I am completely burned out on my job. Not the work itself, but the fact of working, and the institution itself. It's a great institution! It has an important niche, an excellent reputation and really good working conditions.

But I'm burned. I'm tired. My greatest wish is to quit my job. 

One of my cousins just arrived for freshman year in Indiana and I am fucking terrified for him. I know what I think I'd do in that situation but it's easy to make pretend choices.

This is a Singer 401. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

Full Metal Jacket analogies aside, the 401 is an excellent machine. It has all-metal internals, comes with many stitches pre-programmed by the virtue of having an internal cam stack. It can also accept an array of swappable cams for even more stitches.

But it has some drawbacks. Despite being manufactured in the 1950's, the foot pedal (technically called the 'motor controller') is the same model that Singer used since the 1920's. It's a graduated resistor, that lowers resistance until a simple circuit is achieved at full pedal depression. The side effect of this is that when you aren't using the machine, the pedal tends to heat up. Since its resistance is blocking the current flow. Additionally, since carbon tends to build up on the disks in the resistor, older pedals tend to make the machine leap into action with not a lot of control at slower speeds.

Which is a problem.

There's a later series of machines called Touch & Sew, called Touch & Throw or Touch & Swear by afficionados. They have a more powerful two speed motor with an electronic motor controller. By a quirk of manufacture, the motor in the T & S machine is the same physical size as the one in a 401. So, with some simple mechanical skill, a bit of soldering a little fabrication and a whole lot of creative cursing, you can upgrade a 401.

We spent a fair chunk of today doing much-needed, long-overdue house care. Everything has been so hard since the last election. It has, of course, only gotten worse in the last year, even before the pandemic. We lost a close friend to an overdose on Christmas eve. Time is such a millstone now.

Otherwise, I'm disgusted with our Mayor barricading downtown. I'm horrified with how ineffectual and complacent to the point of complicit the Senate is.

I'm ashamed to admit it but I can't even tell you how much I want a cigarette. 

I've avoided thoughts today. Mostly, I did chores, poorly. Kept failing to get the glass of water I've wanted since shortly after midnight.

Mostly I looked at the things that never get put away because the things which are put away need to be culled and then put away again in a better configuration. We are white middle class hom

I ordered Ikea things in May, when my office decided we would never be going back to our offices. The accessories have arrived, but not the furniture. So everything is a bit of a mess. We're fortunate we have enough space, but being in the house 24/7 is making small things much more irritating. You know, the light you never fixed; the box you never unpacked; the neighbos who never fucking stop screaming and slamming doors.

Short fuses. I got em.

I have a dream of never voting for a prosecutor for public office (other than Cook County State's Attorney #TeamFoxx!) ever again. Kamala Harris is complicating that--not because she's some magical prosecutor, not because she gets a pass, not because her record is exceptionally good as a prosecutor. 

Kamala Harris is complicating that because, well, she's requiring me to think about what chances for advancement in a political or legal career a woman has and how much those chances narrow when that woman is not white (skinny and pretty!). Running for prosecutor? That's one of them. Or at least has become one very recently. Brennan Center talks about that shift here. 

But Brennan Center examines the change in terms of prosecutorial reform, rather than from intersectional feminism. The intersectional feminism angle is why Kamala Harris is making me think more about it.

But I don't know much about Harris' career, or her record as a DA. I know the headlines are calling her Senate record "More liberal than Bernie!"

I also know the birthers are already out in droves. That photos of her are being darkened and chosen by editors because she looks angry. I recall people saying she can't be Southeast Asiam because she doesn't even pronounce her own name right.

I know I'd rather see her one old guy from the Presidency than Mike Fucking HIV-enabling Pence.

I spent most of today randomly crying. Then working on a thing at work which I am perfectly capable of doing and sufficiently informed to do accurately but which felt insurmountable and now I am terrified to share the draft with my colleagues.

I wish I could retire. I wish that my pandemic response was retirement. But I have a couple years still before I can be rejected for Public Service Loan Forgiveness. So I have to keep working.

I did not start writing when I had the thought I wanted to write and now I have no thoughts to write. 

1,549 Coronavirus cases reported In Illinois in the past day. Another 20 people died in the past day as well, bringing the total number of deaths in the state to 7,657. We've had 167,371 deaths in the US. 

I wish I could just run to the grocery down the block and buy whatever hardy green they have and cook something random for dinner, but we minimize our trips to the store. And a trip to the store for one meal is completely off the table. 

I miss living like that. I miss cooking like that. A very large part of the reason I live in this city, in this neighborhood is in order to live like that. And now that's not safe. That's dismissive of the people who have no choice but to go to work to keep the stores open, to keep their own bills paid. I'm not going anywhere, so I'm not walking anywhere. 

In the olden days, even if I rode my bike to work (instead of taking the bus), I walked 3 miles a day, at least, just getting around. These days, I don't even manage a quarter mile. I'm stiff and sore and have aged three years from inactivity. 

notice our tattoo game here. 

Copied from a friend (an African-American woman). Hers is the first voice I'm turning to this week and I'm not going to steal too many of her posts because many of them are friends-only. This one was not, and it saids what needs saying:

Borrowing words from a friend as I’m too frustrated by all the knee jerk responses to come up with my own right now. “Before you read what the MSM tells you about this story, here’s what we know in Chicago: Cops shot a young person in Englewood. A crowd formed and marched in protest against the shooting. The cops then SHOT INTO THE CROWD. Public transportation was shut down, bridges were put up, people were trapped downtown. What did you think was going to happen? People’s lives > property. Always.”

There has been a war brewing In Englewood and Auburn-Gresham for some time now - recall the shooting at the funeral that could have been avoided given that the city was forewarned by reputable sources? Remember the recent Gold Coast shooting which was also highly predictable and warned against? When those who are supposed to serve and protect instead shoot into crowds (and into homes like Breonna Taylor’s) or commit murder (George Floyd) people get angry and retaliate using whatever power they have. Not justifying property destruction, but if you don’t care about the underlying issues communities are facing and only get mad when it gets closer to where you live and work please grab a mirror. What are you doing to create justice?

In other news, a derecho is headed for the city. Perhaps the Lake will just swallow us all.