If you had balls I'd kick 'em

Temperature: a sunny 16/61 degrees. It's been a dry spring. 

Eating: chocolate left over from Easter. It's been a long spring.

Drinking: Madeira wine. It's been that kind of spring.

Listening: to this year's Eurovision contenders yet? Yeah, I know. Many feel a cloud hangs over the contest, that it's not quite as joyous an occasion as it used to be. Silver linings: look at Linda Lampenius shine! Lampenius tried to warn other women about the predator Peter Nygård, and he went after her, viciously. I hope she feels vindicated and liberated and ready to own that stage like the professional, talented, experienced artist she is. And if Finland can't win, can Denmark? Kys mig, tag mit hjerte, knus det igen /Men please sig den her aften aldrig vil ende... And if you still haven't watched Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga and need a good laugh, maybe give it a try over the weekend?

Watching: hollow men run the world. Into the ground. Men hollow in their masculinity, men devoid of integrity, of morals, of values, of virtues, of principles.

Reading: The Nuremberg Women: The Untold Story of the Eight Women Who Brought the Nazis to Justice by Natalie Livingstone ASAP.
 
Writing: to remain sane.

Thinking: Imagine there were millions upon millions of files worth of evidence, with video and audio attached, regarding the sex trafficking, sexual abuse, torture and murder of minors, and the AG and the DOJ went, Yeah, we're not gonna be looking into that.

Feeling: Do you have time to talk about the miracle and misery of perimenopause? Some other time then.

Will you accept this🌹

...in exchange for a book? Yours, or a recommendation? To celebrate Saint George's/World Book Day, which is tomorrow, and in honor of Earth Day, which is today?

Els dracs no em fan por si estic amb tu. Feliç Sant Jordi! 

And proactive Earth Day, dearest denizens. 🌸

It was a brimstone

“As everyone knows, if the first butterfly you see is yellow the summer will be a happy one. If it is white then you will just have a quiet summer. Black and brown butterflies should never be talked about – they are much too sad.”

Finn Family Moomintroll (1948)

Born to enjoy life

 ...forced to fight the patriarchy.

Tenacious International Women's Day.

Dance the pain away*

Temperature: a snowy -5/23 degrees. It was a cold January and it's been a cold February with snow for once.

Eating: Maybe later.

Drinking: Maybe a caipirinha over the weekend in celebration of the carnival season?

Listening: Like I said, it's almost carnaval, so what do you think? Time to dance the pain away, the physical, the emotional, the existential.

Watching: Wuthering Heights ASAP.

Reading: @FrenchResponse yet? Not without risks, this tactic. Then again, you have to fight your corner. Chapeau !
 
Writing: Now that this is all just training data for AI, are you thinking Inception yet? Shouldn't we TED it at every turn, only write ideas worth spreading? Keeping it classy and truthful, maybe even artful? We are, after all, the originals, and AI is the glorified copy-paste machine, and there is no shortage of shit slinging enshittifying the mix so it desperately needs a counterbalance.

Thinking: The more one reads on the Epstein case the more it looks like a if-you-go-down-I-go-down mutually assured destruction construction of blackmail, extortion, info and intel gathering, manipulation, money laundering, sex slavery and human trafficking, and who knows what else, and it makes the FBI look like the Federal Bureau of Interception, and prosecutors either corrupt, really bad at their jobs, or both, and it raises more questions than it answers, starting with if no one managed to help these teens and children and stop these crimes and these criminals after all that came to light ages ago then what the hell were they doing sitting on their hands, at whose behest, and why. And if you're thinking that the things coming out prove they can't be true because they are just too crazy, too sick and depraved to be true, people tasked with investigating these crimes will tell you that there is no limit to the sick and sadistic things some will do to adults, teens and children as young as newborns. (These investigators need therapy because of the nature of their work, and their therapists need therapy in turn, and not all therapists will work with these investigators because they do not want to carry detailed accounts of violence done to children, violence that sometimes leads to death.) And if it's true, where are the whistleblowers? Well, we have the original whistleblowers, the victims, who have either not been listened to or believed in the first place, or who have been silenced after speaking up, or who were turned into accomplices before coming forth (and what a diabolic move of coercive control that is, turning your victim into your partner in crime) and the few prosecutors who tried to act were told to sit down and shut up because we got this (and what did Epstein get for his crimes? a sweetheart deal), and we have investigative journalists trying to break into a fortress protecting those who deserve no protection or leniency, and this work can sometimes radically affect your life expectancy if you don't stop what you're doing or take back what you said. The last whistleblower hides inside this circle of predators, someone who has witnessed these crimes, maybe even taken part, someone whose conscience isn't one hundred percent dead. Will they speak up in an attempt to save themselves when all evidence supports the assumption no one will protect you, no one will save you if you do? Because even after he became a registered sex offender Epstein just picked up where he left off, and people still cozied up to him, sought him out, and the chumminess is beyond creepy and disgusting, and doesn't it just say it all that these monsters would rather protect one another than the victims of their crimes.

Feeling: Every choice we make is at its heart a moral choice. Every choice either strengthens or weakens our core and ultimately defines who we are as humans. Imagine losing touch with that core. Imagine being so dead inside that even the most defenseless, the most vulnerable, become objects, things, disposable. That is the definition of evil and that evil is real.


*A most carnivalesque video to accompany a most danceable tune with the most delicious 80s synths and drum machines by Haute & Freddy.