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    Patriotism: An Epitaph

    I saw it from across the parking lot: an American flag better suited to the skies over a car dealership than where it was, bolted to the back end of someone’s T-Rex/’murca Machine/Compensator 1000 or whatever the hell we call those side-by-side golf carts on steroids that all the wannabe cowboys and monster truck drivers tear around the neighborhood in.

    For a moment, I had hope that this was just the usual American exceptionalism, that coming as the sighting did close on the heels of the celebration of the nation’s independence that this was just some overly enthusiastic light beer chugging proud owner of one of them nice doublewides getting provisions for their backyard barbecue and extemporaneous amputation fest courtesy of the fireworks they had purchased in sufficient quantities to lay siege to most structures in the Middle Ages.

    Then I saw the 2nd flag.

    The “don’t blame me, I voted for Trump”.

    Fresh out of lighter fluid and my matches at home, rather than expressing myself in maladaptive but effective ways by burning the vehicle down to the rims, I shed a (metaphorical) tear for the death of patriotism, because here was the invasive species MAGAttus Nationalistes, aka ”nationalist” aka “cultist” aka “co-signer of a felon, misogynist, and pathological liar”, conflating a nation with a man.

    Nailed It

    It always comes down to a nail.

    For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
    For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
    For want of a horse the rider was lost.
    For want of a rider the message was lost.
    For want of a message the battle was lost.
    For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
    And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

    Credited most often to Benjamin Franklin, who included a version in Poor Richard’s Almanack, it’s a reminder of two things:

    1. Try the simple solution first
    2. Fix what you can, while you still can

    Don’t mistake simple for easy, because all you need is a nail, but what if you don’t have any nails, and the nearest nail is at the Tractor Supply Company and that’s 20 miles away?

    And if we wait to fix today’s simple problem, we lose the chance to manage it while it’s within our capacity to do so.

    Legal Loopholes

    The next president could order Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival with impunity.

    That’s the takeaway from yesterday’s Supreme Court 6-3 decision that former presidents have immunity from their official acts while in office.

    The pearl clutching and the cork popping has commenced, depending on which said of the aisle is corrupt at a level you’re comfortable with, as the morality playlet begins that follows everything in our bid to be first to the front with our performative outrage.

    What’s notable is how arguments like this are framed depending on party.

    When either side wins, it’s a win for freedom.

    When they lose, it seems to break down thus:

    • On the right, freedom is at stake
    • On the left, humanity is imperiled

    Because the Democrats continue to position themselves as the party of all that is good and right about the world.

    The Republicans would be seen as the champion of American values.

    Neither of them can define those positions clearly.

    Much of their energy is spent pointing out how at least they’re not THAT guy.

    And since they can’t define who they are, but rather who they’re not, they will all continue to govern on loopholes, not foundations.

    Playtime

    Went to Cidercade yesterday.

    It’s an arcade that serves cider.

    The kind you have to be 21 to order.

    And no, it’s not a remixed Dave & Buster’s.

    Couple reasons:

    1. All the games are set to free play
    2. They only serve pizza

    It’s Chuck E. Cheese without a ballpit.

    Circus Circus without the clowns.

    Had a blast playing games half-remembered from the few times I went to an arcade as a kid.

    There’s nothing profound about Cidercade.

    Except that we just went there to play.

    Something we do less of as adults.

    If we do it at all.

    We’ve been robbed of that, chasing likes and clout and virality.

    Forgetting what fun was like.

    When you did things for their sake and not for the clicks.

    Someone to save me

    Nearly two and a half years ago, I decided to step off the hamster wheel.

    Write a book.

    Reasonable, if risky, proposition, I thought.

    That is, if I had built up some momentum.

    I had, but didn’t sustain it.

    Wrote a few things that got published in places.

    But I liked it. And I’m good at it.

    Wasn’t like I had another job I’d turned down.

    The project I was working on came to an end.

    I went home.

    And stared at a screen for a few months.

    Typed some words into a novel I’ve been scribbling for over 10 years.

    It’s not that complex, I just get in my own way.

    A lot.

    Start to think about whether this too shall fail.

    Because most things I’ve done have failed.

    More accurately, never went anywhere.

    Self-sabotage is the best sabotage.

    What if I fail?

    Easy.

    Quit.

    Or half ass it.

    That way you’ll know why it didn’t work.

    It’s about control.

    Working through some of that.

    Because in the dark, when I ask myself, what it is I like and I’m good at?

    It comes down to writing.

    Creation.

    Bringing something into the light.

    And it feels like it’s all I have left.

    Since I haven’t been good at much else.

    Call this a last stand.

    Time to save myself.

    Stop looking at the wall, and turn around.

    Because there’s a better question.

    What if it works?

    Might be fun to find out.

    Marines invade Dune screening on Max

    Got around to watching Dune 2.

    Been on the list for a while.

    Two things stopping me.

    1. Paul
    2. Chani

    Let’s be clear: Denis Villeneuve's vision of Herbert’s books makes me love movies again.

    Visually stunning, the storytelling is deft, and caputures the immensity of the vision while still making it about smaller stories.

    It’s what the MCU could have been before Marvel bloated the genre with cash grabbing nonsense.

    I don’t find Chalamet or Zendaya relatable.

    It’s watching a couple of kids who got lost on their school’s field trip to Joshua Tree and stumbled into a military recruiting depot, ending up on the front lines because someone screwed up the paperwork.

    Their casting as fierce warriors is slightly less believable than Pauly Shore’s war epic, In The Army Now.

    I knew that from the first movie, so no surprises.

    Bit more surprising?

    That I could thank the Marine Corps for my ad-free experience.

    Pop quiz: which force do they represent?

    • Harkonnen: bloodthirsty sadists who kill with impunity to gain power.
    • Sardaukar: bloodthirsty minions of the Emperor who kill with impunity to maintain order.
    • Fremen: bloodthirsty fanatics of Paul Atreides who kill with impunity to bring about a new order.

    Killing in the name of an emperor, a prophet, or a country: it’s all still killing.

    Everybody’s killing someone.

    It’s all just a matter of charter.

    People First

    Person first?

    Or.

    Diagnosis first.

    I’m either:

    • A person with autism, an example of people first language (PFL), or
    • An autistic person, an example of identity first language (IFL)

    Which one’s more acceptable?

    Like most things, it depends.

    A survey conducted in March 2022 by the digital resource Autistic Not Weird polled more than 11,000 people with or connected to ASD. Over 76% of respondents favored IFL (being called, “autistic person”). However, parents of children on the spectrum leaned toward PFL (having their children be called, “person with autism”) as they feared IFL would label and limit their children.

    If you’re the diagnosed, IFL.

    If you’re their parent, PFL.

    I’m on team IFL, because to me, “person with autism” sounds like I’m in search of a cure, like I’ve got cancer, or Parkinson’s, or I coal roll Teslas in my Compensator 1000.

    However.

    Most of the time?

    I’m PFL.

    Because then you’re faced with a person, instead of their deal.

    They’re a person who uses drugs.

    Not a junkie.

    A person who broke the law.

    Not a criminal.

    By putting humanity first, we must face ourselves.

    Remembering that if we were them, we’d be them.

    First heard that from Pete Holmes, and I’d be forever grateful to a reader who found the source, since I don’t think it originated with him.

    If we kept that front of mind, might be easier to dismiss and discard those that don’t fit our view of the world.

    My kind of monster

    I’d moved out, told her I was filing.

    Left a letter on her desk in the home office.

    I know, I know, I am a gem.

    Then the job I had fell through.

    Had to move back in.

    And it starts again.

    That voice.

    The one that tells you it’s not so bad.

    Because it isn’t.

    Not really.

    She’s a genuinely good person.

    It didn’t end because I cheated.

    Not this time, anyway.

    See “gem” above.

    We get along, most days.

    Except “not bad” isn’t good enough.

    Not anymore.

    Because the monster doesn’t have to be a dragon.

    No one needs to be screaming.

    Nothing has to be on fire.

    It’s OK to walk away.

    Even if the village is still standing.

    Running To Stand Still

    I was a bigger U2 fan once.

    Probably still am.

    You outgrow those things, but they never really leave you.

    I was raised on classical music and an eclectic collection of nearly-pop albums, like the soundtrack to Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Neil Diamond.

    I read the novella, never saw the movie.

    Played instruments, starting the piano, since I was 4.

    Music’s always been there.

    I pick it up, discard it again.

    Big Dumb Autistic Brain and its special interests coupled with a crippling fear of failure.

    Of not adding up.

    Can’t say that I’m in recovery from that.

    Not quite yet.

    Don’t think we’ve hit bottom.

    “Running to Stand Still” is the 5th track from U2’s 1987 Joshua Tree, an album I can still listen to all the way through to this day.

    It’s about people who use heroin, living in Dublin.

    Heroin isn’t my particular bag.

    More angst and NA beer.

    Running errands today, though, the title kept at me.

    Driving through traffic, watching all of us dart in and out to get a half car length ahead.

    If that.

    We’re addicted to motion.

    Associate it with progress.

    Even when stopped, we aren’t at rest.

    Worried about our next move, however small.

    Assigning importance to moving.

    Because still, we’d catch up with ourselves.

    And so she woke up
    Woke up from where she was lyin' still
    Said I gotta do something
    About where we're goin'
    Step on a steam train
    Step out of the drivin' rain, maybe
    Run from the darkness in the night

    Sucker punched

    I’m “in between opportunities”.

    Kind of like Van Damme’s in between these trucks except they’re pulling away and sure funds are flexible but at some point I’ll need more.

    Until the barter system goes into full effect.

    Or I suck it up and post feet pics.

    Not mine, though.

    Just random pics generated by AI.

    I’m sure there’s a bot for that.

    Applied for a job with a previous employer.

    Did not pan out.

    Literally the same thing I did for them before.

    Beginning to think it’s me.

    The problem with looking for work, is that all your employed friends/acquaintances/thought leaders on LinkedIn are full of helpful advice.

    Even though they don’t work in the same field.

    Have the same career path.

    Know nothing about you.

    But.

    Rest assured, if you just give them $399, they’ll absolutely guarantee that you’ll be out nearly 400 dollars.

    And it’s one thing when it’s month three and you’ve applied to less than <100 jobs.

    When it’s into year 3 and Indeed is just shrugging its shoulders, it’s a bit…much.

    Have a couple of “prospects” that will likely keep me out of a cardboard condo, but barely.

    I’ve been told the role is “humbling”.

    Not sure what hubris I needed punched out of me.

    I do know this: I’m never, ever giving anyone hiring advice again. And there’s value in that. In that kind of growth.

    BRB, shaving some toes.

    Performative effectiveness

    This weekend, Lando Norris learned a tough lesson in performance vs. effectiveness, which unless he’s a big fan of the civil-military cooperation, and I don’t see him being much of a CIMIC fanboy, isn’t something he thought about much.

    by the author via Midjourney and yes I use a lot of robots

    But I was, working my way through a week’s worth of growth with a weed trimmer, because doing a job well (effectiveness) is more important than just doing the job (performance).

    Measures of Effectiveness (MoE): A metric used to measure a current system state. “Are we on track to achieve the intended new system state within the planned timescale?”Measures of Performance (MoP): A metric used to determine the accomplishment of actions. “Are the actions being executed as planned?”

    Because everyone has a different standard for success, or effectiveness, that goes beyond just doing the job.

    Whether it’s trimming weeds, or, in the Formula 1 example, losing a race by less than a second to Max Verstappen, as happened to Lando Norris, we are measured not by whether we do the job, but by how well we do it.

    And the expectation is that we’ll do more than the bare minimum listed in the job description. That without additional compensation we will be the most effective employee that ever lived.

    If we don’t?

    We’re a quiet quitter.

    Or whatever term we’re going to use this week for people that just do enough to get paid and GTFO at the end of the day.

    And if you want a more effective team?

    • Make sure you’ve got the right people on your bus
    • Let them build the processes you need to succeed
    • Get the tools they ask for to make those processes work

    Then give them what we all want: a living wage, a flexible work environment, leadership that treats them with grace and humanity.

    Time Bandits

    There’s a store here at the country club.

    Cannot tell you how much that sentence amuses me circa 1995 thinking I was going to end up in a VW bus tooling around America playing in a band that would be the next Grateful Dead as I wrote On The Road for Gex X.

    I say “amuses” because that’s an easier word than the yawning maw that opened up somewhere between college and the rest of my life and I shoveled whatever dreams I had into it in the hopes that it would spit out happiness.

    But there’s a store, at the country club, where I live. And I watched a man I’ve met a few times and know a little bit shuffle his way to the electric carts and proceed to maneuver his way toward the grocery aisles.

    Badly, because it’s a grocery cart and designed to diminish its user.

    And he was diminished before he took his seat.

    His life behind him looms large, having done things.

    Good things.

    Things that have meant a lot to a lot of people.

    But now, he’s old.

    Not just older, but old.

    Recovering from injuries that happened because he is old.

    Time doesn’t always take gently.

    It rips at us, too.

    Stripping away what we once were, leaving something behind that bumps its way through produce.

    What's with all the robots?

    Today’s question no one’s asked: What’s with all the robots?

    If I illustrate anything, it’s usually with some kind robot thing out of a Midjourney prompt, for two reasons:

    1. We as humans are just big dumb machines, with amazing brains that do dumb things and we in turn do dumb things thanks to those brains.
    2. As an autistic person, there’s a daily conflict between Robot Boy and Real Boy, in that Robot Boy is going to give you just straight analysis without considering your feelings, and Real Boy is going to try and activate that module where he thinks about how you might receive the message.

    Oh, and I’m pretty sure robots are going to take on most labor in the next several years, so there is that. 

    That 2nd point above doesn’t mean those of us on the spectrum aren’t empathetic: quite the opposite. I won’t speak for my people, because it is a spectrum, but I know I spend most of my days with lowkey anxiety as a subtext, worried that I’m going to get the response wrong, and I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.

    Also, decades of masking mean that I’m pretty damn good at reading how someone’s receiving me, and there has never been a time when my anxiety gave me a false read: I know when you’re not into me, because living in a daily state of isolation from neurotypicals, I’m keenly aware of my efforts to try and connect. 

    And no, they’re not a special interest, but they’re a machine and as an autistic person, I do like me some machines.

    So that’s why the robots.

    But I need it

    Better to have, and not need, than to need and not have.

    Attributed to Franz Kafka.

    The problem is that we attribute need to too many things.

    Telling ourselves that we can’t live without them.

    Usually that’s stuff.

    Sometimes it’s people.

    We all need people, but if the people we have aren’t meeting our needs, are they people we should have?

    Emotional capitalism at its best tells us we need more: more relationships, more friends, more interactions.

    Something to say

    “I don’t have anything to say”.

    That’s not true.

    We have things to say.

    Just that we think they’re not worth listening to.

    Some of that’s ego.

    Sheltering itself, avoiding rejection.

    Most of that’s not being heard.

    That when we move the words outward, they’re not received.

    Because everyone else is talking, too.

    Or trying to find ways to say nothing.

    Except about everyone else.

    In criticism, there is safety.

    Security.

    A parapet to launch from.

    Walls to hide behind.

    Defending ourselves from each other.

    Sampled

    Drug tested today as part of a job application process.

    Collection centers are grim places, filled with the kind of cheer better suited to a DMV.

    Big bureaucrat energy aside, I’ve never gone into one without feeling like I needed to explain myself.

    They’re a system designed for a specific purpose, leaving little room for humanity on the part of clients or staff.

    A lot of places get me to do that.

    Start blathering that I’m just here for the employment screening, or that I just haven’t had time for a haircut lately, and of course I’ve been flossing regularly no matter what my mouth looks like.

    It’s partly my big dumb brain, as the default setting for my ‘tism is either apologize or explain, and it’s usually stuck somewhere between the two.

    But it’s also the nature of systems to get us to justify ourselves, explain why we’re coloring outside lines clearly drawn for our benefit.

    The system didn't fail Brendan Depa

    We hear it all the time.

    The system doesn’t work right.

    The system’s broken.

    The system failed.

    Those are comforting words.

    Words designed to instill belief that something is in place.

    That if we just tweak it enough, it will save us.

    The problem is that systems don’t break.

    They don’t fail.

    They work right.

    All the time.

    Because systems are designed, as it's been explained to me, "to depress, oppress, and repress".

    And they do that very, very well.

    Brendan Depa is a “hulking” Florida boy who “viciously beat” teacher’s aide Joan Naydich last year after she took his Nintendo Switch away.

    Brendan’s also an autistic high schooler with an Independent Education Plan and whatever else Naydich learned in 20 years in the school cafeteria, it didn’t cover what to do when a kid like Brendan has a meltdown.

    And Brendan’s also a kid who got his GED while in jail with the help of a retired special education teacher who found him “engaging, funny, smart, sensitive, and inquisitive” as well as “impulsive, naive, and a bit defensive”.

    The system didn’t fail Brendan or Naydich.

    It didn’t fail them when the school hired Naydich on a provisional basis before completing required special education certifications because they were short handed.

    It didn’t fail them when Brendan’s IEP was ignored by other teachers at the school, leading to the events culminating in what happened to Naydich.

    It didn’t fail them because the system did what systems do: benefit those most likely to contribute to the future of that system.

    Brendan and Naydich don’t qualify.

    That system makes decisions about who it will help.

    Those it will move forward.

    And those it will spit out, left to their own devices.

    Naydich’s injuries led to her losing her job, her life forever changed by what happened last year.

    Pleading no contest to the charges against him, Brendan’s facing 3 to 30 years if the judge decides to sentence him as an adult.

    The system works, and that’s its problem.

    Sources

    Mandatory Cinco de Mayo muttering

    Here’s all I know about Cinco de Mayo:

    1. It’s not Mexican Independence Day
    2. In Mexico, it’s only really celebrated in Puebla
    3. The holiday started out as a celebration of Mexican American culture in the 1960s and 1970s as part of the Chicano movement in an effort to establish that community’s identity in the United States and was co-opted starting in 1985 by the Coors Brewing Company and their $350 million in donations to Latino organizations as part of the settlement of a boycott by the Hispanic community against Coors for discriminatory practices.

    Margaritas, brought to you by The Man.

    Probably won’t stop me from liking tacos, though.

    References

    https://digitalcommons.cwu.edu/anthropology_museum_studies/115/

    Finger thinkings

    I’ve never been what you’d call consistent.

    Except at maybe starting things.

    And (re)scheduling things.

    It’s that “re” that’s critical.

    Subtext in my daily gratitude practice is that there isn’t a limit on the number of times you can change things in a Google calendar.

    I believe in consistency, in things like “atomic habits” and the like.

    What I don’t believe in?

    Me.

    Trusting myself.

    Believing in my process.

    Because I’m at a point where if I’m not earning, there isn’t much point to the effort.

    And because I’ve let me talk myself out of so many things over the years, I don’t have something to fall back on that I’ve been secretly crafting behind the scenes.

    Working on fixing that, on sitting still for The Muse instead of hiding out like some kind of direct-to-video Fugitive reboot and yeah, we’re at that drain pipe, and my artist’s way feels more like jumping off the edge than some careful, calculating accumulation of words.

    Isaac Asimov called writing “thinking through my fingers” and I’ve done a lot of that over the last few years.

    Not that much of that has seen the light of day, but it’s there.

    Laughing at me from the screen.

    I’m happiest when I’m writing for me, not you.

    Nothing personal, reader, and sure, I’d like to bring life to things that resonate.

    Find a true thing that connects.

    But I don’t know you.

    So I can’t write for you.

    I can only write for me.

    Because I’m you.

    You’re me.

    All of us part of the One Big Thing.

    Fragments of a universe.

    Walking each other home.

    Reframing narratives

    Based on the pitchfork stacking on LinkedIn, Simon Sinek has committed the great sin of pointing out that nonprofits have a perception problem.

    The word alone evokes images of positive penury, of volunteers glistening in the African sun as they stand side by side with villagers digging a well, their Birkenstocks tossed aside for a pair of TOMS because that’s the sensible brand to wear.

    I’m working on writing something more in-depth, because as someone who’s worked in the nonprofit sector and regularly thinks of himself as an idealist with a mortgage, I’d like to better understand the animus around Sinek’s podcast episode.

    Part of the problem is that, as Sinek points out, the word alone already is stating what you’re not about, and that’s a problem for us as humans.

    It’s like describing the Mona Lisa as being not a big painting. You’re not wrong, but you’re also not giving me a picture I can get my brain around.

    Plus as someone pointed out to me when talking about the fuss, “a hit dog always hollers”, which is probably the most country/Southern phrase I’ve ever put on paper before.

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