How lucky I am to have all of you, my friends

Howdy everypony. I'm currently on medical leave not covered by FMLA or PFML, and since it was a work injury, it's tangled up in Labor & Industries (LNI/Workers comp) bureaucracy. I haven't received a lost wages payment in over a month, and bills and May rent are coming fast. My sweet and sassy kitty also needs medical attention sooner rather than later.

I am out of options for income, so I've made a GoFundMe. Any amount helps, and shares can help cast a wider net for to help me hit my goal.

Thank you!

“People don’t understand the word ruthless. They think it means ‘mean.’ It’s not about being mean. It’s about seeing the bright, clear line that leads from A to B. The line that goes from motive to means. Beginning to end. It’s about seeing that bright, clear line and not caring about anything but the beautiful fact that you can see the solution. Not caring about anything else but the perfection of it.”

But we still only talk about it as an explanation for things that seem "mean," and that's not what it's actually saying. It means when you see the solution, you'll do whatever it is. Sometimes the solution hurts people, sometimes it's mean. But sometimes the solution is completely fucking ridiculous. Sometimes the solution makes you look bad. Sometimes the solution is smashing a window or running up thirteen flights of stairs or wearing a silly hat or letting people think you're meaner or dumber than you are.

Conservatory and koi pool on Belle Isle, Detroit

(avocado mixing noises)

(echoey "Free-sha-voca-do")

"Since my kids are off to college and I live alone, it would be really easy for me to just not do great meals."

(vague farting noises)

"Sometimes at the end of a work day I'm just tired"

(long echo of the word "tired")

"And that's okay. Sometimes I just choose to do a quick and easy meal."

(jaunty music)

"But, I always feel better when I take the time to care for myself a little bit more, with food"

(wet squishing noises, followed by a slurp and "mmm")

(screams, burning noises, and smoke detector beeps overlap)

(a pause, then rapid scatting)

(the smoke detector noises continue)

"I like my eggs really cooked, I can't do runny yolks, but you do you."

"Instant yummy breakfast."

(intense sipping noises)

"I'm just taking in a moment to really enjoy the flavor, the taste."

(snorty inhale)

"the smells, the colors."

(fart noise)

"Having a sensory experience of taking in some food helps me feel cared for as I start my day."

(crunchy eating noises)

(jazz music fades in)

"So, the next time you feel like 'Oh, I think I'll just open a box of crackers for dinner, I'm not feeling it', um, just think about how much better your own system will feel when you create something delicious and colorful and more tasty for yourself. Take the time to feed yourself well, and you won't regret it."

I don’t think I’ve ever written this down before. This is the story of the first time I played a shofar (as I remember it, not as it happened).

So it’s the mid 90s and I’m in primary school (‘elementary’, my dear yanks). We were doing Religious Education and learning about Judaism, I think for the first time. The teacher didn’t really know anything about Judaism that wasn’t written in the book, so he kept asking me, since I was the Only Jewish Kid In The Class (only jewish kid in the school in fact, except my sister). I wasn’t very religious, but I was doing my best to make up reasonable sounding answers. Anyway, the school had somehow got hold of a shofar. (If anyone’s religious education wasn’t up to the stellar standards of mine, the shofar is the ram’s horn that’s blown like a trumpet as part of the ceremony of certain jewish holy days). The shofar was passed around the class, and of course, hygene be damned, everyone tried to play it. But it’s not an easy instrument to play, there’s more to it than just blowing. So everyone is puffing and wheezing and red in the face, and the best anyone can get out of this thing is a pitiful squeak. But we’ve all just seen the guy on the VHS tape with the hat and odd hairstyle blowing it, and we heard the tooting noise come out of the tinny little speakers of the TV on the wheely cart, so we know this isn’t right. Is our shofar broken or something? Is it blocked up?

Finally the shofar gets around to me, and I am psyched all the way up. I haven’t played a shofar before, but I’m determined to get some kind of noise out of this damn thing, because my heritage is looking silly right now. The burden of upholding the dignity of Judaism itself falls upon my narrow shoulders. So, I take the biggest breath I possibly can, and put the shofar to my lips. Everyone’s looking at me, because I’m The Only Jewish Kid In The Class. And the thing that nobody in the room (including me) is thinking about, is the fact that I’m also The Only Trumpet-Player Kid In The Class. I only know one way to blow into an instrument. It happens to be the right way. And I do it, just as hard as I possibly can.

If you haven’t heard a shofar played properly in person, it’s not easy to describe. Recordings don’t capture it at all. Maybe it’s just because you usually hear it in a context of fasting and extreme reverence, but nonetheless a shofar blast (and that’s what they call it, a “blast”) is an amazing sound. The shofar sounds like raw naked power, it sounds like righteous fury. It sounds like more noise than a single human could ever make, yet it has a property like a human voice, like a bellow, a howl, like a newly bereaved mother splitting her lungs with blood and thunder. It’s a BIG sound, in the sense that it’s very loud, but also in the sense that it seems to fill whatever space it’s in, to come from all directions at once. It makes sense that the ancients gave it religious significance. When you hear the shofar’s call, the story of the Walls of Jerico tumbling down doesn’t seem that crazy.

So, it’s not possible to play a shofar quietly, and I’m giving the thing everything I’ve got in a little red brick classroom in southeast london. I can feel the room resonate and shake, hear the single-glazed windows rattle in their frames. I’m having a great time - this is the loudest noise I’ve ever made in my short life! And it’s in school! And I’m allowed to do it! So I keep going as hard as I can until my little lungs give out. I remember surfacing, out of breath and grinning, and listening as the antique cast-iron pipes throughout the building slowly stopped reverberating over the slack-jawed silence of the room.

The kids of course have seen enough TV to know exactly what happened. The Shofar knew I was Jewish. Obviously it’s not going to unleash that kind of unearthly sonic firepower for just anyone. Shofars only work for Jews. And the teacher is like “…That doesn’t sound right… but I don’t know enough about Judaism to dispute it?”. I didn’t offer any other explanations, because why would you demystify your Mystic Jew Powers?

The reason it was so important for narrative purposes, was that the plot concerns the visit of the Astronaut, in his completely opaque spacesuit, to a planet populated entirely by self-aware robots (originally from Earth) who have built their own society and are petitioning to be allowed to interact with Earth again as equals.

They have a democratic government and free choice of careers etc. as the orange robot serving as guide tells the Astronaut.

The Astronaut notices that there are two different types of robot on this world; the orange ones, who are in charge, gifted access to all information and facilities. and the blue robots, who are seen as more limited in function, have less access to information and resources, and are not allowed positions of power or as wide a choice of employment opportunities. Even transportation is segregated.

The Astronaut investigates further and discovers that the blue and orange robots are actually structurally identical, there is absolutely no difference between their potential or capabilities, and it is only because the orange robots are instructed by their Educator system to consider themselves superior, that the difference exists.

The Astronaut tells the robots they are not ready for re-alignment with Earth, until they come to terms with their own unfairness, and how Earth had had to deal with this issue themselves. When that time comes, the robots will be able to ally with Earth.

Then he leaves in his spaceship, and it's only in that one final panel that we see the Astronaut is black.

Not subtle, nor should it be, but for 1950 this was a breathtakingly powerful statement, perhaps the first of it's kind in the genre.

ceiling cat

monorail cat

long cat

the OG can i haz cheezburger cat

the lesser known graphix cat

invisible bike cat

my planet needs me cat

cat with the gat

on survival