Straight women across America would choose a man made of baskets over real straight men.
That's where we are now:
Bears, volcanos, other women, hobbies+pets, solitude, menopause Crone Phase, and wicker basket dudes > Dudes.
Cishet dudes need to gotdamn reflect and do some work.
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(Dear Reader, They will not do that.)
Benson is a prime example of doggo-FAFO.
He wakes up all ginned up for an epic sniffari.
We do that.
We meet Bestie for breakfast.
Benson gets some bacon bits and toast.
(FA)
Then, he poops out on the walk home.
Sir, sniffaris are round trip!!
How far we go is how far we walk back!
He came home and immediately went down. He was out so suddenly I actually had to poke him several times saying loudly, Are you ALIVE?!?
He grumbled at me and slept for an hour while I swept up his nibble papers.
Now he's making a nest on his bed. Yeah, he's gonna be slow for the rest of the day.
(FO)
Y'know maybe this weekend is a good time for a Joyfriend Heau to help me lock down my internet habits -- with all this *AI is roaming the interwebs seeking who it may devour* business.
Before I put It in a cage and poke it hard with sharp sticks.
Heh.
This kind of preemptive interference is NOT normal -- not for US elections and certainly not for any functioning democracy.
Just to be clear.
And so it begins.
It is going to be BUMPY.
Attorney General Rayfield: States, Not the Federal Government, Decide How Ballots are Counted https://www.doj.state.or.us/media-home/news-media-releases/ag-rayfield-defends-states-authority-to-run-elections-in-usdoj-challenge/
Like, just a few days ago the MS AG said the cop that shot and killed a 1 year old Black baby (based on a dubious claim of 'shoplifting') was cleared. It was a good shooting to her. Justifiable.
THAT ability to kill Black folks with impunity we wanted to DEFUND.
From the AG to prosecutors to local cops we wanted it all busted down to the studs because the entire system is a charnel house grinding up Black and brown people -- but specifically Black people at much higher rates than anyone else.
It's true that when we solve for the people closest to the problem other people's boats rise.
The converse is also true: when we don't, other boats get pulled under, too.
My larger point: At some point, Reconstruction after Trump will begin. Rebuilding a New America had better NOT begin with the needs and concerns of the bougie middle. Reconstruction needs to begin by *solving for the margin*, not the center. Otherwise nothing will fucking change.
PG&E warns 25,000 would-be customers of potential six-month delays in getting electricity – NBC Bay Area https://www.nbcbayarea.com/investigations/pge-electricity-service-delays/4162462/ #PGC #CAEnergy #LargeLoads
Me:...White folks and POC with respectability politics defanged BLM.
Rando in my mentions: just say 'some people'.
Me: No.
---
I like clarity in writing.
So I will give Rando some grace and bring MOAR clarity to what I thought was already explicit:
White liberals, white mods and conservatives, and POC who think there is safety in being white-adjacent, were not only resistant to the goal of defunding the police they were openly hostile to it, giving explicit approval to policies that allowed police departments to further militarize and attack our communities.
There. Clarity.
'Some people' lets folks off the hook for this current moment and folks can fuck that right in the ear.
Y'all. I'm angry.
I mean, I'm always angry but it just spiked.
I watched a video of a city council meeting where a seated activist opposing data centers was removed and then brutally assaulted by a hulking 'roid raged sheriff. Bystanders screamed in protest.
And my anger spiked.
During BLM, over 10 years, we had a very small window to put a chain around law enforcement and police brutality. To begin starving their budgets -- to DEFUND THEM.
But no. White people (and POC who clung to their respectability politics) struggled with the concept of ACAB. Y'all quibbled over *branding.*
Today: police departments have not only become the fingertips of the State, collaborating with DHS (and Israel), they're also the attack dogs of fash tech billionaires, helping destroy our communities with data centers, protecting predators among themselves, and surveilling us to death.
We had ONE shot.
And bourgeois fellating of law enforcement killed it.
I know I've said this before.
I'm *going* to *stay mad* over it.
Why do I feel like I was on my feet at a conference for two days when all I was doing was facilitating a team retreat?
My back and hips are wrecked.
I need to be stretched like taffy.
Things that have happened already:
A guy on the bus, with a knitted cap covering his entire face, sleeping and also scratching his balls. (Like, lifting his leg on the seat and *getting ALL up in there.*)
A really jacked unhoused guy having an argument with the sky. His muscle definition was incredible.
The most cautious bus driver in all of the Bay area tentatively entering the bus only diamond lane, making me grrrrrrrrrrrr in frustration. (You have room! Just GO!)
Day 2 of leadership team retreat and we already have broached the topic of wine. Like, I could use one.
I'm exhausted. There may be dinner tonight.
Jesus.
the most Public Transport Odins of All Time
And then there's this:
How Multiracial Churches are Depoliticizing Black Americans
This explains a LOT.
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/how-multiracial-churches-are-depoliticizing-black-americans/
White evangelical protestants in the US are the only religious group 'in which a majority says empathy can become dangerous when it leads people away from a society guided by God's truth'
https://www.axios.com/2026/10/20/religious-divide-empathy-democrats-republicans
Day 1 of leadership retreat: DONE.
First, I am an *awesome* facilitator.
Yes, I brag.
I got the team to go through a really difficult scenario planning convo with good results and without getting bogged down in wild blue sky theorizing based on vibes.
One team member grabbed the absolute worst case scenario and gave a sobering sketch of what we need and what we don't have as an organization in the face of a full-throated authoritarian assault. It was a super helpful process.
She used her personal experience as a refugee from El Salvador to give us a hard look into what really happens to orgs like ours. It was deep.
I'm going to pick up Benson from daycare and eat ice cream for dinner.
Tomorrow -- Day 2.