Maybe She's Born With It, Maybe It's a Manic Episode

TL;DR: I'm fine. I'm doing stuff. No grippy sock vacation but it was close there for a minute yikes. I will do more stuff here.

Look, man, I don't even know. I'm still here and thank you for also still being here.

Here's what I can tell you. I started practicing Transcendental Meditation (like my heroes David Lynch, Dana Gould and Ringo Starr [lmao]) twice a day in mid-February and Something Happened. I stopped playing video games completely! I have no idea what's going on Marysville right now and I'm scared to look. I started making a lot of weird mixed media art. Some of which will be coming to some of you in the mail SOON, I swear. I'm also making notebooks for people, which has turned out to be more time-consuming and difficult than I originally thought. I bought an AWL from Lee Valley.

I took a lino-cut course, look what I made:

I did a fiction writing workshop with FEILDS, lovely people in Fredericton who are extremely kind and supportive to emerging writers even if you're "emerging" a good two decades after everyone else in the workshop. You'll be able to read it soon.

I'm submitting a different story to a fiction contest. I showed it to the FEILDS people and got a lot of positive feedback, but because it's was basically finished I put it aside and wrote something else for them.

I met Bruce McCulloch and he clocked my autism within about 5 seconds of looking directly at me. Maybe less. It was surreal and I will think about it for the rest of my life. I didn't tell him that that when I was in grade 9 I thought he was The Cute One.

I'm still helping with food and clothing distribution with Stir The Pot. I haven't been able to go in person for a bit because of other commitments but I did buy CostCo boxes of pepperoni sticks and Joe Louis for our neighbours at the April distro action. I'm making mittens to give away next winter. Did I mention we LOVE donations? Etransfers can go to stirthepot at proton dot me. Or if you work at a place that has extra clothes or food or whatever, get in touch. We're cool and we won't tell your boss.

My dad got a pacemaker a few weeks ago, suddenly and preceded by an ambulance ride from the St Stephen hospital to the SJRH, and that was very scary for a few days. He seems OK now but it's been rough and we're having Tough Conversations now.

Do you remember that story from CNN about 62 million men visiting an online "rape academy" in February? That story came out in March but went super viral online a couple of weeks ago, thanks to a few big social justice Instagram accounts sharing it but without all the context and nuance and many of us became incandescent with rage as a result. For example. The videos men uploaded of themselves raping their unconscious partners were posted to a site where users can upload whatever, including a lot of tame adult content with tags like "blonde" and "big boobs." That site got 62 million hits in February.

The Telegram group chat discussed in the story, the one where men were sharing tips on how to drug and assault women, has "nearly a thousand" members. Still horrifying, but not as horrifying as 62 million. You could probably arrest a thousand people if you wanted to. Nobody wants to, but it could be done. It's a theoretically solvable problem. The ICYMI podcast has a good explainer. I hate it here.

I'm not sleeping good if I'm being honest, which has been the case for a few months. I hate to go to bed when I'm up and I hate to get up when I'm in bed, has anyone else experienced this? Any #lifehacks?

The week before last I had a head cold for a few days so I stopped taking my ADHD meds (pharmaceutical meth) so I could take a low dose of Advil Cold and Sinus (pseudoephedrine, a key ingredient in street meth) and got a little edgy anyway. I took some time off the internet and tried not to look at my phone and that seemed to help. I feel OK now. I did spend $165 plus UK shipping for an out of print book from the 70s about British folklore before the feeling ended. This was not an amazing choice but I can't wait for it to arrive.

I have a Letterboxd account. I saw The Bride! opening weekend and I thought it was amazing. Get behind me, haters.

OK, love you etc.