Pope Chicharrón VIII

This writer is terrible. She regularly trolls my neighborhood Facebook group with questions for her "reporting," then posts the stories less than 24 hours later with the most alarmist quotes possible. Her posts are the worst examples of lazy both-sides reporting I've seen since my college newspaper.

Oh wow, I love this song so much. I didn't realize it was a murder ballad!

Fighting what's to come starts with fighting the impulse to shame and other each other over obscure signifiers like "Are they posting right now?" Plenty of people are quietly on your side.

Or because they spent hours offline in the past few days, discussing how to remedy our rhetoric and improve things (hi). Or because they're fucking exhausted (hi). Grieving and processing look different for each person.

But that's not necessarily going to be revealed by social media posts. I know plenty of people who aren't posting because they care deeply, not because they don't. Or because they don't trust themselves not to say something they'll regret. Or because they already don't feel safe.

This is exactly the kind of divisive thing that got us here, looking askance at anyone who doesn't do liberalism or leftism the same way. I get the impulse to want to validate who's on your side, to know who you can trust.

Last night's dream, cont.: I awoke with "A Season Just to Be" in mind.

Last night's dream, cont.: But then I had to run to the restroom. Before that, Michael Daves had been playing something for patients at the hospital. I realized it was based on the colonial poem that was on a mahogany drum I was holding. I was going to tell him, but he was busy.

Last night's dream, cont.: I was standing there looking at a translucent blue stone I found, trying to figure out whether it was edible, a marble, or a rock. I was going to tell Patrick my revelation—that I finally understood how it was that animals couldn't tell what was edible.

Last night's dream, cont.: It was Dr. Max Goodwin telling me this, so I probably should have believed him the first time. I didn't realize what was happening because I couldn't see it myself right away. I thought there was something to that—a song in it maybe—about perspective.

Last night's dream, cont.: I just wanted nice candles, nice cola, nice company. I awoke with Brandi Carlile's" "What Can I Say" in mind.

Last night's dream, cont.: So then I was pulling all this hair out of my cola, which maybe wasn't ideal and people maybe had some thoughts about, mostly just laughed if they even noticed. I was scooting between counters in an office kitchen area when I bumped backsides with T.J.

Last night's dream, cont.: Of course, then I noticed that some of the doors were off the cabinet, and I wanted to see if I could fix it real quick. Before that, I had been getting a cola, but for some reason, maybe I thought I was done with it, so I put hair from my brush in it.