6.13.2025
Stranded at the bike rack at this park by the river and my phone tells me it's out of data but I'm supposed to have unlimited data well not today, fucko, and I take issue with that kind of language coming from a piece of tech but of course when I think about all the names I've called it for things that weren't its fault, and some that were, names I felt pretty good about on account of how creative they were and how satisfying it was to say them out loud, things I would never say to another human being, or wouldn't have thought to until recent events and certain sorts of behaviors on the increase put a lot of us in a position to redraw our lines for politeness, like that meme about how many days into the administration and now I'm using fuck for a comma, that kind of thing, and there's that idea that swearing is a sign of intelligence and that book* that linguist wrote about how it's a healthy way to express yourself and anyway the reason I'm out of data even though I'm not supposed to be is that all day wherever I was even in the woods I've been checking the news to feed my feelings of alarm and concern and I'm seriously starting to wonder if coming back when I plan to come back isn't an even dumber decision than leaving when I decided to leave was, like I said to the guy at the barbershop this morning after he gave me a nice espresso and his assistant cut my hair and we had a frank talk about the raids, the parade, the military who don't want to be doing the bullshit they're being ordered to do, and I said you guys do good work here and he said see you again? and I said maybe I'll need another haircut before I go back into the burning house. So the whole thing was I need the phone to unlock the bike but it turns out there's a problem with the solar panels powering the bike rack so instead of abusing the phone I direct my anger at the sun and honestly that makes things a little better.
