Wytch

It’s hard to overestimate the vile, ugly, and normalized bigotry at the heart of too many American families. Many of whom go to church and call Jesus Christ their savior, father, hero.

What is said behind closed doors, around dinner tables, and in “safe” conservative spaces would make your head spin. They live in dark, angry, fearful places.

The ignorance and apathy isn’t far behind.

The many, many good, loving, decent people who live here are constantly under fire as we fight a quiet battle for normalcy and humanity and share your horror and disbelief at the raw callousness of some of our neighbors.

Keeping the Cheerios apart in the milk

I love Event Horizon, but I don’t put it quite on the same shelf as Alien and The Thing. It’s “A” tier against “S” tier for me. But they are all what I’d consider sci-fi horror. If you like those two, pull the trigger and watch Carpenter’s masterpiece.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit is a masterpiece of clever tricks, superb acting, and professional animation.

The Thing still has the best practical movie monster effects I have ever seen. And the most upsetting.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is a breathtaking film that uses wirework choreography to transport you into a storybook fantasy.

We’d met in person on more than one occasion prior to me moving. Before those meetings, we chatted frequently, exchanged photos, and talked on the phone.

Tbh there was a lot of that going on in that game. Not sure how many of the relationships that we knew about lasted. Kind of a ren-faire vibe to it all.

Quite a long distance. In under a year I’d packed up and moved. Her career was rooted, mine was a lousy job easily given up. She works from home now but I left everything- family, friends, job, familiarity, and made my life about this relationship. Might still be the best decision I ever made. Easily the most dramatic. WoW gave me my current life and partner, much more than the few years I played it.

Feels like a dream, tbh. A period of my life that began 20 years ago now and consumed much of my thought and time and energy. For something close to a decade I played almost exclusively one game. My life was on hold.

I also met my partner in that game. We’re still together. I didn’t have a lot going on when WoW became my every waking thought. I transitioned that into a life with someone.

I miss those early days. Like any video game, I have fond memories of that experience. I’ve moved on though. The game itself is recessed, way back. My Druid sleeps.

Modern Christian mythology is a mashup of a lot of things. A scholar would be required to really unpack a lot of it, but consider that much of what we think of as lore, motivation, and character are newer additions. Dante’s Inferno probably has more influence on our ideas about Lucifer and Hell than the Bible.

Once you start unpacking these old stories with a post-modern mindset, the logic of it quickly stops making sense.

A modern Christian might opine that Lucifer is a prisoner of Hell but not a genuine threat to the power of their Almighty God. He’s not awarded this position. He’s lost God’s grace and dwells outside of his love - the worst punishment imaginable in the mind of some Christians.

The amount of times I’ve heard over the years from “common sense” folk that old chestnut that all politicians are liars, just makes my head hurt. No Uncle Dylan, I just don’t think you can tell the difference between a lie and a half-truth, or even a lie and a fact. That “wisdom” is a hundred+ year old cliche and Trump’s popularity proves that those people have never known what a man who is lying if his lips are moving actually looks like.

Can’t talk about controversial TV endings without mentioning St. Elsewhere. For a long time this show had the most infamous. The big reveal that the entire run of the show took place in the mind of an autistic boy with a snow globe was not a hit with fans and remains an object lesson in how to rug-pull your fan base.

Coffee and oatmeal, coffee and pancakes, coffee and eggs, coffee and cereal, coffee and scone, coffee and waffles, or coffee and breakfast burrito.

Sometimes I’ll get a cappuccino with oat milk because I’m lactose Intolerant.

It’s precisely because you don’t bring your phone into the shower that allows your mind to wander and make novel connections which you may then share later.

“Look, all I’m saying is…”

Yeah I get it. You’re not going to acknowledge what I just finished saying, you’re not going to respond to the facts that contradict you, and you’re just going to reiterate your oversimplified and shitty opinion, hoping to slip away from this argument that you’re losing.

Sweating is OP

Cool. I’ll be sure and be way more specific and accurate when I make my next glib comment on the internet.

Hospital bills. I guess some of y’all have some kinda universal health care? Wild. Here, illnesses can lead to bankruptcy. Cool. Yeah.

This would be a non-starter where I work and employees would sue for discrimination. Rightly so.

We thrive on diversity. It’s crucial for customer service.

Normally, I’d agree with your dad. And I mostly still do. I’m not quite sure how this stacks up against previous crises. I have no doubt, for example, the Cuban Missile Crisis was pants-shittingly terrifying. But we don’t have firm hands on the rudders here to steer us back from the brink of madness.

We’ve discarded the Constitution. We’re disregarding rule of law. We’ll survive, in all likelihood, persevere, in some fashion. What I’m afraid of is what we lose - who we lose - in this nightmare timeline.

I won’t miss Charlie Kirk. I’m sad for the people who were there and witnessed a horrific public murder. I am exhausted and numbed to all this gun violence and I’m especially tired of the right wing bullshit about gun rights. I’m confounded and baffled by the bizarre depths of alt-right internet subculture. I’m profoundly disappointed and disillusioned by the state of the United States, but neither am I the least bit shocked. I fear for the deeper divide the next generation faces as fanatical parents drive their children to extremism as others quietly steer theirs towards acceptance, empathy, and inclusiveness.

Charlie Kirk was objectively a garbage human being. I will not mourn him. But nobody should be fucking murdered. The violence and hatred coming from the right is fucking insane and intolerable. We’re being led by sycophants, liars, sociopaths, and incompetent grifters hell bent on upending the entire structure of our ordered existence so they can rebuild it into something nightmarish and dystopian. We’re in the endgame now. The Democrats do not have a time machine.

I don’t smoke, can’t stand the smell. I did try when I was a lad, it didn’t take. I even tried clove cigs for a bit.

Took me a lot longer with alcohol. Family history and trauma put me off trying until much later in life. But I’ve since developed a particular taste for red ales, rich bold stout, fruity cocktails, hard ciders, and a number of complex spirits.

I had to shed that restrictive upbringing and get more in touch with my own tastes, which turned out to be surprisingly broad and nuanced.