it means so much more. Thousands of attendees at Pride accepted each other for whoever they are, whatever they are, and whomever they love. They really can play their own parts and their own pieces, not the ones that Mormonism and other queerphobic religions have scripted for them and forced on them. It's so beautiful. I'll admit I think furries are freaking weird, but they've never hurt me, so I feel no compulsion to make their lives worse. Just let people live how they want and don't be a dick. It's not that hard. If your beliefs tell you to do something different, get less shitty beliefs.

Recently I went to a fundraiser for Palestine that happened to be a rave. Due to some BS with the police and a landlord, it was moved from its intended location to a beautiful park with lots of trees, which I think was for the best. It was pretty chill, probably not a "real" rave, but I don't have much basis for comparison. Some parents with a couple of little kids were on the playground when we arrived, and they left when the music started. A middle-aged guy showed up with his daughter or granddaughter to use the playground, and he bought something from the Bakers for Palestine table, and then after using the playground for only a few minutes, the little girl wandered around the proverbial dance floor playing with one of the bubble guns that the DJ let her have. Everyone was real nice and careful not to use drugs in front of her. I loved how she kept a poker face the entire time while her father or grandfather beamed at her.

For a while, I sat on the grass and didn't dance or talk to people. Then I joined a circle of people sitting elsewhere in the grass, and they talked about shrooms and weed, and the woman next to me passed around a vape pen full of weed for anyone who wanted to partake. Yes, the scenario of strangers offering me free drugs that I was promised in elementary school finally came true. Since I'd already eaten several THC edibles with no regrets, I gave it a try. She had to show me how. After that, my self-consciousness disappeared, I danced my heart out without caring if I looked stupid, I socialized with people I recognized from multiple protests but never got to know, and I had a great time. I don't think I've ever had such a great time at a social event surrounded by strangers. Richard Nixon can rot in hell for trying to deny me this experience. (And for many other reasons.) Because I wasn't in bed in the privacy of my room, I didn't get a lot of the usual dissociation and hallucination, but I still got some when I closed my eyes and surrendered to the music.

In the process of enriching every aspect of life, THC also makes me more attracted to women than usual. It's not typical for me to see a woman in person and feel compelled to think "God damn, she's cute," but that night, I did. She was just standing there doing the clone trooper dance.

She caught me looking and smiled. I was just about brave enough to go over and tell her that I couldn't help it because she was beautiful and I was high. And it's not like I was the only high person there by a long shot. But I didn't know if she would find that sort of thing amusing, so out of caution and respect, I didn't.

Then just yesterday, I read a study about a newly discovered correlation between THC and early heart disease. This is important to know about, and I'll be mindful of it in the future, but I'm not terribly concerned. This correlation was found in "people who smoked (not vaped) marijuana three or more times a week for at least a year" and "people who consumed THC edibles at least three times a week for at least a year." I haven't consumed THC edibles nearly that often or had any plans to do so. Recently, I've been doing it once every one to two weeks, and now that I've run out, I'm fine to take a break before I get more. I hope they're perfectly safe in moderation. If not, that's unfortunate, but they've had such tangible benefits for my mental health and spirituality that it was worth it even if my heart wears out faster and cuts short the years of old age where everything would hurt and nobody would visit me. I'd like to die quickly from heart failure anyway, not slowly from cancer or starvation.

My landlord is trying to sell the house. I don't know if he'll be able to do that in the economy that Trump singlehandedly broke with his moronic trade war, and if he is, I don't know if I'll have to move. Logically, unless the new owners have a massive family, they should let me and my roommate stay in the basement. It's a self-sufficient living arrangement with its own bathrooms, kitchen, and laundry, and why wouldn't they want to get that income without having to do anything? They'd probably increase the rent, though. And if I do have to move, wherever I go will probably have higher rent. Everything in this country is designed to make sure I'll never save up a comfortable amount of money. The more money I save, the more fucking expensive everything gets. And it's not like this is a great place where I want to stay for the rest of my life, but I really don't enjoy moving.

I'm really trying to let go of my desire and trust that the universe will provide, like I did when I moved here in the first place. It's a lot harder this time for some reason. I've had a lot of anxiety over it in the last few weeks, and the anxiety is an almost physical feeling in my chest that doesn't go away just because my brain tries to talk sense into it. It didn't help that my landlord forgot or failed to add me to the group chat about when people are coming to look at the house, so I was in the shower when some people showed up, and then he was upset with me, and I was like WTF, I didn't do anything wrong, I'm not psychic. I wonder how old that group chat is. All those times he pissed me off by not warning me he was going to make an ungodly amount of noise with his renovations and render my quarters unliveable, maybe he thought he had warned me.

That same day, I went to the dentist and learned that I'll have to get a crown for $1229 (with my membership discount). Hooray. When the receptionist came back to tell me about that as if it were a normal thing I should be okay with, she asked if I was doing anything fun that day, and I said I was going to watch the finale of Andor, and we talked about Star Wars. I said Andor is great because it has a lot of political intrigue, and she said, "It's interesting that a lot of people don't realize how political Star Wars has always been." I fell in love on the spot. Not really, but I felt like I did. Then she called me "love" when I left. She wasn't even British. I understand that her job requires her to smile and be nice to people, but is it really too much to ask for women who aren't British to not call me "love" if they don't love me? Really? The word is "love." Do I need to draw a diagram?

That morning, I had been content with my solitary lifestyle, but then she gave me the smallest taste of the affection that's routinely denied me, and all it did was remind me how hungry I am. Then, because I wanted to have a positive attitude about life and not resent getting screwed out of $1229, I figured at least I'll probably see her again when I go back, and maybe that will be worth $1229. Probably not, but in my defense, last year I got financially screwed to the point of suicidality and it led to me establishing a real relationship with my uncle despite our political differences and spending a bunch of time with his youngest kids, who turned out to worship me, and it taught me that relationships are more important than money. So this isn't just about the receptionist being attractive. But, like, money is still important if you enjoy having any of the basic necessities of life. Don't get it twisted.

I watched Revenge of the Sith in the theater for its 20th anniversary re-release. It had a cool intro by Hayden Christensen, enjoying his new popularity after years of hate. He said, "This is where the fun begins." I was like, "He said the thing!" When I first watched it almost twenty years ago, of course it hit differently. For one thing, I thought it would be the last Star Wars movie ever. For another, I had no idea that it was heavily inspired by the then-current Bush administration's executive overreach and crackdown on civil liberties. Darth Vader literally paraphrases Bush at one point, and morons still think the Sith are Democrats and complain about Mark Hamill "turning to the dark side" when he speaks out against fascism. And now we have another Republican president who simultaneously builds on Bush's legacy and makes him look a lot better. We are in one of the darkest periods of American history. I would consider it second only to the Civil War. But this movie franchise reminds us that there's still hope. Rebellions are built on hope.

Though the orange taint is clearly a net negative for the world, there are silver linings. His phenomenal unpopularity has sunk the right-wing parties in Canada and Australia, which were poised to win their respective elections by substantial margins before he decided to piss everyone off for no reason. You're welcome.

Being surrounded by people with the critical thinking skills of sea cucumbers has baffled me almost as much as it's sapped my will to live. This video shed some light on that phenomenon for me. My only gripe is that he tried too hard to make this politically neutral, saying, "And here's the thing, it's bipartisan. Both sides of the aisle have their own brands of boneheadedness. One side thinks we can shoot hurricanes and the other thinks banning plastic straws will save the whales even though they just flew into the rally in a private jet." The average left-winger doesn't have a private jet, but the average right-winger believes climate change is a hoax and consistently supports policies that harm the environment. Yes, left-wingers can also be idiots, but the dumbing down of the United States is central to the right-wing agenda. Left-wingers don't call educated people "elitists," don't complain about fact-checking, don't want to defund the Department of Education or make student loans unaffordable, and, most significantly, have nothing close to an equivalent of Donald Trump or his cult. It's not a coincidence that educated people overwhelmingly lean left, and it's not because their Marxist professors brainwashed them either. Other than glossing over that reality, this is a good video.

Pope Francis coincidentally died the day after a meeting with the anti-Christ's vice president. Trump was upset that the funeral wasn't about him, and so was everyone else. The late Pope was one of the earliest cracks in my Mormon testimony because I found him far more inspiring than my "prophet," Thomas S. Monson. I was not very impressed with Monson's stories and platitudes. I think Francis revolutionized the culture of Catholicism in positive ways, if not the actual teachings, but I'm no expert on that. I have one hardcore Catholic Facebook friend. I added him years ago because he said he was trying to build bridges between Catholics and Mormons. It turned out he actually was trying to convert Mormons, so that was kind of a dick move. Anyway, I sometimes see him expressing strong opinions about points of Catholic liturgy or doctrine that I'm quite certain have as much eternal significance as whether Spider-Man could beat Superman, and it's weird, but I'm sure I sounded similar when I talked about Mormon theology that can be directly traced to a nineteenth-century treasure hunter plagiarizing other people's ideas.

I was a little more affected to learn of the death of Deserae Turner-Buck. I talked to her only briefly when I met her in a Mormon Institute of Religion class almost four years ago, but she was semi-famous for surviving attempted murder via gunshot to the head. She had health problems and a reduced life expectancy, but she wasn't supposed to die at age 22. She had stomach cancer and a lung infection. I have no idea whether those can somehow be traced to getting shot in the head or are just incredibly unlucky coincidences. In her final interview, she said she was tired, had chosen not to fight, and wanted to let her body go. "Death is scary, not gonna lie. Everybody is scared of death, and... yes, I guess I am scared a little bit, but I also just want it to come quick, come for me and be done." Damn.

Something I wrote about her in my recent book, Goodbye Mormonism, Hello World, has now been resolved:

That, I'm sure, is how any still believing Mormons who know about this blessing will rationalize its lack of results. If you think that sounds like a really lame copout, you are so right.

My dog, Milo, died over eight years ago. I wish I could have been with him at the time. On Tuesday morning I had a dream about him. I believe this dream was influenced by the spiritual things I study and by getting the best high of my life on an empty stomach on Sunday evening, so its real world significance is up for debate. I'd like to think his consciousness was literally visiting mine, but I won't know anytime soon. Basically, in the dream, I realized that Milo wasn't dead, he was right here. We were on beautiful forested hills above a lake. I stayed pretty stationary while he romped all over the place and peed on things. Some other guy (whom I want to believe was some kind of spirit guide) was there with a rabbit. I couldn't describe the guy if my life depended on it, but the rabbit was big and shaggy and the same colors as Milo (brown and black). I kept expecting Milo to chase it, but he left it alone. Then he pooped in the lake, and then he went right behind me to shake himself off. My first reaction was annoyance that he had all this space and chose to shake himself off on me, but it quickly gave way to amusement. And then I realized my back actually felt wet. The contrast of this real feeling with the unreality of the dream caught my attention and left an impression on me as I woke up. I was, fortunately, not wet in real life. But I want to believe that feeling proved it was a real experience and not just a random byproduct of firing neurons.