Isani C.

If only I could’ve taught half the country empathy, that you don’t have to have an accent or look a certain way, or have a “funny sounding” last name, to have an idea what people who do are going through. If only more of us could’ve anticipated how other people feel, we wouldn’t be here. If only…

VERY cool shot!

Ha! No. Took them to play in the snow in Utah over the long weekend. Jules fell instantly in love. Nico seems to be reserving judgment until he’s done further rigorous testing.

Breaking up my rage posting - and let’s be honest, there’s much to rage about these days - with this spark of joy: My kid at the end of his last day of ski school.

Oh how your bright smiles make my world warmer and wholly better!

The way so many orgs have fallen in line so swiftly is telling and the tale they tell is disheartening at best. The current administration has been in power 26 days and in that time public and private sector entities are all too willing to roll back 60 years of progress. Was it ever real then?

Of course we all have our own financial burdens and reasons for working where we do, but at what point do you assume some responsibility for empowering Elon Musk to act as he does by remaining an employee of any of his companies. Doesn’t valuation factor into net worth somehow?

Following a convo with my 8 y.o. it occurred to me to wonder: how actually wealthy are oligarchs without the people making their companies run? As a mental exercise, if 2/3rd of Tesla walked off the job tomorrow, how much would that affect the richest man on the planet if at all?

Physician salaries account for a mere 8.6% of healthcare cost in the US. I am all for free med school, but let’s not delude ourselves that reducing the cost of physicians would fix the obviously much bigger problem.

Hold. The. Line.

There’s a reason the press is feared by those in authority. Give them not an inch.

In all fairness, I kinda need a pair posthaste.

…and millions of eyeballs aren’t reliant on my exposition and analysis with real-world consequences for policy change.

That image scarred me so badly that to this day I couldn't even tell you what the rest of the show was about. There might be a better analogy but for me, after 30 years living in this country, it feels like I've lived amongst imposters this whole time and it's really bloody unnerving.

When I was a kid, there was this show called V about aliens moving us who wore human faces, but in the privacy of their homes they peeled their skins off the way one would take off a bra or get out of a suit and tie.

The most disturbing thing about living in the US currently is realizing that so many people in your community view the world starkly differently than you do: People you’ve gone to church with, folks whose children your kids play with, the neighbor 2 houses down who you’ve known for years.

You ain’t neva lie. Whew.

Now, THAT's more like it. 😂

Screenshot of a note I wrote to myself on January 27th, 2025. It reads "Advice for myself: 1. Guard your head and your heart well. The current administration is flooding the zone with bullshit. It is very real and, of course, has real consequences for a lot of people, but the overarching goal is attenuation. They want you to become numb. Don’t stop caring. 2. This is a marathon; pace yourself and BREATHE. Media, and social media in particular, can no longer be trusted as an impartial repository (if they ever could have been). You will be bombarded and you will be propagandized. Don’t forget to breathe through the bombardment. We are in it for the long haul. Take it yard, by yard. Step by step. Breath by breath. 4 years is a long time, but you are nothing if not a survivor. 3. Mark your calendars and plan to vote. Write down the specific ways the current political leadership has failed us, lest Nov 2026 comes around and you’ve somehow become inured, unlikely as that is."

I wrote this note to myself a week into the new administration. Worth holding onto and adding onto as the days, weeks and months progress. The chaos is the point. They want you to feel overwhelmed. Breathe.

YouTube video by The Ezra Klein Show Don't Believe Him | The Ezra Klein Show

This rings true. There's a "shock and awe" quality to everything that's being thrown at us in the last two weeks. I would not exactly ignore everything that's happening, but awareness that it's psychological warfare helps turn the temperature down a few degrees, at least for me. Stay Strong.

Well, you have me and I count for at least 4 personalities, ur, I mean people. So…

And my last bit of political venting tonight as I will be preserving my sanity by disconnecting from the spigot: “I told you so” may be the absolute least helpful thing at the moment, and yet I feel a bone deep urge to scream from the rafters to the other half of the country: We FUCKING TOLD YOU!

Then there’s this. I’ve seen the FAFO posts where we wallow in a bit of schadenfreude as the folks who voted in this trainwreck get their comeuppance, but this… this is a whole other kettle of fish. And I worry it presages worst things to come.

There was much to be said of Trump’s bathroom laden with boxes of classified documents. This thing where random other persons not cleared for having classified documents just coming in and commandeering them from a government office, tho… dafuq!?

Layered on top of half the country voting as they did last November and it is not just staggering, but terrifying. They knew just enough to think they knew how this, our current state of affairs, would turn out. Behold! The promised greatness!

The world might be wobbling strangely on its axis these days, but my 8 year old is pouring beauty into it as he practices and this old musician’s heart couldn’t be fuller. Things feel righted again, at least for the nonce.

Trump destabilizing the US and our standing in the world… A TikTok ban effected by both parties in congress leading to a surge of people pouring into Xiaohongshu… and now Deepseek undercutting billions invested in US Ai sending stock prices for Tech giants plummeting.

So far, 2025 is WILD.

Savoring yummy coffee at Bluestone while staring at a photograph I took in Sydney and wistfully reminiscing about some of the most incredible coffee I’ve ever had.

Maybe coffee obsessed.
Maybe Australia obsessed.
Maybe both.

Almost certainly both.

The fact that I don’t start my day with alcohol surprises no one more so than it does me.

And, yes, this is the sort of deep, earth shattering observation you’ve signed up for, my friends. So, buckle up.

Speak into the void and the void speaks... back? I may take to this after all.

Is this thing on?