zx3 @zx3@driveinsaturday.org

ever have one of those days where you feel like the only thing maintaining your continued existence is a piece of music? if i weren't listening to The Postal Service's "give up" right now i suspect that my personal waveform might just collapse and i'd disappear utterly.

last friday, Rose (80-pound tricolor hound) attacked Ray (17-pound lapdog) for the second time in as many months, leaving multiple puncture wounds that required sutures. Ray is traumatized and in obvious pain, but she is healing and not in any danger.

Rose, on the other hand, is an aging dog with multiple heath issues who has had aggression problems since before she joined our family. she made life miserable for her packmate Pearl and attacked her a handful of times while she was still with us. we should have acted back then, but at the time we felt that returning Rose to the pound would have been cruel, and that carefully curbing her behavior was the answer. we were wrong, and i'll never forgive myself for allowing these things to continue due to base sentimentality. Ray deserves, and Pearl deserved an easy life free from being tormented by a packmate, and we could have stopped it; but we loved Rose and blindly figured things would improve.

i will be taking Rose to the vet to be euthanized tonight. this was not an easy decision to make, regardless of what happened friday night. there was some talk about taking her to an adoption agency, but due to multiple factors--her age, health problems, possible canine senility setting in, her history of violence and the fact that she now knows what it feels like to bite so hard she can break the skin, which may compel her to do it again--preclude this possibility. problem dogs don't get adopted. we would be dooming her to a lonely, miserable existence, waiting out her days in a concrete kennel while she watched other dogs go home with happy families. i hate that we can't keep her. i hate that i feel i have failed Rose and our other dogs because i should have known the first time she tore a chunk out of Pearl's ear that providing a good home and discipline weren't going to be enough.

before i take her to the vet, Rose and i are going to go to the park for a while. her busted back leg keeps her from walking far but i'll make sure she gets to sniff lots of flowers. she's going to scarf down the double cheeseburger i get for her without wondering why she's not getting yelled at for eating people food. and i'm going to tell her that i love her very much.

i'm going to go home afterwards and sleep. i wish i could just sleep for weeks sometimes.

it's 2025. oh balls

https://youtu.be/gmxDVlYBZ_Y?si=Maz-IOTQQDYP0odm

https://youtu.be/Cfv32uVyU6A?si=ZxitkaU9RTzWS5lZ

i have one thing to say today, you'll have to forgive me for not hiding it behind a content warning.

i live in a country that hates me, and people like me. this much is obvious, and it should be obvious to you too. there are people within a mile of me who, if that bastard said my name out loud and gave out my address, would be overjoyed to kill me without a thought to morality or law. this is what we have come to.

if you're looking at the totality of your life this morning and you're feeling the next four years weighing heavily on you, you're not alone (though me personally i've never found that statement comforting. so we're all miserable and facing multiple existential crises at the same time. brilliant. doesn't help)

what did help me though, is the thought that staying alive under circumstances like these is, in and of itself, a revolutionary act. these people would be happier if we were to all die. do not give them that satisfaction. remind them who you are and let them know you're not going anywhere. we will not be so easily cowed.

there is vital work to be done, communities to maintain, people who will need help. you can and will make a difference, but only if you stay with us.

https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/suicide-prevention

reach out if you need help. be there for others who may need it. there is one way through this, and it's together.

okay, so, we remake the Beatles' "Yellow Submarine." it's still animated all trippy, same plot beats, same Beatles soundtrack. but instead of John, Paul, George and Ringo, it's Ray, Roast Beef, Pat and Phillipe from "Achewood"

attention @acetone_kitten i have found our new headquarters for Advanced Reasearch In Communism And UFO Studies, we just have to kick out some Frenchies. bring a broom and some cheese

https://www.tumblr.com/brutalistinteriors/755374839711318016?source=share

i love how Depeche Mode's "Black Celebration" is less an album and more A List of Red Flags about Your 37-Year-Old Goth Boyfriend

also love how "A Question Of Lust" turns into an Erasure song once Dave reaches those higher register notes

what a fantastic Death Abyss. tell the others.

#noreason

i have been taken down by a bout of terminal lethargy, and have spent most of the weekend in bed, not having fun.

my brain problems have been many and complex lately, but i think i can sum it up fairly simply:

Nightmare Mode now comprises 97% of STRUCTURE X. PRESIDENT FRANKENSTEIN is MIA. there is no contingency plan.

waiting is my only option.

i haven't been speaking up much. not here, or in my few usual spots. either the thoughts i have aren't worth externalizing, or what i want to talk about feels too...unwieldy to put in words. it's like trying to strain gravel through a sieve. i simply don't have the language.

i'm bitter, i'm tired, and i'm waiting.

but...maybe i should speak up a little more often. shake the sieve. see what slides through.

bear with me.

here i am.

celebrating the 20th (+ or -) anniversary of The Postal Service's "Give Up," one of exactly three good things that happened to me in 2003. this is, most likely, unless...holograms?...the last chance i'll ever get to see Postal Service (yes, and Death Cab) live. and that's fine. i guess. i'm not fond of finality, but the world keeps reminding me that finality doesn't need to be liked. it just shows up. and you must deal.

i hate how old i'm feeling. and the chance of a transformative event in my life transpiring to make me feel young again sounds both unlikely, and if it did happen, intensely painful to weather.

i think i could make it work if i could somehow derive sustenance from music. some albums are banquets, some are a pilfered donut in the break room after everyone else has gone home, others are that meal you have after a funeral and nobody knows what to say. "Give Up" has been, for me, a movable feast that never fails to sate and then make me yearn for more as soon as it all goes quiet again.