Look, I don't care where you go, but get off LiveJournal. Today I was presented with this:

"The translation of this User Agreement is not a legally binding document. The original User Agreement, which is valid, is located at" [see document in Russian].

OK, so other sites change their terms... WITHOUT telling you they are NOT BOUND by the English version, that is... But LiveJournal also got rid of HTTPS recently. (Translation: completely sniffable on the wire.)

It's been circling the drain for a long time but COME ON CHILDREN, we need to FIND THE EXITS AND DEPART.

I will have to make time to check my backups and delete my LJ. What a PITA.

Well, it was good while it lasted. And it lasted a long time.

Number of sweet looking older gentlemen who gave me their number and told me they were into hedonism : 1 

Number of sweet older gentlemen​ who regaled me with stories of being harassed by police for fornicating in their automobiles: 1

Number of married gentlemen who stroked my fur vest, purred, and whined when I said byebye, time for me to split: 1

Ah yes. Still living the dream.

Pet theory: social media became much more intense and notification-y during the years 2006 to 2016, years when liberals were used to being frustrated or angered but rarely terrified by the news. After all, we were in control of the House, the Senate, the White House or all three. Things got better and worse but rarely took a huge jump for the worse.

So being bombarded with a lot of information about the state of the world was easier to bear for a majority of those who initially liked and adopted it.

Now the habit of bombarding ourselves with maximum input has been locked in... and in the Trump era, all this extra data — meaning all these extra camera angles and echoes of the same thing — has become a curse. "Total situational awareness" of a frightening situation is not good for you.

You need sufficient awareness to assess the problem and decide what you can do about it. More than that is an express train ride to burnout or worse.

Of course I'm posting this to One Post Wonder, which shows I was thinking about this a while ago, but it was a whole lot more theoretical then.

Vince brought home a set of Marx Brothers movies, and subsequently, the books Harpo Speaks and Groucho And Me. 

As a result, a particular speech pattern has burnt itself into my brain. 

Last night while Vince and I were making dinner, I applied the formula of the first 4 Marx Brothers movies (they're all pretty much the same plot), applied it to the HBO version of Westworld, and came up with a pretty solid treatment for season 2 of Westworld, or, if I could condense it down into 45 minutes, a passable Fringe script. 

I'm not going to spend a ton of time and money on producing Marxworld. You're welcome. Maybe a podcast. I don't know. 

IN MY MIND, IT WAS BRILLIANT. Exposed to oxygen, I'm not so sure. It was one of my Ehrlich Bachman moments. 

HEY GUESS WHAT. I bought a wristwatch for the first time in this century. The photo was awful so I added a filter. 

My commute to the new job is going to suck, so I need to be able to check the time without pulling my phone out of my purse or keeping it in my pocket. Securely stow all your personal belongings, it's going to be a bumpy ride. 

Vince and I got to sit in the back yard and enjoy the fresh air this evening. It was great. Until the ATV Brigade started using the alley behind our house for practice. 

Ok. Goodnight. 

Thrym and Sassy, bold and brassy. 

Re-learning the zigzag stitch. From right to left, you can see my progress. That gum you like is gonna come back in style, Agent Cooper. 

My neighbor Madeline is the shizznit.

i came home today to find she'd gifted me a bottle of Rowhouse Spirits Nordic Aquavit, and a new Moleskine journal. It has watercolor paper. She said, "write more Jarnsaxa."

I tried half a shot of the Aquavit. It tastes like winter and revenge. And cardamom. 

Vince and I are watching The Marx Brothers' Cocoanuts. It's interesting how the dialogue is timed out for audience reaction. 

Went to the gym with Michelle (from work, not Shelle) . I might ache tomorrow. For right now, I feel like a baller. 

So often i have bought paper journals, inspired to write the words of my heart for future reflection and memorial eternal. I have a milk crate of these journals now, along with a personal moratorium on buying any such books for intended purpose. Most have one of two conditions of note:

• One viviacious entry full of bubbling enthusiasm
• No entries, blank as the day born, awaiting the proper moment to crack open the floodgates of time

It is not all in vain, however, as the inspiration came to me from the days of college creative writing, where we had to keep a small spiral book with us to write something every day. How was that so much easier then than now?

• How do you inspire yourself to write?
• What do you deem as "write-worthy?"
• To whom are you addressing in your compositions?
• How much win is this chalk drawing?

n.b. I haven't posted on 1PW for a while, I love all the enhancements I've missed, and I think I must have had my posts all private will mark them all public (all two that is #rofl)

I have eyes again, and I can breathe through both nostrils. It's amazing. 

EDITED TO ADD: A friend asked a question and I answered. Here's the long version. 

So, I was hanging out in a dorm room in high school, when I was a freshman and still a day student (at Hogwarts. You know) with a couple of other girls. One was new and from Korea. The other was a friend I'd known for a few years. 

The Korean girl filled up her electric kettle and broke out a few packets of Korean ramen noodles. She said they'd been sent in a care package from family in New York. This would have been 1984 or so, so getting food from New York was exotic enough, in the Philadelphia suburbs, let alone Korea. 

I have no idea what was in these ramen noodle packets. The wrappers were printed in Korean. Could have been anything. She mixed up some cups of ramen and we sat down to enjoy this delicious tasty snack. 

Had I poured gasoline down my throat and scraped a match across my tongue, I could not have been hotter. The noodles were spicy enough to scare Guy Fieri. Additionally, I could feel my skin crawling into redness as hives burned up my neck and into my scalp and face. 

These two girls were chowing down like they were eating Cheerios. The Korean girl, obviously, was used to this stuff. My other friend is Latina, and said a couple of times how great it is to eat something that's actually spicy for once.  Meanwhile, here I am with a couple of girls who are actually cool, who have this wider cultural experience,  and I was too embarrassed to admit that my white-girl Quaker Oats tastebuds and metabolism couldn't handle Korean ramen. I couldn't even ask for a glass of water, without looking like an idiot, and her electric kettle was dry. She didn't have a kitchen, and I think her kettle's water may have come from a jug. 

And, of course, stopping eating would have been even more rude. I kept eating, so I could be in cool boarding student culturally broad girl land. 

I don't remember how I got out of this. Maybe I went to the bathroom and stuck my face under the faucet. 

I haven't heard from the Korean girl in nearly 30 years, but my Latina friend still talks about how delicious those noodles were and how she wishes she could find them again. 

So, I'm a burner. I'm not a rabid burner, but I've been to burning man 4 times, go to regional events, plan to go to more of both in the future.

The Hilton is opening a swank downtown property in Norfolk Virginia called "The Main". It's preopening weekend this weekend, where tickets are $1600 a pair.  Apparently the governor will be there. There are bands booked, some Broadway singer will entertain, multitude of musical groups, visual art from some of the area's best galleries and museums.

Somehow, the Norfolk Hermitage Museum & Gardens decided they wanted to bring burning man art to the event.

Last time I went to burning man (2014), I was part of a large art project out of Washington DC (Pyramid of Possibilities). One of the guys on the project was Wolf. He was so inspired that the following year he went balls to the wall and led the creation of several art pieces for that thing in the desert. It was a carnival theme that year; Wolf and team created pieces for what he termed Hall of Mirrors Arcade. Included in that was a giant Pachinko machine. 

Wolf shipped the giant Pachinko to burning man, then back to DC. And then, a few months back, he decided to move to the west coast. He was on the verge of tossing the Pachinko - "As I will be moving very soon, ALL assets of this art project must be disposed of, and by mid-December. If a new home is not found by then, it will simply be TOSSED IN A DUMPSTER. I'm not kidding" -  so I connected him with someone who would take if off his hands. Her name is Tracy, thought she sometimes goes by Squirr Lee and she's also a burner.

So the Hermitage has decided to bring burning man art to this swank Norfolk event, reached out and connected with Tracy. Who agreed to bring the giant pachinko to this swank event. And then Tracy asked for help at the event - tos setup/breakdown/man the "exhibit"- so I'm going, as is another burner named John. (plus a non-burner or two)

So yay, I get to represent burningman to people who think $1600 for a weekend isn't crazy. People who hob-nob with Governors (and not like Delaware governors - cause that's no biggie. I mean governors from a sizable state.). Burningman that goes on about radical self reliance and decommodification and participation.  I get to stand in front of (atop?) a giant dusty Pachinko and play carnival barker.  And emissary I guess, being one of 3 burners in the mix.

I feel so much like the shark has been jumped. 

I wonder if they will supply a bullhorn. And/or champagne.

I wonder if I should wear my "Got Balls" t-shirt. 

What's the criteria for hipsterdom? 

Vince and I went to our favorite pho place for dinner tonight. Toward the end of our meal, a young couple came in with their toddler daughter. They told the waiter they'd never had pho before. The woman said she hoped it had noodles. They were sitting behind me, so I couldn't see them. Later Vince referred to them as "that hipster couple." I scoffed and said we were way more hipster than they are. 

He said, "I don't know, the guy had a beard, funky glasses and an old man sweater, and she had tattoo sleeves." 

I said, "You're a musician, I'm a playwright, we have a podcast, and our dog is named after someone who tried to kill a sitting President. We're way more hipster." 

But now I wonder, what construes being a hipster after age 40? 

PS., I don't really think we're hipsters.