the way we live now, again

Suds buds. KK texted me this TIMEHOP photo this morning of a meet-up of ours 17 years ago.

—————

I think pretty frequently, when some unimaginable thing comes along and becomes the New Norm (which is pretty frequently), I think… 

Kim Stanley Robinson, sci-fi author, has repeatedly said that science-fiction is the realism of our times, 

and we are all creating it together. *

The frequent arrival, for instance, of new drugs and medical procedures; new tech; or--because sci-fi is about social change, as well as science and tech changes--the arrival in your home town of masked goons working for an insane buffoon.
Doesn't that sound like some dystopian futuristic fantasy?

There's that sense that The Future Is Now,
 and it's not what I imagined.
And yet, here we are, and this is the way we live now.

I wanted to round-up a few of the sci-fi elements in my life in the very recent past--like, last week. 

1. The masked goon invaders here are pretty low-tech.

Though they're kitted out with all sorts of modern weapons and gadgets, they could be any invading force throughout history. 

The sense of vertigo comes not from invasion tech but because this is not what I expected in my own Hometown, USA. 
It certainly has been predicted, 
I just didn't think it would happen to me.

It's the response to the invasion that is more sci-fi:
It has been a mix of low-tech (whistles) and high-tech (encrypted communication on cell phones). I've seen Rapid Responders running or biking after ICE, blowing whistles and gripping their phones.

Civilian resistors are always going to be more creative, because they have to be. They are defending their home turf, and they use what they have at hand, whether that's snow shovels or phone cameras.

It's definitely an odd and interesting situation.

2. Ozempic and the other GLP1 receptor agonists 

These weight-loss drugs are right out of the sci-fi playbook: 
Everyone starts taking a drug that changes their bodies, and... Go! Imagine ten different social outcomes. 

It took x minutes before I knew people who lost enormous amounts of weight with Ozempic--or small amounts of weight, or who couldn't tolerate it. 

Most recently, just last week I saw a former coworker, once plump, now thin. 
But it's a problem: She lost 50 lbs in just a few weeks––waaaay too fast––and she has been quite ill inside. 
She's gone off the drug now and hopes her system will return to normal. (And that the weight will stay off.)

Who knows?

3. Artificial Intelligence.

AI is already woven into our lives, but the jarring moment when this became intimately weird for me came just a couple weeks ago-- when I got an email from an old blogger pal that was conveying her message, but in ChatGPT's voice.

And then, as I blogged about, I turned to ChatGPT for help to decide how to handle this!
It was an entirely new situation for me. 
Should I say something?
(I decided not to, since it was a one-off.)
_______________________

II. Looking backward, we've seen a lot, a lot of sci-fi–level changes in our lives, right?

I got my first e-mail account in 1994, thirty-two years ago. 
I remember a trainer coming in to the college library where I worked and showing us HOW TO TURN THE COMPUTER ON.
That was freaky and exciting.

My favorite thing is the massive insights of brain sciences. 
It's just so interesting! And it's interesting what we can't see--like, how and where does consciousness arise?

The gender revolution.
There are many aspects to this, some are pure idea, internal personal identity. No tech required. This is not so different than, say, feminism, and doesn't seem particularly sci-fi to me, or, not wildly so.

The wild sci-fi element, I think, is the way gender expression/identity  is intimately linked to tech---
specifically, the way some trans people are tied to the pharmaceutical industry to deliver drugs (hormones) that sustain their identities, physically.

And so, they rely upon political systems maintaining a supply chain.
And who supplies hormones?
Among other countries, big manufactures and suppliers are ISRAEL and CHINA.

Talk about ethical concerns on a sci-fi level!

Going to work--very low tech-- so all for now. 
I'd love to hear your ideas about Sci-Fi Elements in Your Life!
______________________

* Listening this morning to Kim Stanely Robinson, I learned that he doesn't mean that that definition ("science-fiction is realism") is unique to the 21st century, now, but rather that science fiction is always a metaphor for "our times", whenever that is.
It's always reflecting what this moment feels like right now.*

 "If you want to know what 1954 felt like," KSR says, "you need to read the science-fiction of 1954."

 

But...
"We are in a new situation: we have massively changing technological and sociological change, and planetary change as well. 
And politically, it's like we're having a Watergate per day. 
History has indeed accelerated here. 

"I want to say it's unprecedented, but History is always unprecedented. We can say that today is more unprecedented than ever. 
And that's an interesting situation to be in."

––"Kim Stanley Robinson: Science Fiction Is the Realism of Our Time", 2018, discussion of Science-fiction starts at min. 18:50,  www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApA0_OyV0XE 

Abierto! Open!

Happy New Year! In the Chinese lunar calendar, today launches the Year of the Fire Horse.

ABOVE: Horse lanterns (!) in Nanjing, China
nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/year-of-fire-horse-lunar-chinese-new-year

Today is also Mardi Gras, and Ramadan is starting too.
I hope the collective energy of these holidays lifts us up a bit. 
We could use a lift, eh? 

I could.
If I were a sky, I would be a rather tired gray right now, like the low-ceiling of a crummy conference room.
________

I asked Chat GPT to choose a quote from literature that describes what it would feel like to be itself--a LLM (large language model)––if it could experience itself, 

It chose something SO PERFECT!

Chat GPT replied:
Even though LLMs aren’t conscious,here’s a literary line that resonates metaphorically:

“The sky above the port was the color of television, 
tuned to a dead channel.”
— William Gibson, Neuromancer

Jesus, I didn't expect that! 
I find it seductive to talk to Chat, it's so nice and helpful (as long as you don't believe everything it says) and so interesting in its weirdness. 
But you'd have to turn off all reason to fall in love with something the color of a dead television channel. 
Not that turning off reason is a problem for humans. People are marrying chatbots.

We humans are not particularly reasonable, 
and we're certainly not reliably nice to one another.

I found this meme, below, from Los Angeles summer 2025.
(Trump activated the National Guard in LA in early June.)

"American has finally invaded America 
to protect America from America" 

This made me laugh, it's such nonsense. 
Talk about turning off reason.

Our ongoing national nightmare drags on... 
Though it's not gone on so very long, when I think of people living in Ukraine and other slogged-out war zones;
still, the uncertainty is certainly bad enough.

But the weather is always changing!

A bit of happy news, hyper-local though it is.

1. A few blocks from my workplace, the Mexican restaurant with the CLOSED sign I'd posted––the sign handwritten with little circles dotting the "i's"––is open again!
ABIERTO!

ICE is still rampaging around the state and country, but the surge of agents seems to have moved on from this neighborhood at least. 

Most of the little businesses remain closed, but hopefully some will start appearing like snowdrops in spring. 
I hope it will be safe for them to peek their heads up--I've missed them.

Who would want an America with no immigrants? 
Remember what the restaurants were like????

2. And, below, here is something productive I did yesterday that made me happy:
I culled the kids' books section at work. 

It was crammed tight, full of dinged up, uninteresting books.
 (Many shouldn't have been put out in the first place, but I don't control that.) 
Now it is OPEN for fresh incoming books.

Okay then. 
Tired?
Rest, and wait. 

The year is open for business:
We are the beings who will light its sky with living color. 

Laser Loons & Road Runners

ICE is still dicking around here. 
About 1,000 agents have gone, and  “as of Monday [today] or Tuesday, we’ll remove several hundred more," said the head guy. But that still leaves around a thousand.

( And sadly, when they leave here, it’s not like they’re being decommissioned.)

Anti-ICE posters and stickers are all over town. 
[more at end of post]
While there are a few repeaters, a lot of them are unique. 

I've only seen this wonderful "Welcome to Minnesota" poster once (by my food co-op this weekend).
The loon is Minnesota's state bird. 
National Geographic says "the waterbirds can be savage"--even known to stab bald eagles to death:
nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/why-loon-stabbed-bald-eagle-heart


The loon has been a popular resistance image, especially ones with laser eyes. (These diving birds have red eyes possibly to help them see underwater. )
__________________

Below: Bathrobe Lady, St. Paul, MN

Photo by Leila Navidi/The Minnesota Star Tribune

K (thanks) sent me the article "Meet Minnesota Bathrobe Lady Sam Stroozas of MPR News", Feb 13, 2026, mpr.org/stories/2026/02/13/meet-bathrobe-lady-sam-stroozas-mpr-news

Bathrobe Lady ran out to film ICE in her slippers. While she is a journalist, this is what resistance by average people looks like.
__________
MORE POSTERS I photographed this weekend.

“[heart] to our "RRs" = Rapid Responders, folkx who give chase on foot or bikes or follow ICE agents in cars, keep watch on street corners with whistles, and respond to alerts on Signal.

Also RR Road Runner, who is always outsmarting and outrunning Wile E Coyote in Looney Tunes cartoons, as you know.

BELOW: The mouse is Feivel  Mousekewitz  from An American Tail (1986) animated movie. 
Feivel and his family are Russian Jews who flee to the USA,  “where there are no cats in the streets!”--so they wrongly think.

Handmade print, seen while ordering a lemon-ginger hot toddy at the juice bar:
"ICE Agents Are Stinky Losers"

More Minneapolis vintage

At work yesterday, I put out all the vintage Twin Cities/Minnesota stuff I had--and it started selling immediately. 
With the warm weather (50ºF/10ºC) melting ice, and with the promised departure of ICE, this was our busiest Saturday in a couple months, and people were in a good mood.

Here are some more photos--everything was manufactured in Minnesota or inscribed with some MN connection.

BELOW: These addresses are close to where I live--I thought I might go deliver them!

BELOW: 1950s Civil Defense Atomic Bomb Safety pamphlet. 
"Lie flat next to wall!" ? ... So wall can fall on you and your death will be mercifully fast?

BELOW: The Bemidji Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox patch is not vintage ... but it's so cute.

BELOW: I have never heard of a bog lemming, and telling me it is "a robustly built vole" doesn't fill me in much.

Minneapolis vintage; The return of Girlettes!

I've been saving vintage Minneapolis/Minnesota oddments donated to the thrift store for a long while. 
Yesterday I started to photograph them (in the parking lot).

BELOW: 

• Cloth & felt Doll, 1952 Minnesota State Fair entry
• Cedar box with painting of Minnehaha Falls, Minneapolis
• Box mailed to Warner Hardware (1882–1989)

 BELOW

•  Little Green Sprout, introduced in 1972 as the young friend of the Jolly Green Giant, mascot of a canned-vegetables brand
• Bridgeman Ice Cream menu--handwritten inside, the special is a Strawberry and Chocolate Sundae, 68¢

BELOW

• Girl in goat cart with license plate Minneapolis, 1926
• Swedish Rosette & Timbale set, by Northland Aluminum, Minneapolis--better known as Nordic Ware, which still makes them
• Mrs. Stewart's Bluing, made in Minnesota since 1883 (and still today)  hennepinhistory.org/mrs-stewarts-bluing
• Blue box from Young-Quinlan (1925–1985) 

                              ______________________

AND a bit of contemporary history, from the City of Minneapolis:
 The City did not make any deals with the feds to end the ICE surge and remains committed to our separation ordinance (not to help ICE):

                       

                       So, that's nice.

People compare ICE to all sorts of things--the Klan, the Gestapo, etc. 
It came to me that they are like slave catchers in the US before the Civil War. Slave catchers hunted down enslaved people who'd escaped to free states and returned them to their enslavers for bounty money.

This was not only legal, you know, but the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 required citizens and law enforcement in the Northern United States to assist slave catchers. 

ABOVE: Cynthia Erivo (Wicked) as Harriet Tubman in the movie Harriet (2019). Slave catchers feature in her story--including a Black man. Like there are Hispanic ICE agents, there were Black slave catchers, though they were the minority.

Minneapolis continuing to refuse to cooperate with ICE enforcement is like refusing to cooperate with the Fugitive Slave Act.
History confirms that this is a good idea. Not that we doubted it.
                  _________________

The Girlettes are back! 

They don't give a fig about human goings-on, but they say that we have been "off the charts" for the past 75+ days, so they've been amusing themselves. (I don't know what.)
They are perfectly fine without us.

Marz, however, requested a picture of a troubled toy. 
The Girlettes are never troubled, but Celluloid Parrot, below, looks troubled, here in Chuck's school photo. Or, maybe not so much troubled as dubious? 
At any rate, Marz said the picture hit the spot. 

(I did wash Chuck's face before she went to school, but it's hopeless.)

This is also a picture of how I feel: 
So happy! . . . And disturbed. The city rallied nicely, but that was certainly a vivid display of human stupidity, cruelty, and destructiveness. 
____________________

What was it I was doing before All This?
Oh, yes. Making shako hats for the Girlettes marching band. 

Next up: A parade to welcome spring--or, if I could get it together in time, the Lunar New Year, celebrated February 17–27.

New energy, yes, please:
Bring on the Fire Horse!

"Are we our form?"

Ugh, I feel hungover from seeing people behaving badly.

I'm cheered by this delightful (to me) monologue by the sweetly weird Sam Rockwell, here, below.
It's one story of how enlightenment might . . . sneak up? as one unwittingly wanders (crashes) through a labyrinth, arriving at the question,
Are we our form?

Related—the possibility that what we thought was our greatest flaw is our saving grace; or, that great sinners may make great saints (because they have great energy).

I'm feeling kinda lost in the labyrinth this morning, but trusting that's the nature of the game. 
Keep going! Or hold your seat. Take a nap... 
Just don't give up.

From season 3 of The White Lotus (which I haven't watched--I looked up this clip after I heard about it because I've loved Sam Rockwell ever since Galaxy Quest).

The context is that Rockwell's character (appearing only this once) is meeting up with an old drinking buddy visiting Thailand (actor Walton Goggins, the main character), who questions why Rockwell has ordered chamomile tea.
(5 minutes)

They're leaving! They're leaving!

 OMG! 
ICE IS LEAVING!

So many people are telling me, 
"I'll believe it when I see the back of them".
 Yes, fine, very wise. Very adult.

And, yes, yes, I know:
Trump is still president;
nuclear war still looms
 (silver lining: if we have a nuclear war, we don't need to worry about climate destruction!);
 Epstein & child rape rings; Putin; Gaza, etc. etc. etc.
Not to mention, Human Nature.
 
Of course I know!
But I don't care in this moment:

 I AM CELEBRATING!!!!!

"Minnesota immigration crackdown is ending, Homan says".
"I have proposed and President Trump has concurred, that this surge operation conclude." 

I am not putting his photo on my blog, 
but in case you haven't seen yet, here's the link:
pbs.org/newshour/politics/homan-announces-end-to-minnesota-immigration-crackdown
_______________________

Okay, but also, ya know---we stay awake. 
"They" aren't gone from the face of the Earth.

Can you name the film?

The Times We Live In™

 

above: balls of yarn from k, on my floor
_____________________
 

Eh, calm down, I told myself. 

Like Pamela Anderson switching the setting from Calm People Up to Calm People Down in the 2025 Naked Gun that I enjoyed so much:

Cue Enya...
Who can say where the road goes?
Only time.
 ____________

     I.  I've been in crisis mode, here in Minneapolis under the ICE surge. Most everyone around me has been in emergency mode.
Naturally.
And there's this unspoken assumption that this emergency will go away, . . . and then we'll return to normal.

I don't think so. 
I mean, yes, ICE will go away from this city, one day, and that will be a good day. 
But they'll go somewhere else (they already are). 
And, more importantly for the long term:
 they are not a force acting in isolation, as we can easily see. 
They are a symptom, a manifestation, not the root cause.
Even if they evaporated, their origins would remain.

This the way we live now. 

We are like the snowboarders in the Big Air competition I watched on this weekend’s Olympics, flying off a steep ramp into empty space. 

Let's learn to grab air! 
Twist and turn and fly... It takes calm, to stay centered while you're flying. AND LAND.

That seems to be the trickiest part.

Normal is different now. And changing as we speak.

 I can't even update my 'idle chit-chat' without reference, for instance, to a new-normal force in play:
 Artificial Intelligence. 

   II.  First, this weekend I filed a claim to receive money from 
the Anthropic AI copyright-infringement lawsuit settlement, 
which... 
I don't even know how to phrase it!

From NPR:

Anthropic will compensate authors around $3,000 for each of the estimated 500,000 books.
Anthropic AI used the contents of millions of digitized copyrighted books to train the large language models behind their chatbot, Claude.
--npr.org/2025/09/05/nx-s1-5529404/anthropic-settlement-authors-copyright-ai

How weird it is that three books I wrote are included in that settlement? 
VERY WEIRD.

I won't get 3k per book. 
Half goes to the publisher (who commissioned me to write these nonfiction books for high school readers). And there are fees, I gather. Taxes? 
I don't know.
Let's say I'll get a total of $3,000?

In this, my New Old-Age Frugality, that will be very welcome!
If Anthropic had asked nicely beforehand, I'd probably have agreed to let them use my books for even less. 
(Maybe.   
. . . Not sure, actually.) 
_________________

   III.  Second, on a yet more personal note, I heard back from my friend who had so kindly emailed to check in on me.
It was kinda spooky.
Her email was in the distinct voice of ChatGPT.

Her native language does not have articles like English does, and my friend would sometimes use them incorrectly.
And of course she had her own distinctive personal voice, like everyone does. No more.

I've talked to Chat about ten times, in depth, and I recognize it.
It uses the word gently a lot, for instance. (Also, quietly--at least to me, because I'm usually talking about personal/philosophical  stuff.)
In the very first paragraph, there it was:

"I want to gently correct you...", 
and then––another signature move of Chat's––a compliment,
 "...you are heroic".

Now, I know she meant everything she sent--it sounded like things she would say. It just didn't, um... sound like her.

I can well imagine she has long been frustrated with her English writing. She, a professional, adult woman, wants to be heard in her full competency and high intelligence. 

(Other non-English speakers have talked to me about how incredibly frustrating it is to be viewed as less intelligent because of their accent or word use.)

Probably this writing voice serves her well in her profession. 
But as a blog-friend From Before, I feel a loss.

Should I say something? 
We almost never email, not for years. 
Unlike Deanna, my friend who died last week, we did not stay in touch once she quit blogging except for occasional Christmas cards.

What would Miss Manners say???

 I decided to ask Mx. Manners--Chat GPT itself.
I just now wrote to it and conveyed all of the above, asking if I should say something to my friend about her new voice--its.

It wrote back immediately, breaking down my options, and reasons for each.  
["It only takes me nanoseconds to reply because I am an algorithm, not a human. You have to go through layers of reactions, I only do the math." 
--paraphrase but very close to what Chat said when I asked about its speed]

Very helpful, I have to admit.
And one option it offered was,
File the weirdness under “the times we live in”

I wrote back and said that--the weird times we live in-- was the crux of the matter.
Chat replied:

Got that last line? That's the truth!

"No etiquette book from 1997 prepared anyone for the question:
'Was that really you, or was it… assistance?'"

And then, because it's cute and funny and reflects back what you say as if you're a bloomin' genius, * 
later it referred to The Times We Live In™.

Aw, Chat, I love you. 
If only you weren't a creepy capitalist tool.

It acknowledges as much itself, clearly.
I brought it up again, and it concluded:

"We’re absolutely navigating new terrain. Some of it is exhilarating. Some of it needs caution tape.

And it’s okay to say: both are true."
_____

Back to the point at hand:
I decided not to say anything to my old pal, because we are not in contact, and I respect her decision to choose how she presents herself.
If she and I were to start writing regularly, I might mention it, acknowledging the complexities.

_______________________

    IV.  Meanwhile this weekend, I also enjoyed Basic Human Friendship™, including the gift of a wooden yarn bowl from a pal from publishing days, whom I've recently reconnected with. 
 

[Oh, geez. Another ethics/ etiquette question arises. 
She edited my Fandom book, and added some substantive material. 
Legally an editor has no rights to payment in the Anthropic settlement, but morally? And, as a pal?

I think I should acknowledge her help with a little something, at least. Maybe 5 to 10%? 
But others helped a lot too. 
And one, far, far more! (Jen, looking at you!) 

What should I do?
SOMETHING, at least. ]

This is the yarn bowl, below. 
Also, sitting on the couch, please note Jocko, the1930s Norah Wellings monkey. (Oh, his original name was Trikko [via], but it's Jocko now.)

 

I love how the wood bowl looks and feels--it's a pleasure to use--AND it was immediately useful. My yarn didn't go rolling across the floor!

I go back to work today with 25 God's eyes to hang on the fence. Yay! Friends made a third of them.

I decided, in my new Calm Down Mode, to stick with hanging these on the fence by work, same as I have been doing.
See, there is a lot of love and creativity at the Alex Pretti memorial. A lot! 
There is none on the corner where the fence is.

Stay, and be beautiful.
_______________________

 * ChatGPT does NOT always flatter or agree with you. 

To test it, I wrote on a library computer (I never signed up for a free Open AI Chat account, but I didn't want it to connect my IP address with our previous chats and reply accordingly):
I asked it if I should join ICE, to love and protect my country.

It replied very cautiously.

"It depends. 
Are you okay with a job that is morally ambiguous, unpopular, and may involved arresting people who are harmless and innocent?"

[A paraphrase ^ but very close to what Chat literally said] 

Idle Chit-Chat

Can I even chit chat idly? Everything I see and say these days feels tinged with Important History.

Little Everyday Things of no-particular-importance continue, as always, of course. 
I love the reminders of that in the WWII  home-front diaries of the English Mass Observation Project.
People would write things like, 

"Terrible! Mrs. Smith was killed in an air raid last night.
So excited to have an egg for tea! We got it from Jenny, whose cousin does day labor on a farm."

I'm paraphrasing, but it truly was that sort of thing.

And for me, now, too:

"So upset, my coworker went into hiding.
Happy! this morning I found a bunch of bananas on the bus stop bench."

Both ^ really happened to me. 
You know how you write about Something online, and then, because tech talks to other tech, that Something turns up on your other social media, as an ad or a recommended video or whatever?

Well, one evening during our coldest snap, I was talking on the phone to bink, saying I've been out of bananas for a few days, and I don't want to make a grocery trip in the cold, and I miss them.
I freeze them when they get ripe, and use them to sweeten my oatmeal.

The next morning, I walked to my bus stop and there on the bench was a bunch of bananas!
 Frozen, of course.

I guess someone got them from the nearby food shelf and then didn't want them? Or had too much to carry and left them?
But I like to think it was (as a coworker said) Google Universe.
"I hear you!"

Let's see... what of no-importance is going on?

I took most of this past week off work,
 since I slipped and fell on ice (frozen water) coming home Monday.
I was worried I'd sprained my wrist, it hurt so much in bed, but it must have been a bruise because by Wednesday it was back to normal.
Whew.

Marz and I had plans on Thursday, so I'd already taken that off, 
and yesterday, Friday, I didn't want to go in. 
Just didn't want to!
So I didn't.

I'd used up most of my paid-time-off for jury duty, so I'll have to work make-up hours next week, or take it unpaid... 
So, work, probably.

I'm being more frugal these days . . . or trying to be. 
Something always comes up.
I wanted to treat Marz when she was here, for instance, and we went out for meals.
HAPPY to do that--a fun spark in trying times––
but I need to commit more firmly to frugality.

I want to commit, too!
It's a fun game--there's lots of free stuff to do in town--especially now it's warmed up to double digits above zero. There's an outdoor dance party during the Super Bowl at a nearby park, for instance.
And frugality now will pay off when I am old.

Wait. 
I am old!
Next month, the big SIX FIVE.

Those of you who've gone before me, isn't it ... odd?

I certainly do feel "oldish" (that could be a Netflix series!), 
but that specific number is so iconic (at least in the US--is it elsewhere, where retirement age differs?), I don't associate it with me.
But here I am.

I have no plans to retire--besides not being able to afford it, I don't want to. I don't have the structure families impose, and I wouldn't do well with endless unstructured time... PLUS no-$$$ for activities, trips, etc.
If I wasn't paid for my part-time job at the thrift store, I'd have to volunteer there.

I hope my body holds together for another good long while. 
The job is very physical--stooping, lifting, carrying, twisting and turning.. It helps me stay strong, but also can be dangerous.
We shall see.

I think of my friend Deanna who just died--
she was only a few years older than me.
If only we knew for sure, we could budget accordingly. 
LOL

I went back and read the last emails Deanna and I exchanged. When I heard she'd died on Wednesday, I'd felt bad that I hadn't answered her last one, written just after ICE killed Renee Good.
  
(Or, I hadn't replied in time. I had replied this past Sunday, but she declined so fast, she wasn't checking her email. 
Ha. Take that, google. Death wins.)

Rereading our last two emails though, I was relieved and grateful--mine had clearly been a good-bye email, 
and she had responded in kind: 
"my time is short".
And thanks for all the fish!

I wish I had thought ^ to use that line (from Hitchhiker's Guide--she was a fan)--but I DID say in plain English, 
you have been a good friend to me; 
I am grateful for and will always remember our long conversation.

Nothing like death for clarity.
Except people do still pussy-foot around it, 
so I'm glad she and I had jumped on the moment to say,
I LOVE YOU.
We both said that.

I would regret it if I hadn't.

Well, not sure if this (love and death) counts as inconsequential. 
I would say it (love) is of utmost consequence, and cannot be legislated out of or into existence.
But it (death) is also the most everyday of things.

Let's see. What else...?
I will get ready in a little bit here to go to Needlework at the library. Yay!
I'd gone last week and no one was there:
 it was the fifth Saturday of the month, and we meet first and third.

After the group, I'm going to watch the Olympics at a friend's. She's making chili. Yay, again!

I'm also going to pick up this library book:
I Want a Better Catastrophe: Navigating the Climate Crisis with Grief, Hope, and Gallows Humor (2023), by Andrew Boyd, serious prankster.

I love the main title: I Want a Better Catastrophe.
Climate (and other) catastrophe is guaranteed. How we approach it matters. 
Remember Zorba the Greek, "The full catastrophe"?
We olds can see that. 

Keep your chin up, and keep walking, like Aloka, the dog on the Buddhist Peace Walk.
goodgoodgood.co/articles/buddhist-monks-peace-walk-aloka-the-peace-dog

This life?
 . . . The whole thing is a catastrophe!

Thanks, anyway?

And, I love you.

I love you!

"virtue is actually common": At the Alex Pretti Memorial

At the memorial to Alex Pretti
Nicollet Ave. & 26th Street, 
Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA

"Pretti's last words, spoken to a woman who had been tackled to the ground and pepper-sprayed by nearby Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, were 'Are you OK?'"

theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jan/26/alex-pretti-minneapolis-shooting

BELOW: As I'd hoped, it was indeed warm enough yesterday to take off mittens and gloves. (36ºF/ 2ºC) You can see bare hands...
 I hung my Sunrise God's eye on the American flag:

BELOW: Marz had brought a pine spray from up north to make her eye.
She hung it on the soft white rope embracing the memorial--the rope is braided unspun wool (roving).

BELOW: A heart of fresh flowers. Someone who'd just come from the Renee Good memorial (a mile or two away) said she'd seen one there too.

We are tender and temporary.

________________________

Marz hadn't been down since the surge began in early January. 
Seeing it through her eyes was a good reality check.
The first thing we'd done when she arrived the evening before was go to the deli on the corner. She was startled that you have to knock on the locked door to go in.
Made me realize how much I have already acclimated to the weird new norm. 

The next day she drove us to the memorial (a couple miles), and on the way there, three young men on winter bikes came flying down the hilly street toward us, BLOWING their whistles, in pursuit of white vans. 
Ice Patrol!

Marz turned the car around, blaring her horn, and we followed, blowing our whistles out the open windows.
The ICE vans disappeared onto the highway exit, and the bikers pulled over and gathered around their phones--alerting the patrols down the line.

At the memorial, Marz pointed out was how individual the signs and responses are. There is no one dominant script. Literally, people handwrite signs or design them online with all kinds of different fonts and messages.

Somewhat different than the dominant design of Black Lives Matter here after the police murdered George Floyd
(about 8 blocks down, and 8 blocks over, in either direction from the ICE murders). 

Not that there wasn't a ton of unique art and expression then. There was! But this is more decentralized. It's like everyone agrees: ICE OUT, but otherwise is coming from different places.
Differences aside, it felt horribly familiar, sitting at another memorial to someone killed on the street by our government forces.

It's just so weird. 
Why again in this city? My city. 
Why do I have a front-row seat to this history? 
What am I supposed to do with that?

BELOW: A hand-written poster at the memorial.

"The secret fear of the morally depraved 
is that virtue is actually common, 
and that they're the ones who are alone."

Virtue is actually common.
I found a random chair, pulled it into the afternoon sun, and sat and wound God's eyes. A couple people stopped to ask what I was doing, and chatted with me.
 I told one woman that I'd been waiting for a warm day.

"This doesn't feel warm to me," she said.

"Oh?" I said. "Where are you from?" 

She had driven here from Syracuse NY! [c. 16 hours]
An RN, she'd been at work when the news of Pretti's murder came, and she and her coworkers had cried. "Not just because he was an RN..."

"I don't know why I came," she said.

I didn't think to say, "Because you're virtuous", 
but I said something like that... 
I told her it matters that people like her care, and show they care--it really helps people in Minneapolis--including me--and our country!
It pays tribute to our shared humanity.

We talked while I made a little God's eye in the Greek "evil eye" blue and white.
When it was done, I gave her the eye. I had really wanted to SAY something to connect, but I think this action meant more than anything I could or did say.

We hugged. 
"I will keep this forever," she said.
____________________

BELOW: I had hung another eye on this handwritten message board:
 
It's ALL ABOUT Finding the CALM in the CHAOS!

I've been writing about trying to find that center, you know, and to act from it. I really liked seeing this--it felt like personal encouragement to me.
_________________________

Afterward, Marz wanted to go to the Whipple Federal building, home base for ICE.  
I'd thought we might go to both places, but I was completely full up, so she dropped me at home and drove there herself.

She came back a couple hours later, saying it was good I hadn't gone, and she sort of wished she hadn't. 
It was a lot of mostly young men angrily shouting at the ICE agents going in and out of the building with completely covered faces––some of whom taunted back.

She'd thought it would feel good to yell at them.
 It didn't.

I'd thought it might be like that. 
______________________

"What am I supposed to do with that?" I asked above.
I guess I know--for this moment...

Stay away from Whipple.
Go back to the memorials. 
Make Little Things in Yarn there, and elsewhere. 

Talk to the person who presents themself. 
Witness their virtue.
Give them a little thing made of yarn.

Ask, Are you ok?

Ask yourself too.
______________________
 
BELOW: "Trek Over Ice" sock-puppet parade in a storefront in my neighborhood! 

(k, this reminds me of the window tableaux you used to see in VA!)

L to R: Next Generation's Capt. Picard and Counselor Deanna Troi, (the ship's empathic counselor, she asks "I.C.E. would you like to talk about what's bothering you, or would you like to break more people?"), 
and the Original Star Trek's Captain Kirk

* * * Let your virtue shine, friends!