If only I could’ve taught half the country empathy, that you don’t have to have an accent or look a certain way, or have a “funny sounding” last name, to have an idea what people who do are going through. If only more of us could’ve anticipated how other people feel, we wouldn’t be here. If only…

Breaking up my rage posting - and let’s be honest, there’s much to rage about these days - with this spark of joy: My kid at the end of his last day of ski school.

The way so many orgs have fallen in line so swiftly is telling and the tale they tell is disheartening at best. The current administration has been in power 26 days and in that time public and private sector entities are all too willing to roll back 60 years of progress. Was it ever real then?

Following a convo with my 8 y.o. it occurred to me to wonder: how actually wealthy are oligarchs without the people making their companies run? As a mental exercise, if 2/3rd of Tesla walked off the job tomorrow, how much would that affect the richest man on the planet if at all?

Hold. The. Line.

There’s a reason the press is feared by those in authority. Give them not an inch.

The most disturbing thing about living in the US currently is realizing that so many people in your community view the world starkly differently than you do: People you’ve gone to church with, folks whose children your kids play with, the neighbor 2 houses down who you’ve known for years.

I wrote this note to myself a week into the new administration. Worth holding onto and adding onto as the days, weeks and months progress. The chaos is the point. They want you to feel overwhelmed. Breathe.

This rings true. There's a "shock and awe" quality to everything that's being thrown at us in the last two weeks. I would not exactly ignore everything that's happening, but awareness that it's psychological warfare helps turn the temperature down a few degrees, at least for me. Stay Strong.

And my last bit of political venting tonight as I will be preserving my sanity by disconnecting from the spigot: “I told you so” may be the absolute least helpful thing at the moment, and yet I feel a bone deep urge to scream from the rafters to the other half of the country: We FUCKING TOLD YOU!

Then there’s this. I’ve seen the FAFO posts where we wallow in a bit of schadenfreude as the folks who voted in this trainwreck get their comeuppance, but this… this is a whole other kettle of fish. And I worry it presages worst things to come.

There was much to be said of Trump’s bathroom laden with boxes of classified documents. This thing where random other persons not cleared for having classified documents just coming in and commandeering them from a government office, tho… dafuq!?

The world might be wobbling strangely on its axis these days, but my 8 year old is pouring beauty into it as he practices and this old musician’s heart couldn’t be fuller. Things feel righted again, at least for the nonce.

Trump destabilizing the US and our standing in the world… A TikTok ban effected by both parties in congress leading to a surge of people pouring into Xiaohongshu… and now Deepseek undercutting billions invested in US Ai sending stock prices for Tech giants plummeting.

So far, 2025 is WILD.

Savoring yummy coffee at Bluestone while staring at a photograph I took in Sydney and wistfully reminiscing about some of the most incredible coffee I’ve ever had.

Maybe coffee obsessed.
Maybe Australia obsessed.
Maybe both.

Almost certainly both.

The fact that I don’t start my day with alcohol surprises no one more so than it does me.

And, yes, this is the sort of deep, earth shattering observation you’ve signed up for, my friends. So, buckle up.

Is this thing on?