Want to join in? Respond to our weekly writing prompts, open to everyone.
from 
G A N Z E E R . T O D A Y
“Well I got sick and threw up after my phone was stolen because of anxiety.”
Overheard at a cafe' in Houston.
On a completely different note, Write.As really ought to improve their blogging app. I can only really blog here from my laptop which kind of makes it too much of a “project”.
#journal
from Faucet Repair
27 February 2026
Still night (working title): found a stack of old Polaroids over the weekend that I hadn't looked at in probably a year, and instantly there was a freshness to their format from a painting perspective—the image as a container being contained. Thought of Marisol's 1961 Family Portrait lithograph, of approaching and reacting to the edges of the source and going from there. Ken price too, value absolutes and the neat/organized but skillfully loose layered application in so many of his small ink and acrylic drawings/paintings. The photograph I worked with was of a scene of surfaces supporting half-emptied glasses and bottles at Yena's old flat in Vauxhall. The pheromone-thick air of that night, one of many nights, and the edges on which the images in those memories balance.
from bios
5: Trust An Addict
He arrived back beaten. It was obvious the beating was fake. We had pooled our money and he had gone to buy from the dealer who sells stone. He was gone for four hours. I had already hustled more and smoked and was merely simmeringly pissed off. Tell me you smoked it all and it's fine. He clung on to the story and I had no choice but to act like I believed him. For whatever reason he needed that freedom. Here, in the clutch of this transient community, you get aligned with acting like you believe and working with the remnants.
I needed him because he provided me a place to stay, he needed me because I was better at spinning, and in that burnt out third floor roofless room, I began to see the lies in his truths and the truths in his lies and had no choice but to accept that he had his reasons, he made no explanations.
“If you have relapsed I will no longer help you,” and so you cannot say that you have relapsed. You want to be able to tell the truth. But you will tell small lies to survive the withdrawal, the hunger, the elements.
And the shame of this will slowly demand more oblivion. It is the dishonesty's shame that leads to the justifications. It is the asking and not achieving what you honestly wanted to do that leads to the over-explaining. Of trying to explain to yourself the lack of ability to explain the lack of ability.
The help was just enough to maintain where I was, not enough to get out of it. It was hard enough for people to survive through the day, how could I expect any sort of total solution from any one individual. They had the distractions of their everyday traumas. Sometimes I knew the help would set me back. But the prospect of being foodless, drugless, unnumbed was not something to embrace for the sake of the greater good. It was hard enough to survive through the day. Constantly crawling toward evaporating levers of change, there is always some form of oblivion to embrace. Without the privilege of distraction, the only choice is between oblivions.
The sorry story that accosts you huddled in pity me pose on Long Street is just another performance. Another strategy for survival. The insistence of woe reaps more reward than mere hunger. And then woe becomes who you are. You cannot let people see the small moments of joy.
In days spent performing sadness there is little room for the distraction of joy. Even the spending is a grim reminder of the soon lack.
You distance yourself from yourself by talking in third person, the royal we, instead of I, you say you.
Waiting for the lights to change, putting loose coins into the hands of the man holding up the black plastic bag at the traffic lights. At least he's trying. At least you've helped in some small way.
You distance yourself from the problem by helping in some small way.
In the drug houses there is a community of Smalls, Sdudlas, Ntombis, BoyBoys, MaLevens, the people change, the names are always the same. It is impossible to have anything of your own. To stick to oneself is to invite suspicion, or theft. To have nothing openly for long enough, is to invite sharing. The meagre spoils of the day made less in sharing is a kind of insurance against lack, when without maybe someone here will help, and so everyone shares, in a balance between fears.
There is no linear path to get here. Some people are born here. There is no time in the day to even get to home affairs to get a new ID. Some people here were born without being entered on the record. Survival is time consuming. There is no space for breathing. There is a basic scrabbling for the end of each day that is hard to translate. There are people with genuine kindness that will help in case of emergency, and they do not understand that every day is an emergency and emergencies are invented that they will understand. Lies containing truth. The choice so often is between honesty or survival.
The old man has two beds in his room. One for him, one for newspapers and cats. He lives on the second floor of a milked with rot perhaps old boarding house, a faded five stars on the gate. To get to his place you pass through a dishevelled drinking place , climb steps above the brothel, it has that particular smell that these places have: husks of cockroach eggs, cracked windowsill paint strata, wood decayed in bodily fluids, electrical shorting, forgotten fires, paper damp with age – a smell no amount of hope can mask. His neighbours talk to him only to mission cigarettes, boiling water from his, the only kettle, and advice.
He wakes at 4:30am amongst the mewling of kittens and cats waiting to be fed, and he irons his suit, as threadbare as the financial district he will walk to in order to ply his trade. He needs to look respectable, it's for his own sake. He mends his suits in the late morning, after returning from, he calls it, pan-handling, after doing his modest dose of heroin, and then reads the morning papers and returns to work around two in the afternoon. He needs the heroin and the repaired suits in order to endure getting the money for the heroin and the suit repair. The cats are his survival.
Huddling in the lee of the stench at the scrap for crack recyclers, I clutch the pipe against the clawing hands, then into a garbage bag to try grab windless space to inhale some small dots of smack. There is no time to breathe. I must get more cans. I must dig in more bins to stave off reality. This is not a party.
Someone buys me a hoodie. It's summer in Durban. They will not give me money for food, or drugs or medication but they buy me a hoodie. Give it to me with the price tag still on. One thousand two hundred rand. We both know that I will sell the hoodie for drugs, not even getting cash so I can get food, the merchants only pay in drugs for clothes. I cannot exchange it, without a recipient I will be arrested for shoplifting. I get two hundred rands worth of drugs.
Chop Wood. Carry Water.
There is a methadone program here. At seven in the morning they line up to receive their daily dose. Methadone has a twelve hour half life, by seven tonight everyone here will be in withdrawal. There is no nightly dose. There is no methadone on weekends. And so the attempt to get clean results in higher tolerance. The dose never reduces, it is not tracked, this is not a reduction program. This is not a pathway away from daily addiction, this is another way to maintain. The nurse and admin person upfront have no time for my questions, “we are trying to help you, do you want or not?”.
I follow him straight line from the traffic lights at the mall where I have spent the afternoon withdrawing, watching him work the passing cars, trying to not shit in my pants. Before when I have had money I have shared resources with him and now he is helping me. We are passing time here while he waits for his end of day daily peace job,of which he often boasts. There is an older man up the road just before the old zoo who pays him to feed the monkeys in the fading light. This old man sits on his balcony and throws down bags of fruit and an envelope containing a hundred rand. We fight for the fruit with the monkeys while feeding them, he has pulled in maybe another hundred or two at the lights. I do not ask. We in the now darkness head down the alley, to the side gate that leads into the stolen apartment complex where he pays rent in kind.
The gate is blocked by the sleeping figure of an old man. We have to move him, “Don't wake him.” I interpret this as kindness. An old brown sherry bottle rolls off, tinkling decorously toward the gutter, the old man grunts, “don't fucking wake him.” Why not? “He's my father and he will want to come inside. Never trust a wetbrain”. Slipping inside the gate, up the filth littered stairs. Tripping over recalcitrant rats unabated. He has lived, alongside his family in various forms for his whole life. From here by the tracks, past the factories, the mall, up to the old zoo, these few square kilometres have been his whole life. He almost finished school just over there. He almost got a job in another town once and would have left from the train station over there. He has no electricity, no television, no phone, can hardly read, no size-able ambition other than this daily avoiding of withdrawal. The nightly comfort in the distractions and rituals of oblivion, is his only allotted purpose.
He always makes sure he has one cap of heroin to wake up to, so that he can get to work calmly, “you cannot hurry the money,” he smiles as he takes small joy in his morning ritual.
At the traffic lights he fights over his place with a woman on crutches, “the bitch can walk.”
And besides, he has been here his whole life. He has pride in this work, knows all the people in the cars. He has an impatient conversation with a man through the car window. The light goes green. A shrug, “says he'll be back later,” shouting now, “I could have asked three other cars, these larnies, always over-explaining, always a story with them, they can't just say no.”
from targetedjaidee
Gratitude.
What are some things you are grateful for today? I am grateful for the following:
- Woke up clean
- My children are safe (for now)
- My marriage & how awesome we are together
I saw my therapist yesterday (my therapist understands that I am a part of this program and doesn't judge me). And I came to the realization I have to love my spouse for how they are & who they are. And in doing so, I have to forgive them. Ya know what I mean. I have struggled with the perceived notion that they were in on this type of thing; truth of the matter is that we weren't ourselves for most of last year. So, just for today I choose happiness, grace, & love.
I have come to realize that my ability to offer forgiveness to those around me is actually a gift. Do I struggle with the emotions of the aftermath? Absolutely. I am human and I have to process these things. Even when I feel extremely low and full of sorrow, I still pray. I ask God to remove those nasty feelings when its time. I know I have to feel my emotions and process them. Sometimes, those get heavy.
The amount of betrayal I have suffered recently has been absolutely insane. But that is what this program is about. Further isolation (or at least make it seem as though). Part of my program is “parental alienation”. What is that? Well, a false narrative has been fed to my children & I am being treated with a 10-foot pole and being kept from my children. Even with clean screenings & doing my part. My parents are actively trying to keep my children from me to make it seem as though “I abandoned them”. That way if I ever mess up, I get my “rights terminated”. My spouse's ex did just that actually. They cut contact between my spouse and their kids once the ex found out about me. That was sometime in 2020. Well, in 2024 the ex reaches out and tries (keyword tries but fails miserably) to “be kind and supportive” because my spouse's parent had passed. Well interestingly enough, my parents had decided to help my spouse get the right to see their kids and hired an attorney. THAT day that my parents wrote the check – the ex calls my spouse (LMAO). I cannot make this shet up.
The ex was trying to be “civil” with their own agenda. Always hidden motives. They spent over an hour talking on the phone about how they do not like me (mind you, I have never met this individual). How the kids would never call me “Mom” or whatever (I knew I was never getting the chance to meet my step kids anyway). So that didn't hurt. They were adamant about their religious views (I could care less, it's their children together, they can practice whatever they want). Hilariously enough: I had a blog going in 2024 off of Wix; the ex tells my spouse that “one of their kids” found my blog (-_–). Seriously? So, the kids are stalking me and out of ALL the websites on Wix...your kid finds mine? Insert eye roll. That poor kid, dude. Being thrown into the mix without having done anything. But...that's their parent and I pray for them every day.
I firmly believe that gangstalkers need to be brought to justice. They need to be exposed & brought to justice. I think my spouse's ex needs help mentally, with the level of obsession they exhibited, literally up until November of last year (since 2020). (LMAO) I start talking about the experiences I have had & I get told that I am “crazy” or whatever narrative has been sold to them to come and attack me Insert eye roll. It is so pathetic. What these idiots don't seem to understand is: the more they gang up on me, the more obvious it is to me that I am a child of God & that terrifies whatever evil motives they have in doing what they are doing. You know what I mean. They tell on themselves.
But at the same time: Not one of them is willing to sit down with me & tell me, human to human, “Hey. Here is why I do not like you.” Not. One. They click up like pessies to slander and defame (LMAO). It is hilarious, I am serious. It's like watching roaches run in the same direction, altogether. But yeah. That is where my mind is today.
To my fellow TIs: I pray today is good to you. You small wins are valid & should be celebrated. You matter. I am grateful you're here.
Jaide owwt*
Edinburgh – En stad där historia, kultur och naturskönhet möts
from 
Platser
Edinburgh, Skottlands majestätiska huvudstad, är en stad som andas historia och charm. Belägen på östra kusten, med sin dramatiska siluett av slott, medeltida gränder och vulkaniska kullar, är staden en perfekt blandning av gammalt och nytt. Här kan du vandra genom tusen år av historia, njuta av världsklasskultur, och samtidigt uppleva en modern, levande stad med en unik karaktär.
Historiska landmärken och arkitektur
Edinburghs mest ikoniska landmärke är utan tvekan Edinburgh Castle, som reser sig stoltsamt på Castle Rock. Slottet, som har fungerat som kungligt residens, militärfästning och fängelse, är en symbol för Skottlands turbulenta historia. Här kan du se de skotska kronjuvelerna, Stone of Destiny, och den berömda kanonen Mons Meg. Utanför slottet ligger Royal Mile, en livlig gata som sträcker sig ner till Holyrood Palace, kungafamiljens officiella residens i Skottland. Längs Royal Mile hittar du historiska byggnader, museer, traditionella pubar och affärer som säljer allt från tartanplädar till whisky.
Ett annat måste är Holyrood Abbey, en vacker ruin som ligger intill Holyrood Palace. Abbotet grundades på 1100-talet och är en påminnelse om stadens religiösa och kungliga förflutna. För den som är intresserad av arkitektur är St Giles' Cathedral ett besök värt. Katedralen, med sin imponerande gotiska stil och färgstarka fönster, är en av Skottlands mest kända kyrkor.
Kultur och evenemang
Edinburgh är också känt som en av världens ledande kulturstäder. Varje år i augusti omvandlas staden till en scen för Edinburgh Festival Fringe, världens största konst- och kulturfestival. Under festivalen fylls gatorna av artister, komiker, musiker och teatergrupper från hela världen. Det är en tid då staden verkligen lever upp till sitt rykte som en plats för kreativitet och innovation.
För litteraturälskare är Writers' Museum ett besök värt. Museet hyllar tre av Skottlands största författare: Robert Burns, Walter Scott och Robert Louis Stevenson. Här kan du lära dig mer om deras liv och verk, och se originalmanuskript och personliga föremål.
Om du är intresserad av vetenskap och innovation, bör du besöka National Museum of Scotland. Museet erbjuder en fascinerande resa genom tid och rum, från dinosaurier och forntida skatter till modern teknik och design. Det är ett perfekt ställe för både barn och vuxna.
Natur och utsikter
Edinburgh är inte bara en stad för historiker och kulturälskare – den erbjuder också fantastiska naturupplevelser. Arthur's Seat, en utdöd vulkan, är stadens högsta punkt och erbjuder en magnifik utsikt över hela området. En vandring upp för berget är ett måste för den som vill uppleva stadens skönhet från ovan. Om du föredrar en lugnare promenad, är Princes Street Gardens en perfekt plats att slappna av på. Parken ligger mitt i staden och erbjuder en grön oas med vackra blommor, fontäner och utsikt över Edinburgh Castle.
För den som vill utforska utanför stadskärnan, är Leith ett trevligt område att besöka. Detta hamnområde har genomgått en förvandling och är nu känt för sina trendiga restauranger, barer och konstgallerier. Här kan du också besöka Royal Yacht Britannia, drottning Elizabeth II:s tidigare kungliga yacht, som nu är ett museum.
Mat och dryck
Edinburgh har ett rikt utbud av restauranger, från traditionella skotska pubar till moderna fine dining-restauranger. Ett måste är att prova haggis, Skottlands nationalrätt, som serveras med “neeps and tatties” (rotfrukter och potatis). För den som är modig kan man också prova whisky – Skottland är ju känt för sin whisky, och Edinburgh har flera destillerier och whiskybars där du kan lära dig mer om tillverkningsprocessen och smaka på olika sorter.
Om du föredrar något sött, bör du prova en shortbread eller en Cranachan, en traditionell skotsk dessert gjord på havregryn, hallon, grädde och whisky.
Praktisk information
Edinburgh är en kompakt stad, och det mesta kan nås till fots. För längre sträckor finns det ett välutbyggt kollektivtrafiksystem med bussar och spårvagnar. Staden har också en internationell flygplats, vilket gör den lättillgänglig för resenärer från hela världen.
När det gäller boende finns det något för alla smaker och budgetar. Från lyxiga hotell på Princes Street till mysiga bed and breakfasts i Gamla stan, eller moderna hostels för backpackers – Edinburgh har allt.
Hunger as Norm, Politics as Always
Somalia’s hunger is not a breaking story. It is a baseline.
Every few years, the photos and headlines return: emaciated children, dry riverbeds, queues for food distributions. Donors convene pledging conferences, agencies refresh their emergency plans, politicians promise coordination. Then the rains come, or the news cycle moves on, and the crisis is reclassified from “famine” to “acute food insecurity.” But for millions of Somalis, hunger never fully leaves. It stretches and tightens with the seasons and the political calendar, becoming a normal condition to be managed rather than an intolerable failure to be ended.
Calling this “normal” is not a moral judgment on Somalis; it is a description of how the system currently works. Droughts, floods, displacement and high prices interact with fragile institutions, insecure roads, missing infrastructure, and a relief economy that keeps people just above the survival line without changing the underlying structure. Politics, meanwhile, continues as always: competition over territory and rents, short-term bargains, and symbolic announcements about resilience that rarely translate into the boring, patient investments that would make chronic hunger exceptional again.
To understand why hunger behaves like a norm in Somalia, it helps to separate three layers: climate, infrastructure and markets; and politics.
The climate layer is the one most often named: multi-season droughts, erratic rains, rising temperatures, and then destructive floods. For rural and pastoral households, this means more frequent and sharper shocks to pasture, water and livestock. Climate is not new in Somalia, but the speed and volatility of current patterns mean less time to recover between shocks. Even in good years, many households are one failed season away from crisis; in bad years, the line between “poor” and “famine-affected” is thin.
Infrastructure and markets translate these shocks into hunger or resilience. In large parts of Somalia, there are few reliable rural roads, limited cold storage and warehouses, weak irrigation, and patchy electricity. When a drought hits, traders can only move food and water so fast and so far; when prices spike globally, import-dependent markets pass that cost straight to consumers. Water trucking, private boreholes and small-scale irrigation schemes play a vital role, but they are fragile and expensive. There is no dense, climate-ready “infrastructure of adaptation” – no network of wells, storage, small dams, feeder roads, energy and communications robust enough to absorb shocks and keep food and water physically accessible.
In this vacuum, markets do function, but they do so under extreme stress and with high margins. A trader in a remote district is not a villain for charging more when fuel prices and security risks climb. Yet for households spending most of their income on food, these price shifts are the difference between eating twice a day and once, between staying in place or joining an IDP camp. Mobile money and remittances soften the blow for some families, but they are unevenly distributed and cannot substitute for missing public systems.
Over this sits the political layer. “Politics as always” in this context means that hunger is deeply shaped by decisions on security, representation, and resource allocation, but rarely treated as the central test of those decisions. Territorial control and clan bargaining shape where roads are built, where health posts and schools survive, where local government functions; they also influence how quickly humanitarian aid reaches certain areas, which communities are visible in national plans, and whose suffering becomes legible to donors. In some places, negotiations with armed actors determine whether food can move at all. In others, the presence of an international compound guarantees attention to nearby camps, while villages just beyond the security perimeter remain invisible.
Humanitarian actors, for their part, are caught between genuine commitment and structural constraints. Funding is short-term and volatile; appeals are chronically under-financed; programmes are often designed for one- or two-year cycles. “Resilience” has become a standard word in project documents, but much of the architecture still revolves around emergency response. When drought looms, plans are activated, NGOs scale up, and cash or food is distributed. When the immediate emergency fades, budgets shrink, teams are reassigned, and the opportunity to systematically build water, storage, roads and safety nets is lost again. No single agency chooses this pattern, but together they reproduce a system where survival is the outcome, not transformation.
The result is a grim equilibrium. Rural and peri-urban households adapt as best they can, diversifying income, migrating, sending children to cities, relying on relatives abroad. Local markets and private providers fill gaps with water, transport, and basic services where possible. Humanitarian pipelines prevent full-scale famine in many areas, especially when early warning works and funding arrives on time. Politicians manage the optics, balancing domestic expectations and donor relationships. Hunger moves up and down the scale, but it rarely drops out of the picture.
This is what “hunger as norm” looks like: a country where food insecurity is not an exceptional shock but an ordinary risk, managed each year through a mix of coping strategies, emergency aid, and selective infrastructure fixes. Climate change tightens this equilibrium; each cycle becomes harder to manage without deeper structural change. Yet the politics of the state, the incentives of donors, and the business models of many actors remain aligned with continuity rather than disruption.
Breaking this norm does not start with a new slogan, but with a different way of asking questions. Instead of “How many people can we feed this season?”, the core questions become: which investments in water, roads, storage, energy and basic services would permanently reduce the population living one shock away from hunger? How can social protection systems be built to deliver predictable support before people exhaust their assets? What forms of local government and accountability are needed so that drought response is a matter of public policy, not ad hoc negotiation? And how should external actors change their own funding and programming logic to support that shift, rather than reproducing the emergency cycle?
Politics will not disappear from these choices; it will always shape who benefits first, which regions and clans see more investment, and how institutions are built or blocked. But politics can operate inside a fundamentally different structure – one in which the baseline is that most Somalis are food secure most of the time, and hunger has returned to what it should be: a signal of exceptional failure, not an expected part of life.
For now, that is not the system Somalia has. The system Somalia has is one where climate shocks are intensifying, infrastructure for adaptation is thin, markets are stressed, and the relief economy sits on top of a fragile political order. As long as those fundamentals remain unchanged, hunger will continue to behave like a norm, and politics will continue as always.
The question for Somali policymakers, practitioners, and their partners is whether they are prepared to treat this as unacceptable normality and reorganise their work accordingly – or whether the next drought and the next set of photos will once again be absorbed into a familiar, lethal routine.
from targetedjaidee
Healing Out Loud.
That is what I am doing. Ya know, sometimes I get angry & very upset with how things have transpired. But at the same time: I am grateful I can feel these types of emotions & let them go after.
Today's verse is as follows:
Psalms 91 NIV 1Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. 2 I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.”
Imagine that! I am firmly protected & blessed by the Most High. He is my dwelling place, and He is the reason I am alive today. I am beyond grateful this morning, guys.
I really hope you have a blessed day!
Jaide owwt*
Sombra
from 
Atmósferas
Esta sombra, que es mi sombra, no tiene ojos pero sé que mira, no tiene boca pero sé que calla. No tiene rabo pero sé que es mono. Esta es la sombra del animal.
Esta sombra es lo que pienso cuando no hay testigos y lo que oculto cuando parezco claro. Esta sombra es memoria y desmemoria, caprichosa e indolente.
Esta sombra tiene corazón de piedra, enajenada sombra de mis días.
Aparece y desaparece, capaz de mezclarse entre las sombras, conspirar, retorcer, fagocitar.
Sé que es ella y tú también. Es mi sombra, es tu sombra, la raíz, las sombras, nuestras sombras, nuestra única gran sombra que clama por más sombra.
Missing again
from An Open Letter
Today I went to the gym and worked from home, and not really any friends were online today. And so I felt lonely. Completely honest, I haven’t felt that way in a long long time. I’m so used to having E there, and I would virtually never have to actually deal with loneliness. I forgot how miserable of a feeling it is. I know that this is just a one day thing, but that feeling of isolation is miserable. I really wanted to almost reach out to her again, partially because some of me feels like she’s also lonely. But that’s probably not the case, and regardless it doesn’t help me at all to think about that. I think I ultimately just need to recognize this feeling, and then let it pass. I do remember however how enticing it is to have a partner that you codependent with. Never having to worry about loneliness is a nice thought. Never having to be alone again. Except that’s not how it works, and it’s almost like saying how alcohol is nice because you never have to feel bad again. I will just make more friends, and it will be OK. And regardless it’s just one day. There are so many other things that I want to do like playing songs on the guitar, creative projects, etc. Oh yeah and reading, I really wanna try reading during the day at some point.
So many words
from 
Talk to Fa
The more I tap in, the more excessive words feel.
2026-03-01
from Two Sentences
Took the time to catch up on sleep. Did a 7 mile long run after, then kept experimenting with Gastown.
∞
from Talk to Fa
I am a hopeful romantic. Everything is possible. I really believe that.
丘の上にある家に帰る
from 下川友
今日は、なんだか自分の中のいろんな面が顔を出した一日だった。 今日も僕は、あらゆる面において一人だった。 家族も友達もちゃんといるけれど、それでも一人だなあといつも思っている。
朝、顔に日焼け止めを塗っていたとき、ふと「左右で色が違ったらどうなるんだろう」と思って、右半分だけ塗ってみた。鏡の中の自分が、ちょっとした実験動物みたいで、思わず笑ってしまった。
そのままの顔で陶芸教室へ。 今日は最初から「誰とも話さないって決めたんだ」って、隣に座ったおじさんに宣言してみた。普段はよく喋るから、たまにはこういう日があってもいいかなって思って。 でも結局、土をこねながら「この粘土、ちょっと乾いてません？」って話しかけてしまった。おじさん、少し笑ってた。
帰り道、団地のエレベーターに乗るとき、誰もいないのに「今、団地がアツいんだよね」ってつぶやいてみた。誰に向けて言ったのか、自分でもよくわからないけど、なんだか気分がよかった。
午後は、チラシが風に乗って飛んできそうな時間を見計らって、玄関前にイスを出して待ってみた。案の定、ふわっと一枚、舞ってきた。手に取ってみたら、地域の陶芸展の案内だった。今日の自分にぴったりすぎて、また笑ってしまった。
夕方、公園に行って、グローブを二つ持ってベンチに座った。 学校帰りの子どもが通りかかったから、目で「どう？」って誘ってみたけど、スルーされた。まあ、そんな日もある。
夜は、録画してあった紅白を持ち寄って、友人たちと鑑賞会。 「このシーン、巻き戻していい？」って、誰よりも早くリモコンを握ってた。 みんな笑ってたけど、ちゃんと巻き戻させてくれた。
ふとした拍子に、昔の友だちの名前をインターネットで検索してみた。 何かを知りたいわけじゃない。ただ、今もどこかで元気にしてるといいなって思っただけ。
そういえば、アロハシャツをタンスの奥に隠してたんだった。 「いつか着る日」を、自分でも忘れるようにして。 でも、今日みたいな日は、ちょっとだけ思い出してもいいかもしれない。
学校の授業中、退屈で机に突っ伏して寝ていたら、隣の女子に話しかけられた。 「君って、寝てるときも髪が整ってるんだね」って。 そうなのか。僕は、寝てるときも髪型がキマっているんだ。
机の引き出しから、昔もらったパンフレットを引っ張り出して、赤ペンで線を引いた所を確認する。 昔の自分はこんな所に線を引いていたのかと、昔と今の距離を測る。
僕にとっての一日の終わりは、夜寝る時じゃない。 一日の終わりが、放課後なのが、この僕である。
Okay this is one of a few political related posts I post onl
from Mitchell Report
⚠️ Warning: Political Rant
Okay, this is one of the few politically related posts I make each year because politics are so divisive. So here’s your warning: if you’d rather not read political commentary, feel free to stop here.
The recent armed action against Iran has me conflicted. I believe it's more of a distraction and a pretext than a genuine strategic necessity. While the issues we face in America come from the neglect of both parties, Trump seems to be using these problems to his advantage. This situation should have been addressed years ago when Iran first began developing its nuclear program. The United States is skilled at acting as a global police force and solving immediate problems but not at handling long-term challenges such as nation building. We have never successfully created a functioning foreign democracy.
Historically, outside powers that try to build nations in their own image often fail in the long run. They either cannot fully erase local culture, or they create deep resentment in the process. The British Empire tried to project its institutions and values onto places like India and large parts of the Middle East, disrupting older political and cultural systems. When the British Empire withdrew, it left behind borders and governments that did not always match local realities, which helped fuel instability that continues today. There are certainly aspects of our own Constitution that could be improved, and Trump has exploited some of its weaknesses.
While I don't completely disagree with action against Iran, it should have happened years ago, just like with Cuba. The situation in Cuba also should have been resolved long ago. I believe the United States should help guide Cuba until it becomes a stable modern democracy, intervening firmly if it begins to stray.
What concerns me most now are the costs in lives, money, and timing. I fear this situation might serve as a pretext to interfere with the upcoming elections or to distract from other issues such as the release of the Epstein files and broader corruption. If this administration were honest, I might believe the urgency. But after so much misdirection, self-dealing, and falsehoods, I can't give this president the benefit of the doubt anymore. That ended with January 6th.
On top of that, he hasn't delivered on most of his campaign promises. My bills keep rising, and while a few prices have gone down, those savings are offset elsewhere. Every time it seems the economy might recover, he makes comments that hurt it further. Tariffs are taxes, and the public ultimately pays them. If any other president behaved this way, there would be outrage in Congress. Yet for some reason, this one is treated differently from any president I've seen in my lifetime.
I only hope Congress learns from this experience. And I don't want to hear any Republican complain if a future Democratic president takes similar actions. Our political system has several deep problems. One of the largest is the lack of adequate representation. I've said it for years: 435 Representatives and 100 Senators for over 330 million people isn't right. We should have at least one representative for every 50,000 citizens.
We also need new constitutional amendments; term limits, stronger limits on presidential power, and real consequences for any president who forgets that they are a steward of the people, not a monarch. Congress itself must also move away from party dominance. Partisan politics are destroying this country. I'm glad I left both parties and now consider myself a proud independent.
End of rant.
#opinion #politics
Lent 2026 Day 13 - Even When He Is Silent
from Dallineation
Occasionally I listen to a podcast called “The God Minute”. These are daily prayer and meditation programs that last 10-15 minutes. They are a wonderful way to help me focus on God and on sacred things. And they often feature wonderfully curated, beautiful music that draws your thoughts heavenward. One of the songs from today's podcast caught my attention.
The song is called “On the Nature of Daylight” and is performed by VOCES8 on their album “Nightfall” released in 2024. VOCES8 is an a capella octet from England and their music is, in a word, divine.
I decided to listen to the entire album today while I worked. And then I listened to two more of their albums!
But the song that brought me to tears is from that same album “Nightfall” and is called “Even When He Is Silent” by Kim André Arnesen.
Here are the lyrics:
I believe in the sun, even when it's not shining I believe in love, even when I feel it not I believe in God, even when He is silent
Here is the recording by VOCES8:
And here is a beautiful performance of the piece by St. Olaf Choir:
This song was a desperately needed lifeline for me – a timely gift from a loving God. It resonated with me on a deeply personal level and expresses my current spiritual, mental, and emotional state better than words ever could.
The description of the St. Olaf Choir video says the text of the lyrics was found in a concentration camp after World War II. I wanted to know more about that, and a web search revealed many different stories and explanations for the text's origin. But I found a blog post that seems well-researched and says the original text – somewhat different from the lyrics of the song – was likely found in Cologne, scratched on the wall of an underground passageway that likely served as a refuge from the Gestapo.
I believe in the sun, though it be dark; I believe in God, though He be silent; I believe in neighborly love, though it be unable to reveal itself.
Whatever the circumstances or origins, the words and music are profound and moving. And exactly what I needed today.
I daresay it's also what the world needs today.
#100DaysToOffload (No. 143) #faith #Lent #Christianity #music
from As.No.One
Who am I to write during the times that we face today? Honestly, I am no one. That's right. Officially, No One. I am whispered about, blamed when there's nothing else to blame, put on the spot, invisible yet always seen. Just like you, I am me. No one.
Recently, my thoughts have been loud and nowhere to voice it. Hopefully today, my words can at least be seen for no one in particular but really just for me. I genuinely hope that these words today can reach out, from wherever one may read this. I want thought and passion. I wish for the days again where words meant something. Where words didn't get muddy with propaganda. Or words that could touch the very soul that belongs to someone. My dream is for my words today to reach someone, anyone, maybe no one.
As I write to myself, I must ask myself, the very question that I think we all face as no one. What am I to do today?
Do I have answer? Does anyone?
Probably like most, I woke up today in my bed in a room that had electricity. My clock sitting on my bedside table gave me the measure for what I was hoping to do this day. Laundry. Dishes. Maybe go for a walk. Sadly, none of those things happened. Instead, I found myself pondering about the news and only found myself more sad. The news of death does not come as a shock anymore. The fight between many people all over is numbing to hear. A crime that was committed for many years by many people with no repercussions. And with no one caring about anyone except for their own.
I am no different. I have already established that I am no one.
These past many years, we have all been through it. From being locked inside in fear of disease that some would say was a common cold, to being on the brink of civil war, to also being at the brink of World War 3. And I can tell you now, I miss my childhood. This time is not for the weak. This time is for the resilient. It is a time for no one.
I can keep going to work every day, as my coworkers and I discuss all the events that go on outside of our bubble, but no one really cares. I say, “How are you,” as if I already don't know. Most likely the same answer will be given. “I'm good.” No one is good. No one is happy. Everyone is sad. As someone once said, “He has only time to be a machine.” Is that all one can be? To live day in day out, with expectations from peers, family, elders, and corporations to just do what they want you to do. There are hardly times that I can afford to give myself pleasantries. And when I do have time, I must fill it with the urge to get all my chores done so I do not lose my place as no one and be lower than no one. And we all have seen what becomes of someone who is lower than no one. Holding up a carboard sign at a corner of a street, with clothes that don't fit and matted hair, and resorting to the few things that could hopefully take the mind off of the shame of what was lost.
No one is a machine. With each minute that passes by, we are like clockwork. Traffic starting at 7:30 in the morning, while we all rush to go to our jobs that pays us every two weeks, only to be in that same traffic around 5 o'clock in the evening just to come home and do it all over the next day. Most of us eat around noon while we sit with our coworkers, we see every day and talk about the mundane things. How's the significant other? How are the kids? Are you still in search for a house on the market? Did you hear what happened yesterday? And yet no one fully grasps the potential that we could reach. Just like machines, we function as we have been programmed. To work and be led by what is outside our bubbles, when really no one cares about what is in our bubble.
From a young age, this has been our program. We go to school most starting around 8 in the morning. Each child sitting at a desk listening to what is being taught, some getting punished for asking questions outside of the norm, and we would sit there until noon to eat and play with our friends, just to then go back to that desk. A bell dismissed us around 3 in the afternoon, just for us to go home and do the nagging task of homework. Just to do it for the next twelve years of our lives. And some will take it further for another four to ten years to specialize in something just to get a small jump in that field of work. Do you see the similarity?
This might be just a thought; can we reach out and pop that bubble? Is no one ready to step away from what has been or is everyone afraid? Has anyone proven that we are resilient? Are we still no one?
I am not asking for revolution but if someone is out there who wants to start it, I say no one needs it. No one can win with war. Though they say there are victors. But what did those victors have to do to survive? What I am asking has already been asked.
What am I to do today?
There is so much that we cannot see even when it is right in front of us. And if we are afraid, then let's be strong together. Be resilient. I ask no one to be more than the mundane. That's the goal for today. Be more than a machine. To be more than what no one has been programmed to be.