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It was another long weekend of cleaning–we did the 21-day re-spray for bedbugs after vacuuming everything again and checking the baseboards and the closets. I’m feeling hopeful that chemical warfare did the trick!

But wow, everything still feels like such a struggle: the extra cleaning, the everyday living, the elderly cat, the future. Maybe this explains it?

It’s probably a long weekend for most people for the Fourth tomorrow. America, I’m sorry your party has been crashed by assholes. Hang in there (said to America and also to all of us).

1. Incredibly sobering read on the “immigration enforcement” budget in the spending bill:

America is about to fund and build a huge secret police force that will, I promise you, be used to attack and imprison and exile the president’s enemies, of all sorts. Better to look this fact square in the face than to continue to kid ourselves as long as possible as we march down the road to the gulags.

2. It’s funny cause it’s true:

3. Maybe gorillas with helicopters can save us?

4. How being alive feels right now (“that’s awful”):

 

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This newsletter from Cheryl Strayed arrived this week as I was getting news about company layoffs (I’m not affected but I was RIGHT to be worried) and wow what a good reminder (emphasis mine):

Every time I’ve made or done something, I’ve felt better. It’s a fact I’ve returned to over and over again in these past months/years/decades in order to save myself or toss a lifeline to someone else. Action and creation are a salve, a balm, a cure.

Perhaps making and doing things is so powerful because in doing or making you break out of stasis. Even if only fleetingly, you get unstuck and, afterwards, have proof of that. Something exists because you made it. Something happened because you did it. You baked the cake and decorated it attentively and inexpertly. You showed up at the protest with longing in your heart and a smile on your face. You shot and edited the footage and now you’ve got a movie. You stitched the scraps of fabric together and ended up with a quilt. You put the seeds in the soil and eventually a flower bloomed. You put one foot in front of the other and then looked back and realized you’d covered all that ground on your own steam. Your troubles were not over. Your problems were not solved. But you had something. You did something. You could not deny that. You made it this far and making it this far meant you could keep going.

Keep up those hobbies, friends.

Compared with “maximalism” or “bro summer” of the last couple years, this summer’s word is shaping up to be “unsettled.” What’s unsettling me? A list:

• Bedbugs (although I haven’t gotten a bite in two weeks!)
• My job security (not a great time to depend on public health funding)
• Thinking of moving and spending money, because job security
• Toby aging
• Thinking of moving and upsetting Toby’s routine, because aging kitty
• Millcreek Canyon being under construction
• Living under increasing fascism

Other than re-spraying insecticide every 21 days and calling off the house search, I really can’t control any of these things. I can’t even go touch grass/wade in the stream in my preferred canyon spot. Even MORE unsettling!

So I’m trying to just sit with it (ugh) and get myself out of the house when it feels TOO bad. Even a neighborhood walk has delights:

I’ve had a pair of the lightest blue summer jeans cut out since May, then I tabled them to make a couple of pairs of gym pants that didn’t fit. I finally started them right before B-Day (the day of the discovery of bedbugs) and now I want to abandon them again to make a waterproof beach tote.

I know I will love them and wear them a lot, but I guess the jeans sewjo just isn’t there yet. Oh well! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

That fresh bite on my shoulder yesterday? It turned into a cluster of three bites and itched like hell all day. I realized I have seen ONE mosquito all month. On a whim, I googled, “Mosquito bite vs. bed bug bite,” and reader: OH FUCK.

Bed bugs bite in a line or cluster (all of my bites) and itch and swell for even longer than mosquito bites (all of my bites) and can leave a dark mark after they finally stop being active (all of my bites). So I tore the bed apart yesterday afternoon into evening and OOOH FUUUUCK:

My brother is on his way over right now with commercial spray and all of my clothes and every piece of fabric that can’t get boiled are going to bake in my car in the sun all day (120 degrees for 30 minutes kills bed bugs and eggs. Learning!).

BUT OH MY GOD. I would be more eloquent about it all but I spent the night on an air mattress having a low-grade panic attack, so I am not at my best.

Good lord. So much nope.

When you keep getting bitten by Mystery Mosquitoes on your face and neck every night for a month, you break down and order something from Amazon:

Is this ridiculous? Maybe. But does it work? YES. I still got a bite on my shoulder at some point last night when I got up with Toby so I need to remember to cover up when I get out of bed  (and also find where these little fuckers are living, omg I am going crazy).

But I have slept under my head tent for two nights and I have NO new face bites!  Now I just need the 4 on my forehead to stop itching and get the 2 on my eyelids to fade and hope the 6 on my neck don’t leave too much of a mark, either…

The Present and Correct blog had a brief post on pigeon whistles, “a small musical instrument that is attached to the tail of the pigeon so that it produces a sound when it flies.” I read the linked article about the history (very cool) but what on earth would that sound like?

The modern internet is mostly a hellscape BUT you know you can find an example of just about anything… including the sound of pigeon whistles on a flock of birds.

There’s another musical trend on TikTok–not a sea shanty but remixes of the incredibly catchy little song about Steve the Fish:

@vigzvigz steve le poisson steve musique par @tomo ♬ STEVE tomomp3 – vigz

And because this is FrenchTok, people are reimagining the song in the style of Erik Satie

@vanillefleurcannelle Steve le ✨poiiiiiii✨ le poisson Steve ! allez écouter la version longue de @tomo #lepoissonsteve #stevelepoisson #piano #cover #tomo #parodie #piano #cover #pianocover ♬ son original – vanille.guiri

Or medieval polyphony

@musica.antiqua Le Poisson Medieval Steve #lepoissonsteve #poissonsteve ♬ STEVE tomomp3 – vigz

There’s even reggae–“Le poisson le plus chill du monde” as a comment says.

@dubsilence Le poisson Steve 🐟 Reggae Version 💚💛❤️ Big up @tomo & @vigz 🤝 #poissonsteve #reggae #dubsilence ♬ Poisson Steve Reggae Version – Dub Silence

Last week it was frogs, this week it’s an accidental collection of chicken things. First up, via Kottke:  Clickens.chickens.pics, a site where you “judge paintings of chickens based on characteristics like persistence, altruism, petulance, clairvoyance, and friendliness.” I don’t know why it’s so fun to click a chicken picture based on “Which is more hapless?” or “Which is more fashion?” but it is.

And I saved this Reel, because every time I watch it I have a new favorite. Currently it’s Yeti, who’s just happy to be here.

 

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