I don't understand the 100:1 conversion rate between the value of Middle-Eastern people's lives and American lives. ~3k people died in 9/11. It was horrible. ~400k people were killed in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Those numbers are wildly asymmetrical.

chest / shoulders ✅

this one is really beautiful. where would we be without poetry?

This is the true meaning of bluesky and also why gay bsky is the best part of this app.

of course my most successful post ever on here is going to be a doomer post. so bsky. sigh.

Today’s poem: Jack Gilbert, “I Imagine the Gods” #lunchpoems

I remember this from 2020. It'll be over by Easter, right?

we’ve reached the point where the american system of government seems no longer to exist at the federal level. the executive no longer abides by our laws and clearly hates our constitution. congress has demonstrated a similar contempt. the constitution is a dead letter except where convenient.

good god let me be reborn as a 90s lesbian in a punk/emo band. i want to be musically talented and vent my feelings at lilith fair.

you should all sign up for my course where i explain exactly why. it’s cheap. currently 80% off at only $50/mo sign up now. if you never let yourself chase your dreams, you’ll never catch them.

To offset the moroseness of “Aubade”, here’s a poem Larkin wrote to a newborn child.

i’d show them Andor and then tell them not to bother because the rest is shit in comparison.

today’s emo gym playlist is just the “batter my heart” aria from Doctor Atomic on repeat. and yes i’m singing along. (terribly.)

Mr. Betham’s doctors report that he is in excellent health and the recent disappearance of his head is simply prophylactic in nature.

Yeah this has been on repeat for a few days now. Good stuff.

Happy Casimir Pulaski day to all the Chicagoans. ❤️ “On the floor at the great divide / With my shirt tucked in and my shoes untied / I am crying in the bathroom”

The art of eating isn’t hard to master.

Today’s (bonus) poem: Philip Larkin, “Aubade” #lunchpoems

“And he was eaten by worms and died.”

Today’s poem: Stanley Kunitz, “Route Six” #lunchpoems

“We are informed by the texts of the gospels that in this Church and in its power are two swords; namely, the spiritual and the temporal.” - Boniface VIII, “Unam Sanctam”

I snoozed for an hour this morning.

The requirements for a good iTunes/Apple Music interface are so minimal and so simple, and yet somehow every year for the past decade they have made it steadily worse and harder to use. I'm listening to a song. If I wanted to skip forward how would I do it?

well, i did my workout, and i did my grocery shopping, which included three stops and hauling two packed tote bags half a mile so we count this as bonus cardio for the day. i should probably take down the christmas tree this week.

“When he opened the sixth seal, I looked, and behold, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth, the full moon became like blood”

shoulders / chest ✅

i ask this with no malice but is there any indication that the endless gofundme posts claiming to be for palestinian children are not scams? i’m not talking about the ones that are presented through a chain of acquaintance, but the ones that show up spontaneously in everyone’s replies.

everyone who posts about sunday scaries deserves them. how about you leave the rest of us in peace?

i guess a big part of why i like rorty is quite simple: he speaks a language i understand, with references that are mostly familiar (and mostly dear) to me, in roughly the place i live, in roughly my own time, addressing questions that have plagued me for a long time.

trying to do this shoulders workout but generally depressed/distracted by the news.

something i wish more people kept in mind: when you talk about “israel” or “iran” or “america” (etc) you’re talking about millions and millions of people with every range of personal experience and political and religious ideology conceivable.

from “Kindness”, by Naomi Shihab Nye. (for a reading, see my pinned post)

One of the core moral benefits of nominalism is that by denying the reality of abstract universals, it locates the reality of systems, institutions and traditions entirely in the behavior of individuals who make them up

This is really random but one of the typo patterns I've noticed in recent years in my own writing is the habit of absentmindedly substituting phonically similar words and letter combos when I type. I just did it in a particularly egregious way by typing "trickpeas" intead of "chickpeas".

The aesthetics of this are so heavy-handedly Nazi. Why is it red, black and white?

The “arc of history” is a comforting but dangerous myth that undercuts our sense of the fragile contingency of the progress and liberties we have come to enjoy for the past century.

Understanding this risk is key to grasping one of the roots of the resentment of religious people in the face of the emergence of progressive sexual norms, women’s and queer rights, etc.

Continuing with Rorty’s “Contingency, Irony, Solidarity”, here are some good bits.

In pokemon you're a field biologist collecting notes and samples of new species for a professor... while you rise through the ranks of the national dogfighting (petfighting) league, and have periodic run-ins with the mafia.

2/9. Iranian operatives pretended to be Proud Boys.

i don’t know how to talk to people, i only know how to flirt and yearn.

How big are you? 5’9”/175cm ~207lbs/94kg

Additionally, I want to speak directly to Iranian New Yorkers: you are part of the fabric of this city — you are our neighbors, small business owners, students, artists, workers, and community leaders. You will be safe here.

visiting with a friend. still not reading the news.

“we need to create a fascist dictatorship. it’s the only way to restore the vision of the founders and save everyone from the existence of trans people.” - The American Right

evergreen, for the past 13 months and the (un)foreseeable future

i am flexing in order to not read the news.

i attempted a lat spread.

Hadn't hear this before tonight. I like it:

I’m nearing the end of Name of the Rose and Eco just had someone make a rabies joke at the expense of a dominican inquisitor. I still don’t understand the audience for this book. It was seemingly written specifically for me to laugh at.