Input

My morning mass endoggenment
I have the ipad and coffee right there,
but it takes two hands to pet two dogs

As our world is burning down around us, I've been thinking a lot about modifying my consumer behavior - both where I spend money and where I get news and entertainment. I've had a ritual for a number of years now, in retirement, where I rise relatively early, let the dogs out while making coffee, and then settle down with my ipad to check in with the world. (First the dogs pile on me for a morning pet fest, topping up my oxytocin levels that decline overnight.) I have my routine: texts (they don't wake me up if they come in while I'm asleep), emails, blogs of people I know in real life. Then, a deep breath and the news. 

The news is bound to upset me, and I've learned to meter my input, checking my arousal level, and sometimes just walking away for a while. But this morning checkin is where I decide on my civic actions for the day. I write or call my federal representatives, or my state and local ones, almost every day first thing. (Not many calls, while I know they are supposed to be more important than emails, but I am very thoughtful in my phrasing in emails.) I might enter comments on some federal or local issue that has a public comment form available. I have a weakness for having to actually research a topic before commenting on it, clicking through to read source documents and think about it, so this is time consuming.

This is my main ipad screen with my news sources,
recently enhanced and rearranged so I can get at my most used
Links to email reps at the bottom

I have subscribed to the New York Times and the Washington Post for years, and since I got the ipad, I actually read or at least skim them every day. I am disappointed in their performance right now, but I still believe they have legitimate investigative journalists doing good work. (Their headline writers, on the other hand, suck.) Not only am I reluctant to deprive myself of these papers' content, but I am willing to pay to support them. I am working with many additional news sources as well, and increasingly I'm paying for them as well.

 I subscribe / pay for Vox, Pro Publica, the Baltimore Banner, the New Yorker, the Atlantic, New York mag, Heatmap, Wired and Rolling Stone. These last two have a surprising amount of relevant investigative journalism right now. I'm considering contributing to the AP - I only just realized it's not-for-profit. Heatmap is a climate newsletter someone I know writes for, I only read it sometimes. I subscribe to a large number of newsletters, most through SubStack, and I pay for a few of them.

I never watched TV news, ever. But I used to live on public radio. I've been contributing since right after college (the tote bag and coffee mug collections have finally been whittled down.)  I owned a radio for every room in my house. On weekends, I would turn them all on to the local station (WAMU, Shout Out!) while I did chores and projects. Now, I have Amaz** Alexas in many rooms, and I can with a voice comment turn them all to the station and hear it as I move throughout the house. But I want to meter my input of upsetting news, not allow random voices to appear and hit me in the gut with something with little warning. And so more often I tee up a podcast from my list, or a book, using the devices as bluetooth speakers for my phone. 

I will also play music throughout the house, either directly with a voice command, or again bluetoothed to  my phone. I also still have my big, dumb, ipod, loaded with many LPs and CDs I loaded into my computer as MP3s. Its battery has no staying power, but I have it plugged into a charger, and wired to a high quality speaker. Often I will put it on random shuffle from my entire collection of songs (about 100 hours worth!) and play it loudly while going about my business. It's pretty much guaranteed that every song on the ipod is something I liked enough to own at one time, and sometimes there is an unexpected pleasure from hearing something I remember only from long ago. Sweet!

Book options

Books are my big thing. I have a kindle and a kobo which are "epaper" readers. I much prefer them to long reading on the ipad - the screen is easier on my eyes and the device is much lighter to hold, and it's a great battery life for travelling. I find the epaper devices seamless to read on, a better experience than the printed page because I can adjust the font size and backlighting to the conditions. I'm trying to unwind myself from Amaz**, and it's hard. The public library offers a kindle option for most of their ebooks, and I usually go that route. In addition, a Prime membership gets me a couple extra free books (limited selection) every month. And many independent authors, self-published, are only available there. The kobo has fallen into dis-use. Recently, Bookshop.org has offered another alternative for buying ebooks. Their website allows you to choose an independent bookstore to profit from sales to you on their site. I've designated "Loyalty Bookstores", located in DC and Silver Spring. But their catalog is not extensive - especially in a back catalog if I find an author I like and want to catch up on all their books. And books bought through them have to be read on my ipad currently, though apparently they are in discusssions with Kobo. I have discovered there are some untethered chrome-operating system generic ereaders made. I was excited, until I researched on Reddit and found they are mostly made in China, system messages are in Chinese, and they require some savvy shenanigans to use. I'll stay tuned, but not ready to purchase yet.

I also listen to books a lot. Audible is the obvious choice there, and I've been on a subscription there since I bought my first ipod. Now the app is on my phone, but I can also download to my kindle, which can save phone battery while traveling. The Audible subscription level I'm on gives me access to a lot of no-extra-cost books, mostly back catalogues or indy authors. The library audiobooks are Libby, which works very well on the phone. I also use Libro.fm, which is affiliated with Bookshop.org and has the same deal of designating a local bookstore to share profits. I am currently also subscribed to Libro, but it has the same issues as Bookshop's ebooks in terms of fewer choices and no back catalog.

I use Goodreads to keep track of my reading, and to get updates from other people. It is owned by Amaz**, and when I finish and rate a book on the kindle, it automatically is registered in Goodreads. Books read elsewhere, or audiobooks, require entering manually. There are other social reading sites, Fable and StoryGraph, which are frankly better. Except, they don't have the automatic updating. I am a voluminous reader, and I like the convenience of the automatic updates. So I'm still on Goodreads for now. If my kindle reading declines, perhaps the convenience factor will too. (Both StoryGraph and Fable allow importing a Goodreads export, which captures all your history up to that point. But, that's a one-time thing and all future books have to input manually.)

John Scalzi has an excellent post that covers the nuances and pains of trying to disentangle from various Evil Empires run by oligarchs.  Two notable quotes: "Boycotts are a fuckin' slog, y'all" and "No ethical living under capitalism is a real thing". I'm sorting my way through the mess. I'm on Facebook and Instagram regularly, where I see posts from people I know in real life and want to keep up with (I post very rarely). But I'm not on Twitter nor Threads, though I have IDs there. I've been a Prime member, and I'm not turning that off right now. But I'm trying to go to other sources for things, with mixed success. Covid tests available for same-day delivery via Amaz** took eight days to arrive when ordered direct from the manufacturer. A maintenance item I needed was only available via Amazon - the manufacturer's website pointed only there. Whole Foods has been my major grocery store (visited more than once a week last year). I've joined the local food coop and checked out Mom's Organic Market (local chain, twice the distance). Both are less convenient - I often would drive to the WF parking lot, where I could also go to the farmer's market, hardware store (employee owned!), CVS, and library all in one trip. Shall I spend more gas driving around for errands? Nuance and trade offs, guys.

BlueSky has definitely hurt my sleep. I've turned on controls on my ipad - BlueSky is limited to 25 minutes a day, and the whole ipad turns off at 10 pm. Controls are easily over-ridden, but at least it's a conscious decision. 

Poor Quality Tears

AI generated image from the prompt
"drawing of poor quality tears"

"Poor quality tears" is a phrase that has been rattling around inside my head, a phrase that can be used as a metaphor in so many ways. My eye doctor diagnosed me with this. When I went to her because I had gummy, sticky, eyes, she diagnosed me with "dry eye" which seemed wrong when my eyes are runny. She explained my tears are very low quality, not lubricating my eyes, and so I over-manufacture them because my brain believes my eyes are dry. I've been crying poor quality tears, full of grief, but not able to articulate exactly why.

My nephew's girlfriend posted this on Bluesky: nothing can possibly prepare oneself for the crumbling sensation of feeling like any and all futures you dreamed of just vanished into thin air. She captured so close to what I've been feeling! Of course, she is young, was on the brink of significant career success, and now in very real danger from our government - it's all come crumbling down for her. I know her tears are the real thing, of very high quality. Her losses are real and significant.

I believe that, for a brief time in the past year, I've been in a golden spot where most things were going well. Kids healthy and on good tracks. Me healthy and wealthy, if not wise. My life was organized, moving along so that I felt I had purpose and pleasure in good proportions. A solid collection of true friends. Living a life full of convenience, comfortable habits that made moving along easy.

Now that has all come tumbling down. The world will not go back to the way it was. I'm mourning the loss, not just of my world of the past year, but also of the trajectory, the future world I imagined was coming. Too much has happened - the future has been changed. Not all of my losses come from the shitstorm that is our political world - the specter of chronic, severe illness is also with us now. I am privileged, mightily. I'm losing convenience and certainty. My life will be fine, though different. But I ache for the young people, for the uncertain future they face, instead of the golden one I imagined for them. I ache for those in real jeopardy, and those whose present has already been blighted. I ache for our world, changing in ways no-one would have believed a few months ago.

I'm angry, and I do what I can to fight. But just for this moment, I'm tired and I'm sad.

———Edited to add a tag from a fired fed in my neighborhood:

“ We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that’s waiting for us. – Joseph Campbell”