On this very day last year I was doing this on an island in Belize and this looks a lot better than whatever the hell it was that I did today.

This whole descent into authoritarianism thing is doing wonders for my run times. Things get shittier, and I get faster. But seriously, I’m cool with running slower whenever we want to switch this shit up.

Back when I was on Facebook I would post a new version of this twice a year. It served as a probably not very secret secret code, because people who know me know damned well where I am (usually Kansas) and where I’m heading (east to a place by a river near a hill where my blood is in the soil).

You know your life has taken a turn when you’re excited to get an affordable delivery of crushed gravel in a timely fashion. I did not know that adulthood would be like this.

My Easter Island wood burning stove. Looked up how much it weighs after I Sisyphused it across my yard and up the ramp into my garage. 418 pounds, which is “I shouldn’t have done that by myself” heavy.

I’m very naive because today on a run I asked myself if ol’ Elon had ever gone for a ride on one of his rockets and for a minute I entertained the idea before deciding he hasn’t but he should and I will not be keeping my fingers crossed or really strongly hoping for gravity to win that round. Swear.

That interaction between Trump, Vance, and Zelensky was the worst thing I have watched in a while. Zelensky handled that sooo much better than I would have…I think I would have a lot of brown makeup on my knuckles.

It’s “take your idiot to work” day so that’s what I did. She’s not a great therapy dog but she’s not biting my clients so it’s a win.

So anyway, I’m starting to see some issues with having billionaires with questionable or nonexistent morals who have never known real financial insecurity running things…

One thing that gives me hope for our country is a thing that often frustrates me about our country and that’s the citizens of said country. First off, we’re shit at following directions. Secondly, being contrary is almost baked into the culture. Defeat fascism herd of cats style.

open.substack.com/pub/snyder/p...

If I switch between Kauai and Taos, NM real quick on my weather app it’ll show a high surf warning for Taos and I just can’t get enough of that in case you were wondering how lame I am.

So there I was, not checking the news, thinking “Trump is going to go into overdrive to blame the plane crash on democrats” but I thought “no, that would be completely bugfuck crazy”. Checked the news, and sure enough…

My understanding might be flawed, but I always saw congress as in part a guard rail against authoritarianism. I can’t tell if the guard rail is in league with the cliff or if it just doesn’t want to get its paint scratched but it does look like the guard rail ain’t guard railing.

I don’t have a way with words this morning but running in late January in Colorado without any traction aids on my running shoes is either stupid or adventurous, maybe both. There’s stuff out there that really looks like pavement but I assure you it does not have the same friction coefficient.

I work as a clinical mental healthcare provider, and roughly a third of my clients are a part of the LGBTQ community. 5 days into this administration and I’m already fielding crisis calls, primarily from my transgender clients, but I’m not stupid enough to bet that’s not going to expand outwards.