Previous post for context

I am no longer withholding the purple-haired girl's identity because she turned out to be a public figure and small business owner, and I don't care if she finds out that I think she's hot. Her name is Amber. Like I said, she looks like an Amber and could only ever have been an Amber. She told me she would start speaking on the hill in Liberty Park every Saturday at one, so last week and this week, I went there and waited. Well, last week I was already at the park for an event to commemorate John Lewis, but this week I went there for one purpose alone. She didn't show. It was fine because last week I befriended an unusually brave squirrel, and this week I heard a guy playing cool music on a weird instrument. But she didn't show at the Sunday drum circle these past two weeks either, so I couldn't ask her what the hell.

I'm moving in a few days and will find it more difficult to get to the park, but I was so confident that I met her for a reason and couldn't let it end here that, without any help from drugs, I worked up the courage to ask someone about her even though he might think I was a stalker. I told myself I could live with someone thinking I was a stalker. Wouldn't be the first time. I'd seen this guy hanging out with her, looking like a shaman in his own right, and assumed they were close. It turns out he's only met her the same number of times I have, but he had her business card and let me look at it. Sometimes life is so confusing, and then sometimes things just fall into place!

As soon as I saw it, I was like, yeaaah... I don't believe the kind of stuff she believes, and I shouldn't pretend I do just because I think she's hot, even though that's the most logical course of action. But that doesn't mean I should be entirely close-minded and think she can't teach me anything, right? On an unrelated note, when this guy learned my name, he asked how old I was, then explained that when he was in third grade, a psychotic classmate named Christopher stabbed him in the hand with a pencil and the lead broke off inside. I did stab a classmate with a pencil once, but we were older, I didn't stab him that hard, and it was because he was harassing a girl, and when he told the teacher, she laughed at him. True story.

Amber Lynn Patten's website didn't work. I looked around her socials, and I found another web address that didn't work and one that did, but then the link to schedule a magic consultation didn't work. I saw something about reading auras, which reminded me of my delusional pathological liar neighbor who told me she could read auras, but that's whatever. I found a Facebook post about me. It also has pictures of her sitting in a tree, which I won't reproduce here because I'm more conscientious about photographers' and artists' copyrights than I was in my early days of blogging. Here's her side of part of the story that I told about her:

She left out the part where she drugged me without my consent. Interesting. Jokes aside, since nothing bad happened to me, I decided it was hot that she did that, so maybe I'm a douche or something.

Anyway, I asked her about sermons because I thought she'd said she gave sermons, but in fairness, I was high at the time I thought she said that. I wasn't high when she said that she would give these "sermons" on the hill, which is very close to the gazebo by the pond but is not the same place. Also, I notice that in this post, she didn't say what time she'd be there. On the plus side, I guess she doesn't have the planning skills to be a cult leader.

"Skeptical but open-minded." Did you notice that phrase? I did, because I've used it to describe myself, and I didn't tell her that, so it's obviously a sign. No, but really. I'm skeptical because I don't believe in any of the magic stuff I read about on her pages, but I'm open-minded because I will believe in them if she gives me sufficient evidence. Not that I intend to challenge or argue with her, but I will ask and listen. I really don't care what people believe as long as they live by good values. Amber sells stuff, so maybe she's a grifter, but I'll reserve judgment on that point. I can imagine Mormons reading this and being all like "Yeah, bro, that's obvious priestcraft, and that's why women can't hold the priesthood" and then continuing to pay ten percent of their income and countless hours of free labor to a church that has hundreds of billions of dollars and tried really hard to keep people from knowing it.

I called the number on her business card, and she didn't answer, but at least it worked. So I texted her, and she hasn't responded yet, so I don't have anything juicy to share. Not that I intend, in the event of us having serious conversations about spirituality, consciousness, and the metaphysical, to share every word she writes or says, but I had to at least follow up on my previous post. Again, I'm not violating her privacy, I'm giving her free publicity. Not that she needs it from my woefully obscure little blog.

On an entirely unrelated note, on my way out of the park this evening, I encountered a friendly guy whom I had a little trouble understanding because English was his second language, but in the course of our interaction he asked me if I like men and invited me to go drink beer with him and then he'd suck my dick. The language barrier compounded my natural awkwardness and reluctance to emphatically say no to people. He asked questions about the shape and size of my dick. Oh, sir, it's very small, ridiculously small, much too small for you to bother with. I extricated myself from that by saying I needed to go home and get some work done. I should've just said, "I can't, I'm Mormon." He gave me a fist bump and never stopped smiling, which assuaged my guilt about rejecting him. It reminded me of the time as a kid when I was in the hayloft with an older (but still minor) cousin, and he whipped his out and told me he'd send me money when he got home if I sucked it, and I didn't think about it or realize how fucked up it was until years later. My family has issues, y'all. I still judge my cousin a hell of a lot less for that than for supporting Trump.

I confirmed from Amber's socials that she doesn't support Trump, but I would have bet my life on that anyway. And like I said, her values are more important than her beliefs. I know I can learn from her even if her beliefs are bullshit. (I said "if." Open-minded.)

Here's a couple of fun pictures I took at the planned-but-allegedly-soon-to-be-sold-due-to-public-backlash ICE warehouse in Salt Lake City. ​I'm not concerned about photographing these people, since we were all captured on two hundred security cameras anyway.

If you look closely, you'll notice the little bitch sitting in front of the warehouse with his hands behind his head, going out of his way to show that he wasn't bothered by us. If that were true, of course, he wouldn't have kept his entire face hidden or stayed fifty feet away from the property line. If you zoom in, you'll notice that his mask looks like a third-grader's Halloween costume, but that's the sort of thing that makes MAGAts jizz themselves. The mask, I mean, but also third-graders, now that I think of it.

I don't know who made the ICE dummy - the hanging one, I mean - but it first made an appearance at the rally in Washington Square Park earlier that evening for the latest two innocent people murdered by this fascist trash. As it was carried away afterward, it drew positive attention from some bystanders, including one who eagerly opined that "these fuckers need to get the fuck out of our country." To me, it was a breath of fresh air. We're constantly told that we have a responsibility to be loving and tolerant toward people who go gleefully go around being as shitty as possible. We're told that it's wrong to wish any harm on them, even though the world would be drastically improved by their deaths. I'm speaking of all Trump supporters, but of course, that goes triple for the fascist secret police they love so much. ICE agents deserve every ounce of hate they get, and much, much more. They deserve to have their jobs made more difficult. They deserve to have crippling mental health problems from being harassed and taunted. They deserve to live in fear. They deserve to be prosecuted and get the same thing other fascists have gotten. They deserve all of that because they are pieces of shit, and it's so very refreshing to admit that instead of playing along with society's delusion that everyone deserves to be loved no matter what they do.

When I had a turn at the megaphone, I advised the little bitch in the Halloween mask to kill himself instead of waiting to see what's in store for him when Daddy Trump can't protect him anymore. The people responsible for this regime need to be held accountable when (not if) it falls, or the US will never recover. Welcoming their Confederate ancestors back into society instead of executing them for treason is part of the reason we're in this mess to begin with. Extrajudicial violence against ICE agents is not an effective approach, though, because it will just give their daddy the excuse he's been begging for to declare a civil war and escalate his authoritarian crackdowns. Is it morally wrong? Fuck no. Normal people look back at people who killed Gestapo agents or SS officers as heroes, but many of those same people will clutch their pearls and say "Violence is never the answer" if you so much as suggest that a modern thug who gets off on brutalizing people and tearing families apart deserves to die. That double standard pisses me off. Of course, they're not as bad as the millions of people who think they would have stood up to the original Nazis but are doing the exact opposite now that they have a chance to show their true character.

​This is also where I had a disagreement with Mary about the ICE agent piñata we destroyed a few months ago. While understanding the sentiment, she felt that it was misguided to hate individual agents with families who love them instead of just the system they're part of, and that the piñata should have depicted a piece of legislation instead of a person. The more I think about it, the more I have the opposite perspective. A piece of legislation never hurt anyone. Not once in all of history. People hurt people. ​If President Jackass didn't have a steady supply of assholes eager to do his bidding, he couldn't do shit with all the legislation, executive orders, and 2 a.m. Truth Social bowel movements in the world. Furthermore, it's the twenty-first century, we live in a country with unrestricted internet access, and ICE agents are perfectly aware that what they're doing is wrong. They're not victims. They're not helpless cogs in a machine. They're fascist trash and deserve to be treated as such. I don't give a fuck if they have families who love them. So did most of the original Nazis. "He was a father" is something you say when you know that a dead man had no redeeming qualities.

I sound like I'm trembling with rage, don't I? Nah, I just like using strong, blunt language instead of tiptoeing around truths that I'm not supposed to say. Again, it's refreshing. If you're offended by anything I wrote but not by what ICE is doing to people, you need to take a long look in the mirror and ask yourself why you're a consummate failure of a human being.

When I take edibles, for the most part, I stay home where it's safe. I might walk around the neighborhood a little. A couple of weeks ago, I decided to try the drum circle in Liberty Park, where at least half of the people are also on drugs. It was farther from my home than I'd ever gone in such a state before, and the walk was stressful, as I kept worrying that I couldn't trust my eyes and might be hit by the cars or trains that appeared to be a block away. Then I got to the park and worried that someone would stab me. I'd probably be a great driver in that state because I was hyperaware of every potential threat. I'd thought I would participate in the drum circle, but I just watched. The cops showed up as I was walking away, and people started shouting some number that was obviously a warning about the cops, and I shouted it too because fuck the cops. Without knowing any context, I had no reason to assume they'd come for any reason but to harass someone much less dangerous than them for doing something harmless. Many of the people who gather there are on the outskirts of society, and probably sometimes it's because they're awful, but usually it's because society is awful. In this diverse community of weird people who like  music and drugs and look out for each other, I see the faces of God.

​Last week, I went back with less paranoia and more intention to participate. I still noticed people. For instance, I noticed a guy who looked a lot like me, beard and all, except that he was more handsome and his shirtless torso was a normal shape. I don't spend much energy worrying about my looks, but the fact that I could have looked like him if I'd been just a little luckier in the genetic lottery kind of bummed me out. But then my attention was monopolized by her. I'd noticed the attractive purple-haired girl dancing there before, at which point she already looked familiar; I think she may have been at the birthday party where we destroyed an ICE agent piñata, but I really don't know. I found her attractive on her own merits and not just because I like purple hair because it makes right-wing males lose their shit. Now, as she chatted with two friends in costumes with big wings for dancing, I really noticed her because edibles make everything more beautiful. They also had the side effect of convincing me to do something unwise that I wouldn't have even considered if I'd been in a more rational state. Yes, I decided to talk to her.

Inside the drum circle, a shrine of flowers and rocks had sprung up for some purpose I couldn't guess.

The purple-haired girl deposited a rock, then prostrated herself before the shrine. Then some old guy tossed a nickel on the grass behind her for whomever wanted it. I searched for a minute, but it had vanished, and I moved away from her so I wouldn't be creepier than necessary. (Note: this detail will be important later. The nickel, I mean, not me being creepy.) The old guy dumped several rocks on the shrine. I got a rock that I thought looked nice, and I thought asking the girl if I was allowed to put stuff on the shrine would be a good opening, but she was still busy worshipping, and the old guy was lingering, and I decided I should be a good person and try to make human connections with people I'm not attracted to, so I asked him instead. He said yes, and then he picked up his rocks one by one and showed me the fossils in them. He had little fish and what he claimed was a dinosaur vertebra.

The next time I noticed the purple-haired girl, she was holding a little burny thing and wafting the smoke over people's bodies one at a time. An even better opening! Whatever she was doing, there could be no harm in asking her to do it to me. In hindsight, the smoke could have been carcinogenic, but probably no more so than ordinary Salt Lake City air. I watched and waited patiently for her to finish with someone. She saw me looking and held out her burny thing with an inquisitive look. I nodded vigorously. She walked over, and I asked what she was doing while she did it. She said she was an energy healer who always knew what to say, and something about casting out negative energy. I think it was Reiki. I've seen some YouTube videos where a woman wafts smoke at the screen to make good things happen. She told me to stand with my feet apart, and she told me to lift them one at a time so she could waft under the soles, and of course I was more than happy to take orders from her.

This is the sort of thing that I don't believe in from a scientific perspective, but I'm not prepared to denounce it as bullshit because I've had a genuine healing experience with ThetaHealing, which I didn't have a strong belief in either but tried because my mom wanted me to. At a minimum, rituals have proven psychological benefits regardless of belief, and positive attention from beautiful women also has psychological benefits for some people, which it turns out can be very much amplified by certain drugs. She finished with me and moved on. Not that I was paying particularly close attention, but I saw her talking to a dozen other people, and I'm sure I didn't imprint myself into her brain with the force of a sledgehammer like she did into mine. I have no illusions about the nature of our interaction. But damn, it was nice.

I danced in the drum circle, but I suppose I started off tense and awkward, because after a couple of minutes, the purple-haired girl danced over to me and told me to relax and not worry about what people think. Outside of an emergency, I would never intentionally go into a woman's personal space and tell her what to do, but I wasn't mad. I told her I was brave because I was high. I had at least two reasons for sharing that - to absolve myself of responsibility for anything weird I said in my uncharacteristic confidence, and to put her at ease by letting her know that I was under the influence of something and therefore vulnerable. Oh, and part of me still thinks it's just funny to announce to anyone who will listen that I do drugs. Of course, she was just like, "That's understandable," totally unfazed. I told her she looked familiar and I wondered if we'd hung out with the same people, and she said maybe I'd been at one of her sermons, and I asked about her sermons, but she didn't hear me or intentionally changed the subject. I shared with her my feeling that most people there at the park would love me unconditionally while a small percentage would want to stab me. She affirmed the first part and said to let her know if there was anything she could do for me. I didn't even get her name.

I saw a friend from protesting, and because I was high, I went up and greeted him instead of avoiding him to recharge my introvert batteries. He invited me over to where a mutual friend I didn't know nearly as well was having a birthday party, much smaller and more low-key than the one where we destroyed an ICE agent piñata. I chilled with them and had some food, definitely not watching the purple-haired girl from a distance at any point, and then as it got dark, I helped them pick up. My friend handed me a bag full of earrings and stuff like that. As I took it from him, I let it slip and spill some stuff. When I picked the stuff up, guess what else was in my hand?

A nickel. A freaking nickel. I swear to God.

It occurred to me later that the nickel may have already been in the bag, which would mean that I stole it, but that's not how people typically carry loose change. At the time, it blew my mind, and I think it would have blown my mind even if I hadn't been high. While of course I have no proof and of course it could have been a coincidence, I don't think I'm at all unreasonable or psychotic for considering this a plausible sign from the universe - though of what, I haven't a damn clue.

I thought I would end the post there, but I held off so I could report on further developments without delay. Long story short, I thought about the purple-haired girl all week, then had anxiety for most of the day because I figured the next time I talked to her she would say she's pansexual and polyamorous and still not interested. That's the kind of thing that would happen to me. Having a great interest in spirituality, I sincerely wanted to learn from her, but the ulterior motive of finding her very hot made me conflicted. I showed up much earlier today despite the record-breaking heat, and an hour and a half later, during which time my keffiyeh made me two new friends, I saw her somehow looking even hotter now with her purple hair up. I left for a brief walk to calm my pounding heart because this time, against my better judgment, I'd come sober. I thought I should courageously face my fears without a crutch, and I thought she deserved to see my  personality without enhancements. (Feel free to say "Awwww.") Also, I just got high on Friday and didn't want to overdo it. I came back and waited my turn to talk to her again.

Two things stood out. First, I brought up the sermon thing again. Her explanation wasn't entirely clear - it sounded like she gives sermons to individuals, and other people just happen to show up and listen. She mentioned tarot card readings, and those, unlike Reiki, are something I consider bullshit. I presume she says things that apply to most people but still feel individualized, then has an excuse for why she pulls different cards if she does it a second time. Still, I'd be lying if I said she couldn't read my tarot cards whenever she wants. Anyway, she said that she believes everything is meant to happen and I was meant to say this to her, so now, solely because of me saying that to her, she'll start giving weekly public sermons for whomever shows up. I won't say when or where because even though nobody reads my blog, it would be just my luck for someone local to read my blog and then show up to embarrass me.

And what was the second thing? Oh yes, drugs. She again offered her assistance if I needed anything, but this time she specified that she grows mushrooms. I said I want to do mushrooms, but I want to be careful and not rush into it and have a bad experience. She shook her head and said that was a misconception, that people are scared of mushrooms, but mushrooms give them what they need, not what they want, and I needed to be confident and brave and get in touch with my "higher self," which is a concept I've heard and am agnostic about. I'm careful to phrase most of my spiritual beliefs as opinions, but most spiritual people, like most religious people, don't - and though she'd just done it with "I believe everything is meant to happen," that epistemological humility was a distant memory now. Anyway, she saw right through the courage I'd mustered up to talk to her and told me that I should do psilocybin microdoses for my anxiety. She said psilocybin would rebuild the neural pathways by all the (hypothetical) weed and alcohol I've ever had. indicated one of the people she was hanging out and liberally smoking weed with - a man who may have been her boyfriend, though he seemed a little old for her - and told me of the miracles psilocybin had done for his memory after being shot in the head.

She gave me a capsule that she claimed was a psilocybin microdose to get started. It was transparent and full of powder that looked like sand, which reminded me of a John Oliver segment I watched recently about unregulated gas station drugs that contain all kinds of random shit in God knows what doses. I thought I'd put it in my pocket and then maybe or maybe not ever consume it, but she said I needed to take it right now. Before I could stall, she put it in my mouth herself. Then she put her water bottle in my mouth to wash it down. I mean, she didn't overpower me. I could have easily punched her in the face. I didn't because she was hot. No, I am not proud of myself.

I figured whatever happened to me after that was her responsibility, so if I had the worst experience of my life because I couldn't say no to a hot woman who smiled at me, she'd have to guide me through it. I figured if I died, oh well, it had to happen sooner or later. All the capsule did was lower my cortisol levels and make me a little happier, like she said it would. That was fine, but jeez. Outside of an emergency, I would never make a woman ingest a drug. Now I also feel like a douche for being excited to share this story because it's one of the more interesting things that's happened to me. It wasn't exactly something I imagined when I tried to calm myself by objectively reviewing the best and worst probable outcomes of talking to her. And as much as I brag about doing drugs and being a bad boy, I'm still so sheltered that when someone in the drum circle offered me a weed cigarette, I declined because I thought it was tobacco. It's probably for the best that I didn't mix ingredients on my first try of psilocybin anyway.

At last I got the purple-haired girl's name (though she didn't ask mine), and of course it matched her face perfectly and was the only name she ever could have had. Anyway, I need someone to make me less lonely before I end up in a cult, please and thank you.

I've never felt less like celebrating my country than I do now. A country that elects the worst person in the world twice after he's shown it exactly who he is deserves to be mocked, not celebrated. Still, its 250th birthday (which is obviously more significant than its 249th birthday or its 251st birthday) will only happen once, so I didn't boycott the festivities. I admit it was pretty fun to watch everything the orange taint did to promote himself for the occasion turn into a massive, abysmal failure - every music artist except Vanilla Ice refused to participate in his concert, his wrestling match was delayed by a thunderstorm, his newly renovated pool turned green, and his great American state fair shut down after all seven attendees got heat-related illnesses from that climate change thing they don't believe in. And today, DC residents were told to stay inside because his massive fireworks show made the air unbreathable, which is a pretty good analogy for everything he does to suck his own dick at our expense.

In Salt Lake City, fireworks are banned because Utah is experiencing the largest wildfires in state history from that climate change thing it doesn't believe in. What we really need is the largest data center in the country to give us more water. Naturally, many Utahns responded to this restriction to protect people's homes from burning down the same way they responded when they were told to wear masks in public so they didn't kill people during a global pandemic. The entitlement is simply nauseating and another symptom of the rot going to the core of this country that gave us two terms of President Trump. I want to scream in their faces that they can shove their "liberty" up their self-absorbed asses. As citizens of a society composed primarily of other people, they do not have a right, constitutional or otherwise, to set off explosives in areas with a high fire risk, no matter how pretty they think the colors are, and frankly, if they feel that strongly about fireworks, they have the minds of toddlers, which explains a lot. I find that the novelty of fireworks wears off after a few seconds, I hate not being able to sleep for a week in July because my douchebag neighbors are setting them off every night, and there's also the small matter of animals, babies, and veterans being traumatized just so people can see the pretty colors.

So anyway, Salt Lake City did a drone show instead. The lady next to me said "This is so much cooler than fireworks" at least thrice, and she wasn't wrong. I lived in the moment and watched it instead of filming on my phone, but I did take pictures of the beginning and the end when it paused for suitable intervals.

In between, the drones shifted and formed events and icons from American history - the Boston tea party, John Hancock's signature, the first airplane, the (fake) moon landing, ​the flag raising on Iwo Jima, Rosie the Riveter, Elvis, Michael Jackson, baseball, football, the Empire State Building, and the Statue of Liberty. They depicted Harriet Tubman and Martin Luther King, which was a nice way to acknowledge the worst parts of American history without bringing down the mood. I certainly don't expect a lot of nuance from a drone show, but it shouldn't be pure propaganda, either. It depicted protesters holding signs, with no clear implication of any specific protest, apparently to convey the message that protesters have made various things better throughout history. I was with some of the friends I've made through protesting, and of course I said, "That's us! That's us!" That is one of the most important rights we have in the US, which is why the orange taint has gone to great lengths to take it away, though courts and grand juries have stopped him at almost every turn. Our strong tradition of not having dictators gives us an advantage over wannabe dictators. Russians have no such tradition, and they have no legal right to gather for protests, but now that they have to wait in line for ten hours to get fuel because Ukraine is destroying their infrastructure, they have lots of time to discuss how much Putin sucks.

The drone show was such an impressive display of technology that it made me reflect on how fast we're moving into the future. I spend a lot of time living in the future because the present sucks. I dream of a world where climate change has been conquered, science and technology have solved most of our problems, and people have learned to get along and not suck. That last part is the least plausible and the most important. I love the progress of technology I'm observing, but the world is still kind of a dystopian nightmare. I guess all I can do about that is be nice to people and spread my message of spirituality in spite of their disinterest.

I also went to a free breakfast near the Capitol, wearing my Bernie Sanders/AOC shirt and the keffiyeh that was gifted to me by a Palestinian gentleman, which has done wonders to shield my face and neck from the heat. I stood in line for some time, and one of the organizers, an old man, came through the line apologizing for the wait. He stared at me for an uncomfortable few seconds, then was like, "You're protecting your head. That's smart." I was like, "Yep." He introduced himself and asked my name. He didn't do that for the people in front of me or behind me. I guess I made him uncomfortable with my visible display of Palestinian culture, and he made a concerted effort to be polite and welcoming anyway. Good for him! I was glad I didn't see any MAGA hats. Tolerance does not include hate groups.

​The state of the US on its 250th birthday can be summarized by a couple of viral images of Black people being crowded on public transportation by some of the 400 masked white supremacists, emboldened by the man that most of my family voted for, on their way to march at the Capitol. These pictures will be in history books, and children will be baffled that Americans in the year of our Lord 2026 put up with this shit.

There is hope in these image, though. These pimples on Satan's scrotum are hiding their faces because even with their cult controlling every branch of the government, they know their views are wildly unpopular and would result in well-deserved consequences, legal and otherwise. Hitler's followers didn't hide their faces. Trump's followers have to. These same people claimed that masks made it impossible for them to breathe during the pandemic, and now they're covering most of their faces in skintight fabric in triple-degree heat. It's a pity they were able to breathe after all, but at least they were uncomfortable. The duty of every true American is to make sure they continue to be uncomfortable for the rest of their pathetic lives.

Speaking of masked white supremacists, the other thing I did to celebrate yesterday was attend a dance party outside the ICE warehouse that's apparently being sold because of public pressure or Kristi Noem's financial scandal or something, I don't know, but I'm not complaining. ICE agents had to sit in the parking lot and listen to our taunts for as long as we were there, though I didn't stay too late because I just turned 33 and I'm ready for the nursing home. A Flock camera in the parking lot of the warehouse across the street from us was like, "Attention, you are trespassing. Please leave the area. You are under surveillance, and you have been recorded." I'm surprised I don't remember the exact words because the damn thing said them over a hundred times despite us not trespassing anywhere at any point. Again, this drove home what a dystopian nightmare we're living in. That machine was straight out of an unpleasant sci-fi. That's not an optimistic note to end on, so here's a better one: ICE agents will be unemployable for the rest of their pathetic lives after this regime finishes collapsing.