My 33rd birthday is in two days. I know I won't likely ever have another birthday, or another day of my life, period, as great as the one last year when I went to a "Weird Al" Yankovic concert and then met him in person. I accept that. Life is not a steady progression from good to better, and any day that doesn't suck is good enough.

​I was going to have a party at the park today, but a friend asked me to reschedule because her kid's birthday is today, and her kids love me a ridiculous amount and would have wanted to attend both. By "a ridiculous amount," I mean that this particular kid recently called me "Daddy" despite being old enough to know better and not even seeing me that often. Maybe she just hates her real dad, which I could relate to. (She did tell me once, "You're lucky you're not married so you don't have to fight with your wife all the time. My parents fight all the time, and it's not fair.") I don't know why kids love me so much without me trying. Mary hypothesizes that it's because I radiate calm. Anyway, I rescheduled for Friday, which made half of the people I'd invited unable to come. A couple of days in advance, I considered that maybe the kids would get sick and not come, meaning that I would have rescheduled for nothing. I told myself that I was being irrational, making up a scenario that hadn't happened yet and getting preemptively annoyed by it. And then that exact scenario happened.

I tried not to be annoyed because it's not really anyone's fault, and of course I feel bad for the kid having her whole birthday weekend ruined. When the mother asked how it went, I did let her know that a lot of people had been unable to come because I rescheduled, and she apologized, which I think is an appropriate response to negatively impacting someone by accident even if you couldn't have known. I didn't want her to feel awful, I just wanted her to be aware. Now I wonder if I was a dick to mention it at all and should have kept it to myself. Anyway, what happened to her kid is far from the worst thing that happens to kids in this world, but it reminded me nonetheless what a shitty parent the father god I was taught to believe in is. This kid's earthly mother would do anything to stop it, but Heavenly Father, who actually could stop it, is just like, "Sorry, you have to suffer because something something learning experience." And I'm supposed to worship this guy and regard him as the pinnacle of goodness and love because people say so.

Of course, I still got some people at my party - specifically, a few activists who all knew me and each other from protesting and a Mormon woman I met at a friend's wedding reception. That morning, in a Signal chat, I had chimed into an unflattering discussion about the LDS Church with a couple of fun facts - that it calls itself Israel and does a very shallow cultural appropriation of Judaism, and that it removed all pro-Israel rhetoric from its hymns and manuals in Germany to appease the Nazis. So now, in person, one of the activists asked me if I was an expert on Mormonism. My mouth said "Yeah" while my brain said "Oh shit." I didn't want to embarrass the Mormon woman by singling her out, so I just prayed silently as the activists' conversation shifted into Mormonism-bashing mode. Fortunately, someone thought to ask her before it went too far, though the phrasing of the question - "You're not LDS, are you?" - could have been better. Yes, I still have some Mormon friends. I can love people even if I don't agree with their lifestyle.

People brought brownies, pizza, fruit, and juice. Someone gave me a bottle of Merlot, which I was advised to save for "when it happens." I don't drink alcohol, but I haven't ruled out the possibility of drinking this if I ever figure out what "it" is, because of course I have absolutely no idea what they were talking about, wink wink. People also gave me a book, a Joker action figure, and a volleyball painted like Wilson from "Castaway." I had asked someone to bring a volleyball so we could play, but I didn't expect one as a gift. I wonder if I'd have gotten more food and gifts if more people had been able to come. Anyway, I got a little depressed because I didn't feel like I deserved the love these people gave me. I know I'm a good person, and they know I'm a good person because we protest for the same things, but I don't feel like I contribute enough to the world or their lives to be loved like that. Obviously, that's a me problem. Obviously, if I tell anyone that, they'll tell me not to feel that way because I'm great, as if that will solve the problem. Oh well.

I also felt a little depressed about aging. I'm still in my prime, but only for a couple more years, and then I face two options: die young, or experience my body slowly and painfully breaking down. The former option appeals to me more, but lately, my death anxiety has risen. I think death itself doesn't bother me as much as not having the slightest idea when it will happen. At any moment, it could be five minutes, five years, or fifty years away. A friend's brother-in-law just died from a blood clot. That could have been me. It still could be. Even if death is a wonderful and beautiful thing, as most people who have come close to it will attest, I don't like the idea of it catching me off-guard. Someone jumping out and yelling "Surprise!" at a random moment isn't much better than someone jumping out and yelling "Boo!" I waxed philosophical about this with a friend as we played with the volleyball, and he didn't resolve anything for me, but I felt like processing this together was an important part of the journey. Then he let me take a couple puffs of weed, and the trees and the lights and the sunset took on a vaguely artificial, enclosed quality, like a football field, that seemed to underscore the illusory nature of our time in this world.

On my actual birthday, I plan to watch the Mandalorian movie and go to dinner with a friend who couldn't make it that time. Tonight, since I'm free, I plan to celebrate the solstice by taking an edible, going back to the park, and experiencing the drum circle. If I get stabbed to death, oh well, I had to die sometime. I'm glad the days are going to start getting shorter, albeit very slowly. I hate waking up at 4:30 and staying awake because the damn sun is already coming up. That's the downside of falling asleep more easily because I get more sunshine by not living in a basement. Anyway, none of these events will beat Weird Al, but they don't need to.

I am aware that blasting my family drama out to the internet is frowned upon in some circles. I do not care. I assume most people will have no interest in reading about it, anyway, which will make this very different from my other, wildly popular posts. But it will end on an uplifting note, I swear.

The other day, I texted my dad for the first time in eleven months. I said,

"Because the government classifies me as 'self-employed,' I recently paid a third of my savings in taxes, including a double portion of Medicaid tax. I pay a thousand dollars a month for housing. Thanks to Trump's 'big beautiful bill,' I can't get Medicaid because my income is 'too high.' Thanks to the same bill, health insurance is less affordable than ever, and even if I did have it, the company would refuse to cover anything.

"Meanwhile, a billionaire from another country is getting a 96% tax break to build a gargantuan data center in Utah that will quadruple my energy bills and make my air unbreathable.

"According to you, this is the way things should be, and I'm whiny and entitled for resenting it. That's a good example of why I don't talk to you."

Could I have been less combative? Sure. Would you have been as civil as I was if you'd taken as much shit from him over the years as I have? Not likely.

He responded, "You think the government should be paying for your health care, but you don't like high taxes. Makes perfect sense."

It truly amazes me that a man with a Masters degree could miss the point so completely. In the heat of the moment, I didn't have the patience to dumb it down for him, but in case any morons are reading this, I will now.

1. I had significant expenses, including but by no means limited to taxes.
​
2. The (Republican) government ignored these expenses and determined that my income was "too high" for me to receive healthcare.

3. I cannot afford healthcare.

4. At the same time, the (Republican) government is giving a massive handout to a wealthy asshole, because despite all conservatives' talk about individualism and meritocracy, they love giving massive handouts to wealthy assholes who don't need them.

And in case any morons haven't stopped reading this after I called them morons, I know that "free" healthcare costs tax money. Everyone knows that. It's not the "gotcha" you think it is. Libraries cost tax money too, but my family loves those. I could have gotten healthcare with the taxes that I already paid, but instead, I helped murder children in the Middle East. That was essentially my response to my dad, which he didn't acknowledge because a. he never acknowledges when he's blatantly wrong and b. like most conservatives, he doesn't give a shit about children in the Middle East. If this country had real social safety nets, I would consider paying higher taxes a worthwhile tradeoff for not constantly being one financial emergency away from living on the street, and also, the taxes to fund universal healthcare would be cheaper than health insurance premiums because they wouldn't cover the salaries of parasites like the late Brian Thompson who make millions of dollars a year by denying people healthcare. This system would also tens of thousands of lives every year, but we've already established that people like my dad don't give a shit about things like that.

My dad has spent his life defending inequality and injustice. This was a source of tension between us long before I knew anything about politics. When I could plainly see that something was bullshit, he said, "That's the way it is." He confirmed, as if I didn't already know, that he sincerely believes that his own son shouldn't be able to afford something that every other country in the developed world treats as a human right. He could be angry about the racist secret police terrorizing communities and tearing famillies apart, or he could be angry about any of a thousand unconstitutional power grabs by his lesser of two evils that would have given him an aneurysm if Obama had done them, but instead, he's angry at the prospect of anyone who's not a wealthy asshole, including his own son, getting medical treatment without working sixty hours a week and selling their kidneys. I do not respect his differences in philosophy. They disgust me to my core. That, as I said, is why I don't talk to him.

The lack of empathy, though particularly appalling in this instance, is nothing new. I've been on the receiving end for as long as I can remember. Both of my parents have some mental disability that makes them incapable of empathizing with or trying to understand anything outside of their personal experience and narrow view of the world. My dad knew what it was like to not be able to swim because his skinny body sank like a rock, so he empathized with me on that, and that was about it. He didn't understand how my brain worked or how I saw the world, so he decided I was always wrong and had an attitude problem, and strangely enough, his authoritarian, violent responses gave me an attitude problem. It's not like we've never discussed this. Years ago, after reading my blog, he said he understood me better and was sorry for the things he messed up on. I mean, he could have understood me better a lot sooner if he had, y'know, asked, which he didn't do because he was the grown-up and thought he knew everything, but cool. He said we were both different people now. Yeah, no, he just made it clear that he's the same person who used to hit me for not understanding social cues. He can go to the doctor whenever he wants and get as much prostate medicine as he wants, so fuck me. He wasn't raped by an imploding economy from the time he was born like my entire generation was, so clearly he's in a superior financial situation because he worked harder and deserves it more.

Furthermore, I believe without question that he would have fought for the Confederacy because he's always been fixated on states' rights and considered minorities' suffering to be acceptable collateral damage for electing people who call themselves conservatives. That's a sobering realization. He also loves the electoral college, but in fairness, he probably doesn't know that it was primarily created to advantage Southern slaveowners.

It's bizarre, frankly, because it's not like everything my dad has said or done was unloving. We've had good times. He's done kind and generous things for me, and of course he thinks I'm ungrateful and unreasonable for not focusing on those things and pretending the rest doesn't matter. First of all, though I do count some of them, especially the ones he did when I was an adult, I don't believe I owe him lifelong gratitude for fulfilling the basic obligations of parenthood that he chose to take on (even the ones he didn't screw up). More to the point, however, the fact remains that you cannot love someone and be indifferent to whether they have access to healthcare. That shouldn't need to be said - ever - but here we are.

I continued:

"It's quite telling that your immediate impulse is to double down on being an asshole instead of having the slightest shred of empathy for your own son who hasn't been to a doctor in five years and plans on offing himself if he ever gets a condition that would put him in medical debt. I was feeling guilty that you might die someday without me ever attempting to re-establish a relationship, but now I don't. Thanks, I guess."

Also:

"btw, that time I called you was a mistake. I was copying your number to give to a friend so she could congratulate you on getting what you voted for if I got shot by an ICE agent. Then after your voicemail, I felt guilty and tried to call for real. Oh well."

He responded: "👍"

This means that either he doesn't give a shit about me never speaking to him again, or he wants me to think he doesn't give a shit about me never speaking to him again. Probably the former, because if he did, he could easily rectify the situation. He chose this. He would rather have a stick up his ass about Medicaid than have a relationship with his son. I respect his wishes even though I don't respect his views. Actually, in a perverse way, I almost admire his obstinacy. Maybe he'll use it for good someday.

The last thing I said before blocking his number was, "Don't expect me to go to your funeral and lie about what a great father you were." After having some time to calm down and reflect, though, I regret not also telling him that if I die first, he's not welcome at mine. That scenario isn't altogether unlikely because he has healthcare, and I don't. Could someone please let him know?

As for my mom, I've probably mentioned once or twice that I cut her off for saying "You could move to Costa Rica" when I told her I had to talk to a suicide hotline after the election, except that I've unblocked her number a few times to remind her of the blood that's on her hands for supporting a fascist. I called her an asshole, so calling my dad an asshole created balance. And now here I am, an orphan. Not much has really changed. I already wasn't talking to my parents, getting birthday or Christmas checks from my parents, planning on visiting my parents in the foreseeable future, or expecting to inherit anything when my parents die. (If I were as entitled as they think I am, I would pretend to like them so they'd send me checks and put me in their will.) And since I started using Kush Kubes, my depression has plummeted to almost nothing even when I'm not high. My anger hasn't. Sometimes I think I'm angrier than I used to be. If I am, it's because I live in an openly fascist country now, and I'm reacting appropriately. On the other hand, I've always had an anger issue, and maybe I'm just more self-conscious about it now because it's at odds with my desire to be enlightened and stuff. So my reaction to cutting off my dad was 95% anger, 5% depression, and the next day, I was over it. I wasn't even very angry when I wrote this. I just enjoy writing with powerful language.

Enough of that. Here's the uplifting note I promised. My dad has claimed, based on his Mormon beliefs, that when I was born, he got a strong impression that we were best friends in the premortal existence. He said this gave him strength when getting along was so difficult. I don't believe in Mormonism, but I still believe in a form of premortal existence, which makes philosophical sense is a recurring theme in near-death experiences. I'm open to the possibility that he's right about that one thing. That seemed unlikely for a while because in this existence, we have little in common. Sure, we enjoy four of the same Star Wars movies, we laugh at some of the same jokes, I love the Beatles and Roxette and David Arkenstone because of him, and I think his engineering skills are cool, but our beliefs and values are so different that we had little to talk about even when I was willing to try. If we weren't related, I would never have chosen to associate with him at all. And it's not like I expect my friends to be copies of me. I've argued with the woman of my dreams more than once, but not about human rights.

Now, it's my understanding that we're all here as actors, playing roles, and the things that divide us are not the full extent of our true selves. Furthermore, some NDErs claim that people who love each other in the premortal existence sometimes take on antagonistic roles here to help each other's grow. So maybe my dad and I did that. Maybe I specifically asked him to say that stupid shit about taxes. It's a nice idea that makes me not hate him. If my beliefs are correct, we can laugh this off when we're all dead. If his beliefs are correct, it doesn't matter how much of a relationship we have before then because I, along with his dad, most of his siblings, and another of his children, won't be part of his eternal family in the celestial kingdom after rejecting Mormonism. (To be clear, I think there's a 0% chance that his beliefs are correct.) If our consciousness ends at death, nothing matters. There are, of course, other possibilities besides those three, but none that I'm particularly concerned about in this context.

​I feel closer now. We both know where we stand. Now on with my life as an orphan.

I'm in a subreddit called r/spirituality, which, as you can probably imagine, is a mixed bag of wisdom, bullshit, and schizophrenic people being encouraged in their delusions instead of advised to get help. The nice thing is that unlike in a high-demand religion, nobody can require me to believe anything I don't want to. About a month ago, someone made this simple post:

Title: "The idea that a person who treated others horribly (or was a horrible person in general) gets a clean slate once they leave the earth feels like a slap in the face to the people who had to deal with them in life"

Body: "​Like that person gets to be okay wherever they are with no punishment but I still have to deal with the scars from their treatment for the rest of my life? They get to be at peace but I don’t? That’s messed up"

That was it. I don't know what specifically they had in mind as the source of this idea, but I've heard it mostly from near-death experience accounts, and I agreed with this person's sentiment a thousand percent. So I said, "Agreed. And the claim from some NDEs that good and evil aren't real disgusts me to my core. I don't think anyone deserves to suffer forever for causing a finite amount of harm, but they should face consequences before they go on to eternal bliss." Notice that I didn't say this claim isn't true, because I don't know that, but it disgusts me to my core regardless.

So then someone was like, "​I feel like I have missed some thing that everyone else has read up on or seen!?!

"People do face consequences in the after life, it's mostly just karma though. I dont know what this stuff about people just 'going on to bliss' is but that sounds pretty sensational. As far as I know it's a fair bit more complicated than that, if you want to know more read the Tibetan book of living and dying, that gives a decent outline of the process of dying even if it isn't exactly right(or maybe I just don't remember dying that well... both times)

'Good and Evil' isn't real, at least not really. It's literally entirely subjective. I happen to be one of those NDE people lmfao."

By "going on to bliss," I was referring to the majority of NDE accounts, where people just feel infinite love from the universe or higher power and don't feel judged by it for anything they've ever done, which is a really beautiful concept for normal people who are doing their best, but not so much for assholes who devote their lives to making the world a worse place. They also often talk about how we plan out our entire lives before we come here, and we're just like actors playing roles, and everything that happens here ceased to matter as soon as we die. Some people report "hellish" NDEs, but there seems to be no correlation between having those and doing anything to deserve them. Anyway, I felt like if this person responding to me really had an NDE, they should have told me exactly how it was explained to them. Merely repeating the claim that disgusted me to my core and signing off with "lmfao" wasn't very persuasive. It seemed downright douchey to me at the time, though it's not as bad in context now that I'm looking at it with fresh eyes.

So I said, "​So I could literally say Hitler did nothing wrong, and my subjective opinion would be entirely valid? Surely you can understand why I have a huge problem with that." Notice that even now, I didn't insist that this premise, abhorrent though it is, wasn't true. I should have picked a more creative example, though. We're all sick of everyone comparing everything to Hitler. I should have picked a different genocidal dictator, like Pol Pot, Théoneste Bagosora, or Benjamin Netanyahu.

The person didn't respond for several days, so when they did, and up until just now when I revisited this conversation, I thought they were a second person getting on my ass. They said, "​Morality is entirely subjective. So basically, humans aren't as important as we think. We aren't the centre of the universe or anything even close. The universe is full of life.

"What is nice to me is not necessarily nice to a cat, a cow, a slime mold, another person. Every living thing is unique and has its own needs, desires, preferences etc.

"So with all that in mind, morality is completely and utterly subjective. There is no moral code passed down from God, LOVE is the main unifying force of reality, BUT what is love to one thing is not necessarily recieved as love by another thing. For example, let's say the sun loves the world, but in the process it burns your face off. Do you see what I'm getting at?

"I know people are terrified by this concept and a lot of people struggle with it, but it doesn't actually change anything, not really. Because if humans have a general consensus on morality then we can apply it generally, and we do."

Myself, I don't think "Humans aren't the center of the universe" (which I agree with) automatically translates to "Genocide isn't evil because it doesn't bother slime molds." And I'm pretty sure the preference to avoid pain and death is almost universal among organisms with the capacity to have preferences. And although I'm open to the possibility that the sun possesses some degree of consciousness beyond our understanding, it was a very strange example to use because I'm pretty sure it heats the world through automated nuclear fusion, not any kind of agency. Maybe one could argue that the laws of physics are some kind of agency beyond our understanding, but my point remains that it can't choose to not heat the world until its fuel runs out in a few billion years, long after we're extinct anyway. I didn't want to be a jerk and nit-pick everything this person said, though, so I focused on the last part, which I found most disturbing, and I concluded with a point of agreement in the hope of not seeming too contentious. I said:

"​I mean, that general consensus has endorsed some horrific things over the years and can do so again any time it pleases. I don't want to live in a world where minorities are at the majority's mercy.

"I noticed that you sidestepped my question because you intuitively understand how messed up it would be to say that Hitler did nothing wrong, even though it logically follows from what you're saying, unless I'm still missing something.

"But I do like the idea that love is the unifying force of reality. I try to let it guide my actions. When I'm unkind to people, it's usually because they've pissed me off by being unkind to others. I know love is far more important than all the rules I was taught I had to obey to please God."

They said, "From Hitler's perspective or a die-hard nazi, they did nothing wrong. Sorry I forgot about that part"

As if "that part" wasn't my entire comment. But whatever. For a moment, I was impressed that this person had the courage and integrity to stand by the uncomfortable implications of their belief. And then I realized they hadn't actually said anything significant. No shit, of course evil people don't think they're doing anything wrong. That's not the important part. So, not wanting to play any more games, I followed up,​"And their perspective is as valid as anyone else's, yes or no?"

That was 18 days ago. That person hasn't gotten back to me yet. Look, I wasn't trying to be a jerk, and I have no malice toward this person. I just want people to be consistent with their worldviews. If the implications of your own beliefs are too uncomfortable for you to admit, then either your beliefs need to change or you do. And yes, maybe this person did get their belief straight from the divine during an NDE or two, in which case they can't just toss it aside, but I must admit I'm skeptical of that because in that case, I don't think I should have been able to outsmart them so easily. Oh well.

Now, in fairness, here's another response someone gave me that I liked much better, particularly because I believe many (not all) NDEs are valid and want them to make sense: "​Perhaps they mean something like 'there isn't a sort of 'moral laws' that the Universe enforces like a cosmic Judge', but rather more that the consequences of actions to others are mirrored back not because of how they were judged but just as they actually landed, and that it is up to us to decide how that should affect our doings. That said, this is a dangerous form of language to describe the matter with because it ambiguates between the idea of no set moral rules or values and the idea of irrelevancy of moral cognition - and the latter is, indeed, a serious problem."

I understand that distinction in a vague, abstract way. I'd probably need to be high to understand it on a deeper level. I'm good with it for now.

I consider football the second most boring sport ever invented, but I've always enjoyed Super Bowl parties for the camaraderie, the food, and the funny commercials. This year, I would have gotten extra enjoyment from the halftime show that was successfully engineered to piss off racist conservative snowflakes. It pissed them off so much that the late Charlie Kirk's racist organization is putting on an alternate show, which was pathetic enough before they announced that Kid Rock was headlining it, which is exactly what liberals said they would do as a joke to make fun of them. Yes, conservatives are now officially a parody of themselves. This also serves as a reminder that the world is no worse off for not having Charlie Kirk in it. Don't come after me for being honest. Did you catch the leaked Zoom call of his widow giggling and gloating about merch sales two weeks after his death? I felt more grief when I stepped on a snail.

Alas, this year I was not invited to a Super Bowl party, possibly because my social circle has shifted from college students to people who have children in high school, and it doesn't stream anywhere for free, and I'm not patriotic enough to buy a Peacock subscription just for that. Still, I expect I'll have a delightful evening watching cartoons and listening to music. I've found that if I just tell myself a day is a holiday, it feels like one. I have simple pleasures. I have my new studio apartment to myself, I've partially adapted to the traffic noise, and in tangential but also exciting news, I now only take about forty minutes to fall asleep at night instead of two hours or more, possibly because I have space to not sit on my bed all day and make my brain associate it with activities besides sleep. Anyway, I'm sure people will be even less inclined than usual to take time out of their day to read my blog, and that's just one more reason why I'm disinclined to take time out of my day to write it, so here's the weekly post to keep up my streak, and now I'm done. I hope one of the teams that's playing today wins.

My landlord recently decided that emptying his house would make it easier to sell, so he gave me and my two roommates less than a month to move out, which I don't think is legal, but whatever. I decided to make this unwanted move an upgrade. I moved closer to the heart of Salt Lake City proper, where it turns out I go all the time for protests and other forms of recreation, and I picked a studio apartment so I'd have more space and have it to myself. Alas, I didn't pay enough attention to the location. My window is next to not two, not four, but six lanes of traffic. And the traffic. Never. Stops. Six months of this will either cure my natural sensitivity to noise or drive me to jump off the balcony. Also, I didn't actually have the space to myself.

The first thing I did when I saw this bug scurry up my cupboard was take a picture and ask Google Gemini, "Is this a cockroach?" I'd never actually seen a cockroach in person before. Like bedbugs and tapeworms, cockroaches are a horrifying fact of life that I'd somehow been blessed to avoid until now. Of course it was a cockroach, since it was too small to be an ICE agent. In my search, I found another one inside the (otherwise empty) cupboard, flailing around on its back for some reason.

By the way, I thought these things were supposed to be impossible to kill, but I found it pretty straightforward.

​This one was still twitching fourteen hours later, though. Its antennae would twitch whenever I moved my finger within a few millimeters. That was cool. Anyway, I found a third one behind the fridge, and that one proved more of a challenge. I moved the fridge a bit, climbed on the counter, tried to kill the roach with a yardstick, and then, when it tried to run under the fridge and out into the room, I jumped down and shone my phone flashlight to scare it back. I repeated that process a few times and said some bad words. After fifteen minutes or so, I got it when it did run under the fridge and out into the room, and my feeling of triumph made the whole frustrating experience worth it. Then I found a tiny bug under the sink. The next morning, a guy sprayed the cupboards and behind the fridge, and then the next evening, I killed another big one running across the floor toward my bed, and the next night, I killed two big ones, a medium, and six tiny ones in the bathroom. I've continued to find occasional tiny ones in the sink and the bathroom.

I try to take a spiritual approach to all this. The cockroaches are a problem I have to solve, but I'm not going to despair over them. I'm keeping in mind that unlike ICE agents, they aren't inherently bad creatures, they just evolved to do their own thing, and they have as much right to exist as I do, but I'm bigger than them and don't want them here. That's the circle of life.

Speaking of ICE agents... well, what can I say? What unique, valuable contribution can I make to the discourse about the murderous fascist secret police that hasn't been made yet? I attended a vigil for their latest murder victim last night, and I attended a protest today that, with just twenty-four hours' notice, was massive. I'm sure bootlickers and bots on social media are already lying about how many people were there, demanding to know why we weren't all at work on a Sunday, claiming we were all paid to be there, and the usual stupid shit that conservatives say to keep their delusion going. The fact remains: Salt Lake City is PISSED. Just in time to get our own influx of ICE agents at the end of the month, reportedly. There's a non-zero chance that I will become one of their murder victims. I'm a little scared, but it comforts me to know that my parents will have to live with the fact that they voted for my death.

Oh, but speaking of paid shills, one of the guys that the Republican legislature flew in from out of state to collect signatures to try to overturn the anti-gerrymandering proposition that the people of Utah voted for a few years ago showed up at our protest to collect signatures. That was a strategic error. He couldn't go anywhere without people following him and warning everyone not to sign. His response was to put on sunglasses, flip people off, and say, "You guys are assholes." Haha. Of course I wish these guys no success, but in today's economy, I don't fault them for taking this job. They haven't crossed a moral line that makes me think less of their worth as humans. Unlike ICE agents. I'd let my family starve before I'd accept a $50,000 bonus to murder people in the street. ICE agents are scum, and they will get their justice someday. Not tomorrow, but soon, I hope.