There's something rotten in Boston (Day 10)

I've mentioned here many times that Newbury Street, famous in the region for it's shopping, has been missing storefronts for over fifteen years, enough that I stopped counting with my kids after a few blocks because we hit over twenty. But the truth is that Downtown Crossing, previously famous for its shopping as well as easy access to the financial and political centers, has suffered longer. Before Barnes & Noble went on a closing spree, they closed their location downtown. Well, things change, but nothing replaced that location for over a decade. 

The problem may have started in earnest when Filene's and its even more famous Filene's Basement went out of business and it took years to replace them (with a store my British friend tells me is known for using sweatshops, but who among us isn't?). As of 2010, the city of Boston seems to have ceded control of the area to the Downtown Boston Business Improvement District. Color me unimpressed with their efforts to improve foot traffic.

Yes, there are a lot of street people there now. There always have been, but it's taken on a more chilling aspect since the rise of the opioid epidemic, which became a public health crisis very quickly. Honestly, what the hell? We have all of these unhoused people--now including people desperately trying to get in through Mexico, regardless of where they've come from--and we've got people sleeping at Logan Airport. Why don't we repurpose the empty buildings downtown to house some of them? And while we're at it, how about some of those empty buildings on Newbury Street? The state of Massachusetts and city of Boston do not historically have a problem using eminent domain for other projects.

But yesterday I realized that the problem isn't confined. It has now spread to the North End--THE NORTH END--and I'm starting to think of this as something that is spreading, if not like a tumor, then like rot.

The corner of Cross and Hanover

Cross Street

I want to be clear that I'm not suggesting that the North End should remain Boston's version of Little Italy if there is an organic movement afoot for transformation. On Tuesdays I park myself at a cafe that is decidedly neither Italian nor Italian-American. It is also (*gasp*) part of a local chain. I don't think it's a terrible development that such a space exists. And while I mourn the loss of the best pastry shop in that part of town--Maria's on Cross Street did not have the bells and whistles of Mike's or Modern, but what it did do, it did perfectly--there is something now in that space, so I don't include it in my list of losses. The problem is when there is nothing.

There are other examples in the area, but this is the most glaring (those two famous pastry shops are on Hanover Street, and when you come on foot to the North End from the major streets of Tremont or Washington, Cross Street is what you see). Of course, the activity outweighs the emptiness, but when seen while holding the visuals of what the rest of Boston is starting to look like, it's disturbing.

I do not know why this is the case, but my first guess is high rents, necessitated by the high mortgages. Honestly, this has never made sense to me; I can't believe it is more profitable to let a property in a "good" neighborhood lie fallow than it is to take a temporary break on the rents. It makes me think that greed and/or very bad math is also part of the explanation.

The North End does not yet suffer from the Potemkin Buildings--residential and otherwise--that plague many neighborhoods in Boston, and I hope it does not. (It would make me laugh that so many developers are building housing and office space for rich millenials who don't seem to favor Boston if it weren't for 1) the need for housing for other people who aren't in that target demographic and 2) that you can practically smell the foreclosures and abandonment coming our way. Maybe we contrive tales of unicorns to distract from true stories of wolves.) 

I hope the North End is bursting once again at the seams with businesses, a mix of old neighborhood favorites and newer places that everyone wants to visit. And I hope Boston itself stops feeling like something that might be dying.

Deb in the City

An Alternative to Performance Anxiety (Day 9)

I've talked about Performance before, and hope I made clear it wasn't my original thinking but something I think about a lot. I've lately seen people talk more about Impostor Syndrome. I have suffered from it myself, but I am now starting to think of it more as a flavor of Performance Anxiety. Really, the wonder is that there are people who don't suffer from it.

When European civilizations were dominated by a religious paradigm, the ideal performance was Goodness, because that was how we got into heaven. (The Calvinists and Puritans of New England had thoughts on the matter as well.) Protestants also laid special emphasis on Productivity, which is something that never really went away. As of The Enlightenment, the preferred performance was Happiness, which was seen as a guarantor of Success. And since the 20th century, there has been a growing clamor for the performance of Intelligence, in no small part because it is linked to personal and national Productivity. 

That's a lot right there, but of course that's never been all of it. Many of us also need to perform Beauty and/or Being Sexy, and not just women. All of us up until very recently were also firmly limited in how we performed Gender: you'd better pick a lane, and you'd better stay in it. This is to say nothing of requirements based on (perceived) heritage, and it seems deviating from those brings with it the most damnation [see: White Trash and the Uppity Black Person (I don't want to write or say the alternative words)].

Imagine having to do all those things at the same time--oh, throw in your career, region, family, and religion--without even the alleged respite of code-switching. Impostor Syndrome/Performance Anxiety seems like the outcome to hope for, because otherwise it sounds like something that can lead to madness. (I mean, you try being Happy while doing all of that required reading for Intelligence and stumbling upon horrific facts and phenomenon.)

I never feel like I fit in anywhere--even among fellow outcasts (they can be really snobby sometimes). How could I? How could anyone?

But I can feel moments without the anxiety of having to look over my shoulder that someone is judging me for Doing It Right, and it's not just with my family. It is when I am able to embrace my true, full identity.

I. Am. A. Dork. Once I realized that, once I remind myself of it, the world is a much fuller place.

What is my version of a Dork? Really, you have to think of the venerable Chrissy Snow from Three's Company. I felt like I was looking in a mirror when I watched her: she always missed the mark (after the first season, at least), was the butt of half the jokes, but was perfectly content in her own little world. Same.

Yep, the blonde

I am uncoordinated and was the last one picked for dodge ball, but I am a great dancer because I know how to move my shoulders and hips without bringing everything else with me. I am so awkward in social situations--sometimes even one-on-one--but I try really hard not to torture the other person with uncomfortable silences. My musical tastes change all the time. I'm a dreamy idealist unless I'm a bitter cynic. I'm skeptical of what people say unless it's one of those times where I can trust their intent. I'm impatient, except when I can sit with something or someone for hours at a time. I try my best to do the right thing but screw up enough times that I never can forget my mistakes. 

This is a Dork. It may also be the definition of a Human Being who's not on stage, but if there's no difference, I'll stick with Dork.

Deb in the City 

Drop off day (Day 8)

Today was the day that my youngest (no, he really is, by 13 minutes) left to go to the big state school two hours away from Boston. After spending the last week thinking through what he needed to pack--it's funny how much he thought was going to be supplied for him--we finally closed up the big suitcase this morning and loaded it into the backseat. His older brother--by 13 minutes--was going to come but decided the two hour ride would be too much, so it was just me, my husband, and our youngest.

My husband and I did not cry or get emotional, but it was probably clear that we were sad. Which was maybe part of why my son did not even want our help bringing his stuff into his new dorm. We did get a hug, though, so there's something.

We drove to a nearby restaurant to eat lunch (vegan and gluten-free, yay, but ridiculously over-priced, but why should they be different from every other restaurant?), then shivered in the car as we started looking for a charging station. (Fun fact: when you drive an electric car, you will lose mileage if you run the heat for too long. Not-so-fun fact: there are not enough chargers in Massachusetts.) Miraculously, we found one at a gas station rest stop (you know, the kind with the McDonald's) and sighed about the third child to fly the coop as we waited to get a respectable charge.

We are home now, enjoying the sounds of the final child at home. I swear to you, it seems like just yesterday that I brought two little bundles home to the hospital to meet their sisters. Now those sisters are gone, one nearby, the other a little bit further and engaged to be married in May. The one still at home is taking his very last class at community college this semester. He will most likely be home with us when he transfers for his Bachelor's, but it's only a matter of time before he's gone, too. 

I know, everything changes, and I appreciate that it would be horrible if they didn't. But I'm reminded today that sometimes it's useful to take a moment to appreciate things as they are, even if they are not perfect. And it doesn't hurt to be grateful when things are actually good.

Deb in the City

It looks different at night (Day 7)

Yesterday, I did something I don't do often: I had a cup of tea and later a (vegan, gluten-free) cookie. Thus, at 4:30 PM, after working out at home, I was still really energetic, and decided that I wanted--needed--a walk outside.

(I take that back: on Tuesday I had the same cookie as well as some matcha, but I also had a very long walk that day as well. There is a pattern!)

I didn't have a plan when I started except that I needed to be in my favorite bit of Boston's greenspace while I still had the light. But after I passed through it, my body just wanted to keep going. And so I did for the next 90 minutes, as I lost all the light. Eventually, I got tired, but I kept powering through until I got to a train station (amazingly, the Orange Line of the MBTA still works, though not every line in the system can make that claim).

I grew up in a bunch of places, particularly Cambridge, but I spent a lot of my time before, during, and after college on Huntington Avenue. It's always bittersweet traveling down that street, no matter how often I do it, taking note of what has changed and what has stayed the same. Some changes I approve of, some I mourn (and others I anticipate). 

I consider myself fortunate to have been able to have contemplated them last night on a heady walk, and then fortunate that I had a home in the present to go back to. My relative good fortune was driven home when I got to the train and someone asked to get in on my ticket. I didn't have a chance to say yes--which I was going to--before one of the MBTA attendants came out of their booth to scold the person who had asked me that they should have asked her instead. She let him and two other people who couldn't afford $2.40 for the privilege of riding a decrepit "public" transportation system. (Imagine not wanting to ask someone like that for help.) Maybe those people had a warm home with people who were happy to see them when they arrived, and maybe they also enjoyed a hot drink there as well, but home should shelter us from the elements, not the callousness of other people.

Deb in the City

Things that shouldn't happen in a rich state (Day 6)

On this date, we have families in desperate need of shelter sleeping in the baggage area of Logan Airport. If you had told me thirty, forty years ago that I would be writing this in 2024, I wouldn't have believed you. But here we are.

A few weeks ago, I participated in a rally at the statehouse to protest budget cuts to cash assistance for those experiencing the deepest poverty. In case you didn't know, those generally include children, the elderly, and the disabled. Or as I like to think of them, the most vulnerable among us.

The backdrop to this includes a tax relief plan that this administration passed--after the Fair Share referendum was voted in. The campaign to get the referendum on the ballot took almost a decade, and supporters barely had time to catch their breaths before the tax relief end run was announced. 

Did I mention that the governor in power now is a Democrat? Perhaps I should also remind you that I am writing from the allegedly Deep Blue state of Massachusetts. 

It doesn't matter.

It's hard not to contemplate parents freezing with their young children at Logan and other parents struggling to buy diapers for their children, while holding the reality of what a voter referendum is really good for, and not remind myself what the definition of insanity is. 

As I read Revolutionary Spring: Europe Aflame and the Fight for a New World, 1848-49 by Christopher Clark, it's difficult not to see the parallels between that time and now. I don't know what will spark a modern clash--and at this point I believe it can be avoided--but if those in power continue to be callous, it won't take much.

Deb in the City

Sometimes the remedy is company (Day 5)

Yesterday I was out of sorts. My husband and I finally finished a book that was due back at the library. I enjoyed the story, but by the time we were done..."oh, look at the time." I didn't have any appointments that day, but I did have things to do, and even though it wasn't ten in the morning, I felt like the day had slipped away. I was also not feeling well, a combination of something I ate and cramps.

The logical thing to do--the productive thing to do--would have been to have squirreled away to the library or a cafe and squeezed out a little work. But I did something else--I went for a walk with my sons. Though, sadly, it didn't do much for my physical symptoms, I did feel better.

When they were younger, I was desperate for time to myself to get done all of those things I wanted to get done. Well, when they were younger, I did get them done, but I have wished more than once that I had spent more time with them less focused on what I wasn't doing and more interested in being with them. But that changed; at some point I went from feeling like a glorified babysitter and teacher to someone who counted her good fortune.

Several years ago--the Before Times--my husband had a school reunion to go to. There was some confusion about whether or not he should take me (he wasn't sure if his friends were bringing their wives, he wanted a last hurrah with his high school friends, whatever). By the time he came around to deciding that, no, I should come, I had already made alternate plans: the three youngest kids and I were going to see a movie. 

That sounds like a consolation prize, right? I got to take the kids to dinner and a movie while my husband got to hang out with his old friends, some he hadn't seen in decades, in some place far from home, eating food provided by the venue...Wait, on what planet does a night out with kids sound like the lesser option?

I remember that night really well: the kids and I walked to one of their favorite local pizza places, got pizza (although I think I couldn't at that point), walked to the train station, went downtown, got movie snacks at the semi-swanky grocery store, then saw a movie I'd been looking forward to for a few months. I had a lot of fun with my kids, and at no point did I wish I were with someone else or by myself.

Not sure how well my husband remembers his reunion with his friends, but I know he regrets not being able to share that night with me and the kids.

Scenes from our neighborhood

 Yesterday was not as eventful: we returned a library book, went to the same pizza place (sadly, their best days may be behind them...), got a drink at a cafe, then got eggs and crackers on a bodega on the way home. It was just another afternoon, and I am lucky that I can still share them with my children. I felt better--I felt lucky. Productivity be damned.

Deb in the City

No, really, people should read more (Day 4)

As I've said, my preferred media is books, but to keep up-to-date, I subscribe to The Economist, as well as keep up with the Joongang Daily and my local public radio websites (and On the Media). The Economist is a much better publication than it was fifteen years ago--I will never forget their cover trumpeting the growth potential of Southern Europe, less than two years before the default debt crisis that effectively claimed Europe, but they are less filled with wishful thinking than they were before.

They also cover a breadth of topics, including science (or science-adjacent) news that doesn't always make it to national outlets. So I was not surprised to see them cover a the rise in feral boar hybrids yesterday. I was, however, shocked by the story itself.

Apparently, Canadian pig farmers in the 1980s decided to breed their stock with British boars to improve their stock, getting meatier animals they could, I presume, get more of a profit from. But when the price of pork fell in 2001, some of them released their pigs into the wild when they couldn't sell them.

My dear reader, I would have known the punchline to the story even if the subtitle hadn't given it away. Of course parts of the Canadian countryside were going to be infested with wild boars over twenty years later, and of course some of them are starting to make their way to Minnesota. This has happened before. I know this because I read about it in a book less than two years ago. Ecological Imperialism by Alfred Crosby is a classic that was published in 1986--you know, around the time the pig farmers started cross-breeding.

Like other European imports of fauna, particularly the horse and cow, pigs did extremely well when they got to the Americas, and by the 18th century there were so many that farmers released them into the wild. Fun fact: it takes about two generations for a domesticated pig to revert to a feral state, complete with sharp tusks. The colonial versions were not a joke--they're not called razorbacks for nothing. If anything, we should be grateful that these modern Canadian wild boar hybrids are relatively tame, and that their population hasn't exploded.

(This would normally be where I would post a picture, but I just can't.)

I don't blame individual farmers as much as I do local and regional governments. What did they think was going to happen to all of those pig farmers when the prices dropped?

Deb in the (wonderfully razorback-free) City

Self-help is self-delusion (Day 3)

I used to think that I could be one of those people who made everything neat and tidy, stayed within budget, cooked from scratch, and generally made everyone happy--all while saving the world--and if I wasn't getting all of that done it was because there was something wrong with me. But every time I got really into some modality that was supposed to help with even some of that, my ears would always prick up just a little bit when someone critiqued whatever I had stumbled into. Macrobiotic cooking, mind body fitness, meditation, tidying (but I do still love it), minimalism (I have never loved it), bullet journaling, Martha Stewart, raw foods--all of it. I always put it down to being a little self-thwarting, but in reality, my BS-meter just wouldn't stop working.

The books I've been drawn to, while ostensibly trying to answer the question "How do I...?" as a body finally helped me understand that I had been asking the wrong question of the wrong parties. The issue isn't that I need to hack my way through The Game of Life, but that life should not be a game. Life is, in fact, reality. 

This will do nothing for you...

The reason people have trouble managing their money isn't because they haven't found the perfect tracking system, but because wages were stagnated for decades while labor protections were gutted, and the things we're all told we should be willing to pay for--education, housing--have risen so much that they are out of reach for many without debt. The reason people are chronically, debilitatingly stressed isn't because they haven't found the meditation technique that will take them to nirvana, but because the modern world--as was the pre-modern world--is filled with stressors that reflect both immediate, life-threatening events like frequent mass shootings and slow burning but ultimately traumatic problems like a lack of access to healthy food, chronic poverty, and systemic racism and classism. The reason so many of us struggle with health problems isn't because we're idiots that don't know how to cook, but because the food industry has been trying to make us the most productive workers we can be since the end of World War II by feeding us high calorie foods...that mean we don't need to take a break from work to eat. (I am not making this up; Ultra Processed People by Chris van Tulleken discusses this.) The reason we don't get exercise is because, if we're not working the kinds of hours that prevent us from doing anything other than working and sleeping, the majority of us live in places that have been designed specifically for cars, not people. The reason you can't put down junk food, marijuana, alcohol, cigarettes, video games, porn, or your smart phone isn't because you lack morals, character, or discipline, but because those things have been optimized to be habit forming. The reason your email is overflowing isn't because you don't know how to prioritize, but because everyone thinks they're entitled to a piece of you. The reason you have too many possessions is because you have been told, implicitly and explicitly, that you will be judged if you don't have enough stuff, and it has to be the right kind of stuff, your needs, finances, and space constraints be damned. The reason we experience prejudice and inequality isn't because we don't know how to put our best selves forward, but because we live in a prejudiced, unequal civilization.

Do you really think you're going to change any of that with a Bullet Journal, a kakeibo, time-saving recipes, efficient workouts, meditation, or self-actualization techniques? You can help manage some circumstances better with certain tools, but you can't change the underlying causes. And while there are some behaviors you can change that can sometimes make a difference, there's a limit. My financial circumstances improved not because I wasn't spending money (you have no idea how little I spend on clothing, and my housing costs are low compared to other people in my state), but because 1) I could refinance my mortgage when interest rates dropped and 2) my husband got a raise. Being parsimonious meant those advantages didn't evaporate, but it would be ridiculous to say that I somehow manifested the raise itself by being "good with money".  

...but this will

The time we are spending reading self-help blogs, newsletters, and books, watching self-improvement videos, and perfecting the practice of coping systems is keeping us from the actual work we need to do. If we want to improve our lives, we have to change the systems we live in. Sure, that starts with questions about why something is the way it is, but then it's *work*. It's different for everything, it's messy, and it doesn't fit in a pithy book an eighth-grader could write. It's what you find when you study history, because shockingly, people have been able to make necessary changes, and under less promising circumstances. It's scary--and boy, can those books be long--but somehow I prefer that to the fairy-tale complacency of self-help.

Deb in the City

Out and about

When I started blogging, my youngest were almost two. They are now 19, and one has finished his associate's degree and is off to the flagship state school on Monday (*sigh*) and the other is finishing his final class at community college before he transfers to art school. Today was the first day of class, and I rode in with him to class.

Had a surprise run-in with one of my neighbors and had a lovely chat with her (the annoyed guy next to me can screw). Got my son a pastry and drink, then discovered that the nearby library wasn't open for another two hours. Good excuse for a walk through Charlestown and the North End. 

While transiting, chatted with the traffic cop (there is always construction in Boston, but rarely assistance for pedestrians). After discovering that we both lived in the same part of Boston, at least at one point, had a bit of gallows humor about still living in a capitalistic country for the next six months, then all bets are off. It's funny because it's true!

Had a laugh as I crossed into the North End and saw the restaurant window below. My husband has been duly warned. 

Still too early for the libraries in this part of town to be open, so I'm parked at a cafe, ready to get down to business. (Lest anyone accuse me of being bourgeois, please see above about intended plan for libraries.)

(Wow, this was a lot of photos today!)

In other news, looking at some of the Christmas art on Ann Wood's site inspired me to start thinking about Pesach/Passover and Chanukah. What do those holidays mean? What do those rituals mean? As someone who creates--do I dare to call myself an artist?--I think about limitations quite a bit. Like many people, I find they provide focus, and in many cases freedom. Occurred to me as I was pondering these holidays that for some things the limitations are the definition. That's not always a bad thing, but perhaps it speaks to why we need to ponder what those limitations are constantly, and redefine them as necessary. 

Speaking of limitations, time is the one which presses hardest today, so off to read some history and play with more differential equations. Until next time,

Deb in the City

To blog

I started blogging in the summer of 2006. You can read my first post here. I changed blogs because I thought I would follow all of that advice about making everything more "professionally" focused, but that isn't who I am. I've been relieved to see that advice and mindset recede (at least in some corners) over the last few years.

I know the momentum of activity on the internet has moved to social media, but I just can't. I do like my very focused communities--on bullet journaling and everything people are really trying to get to, Gaslit Nation, a couple of servers on Discord, and even, on occasion, my library's review boards--but Social Media 2.0 hasn't made any improvements on the 1.0 versions. Bluesky degraded very quickly into the worst of Twitter, and Mastodon is unreadable. I have no desire to get into anything Meta puts out. I know there are more out there, but I have better things to do with my time than tinker every time a new website comes out.

Weird outlier: Goodreads. I still loathe Amazon, but many of the authors I enjoy post their blogs there. Some of them have led me to other amazing books, and some of them have led me to other communities. So while it will still be very rare for me to leave a review there, I am happy to check them a few times a week.

Another great source of information: Brooke Gladstone's On the Media radio show. She has led me to some great books as well as some great authors, as well as putting on a consistently informative show. 

But I digress. Then again, that's part of what blogs are for.

Blogs are a little easier to share with the world

 

I like blogs. I like writing one (believe it or not, given my output), but I also like reading them. I mean the ones that are written for their own sake, though they may have incidentally become an income stream or enhanced another. It's not that I think there's anything wrong with making money from your blogs, it's that the ways people do it don't encourage me to read. I love the old cooking blogs (please check out Isa Chandra Moskowitz's Post Punk Kitchen for an example of why), but even if the point of every post is to get me to buy some schlock off of Amazon so you can make a percentage of a penny off of the sales, please stop writing PAGES of text to describe how to make a grilled cheese. It doesn't fool anyone, and at the end of the day almost all of those types of posts aren't informative. You don't make me feel like I've learned anything; you make me feel like I've wasted my time.

I've been loving Suyi Davies Okungbowa, Cory Doctorow, Ann Wood, Austin Kleon, Elizabeth Spann Craig, Dr. Michael Greger, and Chris Guillebeau. (I've also loved Jenny Doh, but unfortunately she doesn't appear to be blogging anymore.) These people write for a variety of reasons, but chief among them is a desire to share, which in many cases is linked to an explicit desire to *grow*. That is a fantastic thing to witness in public and sometimes even participate in, and flies in the face of yet more ridiculous advice that we have to be perfect fonts of wisdom before we can present ourselves in any capacity to the world. I don't always agree with everything they write, but I do still love the way they write. I find just about all of them inspirational in some way, however earnest that may sound.

This year, I want to find more such places to go. (Yes, sometimes a good newsletter does the trick, but there is something about the history--the evolution--of ideas and projects that I take more comfort in.) For as much as the blog has been declared dead for the last decade, I don't think that's true, and in fact I think they're coming back. So point me to the new ones as they come up, but also point me to old favorites.

The passage of time

Happy 2024!

I've been silent for the last few months because there have been things going on of a legal nature that I need to keep quiet about until things settle. (To the point that I took down a handful of posts that I wrote while things were blowing up; maybe someday I'll repost them.) All I will say is that this is not just about me but about someone extremely vulnerable, and that heightens the need for me to be discrete until I've achieved a resolution. (No, I am not getting a divorce.)

Worst case scenario is that the resolution does not arrive for another two years, in part because there are at least three different parts of the legal system my family must navigate. There is always, of course, the possibility that it won't take two years, but in my experience with the other party, counting on "the worst case scenario" is the safest bet. That's made me bitter and desperate, if I'm honest...but it occurred to me last week that this is part of why we come up with the worst possible cases. We can be mentally prepared, but we can also have some perspective. Two years is too long--this is something that should have been resolved years ago--but two years isn't forever. (And while I'm firmly planted in middle age, perhaps the news that the average lifespan of modern Korean women is 90.7 years has informed my outlook.) So the question my family and I have been trying to answer is what the next two years will look like. It's still messy and it's definitely unfair, but being able to define a time frame makes it a little more manageable.

This is not, fortunately, my whole life. I did, as of December, start transcribing my saga, and I keep thinking, you know, this isn't as bad as thought it would be. (Don't worry, I also keep finding things I'm going to need to edit, and I'm not talking about grammar or typos.) As of the beginning of January I started stimulating those other parts of my brain that respond to numbers and logic. (There's really only so much a sudoku game is going to do for you.) Sticking up for my nineteen year old self was the reason why I wanted to get into Differential Equations, but it's my middle aged self that wants to stay with it. I am as daunted as anyone else by learning something new, but with math I'm inclined to stick with it because to me math has always felt like a puzzle, and I like solving puzzles. Chemistry has a similar attraction--those equations involve a lot of math!--but Korean is to reclaim something I feel I should have gotten when I was younger. Maybe we can't go back--and ugh, why would you want to?--but we can appreciate in maturity what we would have slogged through in youth.

This is a lot of fun, I swear

One of my sons will be leaving home at the end of the month to finish up his degree. It is bittersweet for me, as it is for most parents in this situation: I know he needs to leave, but I'm heartbroken that he has to. My husband and I will have only one child left at home after, but it is only a matter of time before he stretches his wings as well. 

In other news, I started playing with social media again, though between Discord and the Bullet Journal University community, I've been on it for longer than I'd thought. I've been dallying with Bluesky...and wow has it taken on toxic Twitter vibes really quickly. Signed up for Mastodon as well, but I suspect that won't be any better. I also suspect that I am just not cut out for this anymore. There was part of me that missed discussing things like politics with like-minded people on social media, but as I've encountered an incredible amount of people defending the Houthis this week, I'm starting to remember part of why I walked away in the first place. I am more than a little uncomfortable to realize that the spaces where I feel most comfortable are mission-focused and/or paid for. That is kind of awful. We shouldn't have to pay for a digital home anymore than we already are.

I have solved nothing, I know. I guess you can see some of the other appeal math has for me.

Deb in the City