Let’s be clear, I am not on board with this poorly coordinated attempt to rehabilitate hate-monger and billionaire (those two labels are too often together btw) J.K. Rowling’s image. (**) Transwomen are women. It’s not that complicated. It’s okay if you don’t understand, each of us have a limited capacity for understanding, so we all have things we don’t understand. There’s a lot wrong with many of her statements but the crux of the issue (pun intended) is the more accessible idea that a human being has a right to define themselves. Yes, there tons of other shit we can unpack here, but one of the most easily accessible points is that a human being has a right to define who they are to themselves and their community and they have the right to consent or reject a role their community may need or request of them. Yeah, we aren’t all there. But here’s the thing, J.K. knows better and it can be demonstrated that she knows better. She can not deny the knowledge that her hurtful and hateful statements, have the at least the potential to contribute to real harm against our family members who have the courage identify as trans. This is preschool level moral values, if billions of dollars can’t help you understand concepts 3 and 4 years old don’t have a problem what’s the point of having it. /// **okay, so the strategy and execution of the PR play is awful too but I’m not going to comment on the game play because the open bigotry is the exponentially more offensive issue here.

It's important to understand that when a Mayor or other public offical repeated attempts to obscure and destroy records owned by the public that is a huge red flag. The same can be true when he intentionally sabotages the collection of public records or directs public business to a personal email account that was also used to manage campaign solicitations. It's also pretty stupid too. You see because if someone is conducting public business within the same medium they are discussing donor payments or how to keep a volunteer quiet about a really fun night they had, it becomes more difficult to plausibly deny quid pro quo or the selling/leasing of public property in exchange for campaign payments or other favors. It becomes even worse if that someone falls under the belief that the email was hacked and those emails land right infront of a law enforcement body with a responsibility and mandate to investigate and prosecute instances of public corruption. I'm sure other types of complications and criminal investigations that could arrive during these processes as well. This is all theoretical of course, but its fun to think about what would happen if that public official just decided to say "fuck it" during an overcaffinated "excited" episode and started dishing dirt on his donors, political allies, and various staff from over the years in an attempt to save his own ass and carve out some badass redeeming starpower for after everything shakes out. Hell, to think about it, bringing down a corrupt party structure that you never really bought into might even be a little fun.

I don't know Portland, sure you have some pretty glaring faults and issues, but you also pretty smart and compassionate and caring, so things aren't looking that bad for you. I mean, you've been pushed through the same social media narcissism machines as everyone else. Here's what I'd have to say, about the cross sections of EGO and TRANSPARENCY. A local government doesn't have state secrets, they aren't really capable of keeping any secrets, or they shouldn't be, so if there is push back from City Officials about what information should be restricted from public access, they are hiding something from you. It might be a big thing (like a Mayor trying to obscure a clear pattern of criminal behavior while in office) or it might be a smaller thing (like a maybe not illegal pattern of council members favoring the servicing of lobbyist priorities while deprioritizing issues of more public interests) but it's a bad thing either way. LOCAL GOVERNMENTS CAN NOT HAVE SECRETS. FULL STOP. On the other hand, you as a private citizen don't have to share everything with everyone, you can do something good for yourself and/or others and keep it to yourself. You don't have to name drop everything or seek adulation for every meal you ingest. You are allowed to recharge yourself esteem and confidence in yourself independent of what others think. But, yeah, the city council blocking transparency is hella sus and myopic since the stuff is going to be released one way or another.

The snowstorm on Wednesday brought out the worst from everyone, but especially you idiot drivers who can't read road signs. You've always been fucking stupid, but a half inch of snow makes you miss the Max tracks in the road that imply those lanes aren't for you and your slow moving vehicle. You made it impossible for trains to pass and you are the garbage of this city. I'm sure you complain about the price of gas while you move slower than me as I walk past you. Fuck you.

I don't think loneliness is the word. Perhaps loneliness is a component of the feeling but it doesn't quite cover it. The closest existing world I've found for it is Weltschmerz. It's a knowing there exist a better version of this reality which for some reason or another we have yet to successfully actualize for each other. It's a feeling of pain. It's a feeling of longing and attraction to a better life and world. It's an anxiety of not knowing how to mix the ingredients together in the right order. It's a wipe phone losing a number. It's a unreplied message. We know things need to change. We know things can change. We know we can change them. Let's start with better balancings our wants and needs and longings. I know I'm probably half-right.

Not only are we cooking up a massive post-snowpox LICE EXPLOSION, I also found out that a favorite treat of the Giant House Spider, not to be confused with the House Spider, is bedbugs. So that means if you are unlucky enough to have bedbugs, you might have a Giant House Spider in your bed picking bedbugs off of you while you sleep. Also just be thankful all you transplants weren't here for the Easter Lice Explosion Event of 2017. We lost good people. Good . People.

I remember first moving here in 2000 and wanting to check out a mall so Mall 205 was the one. I can't remember even if it was the Target there at the time. I just remember it being very empty of people, stores and eatery which it remained that way through the years. I remember pre pandemic, the mall had a few kiosks, the shoe store, a couple other stores, and a few places to eat. The place was bumping then. Now the DMV moved in, and that's all Mall 205 seems to be. DMV, Target, Home Depot, and a gym. I kinda feel like when I used to walk through there just to go to Home Depot, it was as if an apocalypse had taken place, and the mall was trying to recover. Update: out of my curiosity, I looked up and read an article that Mall 205 is officially closed since last year sometime, but there may be 2 other department stores moving in. And here's something completely unrelated, or is it? This is about a deli that uses a green elephant for its logo. I dont get it. The menu is always the same, though the franchise seems to still be growing. The prices were already grown. In other words overpriced. Considering the blandness of taste, the cost, and unchanging menu, i dont get it. Although i did work for them real briefly, it did seem to be a enthusiastic company that appeared to care for their employees. I dont know. I just had these two thoughts at the same time. And I woke up at midnight and now its 2 am, and I have to be up in 3 hrs.

If I’m starting to walk across the street and I stop and gesture for you and your car/truck/etc. to go first, DON’T FUCKING ARGUE WITH ME. If someone is grateful for your offer, they will avail themselves of it and you’ll both be merrily on your ways. If not—take the fucking hint. Maybe I’m not being nice. Maybe I just don’t want to hurry, as I’ll feel obligated to. Maybe I have a physical impairment that you can’t see, but that will take me longer and make me self-conscious. Maybe I see all the traffic backed up behind you. Maybe you don’t realize that from my angle, I can’t even see you in the car, waving me across. Maybe you’re so busy being nice that you don’t notice the oncoming traffic in the other lanes that I’d have to cross to get to where I’m going. Maybe I’m just not in as much of a hurry as you assume I am. I don’t know. Just like you don’t know any of those things. The only you DO know is that you offered, I politely refused, yet you still insisted. That’s not courtesy, it’s control. Move on, would-be Samaritan. There’s no one to help here.

Sometime before 2020 for sure. I remember looking around and saw vast city wide change. That epiphany. That, "where was I" notion. More car traffic. More crowded buses. Massive holes in the ground with cranes overlooking the skyline. Everywhere. I didn't quite realize this expansion PDX was going through til we were likely at least a good year into the boom. Then bam. I didn't quite realize why I started getting annoyed with whatever was happening to PTown. But I know for sure this was the start of my "agoraphobia." We all have issues of some sort. Let's face it. Some use it, abuse it, then take advantage of it to where it's watered down. The more someone says this is how they are and what condition they have, it just becomes less of what is being claimed. When someone is something, nothing needs to be proven because they just are. This is also not to make light of these issues too, like OCD or ADD, just as simple examples. I started realizing, people suck. People are greedy, selfish, and unkind. I started feeling really guarded in public. Then add sounds, loud cars, bikes, and crashing concrete and urban noise. I USED to like to go on walks. Theres always a lingerer somewhere, then everywhere, and I couldn't tell who was a normal, cool person versus some annoying lingerer. The lingerers were giving bad names to cool nice people til everyone just became someone I was wary of. Then the Pandemic. Then Protest uprisings, Regimes and Hate. Now, where do I go from here? I used to be nice now I'm probably the asshole.

We don't know each other that well, yet. That's probably why this can feel a bit scary or anxiety inducing at times. But we can also interpet that rush as thrilling as well as an excitement for what's to come. For me it comes down to faith, based on the limited information I've absorbed and understood about how the universe usually operates, what I know about myself, the bits and peices of yourself you've shared over the years, there could be a calculation about what the odds of this whole thing workingout would be, and I don't think it would be a terrible bet on that account alone. But it isn't about calculations, no matter how warmly they are performed, this is about faith. We can discuss the level of depth later, but let's suffice to say I have an unshakable belief that together we could write some amazing stories. We both have habits of overthinking things, so let's just try that feeling on for a bit. I know I'm getting the better side of the deal at this point, so this is the part where you propose a counteroffer. What changes to the stories do you want to see? What words do you want to move?

I've seen on two separate occasions, at two different properties, 3 three blower operators blowing their leaf wads all at the same time. It was cracking hilarious and ridiculous. The three dudes were waving that wand frantically at their leaves, while all in a circle corralling the leaves in a pile. I guess that was pretty talented in a way. What control for the operators to not blow his wad pile too haphazardly as to cause a bigger mess and miss the main pile all together. It was almost like performance art. Except, I just kept smiling at those three dudes, and muttering you guys look ridiculous. They would look up and I knew they knew how self conscious they became, realizing how ridiculous they must look. How many leaf blowers does it take to blow leaves into a pile? And I can't get over the two dumbest leaf blowing situations I've seen. One, a dude in downtown in a drizzle rain blowing what I can only describe as a couple leaves and maybe tiny pieces of trash around for 15 min, in a 10 ft stretch of sidewalk. Two, this is for everyone too, when blowing leaves away from their property only to blow onto the street away from the curb or in front of the property adjacent. Like, what does that accomplish? Seriously!

Fuck you and your leaf blowers, you assholes. Fuck you! F U C K Y O U ! ! !

So there I was, at work, having a nice nap behind the wheel, and then this kid (I say kid but they were definitely in their late 20s / early 30s and I've just been conditioned to infantilize those whom don't automatically praise me upon first meeting), comes out of know where and starts criticizing my work. Saying "I should pay more attention to what I was doing," and should "be able to at perform to some minimum professional standards," and "atleast acknowledge the responsibility of my role in the context of community safety and wellbeing". CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS SHIT!? We've been getting along fine for years, collecting our paychecks, and just casually moving things around on the surface, and then this "kid" comes in and wants us to actually adhere to basic ethical standards or even exercise critical thinking when it comes to examining the power structures that enable the systematic failures of our society. DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHO I AM?! We're not here to cause trouble, just the opposite, we function to only highlight selective trouble that conforms to our narrative expectations. I mean where do you get these unreal expectations that just because I have some college degrees and years of industry experience that I should be some sort of expert in my field and set an example of honest business practices. I swear. Kids these days. [[shakes fist angrily]]

Wonder why most don't support you? You wont wear the body cams. Yeah, I understand its hard to give up the fun of administering a beat down to well deserving minorities. And sure, who wants to face charges for killing someone. But here is the deal. The people you serve expect you to wear them. And you will. Fuck the union. We are tired of this shit.