#NYR, the 80s, the 90s, going to shows (punk, ska-punk), cycling/modifying my track bike, getting tattoos, spending time with genuine people, making jewelry, watching frasier, visiting filming locations, rad nail art, graffiti (as an observer), ice cold coors light (bottle), graphic design, eargesting music, warm coffee/iced lattes, #NYM, netflix (binging in general), punk stuff, horror, autumn, winter, making t-shirts, watching twin peaks, vinyl toys, bargain shopping, architecture, traveling, reading, replacing nostalgic relics, philanthropy (whenever possible), wordpress development and coding in general (PHP, XHTML, CSS, SCSS, jQuery)
oh dear satan, this is torture. dan, how could you make me so divisive against myself?! this is so fucking tough because both of those albums were two of the first albums that i ever purchased on my own, while i was coming of age into my own music. both of those albums are tied to so many memories and feelings.
it’s kind of tough to choose also because they are two very different albums and styles of music. when weezer came out, i remember the nerd-core looking initial emos started w the grandpa/dad sweaters, buddy holly framed glasses and airwalks and shit – they weren’t really dressing the same as the green day folks, who then turned into your typical/probably rancid, souls and nofx fans. of course a lot of us listened to both, but i feel like especially in school at the time, you were either one or the other.
i went with the blue album.
i fucking love dookie… but for me, the blue album is a weird, dark, emotional and magical trip. when i hear the intro cords to “only in dreams”, my heart swells up like the grinch’s. that album just feels like a comfortable hug with a blanket or something (i sound like such a weirdo, lol).
i recently realized that i hadn’t listened to dookie fully in a really long time, so i threw it on while i was taking a shower one night and was just like “wow, this is still just so good”. i realize that’s not a very elaborative review, lol. i mean, of course the two MAIN hits are good (#4 and #7), but the rest of that album is really just so fucking good. they were/are so talented and while of course that album is adored, i still find the other tracks underrated. i feel like since green day became GREEN DAY 2.0, normal people only listen to 4 and 7 and MAYBE “when i come around”, but the entire thing front to back is just perfect and seamless popular “punk”.
i especially love “she”, and “coming clean” is my favorite song on dookie, if anyone gives a flying fuck.
there aren’t many albums that i recall listening to for the first time, but the blue album is one of them. i still have the receipt for the cassette and own it in four different formats! it just made me feel a way. ♥
anyways, you can vote if you’d like to… there are 15 hours left on this poll:
i am not happy about it, and i’ve been trying to figure out why it freaks me out so badly. as mentioned in my last post, an aunt of mine died this summer and my uncle passed away last week – my mother’s only brother. mortality just keeps testing me…
my mother is most likely less than 20-30 years away from no longer existing. she’s plagued with rheumatoid arthritis and was a smoker for YEARS (not to mention would sit inside with my family full of smokers and she went out to places when you could still smoke indoors for decades).
i know that is so fucking morbid to think about, but it’s so much more obvious as i’m getting older, and i fucking hate it. it’s hard enough getting through this shit pandemic, but losing family members after not being able to see them, while facing aging is just… a lot. especially 6 days before my birthday.
i feel like i’m being melodramatic about age 40, but i feel like the older we get, the faster time flies. no one in my family makes it out of their 80s. how fucked is that? i’m now halfway there, over a tiny hill.
i imagined turning 30 to feel like this, but it didn’t. i loved my 30s! i was so scared to hit my 30s, but they were good to me. this bullshit didn’t hit me until this ungodly number.
i’m feeling very confused and midlife crisis-y and i can’t wait to go on vacation next month. i need an escape from reality for a bit.
my uncle bob died this morning (not of covid – i feel like it’s just the default thing you need to point out nowadays). he’s the only uncle i’ve ever known – the other one died as a child in an accident. my mother had two brothers and six sisters.
growing up, i had my queens aunts and two upstate aunts/uncle. whenever school was out, we were usually upstate – summer vacation, winter break, spring break, etc. – fishkill, beacon, wappingers and poughkeepsie were my home away from home. we mainly stayed with my aunts, but we’d pop over to my uncle’s for swimming, since he had a big pool.
in the early 80s, he spent more time coming downstate to see us, but towards the late 80s, it kind of dwindled. not sure why, as he didn’t have grand children really until i was in JHS, but whatever. it didn’t make a difference, we saw him enough while we were upstate.
i know people don’t believe me when i say that i remember things from when i was like 2 years old, but i do. i actually remember my 2nd birthday party in my mom’s small apartment in flushing. i remember uncle bobby was coming down for the party – she kept telling me that or it was brought up multiple times during the day in conversation. i specifically remember getting a cabbage patch kids baby carrier as a gift at that party. i can remember broken visuals from the party, too. it’s just my first memory of uncle bobby.
although i wasn’t as close to him as i was to most of my aunts, he was still a person that you just picked up where you left off. he was always trying to get you on a good path, always checked in about how you were doing in school, talked about your future, always gave wise advice. he was funny, sweet, a dedicated family man who didn’t deserve to die with the ailments he obtained towards the end. the damn universe handed him a plate of health shit.
at the end of the day, uncle probably contributed to some of his health isues from smoking for years… if you’re a smoker, please try to stop. my uncle had pulmonary fibrosis, among other issues. no one should go out like that.
i can’t believe both he and my aunt judy both died this year. it’s just so overwhelming thinking about the fact that i only have two aunts left and that my mother is only 1 of 3 siblings left. time is going too fast and my family is dropping like flies… i hate it. it also doesn’t help that it happened during this never ending pandemic. like, i’m so burnt out – i don’t want to deal with anymore death.
while i truly appreciate the bravery of women coming forward and writing articles/tweet threads about their abortions, i find that a lot of the time, the stories are about how their lives were saved because of their abortion(s), and that being why abortion should be legal. the undertone of justification makes me cringe. i know that’s not the intent – i know, i know, i know. i just hate that is the vibe i pick up on a lot of the time when reading these things.
abortion should just be legal.
not just for medical reasons, even if it doesn’t agree with your beliefs system. it’s no one’s business but the woman’s own.
***
it’s so hard to talk about your abortion(s) without having to feel judged, so having done that publicly, i give them a lot of credit. it’s got to be scary – maybe close to the same feeling i got when i was coming out as bi to my mother (LAST YEAR, AT AGE 38, FFS!). it’s like you keep trying to open your mouth, and words just don’t come out because of shame or judgement.
“you don’t have to tell everyone EVERYTHING.” – my uncle, when i told him i came out to my mother. he then followed it up with “what if you had an unhealthy/frail grandmother and you told her that, gave her a heart attack and killed her? then would you be happy just because you had to get that off your chest?”
i instantly replied with “responses like that is why people stay closeted, and in some cases kill themselves.”
this is also why i don’t discuss many seriously personal things online, especially of the abortion nature, and that’s annoys me. i want to be supportive of other women without having to be judged, but i’m skirting my own personal experience.
listen, i’m not anyone that can make a difference here – i’m not a celebrity, i’m not journalist, etc. i’m a blip in this stupid internet universe, and i’m just a dingleberry that talks to who knows who here, in hopes that someone can relate to the same things i do and not feel alone in the actual universe. i’m not going to overshare my own life, but i’ll leave it at this:
you probably know someone who has had an abortion. you probably LOVE someone that’s had an abortion. it doesn’t change ANYTHING.
people that have had abortions aren’t evil or bad people. their reasons are their reasons.
if you’re religious – be religious for yourself, not for others. your beliefs don’t belong on anyone else.
***
at the end of the day, the circumstances surrounding ANY abortion shouldn’t matter. any reason should be valid, and abortion shouldn’t be illegal.
we women don’t need ANYONE – especially the government, politicians and judges telling us whether or not abortion is justified, allowed or looked down upon.
[via WebMD] Summertime SAD.You’ve probably heard about seasonal affective disorder, or SAD, which affects about 4% to 6% of the U.S. population. SAD typically causes depression as the days get shorter and colder. But about 10% of people with SAD get it in the reverse — the onset of summer triggers their depression symptoms. Cook notes that some studies have shown that in countries near the equator – such as India – summer SAD is more common than winter SAD. Why do seasonal changes cause depression? Experts aren’t sure, but the longer days, and increasing heat and humidity may play a role. Specific symptoms of summer depression often include loss of appetite, trouble sleeping, weight loss, and anxiety.
OF COURSE I AM IN THE 10% OF PEOPLE. if you ask me an popular opinion question, i’m usually the 1%, so of course my body would have a 10% opposite reaction to what the rest of the world feels when it comes time to freakin seasonal depression, lol.
i hate this shit.
i hate day time, natural light and sunlight (unless it’s browning my skin).
i hate oppressive humidity and heat.
i want more night time than day time.
i want autumn and winter, stat.
i want to have my new, old northface on (i replaced my old, deadstock one – SCORE!).
i want to wear my hockey hats.
i want to wear BOOTS.
i want to see the leaves changing and snow falling.
i want snow so deep that no one can drive and i can walk on quiet, busy streets w/o being bothered at 2AM.
anyways, i’m starting to get SUPER antsy bc it’s still humid, it won’t stop raining and it’s so hot every day. i want summer to be over. i want to ride my bike and go for walks without feeling like i’m panting after a block. i want to wear my hair down… i would like to cut in my bangs. i want to wear hoodies and pants!
i have actually been sleeping like shit lately, but i didn’t think it was potentially bc of seasonal depression. my bed is against one wall and it’s driving me nuts, but my room is too thin to really turn it the other way. if i do, then i have to do this ridiculous shuffle every time i want to get to the other side of the long room. i don’t know what’s more important, good sleep or not sideways shuffling. i flipped the mattress, but it didn’t do a damn thing. i started sleeping with my head at where my feet should be, and that helped?
i have too much shit on my mind. i need a big fat change and something BIG to look forward to.
…well, in 59 days, i will be in seattle. that’s a start.
have you ever felt a surge of creativity but don’t know where tf to put it?
that’s been me all week.
i have 6 inches of virgin hair i’m trying to grow out for color correction and i’m dying to bleach my entire head and dye it all greens vs my usual split, but i’ll never be able to match up my bum ass hair to my virgin hair. i don’t have the patience to do it all myself.
i have been putting off building or buying a new lightbox for my jewelry, but i have new stuff that i made.
i’ve needed to do my nails for like two weeks, but i keep finding things are getting in the way. working out, hair wash day, going out, watching sports, making jewelry…
i’ve been meaning to make some new wallpapers, and i’ve only churned out like 10 in the last month.
i’ve been looking through my computer at old websites/graphic design and it makes me miss building out those types of layouts/making that type of art. i barely even collage anymore…
i’ve been meaning to start acrylic pouring, and i just don’t, bc do i need ANOTHER hobby?
i’ve also been meaning to hang out/meet up with like 15 of my peoples, and between the stress of oscar’s health and the most disgusting soup bowl summer weather, i’ve been a hermit.
i mean, i don’t really feel like being around most people bc of this damn pandemic not being over. i don’t care if i’m vaccinated, who knows who is bringing this damn delta variant around. i keep having people i know that are traveling… and no offense, but i don’t have an interest with co-mingling with anyone who has gone to florida in the last 6 months [barf].
i really wish public places, venues and arenas kept up with the whole segregating unvaccinated folks. make a universal vaccine app for proof already… when i went to a ranger game this year, they scanned in my excelsior pass and i strolled right in, no prob. it’s not a big deal. it pisses me off that we’re not using it bc i went to my first mets game this year a few weeks ago, and noooooooobody was wearing masks. i don’t believe in this honor system shit. they had vaxed and unvaxed folks mixed – they lifted the segregated area for the unvaxed… like, if you want to act like an ignorant goon, you should be treated like one. the kiddos should have been shoved into a quarantine corner by themselves.
a bunch of my friends and i have tickets to go see dropkick/rancid in a few weeks and i’m like UGH, ew. how am i supposed to wear a mask in a punk pit in the middle of the summer (it’s outside)? i wish they were requiring vaccinations to get in… blegh.
even going to the grocery store/target/etc. people are walking around with no masks on… it’s disgusting. these fucking idiots are making me so anxious. i feel like this shit is never gonna go away.
years ago, i dated a dude whose brother and best friend were obsessed with glassjaw… i soon also became obsessed with glassjaw, and kept following along with other projects that came about via the extremely talented lead singer, daryl.
one of his musical projects ended up being a band called head automatica. i was fucking THRILLED about this in particular, because this mixed up genre of a band was absolutely right up my alley. i am extremely into new wave/80s/dance/electro anything, so this new band fit right into my repertoire of musical interests. like, so right up my alley that it even featured tim armstrong (a dude from one of my favorite punk bands, rancid) on a pop dance track. what in the actual fuck?! (but it worked…)
i grew up in the 80s and have always loved new wave (especially the weird, left of center shit), i love synthy pop dance stuff, i came into various types of punk on my own and went to raves in the 90s. i feel like head automatica sounded like pieces of all of those things. it’s hard to pinpoint exactly what they sound like. i listen to all different types of music/bands and i don’t even know who to compare HA to. when it came out, i guess you could call it some type of indie pop rock, because it (thankfully) wasn’t main stream enough to be straight up pop music, not that daryl would have allowed that shit anyway… that was a genre we kind of what we kept shoving all types of “myspace bands” and indie into at the time.
so now that i’ve professed my love, i am here to profess my frustration.
i was looking around some archived bookmarks i have in my browser and came across this, which i had forgotten about:
first off: i didn’t take this video – it’s just on youtube… but i was at this show at blender theater, and i did get to witness this IRL and it was glorious. i remember while this was happening, i was instantly like “this is going to be my favorite song off of this new album”, and proceeded to shake my fat ass in the crowd.
secondly: this song, nor the album it’s on were ever released. they were performing songs off of the 3rd album live, soon before they were going to release it. it was named “swan damage”.
i googled what i could about the release of that album, and came across a few things and articles regarding swan damage. tl;dr: daryl wanted his projects off of the label they were on, and unfortunately that also affected the album. he talks about it MAYBE being leaked someday, doesn’t say who or how… just kind of eludes to it. unfortunately though, it seems as if he’s put all of this behind him. as a fan waiting for this stuff, well, that selfishly hurts.
to me, head automatica feels like “well, it’s better to have loved and lost”. like, thank you universe for letting us experience it, but we should just be grateful we had it at all? uh, we could still have swan damage probably/maybe/who knows/i dunno/please just do this one last thing.
i dunno how that’s fair, but still we devoted fans still follow DP’s moves and punish ourselves, lol.
* * *
listen, daryl, you sexy bastid, if you ever see this post… please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please (zing!) release the kraken. swan damage does NOT feel old to the people that have been waiting for years now. we haven’t heard it over and over again. this song above, i don’t know what the actual lyrics are bc it’s a bit fuzzy. i want primo quality… i would like to see this in front of me again, when we can go to shows and dance my ass off. the few swan damage tracks you did play during that era sounded so mature in the HA archive. as aforementioned, HA wasn’t like most bands out there. you did what you wanted. i KNOW who inspires you musically (squeeze, elvis costello, the jam, etc.), and i feel like you were finally applying it to this project. don’t get me wrong, i love “beating heart baby”, and fuck the label for wanting 10 of it… but that wasn’t my favorite track. “the razor”, “laughing at you” and “cannibal girl” are probably my favorites, alongside the song above. i don’t even know what it’s called… but i’m sure the mastered version would have been in my top 3, sir.
* * *
it’s so hard being a fan of daryl’s, bc while he’s a musician, he’s also a CREATIVE human being. he moves fluidly between or onto new projects, and for us greedy fans that want more of something, we get the brunt of it and get impatient. as a glassjaw fan, we had to wait 9 years for new EPs and 15 years for a full album.
on the other side of the token, i actually feel guilty having these feelings. it’s not my business to get pissy about having expectations, i guess. it just sucks that he was just kind of over it, when i felt like he was finding himself in such a great, creative place. i feel like a label and it’s expectations killed this shit for all of us.
as for side projects, house of blow, head automatica, SPORTS, color film (bad saint… i melt. ♥)… they’re all so good! i guess as fans we just have to cherish what we get blessed with by him and just be happy with it.
* * *
i got to meet daryl at an album release party via some rapper i used to know. not only did he perform there that night, but we were all in VIP, so once i was drunk enough to actually utter words to him, i thanked him. it was all i wanted to do, honestly, bc you know that whole “never meet your heroes” expectations thing… i was at a loss for many words, but he was sweet when i said that to him, and i hope he knew how much i actually meant it.
we chit chatted about nonsense i’m sure. at that very moment, i was schlepping vinyl records in milk crates for a mutual connection DJ friend, who had also performed there that night. i remember him thanking me for knowing all the words to the house of blow songs (i’m guessing he saw me in the crowd singing along) and then asked me if he could hug me (obviously i said yes, and i remember that his leather jacket was so damn stiff, that it was hard to get a good one, but i still got one ♥).
anyways, my point is… i don’t know if musicians really understand just how much music touches people, but hopefully when we tell them “thank you”, even if that’s all we can get out of our star struck mouths, they understand what we mean. music has always been a massive part of my life, and while i’m not a very emotional person, music always overwhelms me. it powers me, it helps me, it makes me emotional… music is magical.
to have another chapter of head automatica would be amazing for us fans… just putting it out there. maybe our other mutual connection that works at the shitty label will find a way to um, *cough*leak*cough* release it.
i feel like i’m back at my return of saturn again already, maybe it’s a midlife crisis. i dunno, either way, i’ve been getting my shit together so hardcore lately (especially financially), but everything else is bunk. my cat is getting older and it’s starting to show, my 40s are creeping up on me and it’s starting to show, the pandemic isn’t helping…
i miss going out.
i miss having friends without kids or husbands/wives.
i miss being inspired by manhattan, by friends, by creatively vibing with friends, going to shows, just… living. i feel like i’m missing something.
sometimes i yearn for my late 20s, but it was so stressful. sometimes i yearn for my early 30s, but it was so stressful. i really miss those feelings, though. uncertainty brought creativity.
i miss living in a new neighborhood.
i miss taking trains.
i miss taking pictures of things that make me feel things, that inspire me.
i clearly miss a lot of things.
i can’t wait to get back to work and “normal” life in manhattan on weekdays. i know my 40s aren’t the end of the world, but they’re the last young years i have left. i just want to be out doing dumb shit, looking as cute as i can before my skin starts to sag and my knees or hips no longer work.
if you’re not new around here, you know how much i LOATHE domestic transplants that move to my city… the city and borough i came flying out of the womb in, the streets and public schools that raised me, well, i have a lot of pride for all it. i’m annoyingly, possessively protective of her and i know i am obnoxious, and i’m not sorry for it, but i digress. the reason i came here to bitch about domestic transplants today just kind of ties into why i’m here.
two days ago, i came across this article. now, as a native new yorker, i like to think of my insides as an immunity tank. in fact, i usually tip my hat to the city when bringing up my strong immune system. commuting for so many years on the mta and eating processed food for most of my life must have really keith richards’d my insides (nope, taco bell has never and still doesn’t make me instashit). i’m rarely sick, and while that’s great and all, i read articles like that about NYC pollution and i’m just like “fuck, that’s bad/gross” and it snowballs my thoughts from “this city is filthy” (honestly the first thing i said to myself exploring chicago was “holy shit, it’s like being in manhattan but it’s not dirty!”) to “idiots really come here to deal with the disgusting mta and pay high ass rents, just to feel like real new yorkers”.
WWWWOOOWWWWWWW… YOU PROB STRUGGLED LIKE A COLLEGE PERSON, W A ROOMMATE OR TWO IN YOUR LATE 20S AND MAYBE EVEN INTO YOUR 30S AND MANAGED TO SURVIVE SOMEHOW… i guess that feeling of non-rural accomplishment really does a number on people’s dopamine. congrats, you cornballs.
this thought just always brings me back to “why the fuck do they come here, like, really? and why aren’t there more cities like NYC in this country so we can get a break?” there is so much land in this country, why tf are we not building a few more major cities? why aren’t we building something like THIS (we have finally made it to the inspiration of this article) someplace in the middle of spacious, rural states? this seems like what people dream nyc or parts of nyc to eventually become, and it will probably never be – i don’t think it physically can be.
this city is probably unfixable as a whole… everything is basically already setup with no room to grow. we’re literally living on small islands. p.s. – robert moses (the racist shitface) laid out all of the highways like a goon, there are WAY too many vehicles in this city, no one knows how to merge when driving the surplus of said vehicles on the said highways (pissing everyone off as a whole, and adding commute time to our days bc satan forbid there were HOV or bus lanes going into manhattan), there are cemeteries in the middle of boroughs taking up so much space, the MTA can’t be redone and has so many dead zones in the middle of boroughs, LIC built itself up too much and views of the city are being blocked, bike lanes? yeah okay, sorry, no space for them without pissing off drivers, rents aren’t really going down even with this fuckin pandemic happening, and the only solution? BUILD “AFFORDABLE” HOUSING aka ugly/tiny unit buildings with bedrooms the size of king sized beds (y’all are really okay with that?) that we don’t even have room for in this fucking city, etc…
/rant
having a town/city like myTengah would be better for the environment overall. why hasn’t anyone tried to do this in the US? what are urban planners doing in this country? i’m so confused and annoyed. NYC should be this, and now it can’t be. the more people that move here, the less wiggle room there is to even implement things like that. now i understand people come from all over the world to live here, but as i’ve said in the past, i have more respect for people fleeing their countries for good reasons than goons from iowa, that just want to wear paisley and buffalo plaid clothing at the same time, while wearing sunglasses at night and beige yeezy’s just to say they can “finally be themselves”. bruh, go do that shit in iowa.
omg, just give this city a decade or three to fix itself. maybe i missed my calling trying to be an urban planner… i didn’t think this was too shabby of an idea, maybe someone should listen to the people.
i just finished watching cobra kai, and as noted in my summarization:
i really loved it, but it was kind of hard to see these characters older now. i guess it just makes you aware of your own mortality. i grew up watching karate kid and just can’t believe how long ago that was – all of the flashbacks just gave me such a frog in my throat. i can’t believe those guys are in their late 50s. i hate how far away the 80s was, and i guess this was just a constant reminder of it. what i wouldn’t give to be an adult in those times… bleh.
not a lot of things make me have a frog in my throat or make me want to cry. for some reason, seeing people aging, IRL or celebrities really freaks me the fuck out and makes me feel like that. if you know me IRL, i haven’t changed much since i was a teenager on the style front, bedroom decor front, looks front… this is me. my shit was never a phase, this is just me. i’m okay with that, and i’m sort of getting better with aging or the idea of it. it’s not like i can do anything about it, so it is what it is. when i turned 30, i figured i’d have a nervous fucking breakdown, but i was fine (40 is this year, let’s see how that goes).
back in august, i was reminiscing about earlier in the pandemic, and about how stressed/anxious i was and didn’t feel good. well, in addition to those feelings, i also discussed getting shingles. well, guess what?
I GOT SHINGLES PT. 2!
yeah, and while i was getting diagnosed (again), i took an antibodies test for covid… and guess what?
I TESTED POSITIVE!
so i guess i was right in thinking i had it back then, unless that wasn’t covid and then i had it with no symptoms during the summer… which i doubt. who knows?
i honestly didn’t think i would test positive because of how long ago that was, but here we are.
i also wanted to state that when we first started working from home, the weeks before that at work – my commute was filled with almost no one wearing masks, including myself. we were still living normally. i used anti-bacterial EVERY TIME i touched a train pole… so i don’t know exactly where i picked it up from, but since then, i always wear a mask when i leave the house.
since the pandemic started and that happened, i googled, and not much info came up for the symptoms that i was having. so, doctors… if you come across this idiotic blog about a 30-something year old with covid, here was what i went through:
NONE OF THE FOLLOWING:
– no fever
– no coughing
– no respiratory issues at all
– no runny nose
I HAD THE FOLLOWING:
– nausea/upset stomach (a complete loss of appetite from it, i lost almost 10 lbs bc of it)
– anxiety attacks (maybe just because i was working from home/life turned upside down, though)
– things smelled weird and tasted weird (i never lost either sense, though)
– headaches
– fatigue/restlessness
– a LITTLE bit of being winded, but not much
– shingles (TWICE)
– some hair loss (could have been from the shingles, maybe stress)
since then i’ve been super active – working out, biking and i feel fine. rarely out of breath, etc. i ride my bike for 13 miles on average.
so yeah… in closing:
wear a fucking mask, wash your hands and stop being close to people – especially people you don’t know.
i decided to take a week off from twitter, and it turned into two weeks… and it feels great, so i guess i’ll just keep going.
i know i’ve said in previous posts that i don’t really use social media, so you may already know that i only use twitter and instagram… so it kind of sucks that i’m now only using IG, but this year has been rough on everyone on so many levels, and i have to be able to process everything differently so that i don’t crack up.
i have bottled up anxiety because i don’t really ever let things out, and i rarely process emotional things. i just shrug shit off like it doesn’t bother me, or (for the most part) things genuinely just don’t bother me, but they’re still things that SHOULD bother me and still pile up into a corner of my mind.
i was brought up by a person and other family members that didn’t teach me how process emotions. in my adult age here, i should have figured it out by now, but it’s just easier to “serenity now” it away (#insanitylater).
it’s so insane when i actually think about why i don’t like to confront emotions – i think i can pinpoint the problem. i think it’s because i have honestly just been let down my entire life. maybe not in super fucked up, DRAMATIC or abusive ways, but foundational ways. i expect things to just always not work out, so i don’t invest in them properly, and when i do finally get to the point where i have to deal with something, i feel like i seem too sensitive about it because of how emotional i get once i’m at that point.
it’s a terrible cycle and a terrible way to handle things, but i digress…
all of the anxiety i’ve been holding in from all the shit happening this year is enough to deal with, aside from all of the microtweeted news information i take in on a daily basis. while that’s the reason i love twitter, i also needed to take a break from that type of information overload. also in the middle of all of that, there are so many people tweeting the dumbest shit that i don’t care about. like, i love my online friends but when they’re very “matter of fact”, seeking attention or being covid careless, it’s just annoying and stressful for me. it’s probably just as annoying as me complaining about the same shit over and over again (transplants, beards – although i took a break from that, sports, work issues, technology) – sorry, folks.
i know i can make lists and mute accounts or words, etc – i just don’t give enough of a shit. i’ve been using twitter since it came out and it was just a place i could write something quickly and talk to people. i don’t need it to be an entire fucking THING, and if it wants to be a thing, just turn into a thing already. be the next social media site, put fb in the grave… otherwise, just be twitter.
i keep finding myself wanting to share thoughts and info, and twitter is usually something i’ll go to a couple of times an hour for a mental reset… so it’s not super easy to just quit it, but it still feels better mentally to just not be in it for a bit. i also came to the conclusion that well, this is a place i can elaborate on things vs only having a certain number of characters to work with. the problem there is that i don’t actively advertise this website anymore, so i don’t know who even reads it. i can see the traffic flow, but there aren’t usernames attached, a timeline to interact with or a way to @ them unless i turn my comments back on (which i’m not doing).
i would like to preface this post with: if i’m not out riding my bike, picking up food, shopping in a store, going to a protest… i am at home. i’ve been this way since the pandemic started, and i don’t see myself going out anytime soon.
i have friends that won’t stop fucking traveling or going out (out to eat on the street, out drinking, BBQs, etc.). i don’t understand. i don’t want to be near any of them… yuck. that prob sounds so fucked up, but how are people this irresponsible going to other states with high #s of COVID cases?!
i have been around 3 of my boyfriend’s friends, kristen, my mom (once, with a mask on), matt siren, my landlady, my friend nat (once because she came up from miami and i haven’t seen her in like a full decade – we socially distanced), and my mom’s friends leo and john (who are basically my uncles) and my ex’s new wifey boo for a few mins.
THIS HAS BEEN MY PANDEMIC CIRCLE SINCE MARCH.
anyways, i was just thinking to myself, how the fuck have i not cracked up yet?
i’ve been trying to feel normal through this stupid coronavirus shit, but my body is so physically anxious. i can’t sleep comfortably, i’ve had tension headaches every day, i hate working from home, so that isn’t helping matters… i am getting depressed not doing normal things like seeing coworkers, seeing friends, etc.
my appetite is awful, my starbucks closed so i haven’t been having routine coffee every morning which is REALLY throwing me off… i am definitely losing weight (which clearly isn’t a bad thing, but this isn’t the way i wanted to do it).
i’m not anxious about the virus itself or anything, just about how it’s affecting my life. i’m being forced to work from home, and i am so annoyed by it that it’s making me this nutso.
i haven’t wanted to make anything, which is VERY strange. the most artsy thing i’ve done in days is dye my hair and paint my toenails. mind you, both times i was dying my hair this week, i had anxiety attacks while doing my hair and i almost fainted and smashed my face into my bathroom sink… JOY!
i can’t wait for this bullshit to be over.
i’m so annoyed too, because i bought tickets for 4 VERY important shows and i bet you anything the two in may are going to get cancelled.
i fucking hate this shit. i hate however this shit started, i hate president DUMP for mishandling it like every other fucking thing the idiot does… i hate that it’s still taking this long to handle it all.
01/01/10 – i moved into my first apartment by myself. it was glorious.
i was still working down in dumbo at edit, i went to ranger games on the regs – sometimes multiple times per week, i was getting closer with my sister again, i hung out all the time with lauren, jen, jes and erica the most, i was being a miserable schlep bc of a guy, i went to shows all the time, i had hair down to my waist (it was when i really started dying it more), i was freelancing a lot, oscy was 5 years old, i twitpic’d more than i blogged, i flickr’d even more… i took my first instagram pic in november of 2010.
this new, exciting time gave me a lot of creativity, but towards the end of that year things became a bit stressful. as aforementioned in a recent post, i should try not to romanticize this era in my life that much. as much as i now appreciate my tiny, CHEAP apartment that i had on my own… it was just one room. my bed was in the same room as my kitchen. it was at a time i was truly lost emotionally, and eventually that year, i lost the job that i loved very much. i wasn’t dating anyone for quite a while, and i was very lonely in a place where i barely knew anyone.
i was so glad to NOT be living anywhere near what i considered to be home (northeast queens).
* * *
12/14/19 – i currently live near where i grew up… aka home… aka where i never wanted to be again (by desire/suggestion of my current boyfriend).
i currently work in the hell hole that is midtown, near radio city (mind you, it’s fucking christmas time at the moment), luckily i’m at a company i really enjoy, they renovated madison square garden so now ranger tickets are too expensive to go on a regular basis – in fact, i MAYBE get to 3 games a year now, i see lauren here and there now (her work schedule/location of where she lives) – i purposely don’t speak to the three other gals that took up most of my life in the earlier part of the decade, i have been dating someone for multiple years now and we’re living together, i still go to shows – but fucking bands keep playing festivals and i could give a rats ass about going to a fucking festival, my hair is almost down to my waist again (heck yes, still dyed weird colours), i freelance sometimes but squarespace and wix are the cheaper alternative and i don’t argue it, oscy is going to be 15 this year (EW!), twitpic doesn’t exist anymore, i rarely blog and i definitely don’t do it on an open, personal level (thank you online stalker fatty), flickr has sucked asshole for a long time now, and IG – don’t even get me started.
my sister lives in LA and my mother moved upstate this year…
i feel family lonely.
my mother has stressed me out SO fucking badly throughout this decade, but most of all this year. it’s seriously shaving years off of my nerves.
time warner (i refuse to acknowledge that dumb new company name) decided to start advertising that they’ll soon be streaming “mad about you”. if you don’t know what it is, it’s a 90s comedy sitcom about a married couple living in NYC, dealing with day to day life situations. i loved the show when it was on back in the day, but whenever i hear the damn theme song now, i get all PTSD about it.
WHY YOU ASK?
tl;dr: my first boyfriend in high school (who i lost my v-card to) – i used to sleep over his house. i prob said i was sleeping somewhere else, but his parents were usually asleep early, so we’d hang out and fool around at night. that show would always be on for some reason, and we’d fall asleep together with it on in the background. apparently i wasn’t sexually adventurous or consistent enough, and he eventually left me for my “best friend” at the time. i have always associated that theme song with him and that small, horrible window of my life.
i just read that people were protesting in the amazon store today bc apparently the MONOPOLIZING asshats have been aiding technology to ICE/homeland security. i read several articles about it before i decided to post about it, but if you need a quick run down, here ya go.
last week, i got into it with a bunch of shithole trumpettes on an instagram post regarding advertising at citifield. apparently they thought allowing chick fil a to advertise on the foul poles was a good idea IN NYC…A WEEK BEFORE PRIDE NIGHT. well, i’m boycotting the mets until those shits are gone (if you’re unaware, they are anti-LGBTQ – i don’t care if they apologized for it or not – and have also donated to a company that’s affiliated to conversion therapy). i should honestly boycott them until the fucking wilpons are no longer in power, but that’s a whole other story. if only all people could get onboard at the same time and hit em where it hurts the most, aka the wallet, we’d have more power. by “we”, i mean people with brains and consciences, that want change in this hateful world.
i told my boyfriend last night that i found out a bunch of fast food places that are either more for dems or republicans/conservative, and some of our favorites were on the list. i told him i didn’t want to support the conservative ones anymore, even if that means rattling my comfortable first world preferences.
what spawned this post was that like everything else for people my age, they bitch and complain about it but they don’t stop using certain services. amazon is a monopoly affecting so many different things we’re not even aware of, and everyone hands money to them with absolutely no problem – even knowing they dislike jeff bezos. it’s because of sheer laziness and “convenience”. it’s unreal how people have zero principles just because it’s easier not to stop using it.
i haven’t purchase a thing from amazon in two years. i had a gift card my manager gave me from my last job for xmas that i used last year, and that was that, but i haven’t purchased anything since sometime in 2017. i try to tell people to stop using it all the time and they just laugh it off. these are the same people who are complaining about injustice. i don’t get it.
look at the shit going down with equinox and soulcycle… trainers at soulcycle are pleading that people boycotting is taking money away from them, and that they don’t stand for what the CEO/owner is doing… lol. well, y’all live in tHe GrEaTeSt CoUnTrY oN eArTh, go start your OWN business and bring those people with you. clients are usually loyal enough to follow… just a thought.
again, IT IS ABOUT NO LONGER LINING THE POCKETS OF THESE DISGUSTING IDIOTS.
clearly we can’t get everyone on the same page, so now we all hypocritically sit back and watch others suffer. it’s gross.
WAKE UP, PEOPLE.
it’s sick and sad that right wing dopes don’t “get it” until it affects them personally. they really don’t want to open their minds or admit that they’re wrong. it’s insane.
this country/world/time we’re living in is so depressing. it’s come so far, but not really all that far at all. in fact, my boyfriend and i were watching the CNN docs about the decades, and the stuff on the economy, war and racial segregation back in the 60s was so confusing and especially heartbreaking re: the segregation. i sat there crying watching that disgusting crap. i can’t believe how disgusting humans can really be, and how things haven’t fully changed all of these years later.
in closing:
PLEASE STOP USING AMAZON AS YOUR GO TO. use local stores so they don’t close – this is common sense. also: STOP GIVING THESE FUCKOS MONEY.
PLEASE DON’T BE RACIST, HOMOPHOBIC, TRANSPHOBIC, ETC. look at yourself in a mirror. you feel like yourself, you know yourself and how you feel about others. gay/trans people feel like that’s themselves. why is this such a hard concept? people with skin that isn’t the color of your own, IT IS JUST SKIN. wtf is wrong with you racist tools?
DO SOME READING AND RESEARCH BEFORE YOU HAND OVER POWER TO CERTAIN COMPANIES.
BE NICER TO PEOPLE.
DON’T BE SEXIST.
KEEP YOUR RELIGIOUS IDEALS TO YOUR DAMN SELVES. this country DOES NOT EQUAL christianity, and even if it did, jesus would be HIGHLY disappointed in a lot of you and what’s been going on down here.
i’m sorry, i’m just so sick of things going so damn horribly with no light at the end of the tunnel. i have to live for another few decades, i’d like to do it seeing SOCIAL AND ECONOMICAL PROGRESS, without the endless struggles.
i mainly use twitter and instagram (yes i am signed up for sites like pinterest and tumblr, etc – but i rarely use them). over the last few years, the UI/UX has changed for many popular websites. change, i have to learn to accept it, i get it… but when websites and services aren’t being responsible about UI/UX because of design trends, i get irritated.
earlier this year, twitter started preview testing a new desktop layout for people… why? i don’t fucking know. there was nothing wrong with it. i feel like twitter is the least popular of the social media giants, and they’re trying so hard to fit in.
over the years, i’ve made a lot of friends via twitter and i’ve had IRL friends on twitter. often times, the IRL friends are just like “i don’t get it” (re: twitter). i don’t really understand what someone doesn’t understand about using it. you talk, people talk back, you follow brands/news/whatever. if i follow a band, i can see very important merch or tour date updates. i don’t use FB, and instagram’s algorithm is HORRENDOUS, so twitter is handy for me. for people that “don’t get it”, this layout isn’t going to make people “get it” anymore than they already don’t.
ANYWAYS.
i’ve been avoiding this shithole desktop twitter update like the damn plague. i turned it on when they first offered it and reverted within minutes. it’s fucking awful, but now it’s been rolled out officially, and i can’t get out of it.
from a developer’s standpoint, i can see what they were trying to do. on mobile/responsive/things below a laptop/desktop, it was running on the react JS library, now they’ve applied it to desktop. for me, changes like these are horrible, because i have a very specific workflow and a way to use the internet. clearly THE CORRECT WAY BECAUSE I AM A FUCKING WEB DEVELOPER AND NOT A LAZY IDIOT. i don’t do well by sites forcing me to do things their way. ie: in the trending area, i can no longer right click and open things in a new tab, now you’re forced to click it and it opens in the same window. that is VERY bad for user experience and is taking you away from your timeline.
react makes things go faster. i saw a reddit page dedicated to talking about it, and of course the nerds were all “oMg iT’s So MuCh FaStEr, nOw iT iS nOw aMaZiNg”. shit like this irritates me because unless you’re on a 56k modem, how fucking fast do you need something to go exactly? were you having to wait an extra 0.5 seconds for something to load? AKA the trending/who to follow shit that nobody wanted anyway… these people are absolutely ridiculous and have no patience.
since this is what twitter has now opted for, i’m affected in 837983 different ways, and am seriously considering jumping ship. i’m not going to be frustrated while using something that’s supposed to be a recreational thing. LETTUCE DISCUSS…
i often think about when i was a kid, and days/months/years felt like forever. i am currently 37, but i feel like i’ve been around for 100 years. i try to think back even to 15+ years ago, when i was working at a video store, and i felt like i had all the time in the world. i worked 40 hours per week, but i didn’t have a commute. even so, that’s still only tacking on about 2/3 hours per day now.
how was life so different then?
i used to work a full week, i went to night school to finish off two credits i fucked up on in high school and yet i managed to spent infinite amounts of time with my two best friends, my boyfriend at the time AND managed to code for hours on end at night.
HOW?!
OK first off, having ridiculous work hours definitely helped. not having a 9-5, M-F job definitely helps break up a monotonous life. i loved working weekends and having weekdays off. being an adult and not having flex hours really fucking sucks. but i digress. my original point:is the internet really making our attention spans and time feel that off? if so, why the fuck do we keep using it?
yesterday on IG, one of my favorite tattoo artists posted a picture of her leg with an “abortion is normal” tattoo on it. she bravely spoke about her experience having one back when she was 19, even though she didn’t have to outright mention her personal experience, she did – and probably thought it was a good idea to share to inspire others to think for themselves. i’m going off of that vibe because she stated she’s pro-choice, and that was the point of the post.
she talked about how the probability of someone you know and love probably had one, in efforts to prove that you shouldn’t unknowingly judge people that have openly had one. you can only imagine how many morons decided to comment DUMB opinions on the picture…
SON: Mom, what’s white privilege?
MOM: *Presses Play*
Watch as an angry white woman tells police to shut the fuck up, questions their intelligence repeatedly, waves hands in their faces, moves wherever she wants, defies their requests, and lives another day to tell the story. pic.twitter.com/dJ3matIyKa
if you don’t find this to be a serious problem, you need to reevaluate yourself. what’s even worse, is that this is a woman in a position of authority (the port authority, more specifically).
this video is a shocking example of white privilege, and i’m so disgusted. this woman is getting away with verbal assault of police officers BECAUSE SHE IS WHITE. this is a problem.
if you’re not worried about people who would be directly affected by the actions that police officers would take in a different racial situation, that’s pretty scary (and shitty).
white people and the police need to be better than this. if this was a PoC, who knows how it would have ended. this is the type of shit that i think about when i think about that ignorant “all lives matter” and “blue lives matter” crap. it’s all tied into racist bullshit. if this woman was any other PoC, they would have already been on the ground – arrested, being manhandled or dead. prime example: this recent violent arrest at waffle house.
“what did i do wrong?”
chikesia clemons was asking what she was being arrested for. she asked for a manager’s phone number to make a business complaint and it ended in this situation. she sat there not flailing or disrespecting the officers, she kept asking questions. i understand you have to comply with police officers when they’re arresting you, but look at what’s going on. that’s terrible. compare it to the original video i had posted and look at the difference. if that was chikesia pulling that verbal assault, it would have been way worse. in fact, i’m sure if the woman in the first video was black, she would have been arrested for that.
good ol caren turner gets to tell an officer he may “shut the fuck up” and doesn’t get talked back to, touched, choked, shot or arrested and gets to live…
not that i should have to even mention it, and i’m not trying to justify myself, but it occurred to me that if i was talking to certain people in my family, the ignorance would probably spew out some sort of complaint that i’m bitching about white people. i’m not just bashing white people for no reason. FYI: i’m white (irish, german, polish, italian), but i do not feel the need to be “proud” to be white for the specific reason of this article. i’m proud not to be part of the problem.
for me, being white means i carry some european ethnicities and physical-features, and while i respect those cultures, i don’t practice them. i don’t have family traditions or roots tied to those cultures, so they really don’t mean anything to me.
i was born in the united states, in NYC, and i am more of a new yorker than anything, which is a melting pot of cultures that i can relate to. i’m american. that doesn’t equate to white, which i think a lot of racist rednecks seem to think americans are/should be. that america is NOTHING to be proud of. the only thing we can be proud of as americans, white or otherwise, is striving for and practicing ongoing progression, acceptance and being good/supportive humans to each other.
i can’t think of anything i should be proud to be *white* about, and if you can, that’s fucking weird. go read some history books and get back to me.
I KNOW I AM BIASED judging by this (amazing) layout, lol, but i have not ever and still do not understand the appeal of facebook. it’s blue and white and ugly all over, you can see EVERYONE’s business and your mom and grandmother are probably on it. why the hell would you want to use social media where your mom is looking at your shit?
anyways, on a more mature note, i keep reading recent articles about mr. bonehead CEO having to testify in front of congress. i can’t believe it even escalated to that. A SOCIAL MEDIA WEBSITE had to testify in front of congress. let that sink in… social media sites were supposed to be fun. wtf happened?
oh, right… money.
i come from the generation that pretty much first had the first taste of online life/social media, and that shit is NOT what we worried about. we wanted to meet like people… TALK to a bunch of people in message boards, on ICQ, in AOL chat rooms, talk to them one on one in instant messaging – and even when that fizzled out, there were still options to interact without all of the “transparency” that facebook gloats over. some of us simply enjoyed those types of sites, and other kids my age created interactive websites – then came live/dead journal, deviantart, xanga. it was still all NOT like facebook. i will never understand how everyone got into that caca website.
why the hell did i throw out all of my old platform vans?!?!?! i want a pair so badly… this is all i ever wore in high school (aside from shelltops) :((((
my lease is up in february, so i broke up with my roommate the other night… so now i have two months to find a new place with steve, and she’s got two months to figure out what she’s going to do.
i’ve been reflecting on the whole experience and it’s kind of funny, the whole situation. she was someone i was very loosely friends with, not a close friend. i had mentioned the whole exbf not working/thinking of taking on a roommate thing, and she approached me on moving in. i told her that in our railroad apartment, that she’d be using her bedroom entrance and the outside hallway that connects to the rest of the apartment beforehand – this is how my next door neighbor functions with his roommate, and she agreed to it. especially during the night and in the morning – it was agreed upon that it was DO NOT ENTER at those times. she wakes up an hour or so before me, and i don’t want to be woken up. she also stated that if her cat didn’t get along with my cat, that she’d have “no problem giving him up”.
since this “agreement” was put into place, her attitude has completely changed. i’ve noticed since day 1 that she’s uber defensive, and i think that she thinks i’m nit-picky/anal or something…
i feel like the thing is, when you live with someone that isn’t family, the situation usually fucking sucks. i’m not comfortable with it, and anything that bothered me, i voiced. i’d rather do that then have some weird unspoken pissy war, which is now going on. i can’t quite put my finger on when this all took a turn for the worst, but i think i have an idea…
one of the hardest deaths that i’ll ever have to face in my life happened last week.
i haven’t been giving into the sadness of it all, as with everything else emotionally handled by myself. there are things that have been randomly, suddenly striking me… but i haven’t been sitting around for hours on end weeping yet. i am so afraid of when that’s going to happen. i assume it will happen soon, seeing as that her birthday is july 20th. maybe not… maybe it’ll be this year, when i don’t receive a card with her beautiful handwriting. most likely on christmas, because i spent every christmas eve with her until a few years ago… i don’t know.
i just can’t even put into words how broken my heart is.
i can still feel an aunt necie hug.
i still remember the smell of her perfume.
there are just too many things.
all of these little things i never think of are now surfacing… steve and i went to the shopping center in douglaston, to grab groceries and i realized it was where aunt necie always used to take us to toys r us.
steve drove by her house the other night and i totally lost my shit.
i hate to sound like a selfish, naive person, but i don’t know how i’ll live without her in my world. 🙁
i can still feel her grabbing my hand at the hospital.
i can still hear the moans, because she couldn’t speak anymore.
i can still see the way she was staring at everyone so strongly, letting us know she knew it was us.
i will never forget those things.</3
seeing and hearing my aunt like that was so hard.
i’ve lived alone since january 1, 2010. i moved into my super inexpensive, basement, studio apartment in ridgewood… and i loved it.
when i first moved into my teeny apartment, it felt so weird. i remember thinking to myself often that was in bed, and i was also in my kitchen. it took a really long time for me to get over that… i almost felt like i was in a glorified dorm room or something. i had always lived with my mother and sister, so it was also quite lonely when i got there. it was a horrible time for me in life as well, so that didn’t help. i had just lost my awesome apartment in brooklyn, no thanks to my shithead roommate, i had to move back to my mother’s house for a few months, and the kid i was dating broke up with me around that time. i was stuck in this horrible rut and then i was lonely.
my apartment wasn’t close to where i grew up in the ‘burbs, so i barely saw my best friend sophie, unless we were doing our holiday cocktail lounge friday’s. my friend that used to hang out with me at my BK apartment suddenly dropped off of the face of the earth (i’m guessing bc it was no longer convenient for her to commute to my place? AND it was a small apt), and everyone else was just far. i tried to do new things to keep myself busy, and tried things that were out of my comfort zone… i hung out with new/random people, went to the local bars, went to shows and met people, hung out with guys that were NOT in my circle of friends (which was totally awkward). i didn’t feel satisfied at all doing all of these brave new things. strangers are fucking awkward, and the dudes i was meeting all bored me or weirded me out.
i didn’t really start getting comfortable until my life started coming back together. i had moved closer to jes and we were spending more time together, i had met my best friend lauren and i was going out to and watching ranger games again (bars), i started hanging out with my other close friend steve, then i met elbow… then one day i had realized that i was happy, and that i loved living alone. no headaches, no fighting, no having to converse after a long day… i could just come home to complete and utter silence.
:SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEE:
THENNNNNNNNNN my landlord in ridgewood had died suddenly, and his kids sold the building. the person who was buying it wanted to move into my basement apartment, so i had to go.
. there goes hockey (the rangers have blown the finals)
. there goes the great houdini
. there goes the peace and quiet of living alone (no offense to my future roomie!)
. there goes my BFF to san francisco
damn, all i do is complain…
OH, how about a fun PSA?
last week i learned that you can’t drink this without your poop turning grass green (don’t worry, i learned the hard way for all of us, that it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re dying – no pun intended).
i am not even one of those people that enjoys karaoke. i loathe and dread it, actually. however, my coworkers put together an K outing and i went along with it. i figured i’d just sit and watch from a dark corner, probably point and laugh… it didn’t happen that way though. in fact, i sang one of the first songs – but from the “sofa” in the room… the only reason that i did, was because it was sublime – santeria and i already knew all of the words by heart already. i thought maybe that would ease my anxiety of sounding horrible in front of everyone.
it hath not eased. #NEVERAGAIN
i let everyone sing a whole lot more before i got up again, and the only reason i had even sang again was because my sneaky co-worker told me he’d do salt n pepa – shoop with me. i thought i knew all of the words to it, but not hearing it since (probably) the 90’s, did not work in my favor. also: that song is DAMN fast. i got a lot of it, though.
next up was no doubt – just a girl, because my coworker chose it for herself, and then bailed on me to make a LIRR train… i sat down and belted it out with my coworker bryan quite successfully.
my next/last song was fuel – shimmer. i figured no one would know/appreciate it but the entire room was singing along with me. i love that people love that song so much, it’s so fucking good. hearing it in unison sort of gave me the chills like hockey triumphs/milestones. the only time i’ve ever heard it like that, is when my cousin marie and i have the windows down in the car, while screaming it as we drive around aimlessly. forever good memories.
View My: 
Bisexual
one of the hardest deaths that i’ll ever have to face in my life happened last week.