It varies by the hour. Sometimes, I have hope (I’ve signed up for my first DJ set a week from tomorrow at a regional burn); others, I see no future. It’s been a rough few months.

The sad reality is we have no call over any of this. It seems we’re doomed to define this for at least the next 3.72 years.

You know it’s serious when ire is being drawn. Usually, that’s not in body copy because it’s such an anachronism (ask me about Solons!), but in a 1-42-4, “draws ire” can save your ass given a condensed hed font.

The game being played here is unclear. This is like the final battle between Hanlon and Occam.

A man, a plan, a canal: Fascism.

Wait, that doesn’t work.

There’s a shockingly simple solution here.

I learned tonight that there’s an unusual nodule at the top of my right lung, after feeling like I was pissing myself from the contrast CT. It’s only 11x15mm, but best to catch these things early. I was having trouble breathing from stress, and after six hours it became a full-on panic attack, which I’ve only had once before, in 2009.

For those wondering, yes, I was a pack-a-day smoker from 1997 to ~2017 (a few bits back and forth … you can’t bring your own rig and juice into a detox). Because we’re clearly mixing in PCP and no one will notice.

Much like Nazism was not adopted by most Germans, Trumpism does not reflect the vast majority of Americans’ beliefs.

One of the first rules of being a strongman is that you flood the zone with the particular brand of shit that inflates your support, such that people start to believe resistance is futile.

Unfortunately, it works.

Anyone paying attention is well aware.

You have to concentrate them.

There’s definitely irony.

People have often asked who my idol is. Easy: Ernie Blake. Ernst Bloch, which was not going to go over so well, so, name change. He founded a ski area and set my life in a direction. He fled Germany in the '30s and became an intelligence officer in the U.S. Army.

It’s actually somewhat wild to think about. Imagine us putting Muslims in crucial roles for the War on Terror.

Every fucking time I tried to start a garden, I got divorced. Not causation.

Patton was a run at Taos Ski Valley. Along with Stauffenberg (failed Hitler assassin).

Do you really think I stumbled upon Powderhorn? Another designer said that he saw the sign (apologies to Ace of Base) leaning against to top of Lift 6. I went up the stairs to the founder’s widow’s apartment and asked for it to come down. And here we are.

My parents first went there in the '70s. “Hahnloser … Hahnloser … I know that name.”

Turned out, he’d been in boarding school with my grandfather.

I had a bit more pull as a kid than I should have, knowing that the gate on the backside wasn’t actually locked. One time, I was stopped by workers at the ski area, who asked what the hell I thought I was doing. “Well, Rhoda said …”

“Oh, if Rhoda said that, go all the way to the top!”

Leading to a flat tire at the top of Lift 7. Turns out Civics aren’t exactly meant for lift-maintenance roads. Who knew?

Upper Powderhorn remains the purview of a bar in Scottsdale, Ariz. It was an absurd name to take on, so I gave it to them. I didn’t expect the full-on Powderhorn sign to be in my wheelhouse. And yet … Taos is something of a weird place.

I went to the creamery in Arroyo Seco. Upon hitting the counter, the woman – absent any sort of context – explained with regret that they had no Oreo Malt. I’d not been in four years. I didn’t ask; she simply offered the data. Why the hell one might remember a 14-year-old several years later is an exercise left to the reader.

When I moved there to take on the special-sections editor role, I’d no idea that I was known. I drove to Rhoda’s house one afternoon, just outside of Seco. “Bullshit you came here for a random job,” she said.

I’d not. I can of course wax endlessly about what happened with Ernie and how we started out there … but this is not germane to the story. I was excluded from the requirement that kids at the Kinderkaefig be potty trained. Ernie told staff that “You will take him.”

Now, one might notice that this is not normal. My first memory is of Moonlight Sonata at the A-frame Kinderkaefig, with accompanying soup. Ernie was Bernie.

Working for The Taos News was a bit weird. I was about two decades out from hoping to end up there. It … wasn’t great. I didn’t have a great time there. I was pulled out of watching Obama’s first inauguration to talk with Realtors. And, well, my job came into specific relief. I was not to commit journalism, but rather to please advertisers. Let’s just say that didn’t sit well.

If you want to experience racism as a straight white male, might I suggest Taos? Not being Hispanic wasn’t useful. This aside, it was the sort of thing where one doesn’t realise what’s going on.

will not only break down and get into the soil but also make removing plants which grow through it harder to manage or remove

I was just trying to grow chile.

And fleeing is the best choice. The U.S. can plant its own fucking trees (which it won’t) while I finally feel a sense of relief on a trans-Atlantic flight.

Perfectly valid sentiment; wrong venue to voice it.

Nasty journalist checking in. “Nasty” simply means “unwilling to ignore objective facts.” This gets more Orwellian by the day. He was just off by 40 years.

I had a job recently where I was expected to clean the floors and bathroom when I was focused on billing and warehouse-receiving automation. “Stop making us money and be a compliant bitch” is absurd in any context.

That people on high have no concept of ROI is scarcely news; they just want control, outcomes be damned.

Oh, just now? Come on. He ran on dismantling the government, and somehow people thought he was kidding. That, and immigrants were causing all our problems.

I don’t see how we get ourselves out of this peacefully. Despite the party line being that everything will be better for business, what happens when domestic crops are left to rot in the fields because “the terrorists” were deported?

The kidnappings will continue until everyone who dares to claim that Palestinians are humans with rights are gone.

Next up? U.S. citizens. “Oh, we can’t do anything about that.”

This is a great rundown. I’ve never been in the ecosystem and thus have zero exposure.

But part of me thinks, having done development in noncoding roles and getting zero further compensation for, say, something that could save a corporate giant $7 million a year if fully rolled out, this is just grooming kids for what they’ll be subjected to after going into massive debt for a degree.