird if you're still clinging to corporate America, but the person who asked me to watch the fire actively hated me only two months ago. When we work together, it's amazing what we can overcome.

Also, I'd misgendered them and their partner and was a bit of an asshole about it. Not my finest hour.

Tonight, she provided food and weed. I gave her shit for "stealing" one of my beers from the communal fridge where once you put it in there, it's fair game. Like, she literally used the burn barrel to do veggie hot dogs, crappy hot dogs, chicken and pork.

This, my friends, is what a resilient mutual-aid community looks like.

"Hey, I really didn't like you, but can you do me a favour?"

"Sure."

"Thanks. Would you like some weed?"

Don't get me wrong. I explicitly asked for this. I don't pray, but I do communicate my intentions to the universe.

Yeah, I'm a dirty hippie. Last thing my ex-wife would have expected. And she's pissed. She's a nudist hippie, and I was a good corporate shill while we were together.

"Why the fuck couldn't you have gotten here while we were together? We'd have been set for life!"

Well, now I'm further pissing her off by having been invited to join a commune that's starting up. I don't quite understand the animosity, but had she chosen to go raver, I'd have been a bit miffed.

Thing is: Hippie + Raver == Burner.

We all talk about PLUR.

She was just pissed about the music I listened to and uninterested in understanding why I sometimes don't like lyrics to tear me out of my zone. "Childish music," she said of trance.

What she's really pissed about is that I found my way here by way of supportive people and a fair amount of serendipity. Could she have broken me of the corporate ideology? It's possible, but she was at the time draining my limited funds, and I was still caring about paying bills.

So she was not the correct vessel. This was going to take a village that didn't include her.

And, indeed, after attempting to make things work for seven years, we fucking hated each other for some eight years. It was only last fall that we started talking like adults, a decade after the divorce.

She's fucking pissed that she had who I'd become but played it wrong. Expecting me to pay for your prior decisions to have kids is not going to nudge me to hippie.

It was rather inevitable. Working in journalism for decades exposes you to the bullshit. I just had to get there for myself by being broken down by the system. When "work hard and you'll get ahead" is demonstrably false, well, now you need a new worldview.

There's part of me that really wishes I could have learned life's lessons thus far in a linear manner. Thing is, I'll be up there in the next couple of weeks. She'll do my laundry, buy me food and cuddle against me in bed.

I'm not an asshole, but for a staunch feminist, she's oddly interested in playing tradwife. And in no world is she straight.

From a young age, I was allowed to leave the house by bike and be home by dinner. I still have scars from that, but, you know, it's not really terrorizing.

Let us contrast this with whatever the fuck passes for parenting these days.

We're buying the concept that parents can't raise their own kid, and thus the government needs to step in.

Well, some are. But seriously, the past 40 years of destroying critical thinking worked.

There are few reasons to be thankful for being 46. We don't exist in the media, and we're somehow never mentioned. Boomers ... Millennials. Um, you missed a step.

we're back at it again with these posts after some absence. currently reading American Psycho

Was I any good at it? Was this a perceived trajectory?

No.

Had I gone to Cornell or Berkeley, both of which I'd been accepted to, my life would not involve journalism. After all, I was there for computer science.

Oops.

The issue with CSE142 was it was stupid. Yay! Writing Hello World in C! I had a specific disinterest in wheel reinvention, and holy shit did the CS department want that.

I took precisely one course and realised these were not the people I wanted to be around.

But who were? Because you can't just want "not x" but rather elucidate "y".

Well, this was an entire accident, and there's some sex involved. It's a college paper! But I quickly learned I wasn't here for fun.; rather, I wanted to learn and excel.

When one lives with his editor, shit starts looking a bit dicey. I mean, we didn't move in together immediately, but eight days in, well, I told my parents that my editor gave me a raise.

This of course refers to tumescence, but I was trying to be less than obvious.

The only reason that I moderate U.S. News is Rachel. I figured it would be fun to try journalism as part of my time in college. And it was, but ... there's simply no way I would land here without everyone at UW in 1998.

Now, you may look at eight days and think "wow, how did it take that long?" It didn't. The issue was we were both 19 ... she was six-and-a-half days older than me. She doesn't get the full week because I was born in the morning, and she was born in the evening.

No, we were already exuding clues. Everything kept piling up in those eight days. I was rubbing her shoulders, and she was fixing my layouts. It would later become apparent that literally everyone in the newsroom realised we were an item.

My god, we hated each other. But, you know, that's usually where you're fucked. If you care enough to hate, there's an underlying emotion that's not been expressed, and eight days isn't really enough time to deal with your first true love while also attempting to think this isn't happening in the first place alongside "oh, fuck, I have no idea what's going on here."

We got a place a few months later, and we wallpapered the bedroom with layouts. This immediately meant the escalation of page design; now we were in competition, and what generally takes years happened in weeks. I wasn't going to lose to her, and, as a result, suddenly, we were winning national design awards.

Just to one up each other.

She ended up as managing ed the next year. I'd decided to go raver and fuck up our life (there was a party in B.C. that she came with on), but I'd decided if I'm going to have the full college experience, I needed crazy.

The second Rachel was a raver in Canada. Yeah, I ended up with the horrific "Canadian girlfriend" in the '90s. To the extent that on Thanksgiving 1999, I drove from Portland to Victoria (there's obviously a ferry involved here) and brought her down to the gathering at my roommate's.

They were surprised in two ways. First, I actually had a Canadian girlfriend, which at the time was a protomeme, and one of his friends "had a girlfriend in Canada," leading to my holiday sojourn. Like, fuck you, I will spend the better part of a day proving that.

She was also 6'2" and, well, sturdy. She was still doing the hair-down-to-her-ass thing, which thankfully got solved a month later. Of course, the problem there was not recognizing her at the restaurant we'd agreed to meet at.

She didn't just cut off four feet of hair; she bleached what was left. This is not a complaint. It was just a point of confusion.

Rachel Nr 1 was displeased with my shenanigans, but I relieved her as managing editor, and she ended up marrying my best friend (long story that starts in Vic).

But without her, you would not have a U.S. News mod. I would have dabbled in journalism and moved along.