I hate most pictures of myself, but here's one that I don't. The composition is perfect, and if I do say so myself, it belongs in a history book next to the famous one of the Capitol police acting all concerned the words "Eat the Rich" scrawled in chalk after the first big protest (documented in this post.) This is the sign that I always take to ICE protests after someone let me keep it after I offered to hold it while she drew on the sidewalk. I never saw her again.

Yesterday I went straight from an ICE protest at Home Deport to a conversion therapy protest at the Capitol, so I still had this sign with me as I passed through Temple Square like I usually do to get to the Capitol. I was reminded of an incident from my first protest against Trump's Muslim ban in 2017 (which started at the very same federal building in the picture), when I was still Mormon and had to commute from a different city. Here's the relevant excerpt from the relevant blog post, with its horrible grammar intact:

Ah yes, I remember when that was my most traumatizing encounter with police. Ha. Ha ha.

Actually, until I looked it up just now, I had forgotten about the "Even if you're just walking through," but if I had remembered it, that wouldn't have stopped me from intentionally keeping the "Oh Boy... Nazis" side of my sign facing out as I walked through Temple Square both ways. Since I'm not Mormon anymore, I can say "Fuck those guys" without feeling guilty. Fuck those guys. Anyway, attendance was sparse this time, and I don't think any of the ten people I saw took any notice of me. On the way down Capitol Hill before I reached Temple Square, though, I saw several companionships of sister missionaries walking up to their apartments, and I thought it would be kind of funny to make sure the words on my sign were visible to them as we crossed paths. Most of them took no notice of me either, but I got a mumbled "Have a good day," a cheery "Hello!", and a head silently turned for a good look at my sign. Or maybe my ass, but probably my sign. This is just the part of my weekly political activism that I chose to share because it took little time or effort to write about.

I quit Spotify Premium to protest the company running racist ICE recruitment ads. It's so desperate to get me back that it's offering me two months for free, which I intend to take before canceling again. I still did the Wrapped thing. I looked into the Unwrapped thing, but I couldn't figure out how to work it because none of the available GIFs looked entirely applicable to my situation. Anyway, I pride myself on my vast, eclectic music tastes, which give me far more opportunities for pleasure than you have if you're normal, so my favorite statistic was that I listened to 793 genres. That was even cooler than listening to 141,696 minutes (98 days). My top genres were desert blues, soundtrack, singer-songwriter, jazz, and oldies, none of which are represented in my top ten songs, and my listening age was 85 due to my proclivity for music from the late 50s. Yes, I am awesome, thanks for noticing. Without further ado, here's what I promised in the title.

Party like it's 1399! There's a shorter single edit, but why would I want that?

I regard Roxette's "Joyride" as one of the most perfect albums of all time, and this year I delved into the demos on the 30th anniversary edition. It's cool and refreshing to hear songs that are embedded into my psyche with different vocals (almost always by Per Gessel) and instrumentation. I kept coming back to this one because of the nostalgic Christmassy handbell sound before the chorus and the doo-doo-doo-doo, doo-doo after the badass guitar licks at the end that's done with a keyboard or something in the finished product but with a piano here.

This nostalgic banger made a long overdue appearance on Spotify this year, then disappeared again after a few months. It's literally greyed out on my Wrapped playlist. If the band got off Spotify to protest it running racist ICE recruitment ads, that would be one thing, but no, their other inferior songs are still there, damn it.

I love futuristic sounds from the past. Forward-looking nostalgia, or retrofuturism, or whatever. And of course I love planets and aliens. This track sounds appropriately cold and wistful.

I mentioned this jam months ago because I know it must have been an uncredited inspiration for the Beach Chant in the Mata Nui Online Game (2001). I really enjoyed getting high, sitting under a tree, and meditating to it until I couldn't feel my body.

This song is one of my favorites to listen to while I'm high.

I found this space disco group in 2020, and they disappeared from Spotify shortly thereafter. This year they came back, but alas, only with eleven tracks, which are missing some of my favorites. But at least I was so desperate for scraps that I gave this entirely un-space-related track a chance.

The finished product has superior instrumentation, but this version has a level of energy in the chorus that seems to have gotten lost. I imagine Per Gessel rocking out on top of a train like in a Bollywood song I saw once.

This song is so gay, I'm surprised Trump doesn't dance to it with his signature jerking-off-two-elephants move. I forget what late-show comedian I stole part of that joke from. Probably Jon Stewart, but don't quote me on that.

A catchy Algerian dance track from the late 80s, which I enjoy very much even though she could be singing "Death to Americans" for all I know.

On one occasion, I took two Kush Kubes because they were stuck together, and I decided the universe wanted me to have both of them. On another occasion, my first Kush Kube didn't have as much of an effect after a while as I'd hoped, and I supplemented it with another one. With those exceptions, though, I take only one each time. Conventional wisdom would suggest that my body would become desensitized to the drug, and I'd be tempted to take higher doses to achieve the same high. That doesn't happen. If anything, the intensity of the highs have trended upward, and the last couple of times were so intense that I've decided to take a break for a month. I picked a month because I'll want to get high again when I'm home alone on Christmas.

I have no regrets so far. Psychedelics have given me the most spiritual, pleasurable, and peaceful experiences of my life. Even these last couple of times, which included some fear and paranoia, were awesome and totally worth it. Best Thanksgiving ever. It was like being strapped to a rocket, even more so than usual. I lost more control than I'm used to - or did I only lose the illusion of control? There are philosophical and scientific arguments to be made that free will is bogus, so maybe psychedelics help me see that I'm just a puppet. Then again, I tend to write weirder texts to my friends when I'm on them, with full knowledge that they're weird and that my friends will find them amusing, so maybe it's not that simple. I wish everyone could feel what I've felt, and I know that I sound insane to anyone who's never felt what I've felt. I'm just taking a break because I don't want to die yet. I don't think one of these things could actually kill me, but I felt like I was going to die or at least have a stroke, so better safe than sorry. I wanted to submit to the experience, but not if it was a medical emergency.

Without any kind of neuroscience expertise, I assume the experiences are getting more intense because I'm permanently rewiring my brain, so each dose of the drug is building off what's already in my head. I do believe I'm permanently rewiring my brain because since I started, my depression has been drastically reduced, I laugh a lot more often, and I have more introspective thoughts without really trying. Again, psychedelics have been overwhelmingly positive for me, but look, I'm trying to be responsible and acknowledging that they're not without risks. I can go without them for a month. I can go without them whenever I want. I've found that my body craves them for a couple of hours ahead of time if I've decided I'm going to take one on a given day, but if I've decided I won't, it doesn't. Simple as that. Anyway, I think the "negative" aspects of my recent experiences are decent preparation for the scary but necessary parts of psilocybin trips. Psilocybin is my goal, the reason I got interested in psychedelics to prepare for death in the first place, but I'm also kind of scared, which is why I should prepare for that by taking as many Kush Kubes as possible - but one at a time, with sufficient rest periods in between.

I've found most of my roommates over the years annoying because I hate living with people in general. The last one I had in Logan was actually an asshole. The one who now lives on the other end of the basement from me and is always in her room or at work doesn't bother me much, though she is kind of a monster because she never lets her cats out of her room, which has no windows, and sometimes when she's at work, I can hear them mewing and scratching at the door. The one who moved in right next to me a few months ago bothers me a lot.

​Since I'm striving to have a spiritual outlook on life, I try to see him as an opportunity to practice love and patience instead of just stewing in resentment when he bothers me. I tolerate the little hairs that he sheds on every surface in the bathroom - yes, even the ceiling, God knows how. I carry my shampoo back and forth from the bathroom even though I should leave it in there without him using it. I didn't murder him when I found one of his little hairs on the underside of the lid of my mouthwash. I decided it's okay for him to use my cookware as long as he doesn't try to take it with him when he moves. I pretended not to know how to count when one of my cans of soda mysteriously went missing. But I broke a little when I went to make a sandwich and found my mayonaise like this:

Now, the best-by date of this mayonaise was July 30, so I probably wouldn't have been able to finish it before I didn't feel safe eating it anymore, and maybe it's a good thing that he ate half of it without asking. But I couldn't find a way to make myelf not enraged by the chunk of meat and the bits of sauce. What the hell is wrong with this guy? I have sincerely tried to figure out why he might believe it's okay to use my stuff and eat my food without asking, but this is objectively unreasonable by any standard. Still, even though I wanted to stab him, I retained my neurotic desire for him to like me - years of being bullied, ostracized, and ignored can do that to a person - which made me reluctant to call him out. I did anyway. I had to draw the line and stand up for myself. He was at work, so I just texted him this picture and said, "Please don't do this to my food," without a period because sometimes those make text messages sound threatening. And then I blocked him for a few hours because I didn't want to have an anxiety attack waiting for his response. I'm not proud of that, but baby steps, I guess.

​If my current beliefs are on the right track, then this guy is here to teach me love and patience, and we planned that before we were born. I'm trying to keep that perspective, which makes the loss of food that I spent my own money feel like less of a problem. Of course, that doesn't mean I'm going to ignore objectively unreasonable behavior and let him infringe on my property rights any way he wants, but I can be nice about standing up for myself. I still hope he moves soon.

Sorry for the short notice, but there's an economic blackout to protest Trump from November 25 through December 2. I'm stocking up on food and withdrawing some cash. I'll probably go out to eat at the local taco truck and nowhere else. I just had Friendsgiving with some friends, and I plan to spend Thanksgiving proper at home alone getting high. Don't feel sorry for me. I'm really, really looking forward to it. My roommate with the cats will probably be here too, not bothering me. I hope my other roommate has somewhere else to go.

I don't expect anyone is using my blog as their primary source of political news, so I don't expect I need to go into a lot of detail about the things I want to get off my chest. First, the bad news. Democrats lost their balls and caved on the shutdown. I don't think it's the apocalyptic failure that some people are worried about, though. Maybe it will even be for the best in the long run. Republicunts were probably never going to negotiate on the healthcare subsidies, which would have expired in December anyway. Republicunts were willing to starve children to avoid negotiating on the healthcare subsidies. They. Are. Not. Good. People. And as the party controlling every branch of government and refusing to work with the opposition, they were responsible for the shutdown, and most Americans know it.

The worse news, for me, is that the funding bill to end the shutdown includes an entirely unrelated provision to close the loophole in the 2018 farm bill that allows me to legally purchase gummies with THC in them. I know my accounts of being high mean very little to the people who didn't experience them, but Kush Kubes have changed my life. I daresay they've permanently rewired my brain in good ways. I laugh a lot more often, I'm more introspective, and my depression is almost gone. After hearing this news, I thought I was depressed, but then I realized that I actually felt nothing, and I was just telling myself I was depressed because feeling nothing feels bad compared to feeling good, but as soon as I recognized and excised that thought pattern, I felt fine. This is the first time that the orange taint's presidency has had a substantial negative effect on me personally, but I didn't wait that long to start protesting because I care about people who aren't me. Anyway, there's still a year for the hemp industry to try to get this provision changed, and all drugs will be legal someday, and in the worst-case scenario, I'll just have to use real weed like most of my friends.

Good news: the Supreme Court paused its wholesale destruction of democracy and social progress to tell Kim Davis to fuck off. To me, nothing represents modern Christianity more than a woman who's been married four times trying to ban other people's marriages because they're against her beliefs. Because I don't believe in mocking people's physical appearances, I won't joke about how strange it is for such an ugly woman to be married four times. I was in college when the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. I should have been thrilled about it, like other people my age. Instead, I felt sick and depressed because Mormonism had taught me that same-sex marriage would destroy society, and now it had definitively lost that fight, and society would label me as a bigot. I tried to tiptoe around LGBTQ issues on my blog because my religion's positions on them were embarrassing and clashed with my own conscience, but I couldn't admit that to the world. I will never forgive Mormonism for doing that to me. Let me be unambiguous now, much too late: I support same-sex marriage, I support this decision, and any sorry excuse for a god who creates gay people and then tells them not to do what makes them happy can go to hell. Of course, there's nothing brave about making this statement now. Most Americans support same-sex marriage now because none of the bullshit we were warned would happen has happened.

More good news: the Democrats released some emails they subpoenaed from Epstein's estate, which make his former best friend and current US president look even worse than he already did. The orange taint is crapping his pants. More than usual, I mean. As much as I wish he would die already, it gives me satisfaction to know that every waking moment of his existence is miserable. And I'm optimistic that this issue will destroy his presidency, despite his inhuman immunity to consequences for his actions, simply because of how very hard he's trying to keep those files hidden. This is the guy who said, accurately, ""I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters," so whatever's in the files must be... wow. The fact that the world's most notorious sex trafficker called him "evil beyond belief" in one of these emails could be a bit of foreshadowing. And of course, because I'm not in a cult, I want every Democrat who's implicated in these crimes to go to prison for life too. Dear MAGA cultists, in the unlikely event that any of you are reading this: the best time to abandon your orange Messiah was ten years ago, but the second best time is now. You will always be remembered for your mindless, unwavering support of the worst person in the world - sorry, nothing can change that now - but you can at least redeem yourselves a tiny little bit by drawing the line somewhere.

Or you can keep saying the emails are fake, like the dipshits you are. Whatever.