Month: November 2020

Lowering the Bar

My heart needed this:

If you need to keep losing your shit, lose it. If you need to keep stealing naps from the rest of your day, steal them. If you need to organize your inbox, cut out dairy or alcohol for the week, go on a long-ass walk everyday without listening to a podcast, do it. If you need to keep lowering the bar, lower it, then lower it again.

From ‘your attention‘ by Anne Helen Petersen

That’s in response to last weekend’s news, CNN and such calling the Presidential race for Joe Biden. I was on a trail running with a friend when I got the news, and I was pumped.

By Sunday, I was exhausted.

It was just 10 days ago when PA reported 2,500 new cases of COVID in a day. Today we broke 4,700.

No matter what the news is, COVID has been the backdrop to our days since March. Since that night I was watching the NBA and they cancelled the game because one player tested positive.

Meanwhile, in men’s college football:

It’s been a tumultuous week of COVID-19-related disruptions for the SEC, which also this week announced changes for three other games originally scheduled for Saturday.  On Tuesday, the SEC postponed Alabama-LSU and Texas A&M-Tennessee. On Monday, the league announced its decision to postpone the Auburn-Mississippi State game.

‘Georgia Bulldogs’ game against Tigers postponed over coronavirus issues at Missouri,’ ESPN

Tonight while picking up groceries I saw a handful of chain restaurants with packed parking lots.

Like, sure, Biden may be our next President (if you believe the LAME-STREAM media, right?!?!), but right outside my window 1,000 Americans are dying everyday.

Everything is exhausting.

About Little Things

What’s striking about Twitter at this moment in time is that you are a minute away from being national news. Literally. You could reply to a movie star, sports figure, or politician and a simple RT could change your life.

I mean, somehow we know of a person that calls themselves Dog Face from the internet because they paired a great song with some Cranberry juice. I love that guy (his real name Nathan Apodaca).

We also know that people counting votes in PA are getting death threats because of conspiracy theories amplified over social media channels.

Tonight I picked up my phone to check Twitter for the 1000th time, but I hit my time limit. Logging into Twitter via the web was my next move, but I thought better of it, instead logging into my silly WordPress site instead.

Who needs my voice? Who reads this?

But I remember the advice I give to friends about starting YouTube channels, or podcasts – we have enough Joe Rogans. We need more podcasts with soft spoken hosts talking about science. We certainly don’t need anymore websites that load up 48 trackers and post every 12 minutes – we need more regular people, talking about regular things, on a regular basis.

What started out as 10 posts a day became 20 because that meant more excuses to post to social media to come read all the 20 posts on our sites. You knew you could come to a website and expect to read something new after lunch.

And that’s social media – you can come back every minute and find something new. It never lets you down, except it’s horrible for your brain.

So let’s write for no one, do a podcast and never aspire to do ad reads. Let’s move slow, read slower, and pay attention to a handful of things (and people) that matter.

Unending Exhaustion

This has been quite a week. The election was on Tuesday, now five days ago. It was Saturday when it was announced that Biden / Harris were called the winners of this year’s presidential election.

Anne Helen Petersen

Wow, yes. This x 1000. While I’m relieved, today has just been exhausting.

No matter the good news, there were still 126,742 new cases of COVID-19 on Saturday. Millions unemployed. Thanksgiving get togethers won’t be happening. Back to work on Monday with all this, with the expectation of “business as usual.”

So yes, absolutely, a physical and emotional hangover. Add that to the continued, unending grieving of normalcy, safety, downtime with friends, and going to diners.

I slept great. A cloud has been lifted now that he-who-shall-not-be-named has lost this election finally. But at the end of the day – of everyday, for the foreseeable future – we’re stuck in this COVID-19 loop.

Biden Wins, Trump Loses Popular Vote Twice

Not looking for perfect, just looking for an adult in the room. Someone who Tweets less than a teenager.

America has chosen Democrat Joe Biden as its 46th president, CNN projects, turning at a time of national crisis to a man whose character was forged by aching personal tragedy and who is pledging to restore calm and truth after Donald Trump’s exhausting and manic single term.

CNN

Someone who will denounce white supremeicsts. Someone who doesn’t say, “very nice people on both sides.” Someone who doesn’t say, “it is what it is” in regards to 1,000 dead Americans a day from COVID-19.

Removing protections for LGBTQ+ people?
Muslim bans?
Betsy Devos?

Fuck all that.

Now we just need to work together. Like adults.

They Want the Discord

I’ve believed this for awhile about the elections, about the chaos and tension of the current election, emphasis mine:

“This is exactly what our foreign adversaries want to happen,” Washington Secretary of State Kim Wyman, who is a Republican, told the editorial board. “Russia, China, North Korea and Iran, what they want is they want people to lose confidence in our democratic institutions. They want people to believe our election wasn’t fair.  “They want to undermine our representative form of democracy. They want to undermine our republic. They want the discord, because when people lose faith in our elections, they don’t believe that the elected leaders are legitimate. And that undermines democracy at its core foundation.”

Honor your oath, Mr. President

Our enemies want to see us question everything. Call everything fake. Everyone is out to get Trump. And even when Biden wins, my god, it’s not like things will simmer down. I don’t think America will ever get out of these choppy waters.

Just Keep Running

I met Eddie back in the 90s, when we were in our late teens, playing shows at colleges and tiny all-ages venues. He was raw energy then, playing drums in a band called Bedford.

Many years later (decades), our paths crossed again, this time because of running. Got reconnected via Instagram, swapping comments and occasional DMs.

I remember bumping into him randomly in Philadelphia, a few days before the Philly Broad Street run. We saw each other on opposite sides of the street, waiting for the light to change. He has the best smirk.

Then one day, he disappeared from Instagram. I didn’t have his number, so I couldn’t reach out. I didn’t think much of it.

A few months later I’m working in a coffee shop in Philadelphia, and he walks in. Completely random.

He gives me a big hug. Ed gives great hugs. “Man, you just dropped off the face of the earth,” I said. “Everything okay?”

That’s when he told me his wife died in a car accident a few months back. In a second his life flashed through my mind – those shows in the 90s, the runs, the Instagram photos. I remember the feeling of my heart collapsing on itself, time standing still.

Ed’s been running 10+ miles everyday for the past 250+ days, as a tribute, a connection with his late wife. He ran a 12 hour ultra-marathon. He did the Warrior Run in NYC, from the upper West Side to Coney Island.

The video above sums it up pretty well.

Follow him on Instagram (@ebgiii).

Onward to Sacrifice and Suffering

I cried.

I want to say, “we got a lot of work to do in America,” but really I mean “white people got a lot of work to do in America.” White dudes, come on.

That work comes in lots of different styles, but it’s work to be done, for us white folk to figure out.

Recently I was asked for my opinion about sponsoring a music event. I took a look at the speaker line up and it was all white people. I recommended we pass, and thankfully my input was accepted.

Not writing that for any pat on the back, because either way I made no sacrifice, no loss. Still, trying my best to look past the default white experience in everything, and approach things as if I would have to sacrifice, if I would suffer loss.

The Inbox is Work

Love this, in the most depressing away ever…

… office workers have come to think of email as non-work, or partial-work, or at least work that shouldn’t necessary be compensated, or performed during work hours. In her study of office workers, she hears a similar explanation over and over again for why employees spend their Sunday nights and weekday evenings attending to their inboxes: it would be wasteful to spend the workday emailing, and clearing an inbox ahead of time means the workday itself is less stressful.

how email became work

I make a point during the week to close all my email (and Slack) to work on specific tasks. If I don’t, the allure will be there to check, to make sure I didn’t miss anything.

People will say, “I HAVE TO ALWAYS BE AVAILABLE!”

But you’re not available when you’re at the dentist. Or in a work meeting / zoom call, right? When you take your animal to the vet. When you’re driving.

Those are all things where you need to be fully present, yet doing our work – the thing we get PAID TO DO, to earn a living – we allow ourselves to be semi-present, constantly being distracted by incoming notifications.