I don't think anyone ever really feels rich. Well, ok, if you own a yacht and a spacecraft, I'm pretty sure you feel pretty rich, but not so rich that they stop grasping for more, which makes me think it's more of an obsession, some sort of financial dysphoria. Short of that though, I've never met anyone who thought they were rich.

The summer I was 16, I read my first Tom Robbins book, Even Cowgirls Get The Blues. It was my Plateau summer, the one where I discovered St. Louis Square, Eva B’s, and good coffee. I sat at the Jazz Fest writing, people watching, listening, taking the vibes in through my skin. St. Louis Square was better for reading. I finished Wuthering Heights there, not because of any prescribed reading list, but because I held “the classics” in high regard.

Tomorrow marks one year of me being alcohol free. I haven't been able to say that since I was 13. Blah blah, complex trauma, neurodivergence, depression…the whys write themselves. I wasn't an all day drinker; I didn't fit the mold of someone who needed a fix to get through. Nonetheless, alcohol was part of every celebration, every sadness, and every well, we got nothing going on today, so…

Applying for grants is a grind. Ask any grant funded artist, or those who hope to be. They want a detailed description of what you're planning -- but in corpo-speak -- and your life story with a particularly bright spotlight shining on your difficulties, struggles, mental illnesses, and every subcategory of marginalization that you can squeeze into.

I missed Halloween last week. I mean, I saw it, I knew it was there, and frankly, even the people who did Halloween had a soggy time of it, and the kids had coats on over their costumes, so did any of us really do Halloween this year? 

Are you ok, Dear Reader? I ask because I got hit by the blues like a truck, and had to climb back to ground level. While I was doing that, I was hearing almost spontaneously from people that they were struggling: sad, isolating, and fighting to keep the good choices going.

That's a shame in and of itself: the fact that the place where we can globally meet and share ideas is apparently useless for nuance; the fact that the place where we could gather information and strength and build a revolution, is actually just a cesspool of ignorance, vitriol, and AI videos.

The lore of the Eldest Daughter has been all over my timeline lately, and as much as I want to relate to the super strong, over-giving, highly independent, and successful image, it isn't quite my story.

Are you aware of vibes at all? When you walk into a room of people, can you feel the emotional temperature of the room? If you've ever joined a party and sensed that you just missed an argument, or that one is brewing under the surface, you understand vibes.

We all deserve love, respect, housing, safety, clean water….but we don't need to “show qualities worthy” of those things. We've just decided that those are human rights. That everyone deserves love, even if they act in distasteful or hateful ways.