Cycho Librarian

We got out for a hike this morning, and we’re going to try to do that every morning weather permitting. I’m grateful that we live in a place where beautiful and wild places are minutes away. I’m also grateful that we don’t have a shelter in place order and most likely won’t thanks to the small size of the community and our low population density. I feel for my friends in New York and San Francisco who no longer have this outlet. But I think the most important thing I was grateful for this morning was some space: a break from being up to my eyeballs in news and updates and decisions related to the current situation. While social media has been a great benefit during this time in many ways-- up to date information, fun diversions, connection with friends near and far-- it has also created an environment where it’s very easy to begin to lose hope, fall prey to worst fears, and get sucked into pointless battles about which conspiracy is true or not. My advice for all of you, my friends, ...

So now we find ourselves with the fate of our democracy hanging on two old white men. Somehow or other we looked at all the options we had and managed to talk ourselves into the idea that either a) “other people” would only be able to vote for Biden, or b) no one else was as “pure” a progressive as Sanders. And let’s not even get started on misogyny. We had more than a couple female candidates who could have mopped the floor with Trump, and the only reason we’re not looking at Warren or Harris as a clear frontrunner right now is because they’re women. I am, honestly, fine with either of these men as the nominee. I can vote for either one with a clear conscience. But geez, we had to go and make it hard on ourselves, didn’t we? Here’s what I hope to Bog both of these candidates and their teams are thinking about, and I very much hope that you, my friends, are thinking about these things as well as we head toward convention. First off, these guys are old. I am not using that word pejor...

The Breeders had an amazing set last night. I jumped, sang, moshed, and felt that amazing joy that you can only feel when fully immersed in the music that formed you in your twenties. I walked out the festival with a grin on my face as big as Kim and Kelley’s were on stage, as they were clearly enjoying the performance as much as we were. I’m glad I didn’t listen to a lot of their albums before the set, so as they played songs I hadn’t heard in years I had some of that sense of joy and discovery from the first time I heard them. They finished with “Gigantic” and of course we all lost it. There was also a sense of time passing, though. Not sad or bittersweet, but just different. Kelley sat on the stage and put on readers so she could see the bass tab on one song. One of the guys with the band had as much grey in his beard as me. And the people I moshed with looked they may not have been born the first time I heard the Pixies.   I was also thinking a lot about my college crew. Rob a...