Try this:

Severian knows it's a joke. The hell is up with you today? :D

we listen to piaf on the regular but i'm looking for written human practice.

i'll go elsewhere on the internecks


what's wrong with your failed jokes! 2 in a row?

but try again

a la tercera va la vencida

Oh.. my.. god

I'm right there with you. It's not my furnace's fault. I've been unfair to my awful furnace that is going to cost $6,000 to replace.

Seriously though.. I have been feeling the same way. A friend of mine thinks Sessions' goose is cooked, but I have no faith in this administration or in congress to make the tough, scrupulous call.

Sessions' guilt, or admission of wrong-doing, would necessarily implicate Trump, and then congress would have a much bigger turd to bury. My bet is Sessions is going to walk, and the media will be blamed for spreading inflammatory rumors.

What's "ethical" is simply being redefined by the post-Tea Party right before our eyes. I saw a public school teacher sharing a Facebook story accusing the women who protested Trump's speech by wearing white of being sluts... in a forum where he interacts with students. This should be unethical, punishable, but hahah. Nope. Silly me. Women with opinions are incompetent sluts who should be "drained," and it's OK for state employees with a huge influence on kids to say this right next to their "way to go across country team!" Status updates.

This is the world. I'm getting under a table.

OUCH. FUCK!

i'm sorry for your loss

--

eta: my gift to you. to help with the furnace

http://lifehacker.com/this-free-cook...u-c-1792833962

finally, not just one but TWO decent poets! (in the sense of them being decent people. i don't know about their poetry. but i'm checking this out).

HEY, my jokes are COMEDY GOLD! ( <- see, that's in golden color and all, just like The Donald likes his signature, and his showers).

see? three time's a charm!

i actually laughed by the end of that parenthesis

thanks

These motherfuckers... Some shit you just can't make up, man.

Pence used personal email for state business — and was hacked

LOCK-HIM-UP! LOCK-HIM-UP!

I'm still just dumbfounded that a particle detector seemed to be picking up radioactivity, right outside the University of Washington, unless I dreamt it! I've seen an article in the local newspaper about a big machine that can eradicate blocks of radioactive waste, but after that evening I really lost my reign on things...pushed a couple of people, screamed to no one off a bridge repeatedly at night, lost my notebooks...bad craziness.
https://www.facebook.com/JLYGIIDC/ph...660868/?type=3
I suppose that we've got little robots at work, fixing toward betterment of the aftermath, but didn't someone tell me a radio-active pylon still making waves of out-of-control waste fell off of the continental shelf? Zoinks!
http://o.canada.com/news/fallout-fro...t-coast-waters

Sessions isn't going anywhere.

Pence's email thingie will blow over.

Trump will not resign or be impeached anytime soon. "Russia" will be a "Benghazi"--something to fire up the base, but of no real legal consequence.

My reps--barring Sherrod Brown--don't give a fuck about me.

This all just hit me at once.

yes. that's the lucid view.

the issue is what to do, though. yes? it's always that question. "how should i live?" or whatever.

survival, ethics, and the calculus that goes with all that.

not easy.

I'm thinking doing fuck all is most logical, at least in my situation.

I can't change anything. Why bother? Why bother even keeping up on news I can have no influence upon?

Smart people are tracking Trump and going after him. Maybe it'll lead to something. Maybe not. In any case, I'm not needed.

this is not an insane choice, actually.

remember that garrison keillor article about him getting into his tomatoes or something? i don't recall exactly. basically, retreating into the private sphere.

of course the argument goes back at least to voltaire, where the poor innocent candide gets burned by politics and international upheavals and resolves in the end to just "cultivate his own garden"

or, eventually, you can go back to epicurus who recommended, among other things, to live simply, and to stay away from politics.

i don't know. what's your "philosophy"? i put it in quotations because philosophy is not an ideological formula but an activity, so it can't really be used in this sense, yet we still use it anyway, so i still gotta ask.

there are many ways to "do good" (if that's your thing) which don't necessitate you going bananas.

selfishness and altruism need a balance or the species goes extinct. at least if you believe richard dawkins as a biologist.

then again i'm not advocating for biological determinism. just looking at realistic options.

ethics didn't become a whole branch of philosophy because correct actions were easy to figure out.

but yes, we're oppressed.

so how do we become liberated?

eta: here for your enjoyment:

http://www.humanistictexts.org/epicurus.htm

see #20

but the whole thing really

I'm definitely in need of some clarity, pretty goddamn desperately. My brain feels like it's a jack-in-the-box that someone (me) keeps shoving back in and winding up again and again and again.

I think a little bit of selfishness is absolutely necessary here. For people like you and me, and many of the other frequenters of this thread anyway.

I need to find a way to be "selfish" and let myself be calm and not trembling with ulcer-enduring tension like a goddamn hummingbird. I don't have any tomatoes though. And I can't escape the news feeds without escaping my cash-money, so that's rough. But by all means, do nothing, at least for now.

I may say the opposite in five hours because I'm manic as hell right now, but at this moment... yeah. Sessions is gonna be a-ok, Trump is gonna be a-ok. The American people have no reason to cling to any such assurances though. Most of us are probably more likely to lose our jobs in 2017 than Trump. That's just life. So find your peace. And please tell me how you did it when you find it, because I'm honest-to-god losing it. Depression, rage, exhaustion from depression-rage... these are my daily emotions. Exhaustion is the only thing keeping me from going off the reservation.

For what it's worth, I think I'm going trough much of what you're going through, so if you need to shoot the shit about it (or, better yet, ANYTHING ELSE) drop me a PM.

I'm a little queefed off that nobody laughed at "I'm a monster!" to be completely honest with you.

I use memes so infrequently because they're so terrible, but that one was pitch perfect.

Now I am going to unknow that you were joking, and take offense at your pepper-green comment just 'cuz.

J'ACUSE!

then again, withdrawal into an epicurean garden is not always possible. desirable, sure, but possible?

i don't know. i lucked out with my situation or maybe i was always looking for it.

i'm living in my woods but anything from an ecological catastrophe to a change in the laws could make this into a place of misery. nothing lasts forever, after all, does it?

eventually, whether from a retreat, an epicurean garden, or a place of healing, one has to connect with the world again. sorta like guido anselmi in 8 1/2: he's hiding in a spa, but the world comes to get him. he tries to run away (even hides under the table, lol) but eventually has to make peace with it.

it looks as if social and community life are unavoidable. and one has to find a way to continue in it.

of course, nothing wrong with a little rest and recuperation first.

so i'd suggest that.

a retreat is great but it doesn't have to be permanent. hence, vacations.

Arrested Development was a highlight of human civilization. Never saw the Netflix (was it Netflix? Amazon?) "sequel", though. All this "streaming" shit is an abomination.

gonna go out to my storage and dig out seneca's letters from a stoic---which i haven't looked at in ages