Thoughtnami™

 Reading all these articles and stories about Jason Arday. Yeah, this story hits hard. This story feels familiar. This story feels personal because I've had situations like that. I'm still going through situations like that. I understand why what happened to Professor Arday happened, but I don't. It doesn't make sense. It's so unfair. And once again, I don't like the bad guys winning. I don't like bigots gleeful and openly celebrating the death of a Black scholar.  And these monsters are just absolutely giddy and happy that Professor Arday is no longer alive, and they want to push other Black scholars, writers, and creatives to do the same thing.  I don't like that another voice has gone to the ancestors long before his time because racist assholes bullied him to the point that he felt that was the path he had to take. I hate bullies. I hate this. They broke this man.  They broke this man, cried crocodile tears to absolve themselves of their complicity i...

On Monday, June 29, 2026, I blew up online.  I got bombarded with a bunch of folks just dogpiling on me calling me a "defeatist," a "doomer," and, worst of all, a quitter largely because I felt that The Deal™ being completely undone because of the actions of a few state attorneys general in the United States (yes, that's the term, attorneys general, not attorney generals, but grammar rules are weird in English, so go figure). Apparently, my comparison of the situation to a Hail Mary pass play in the fourth quarter of an American football game when you're at 4th and 30 in your own end zone with two seconds left on the clock went above their heads and constituted as high treason and surrender on my part. I have to understand that sometimes, certain idioms don't translate well in other languages, some people aren't sports fans, and some folks just want to be loud and angry towards anyone who doesn't subscribe to a super-optimistic viewpoint all the ...

When I was still a kid, all bright-eyed, super-optimistic, and not world-weary, and the one thing I loved to do was visit the local mall in my city, Tower Mall.  That retail oasis was a haven from a busy week of school, but since it wasn't somewhere I could visit unless I didn't have a little change in my pocket, those trips were few and far-between. But every now and then, my folks and I always made a trip at least twice a month. It wasn't a big mall, mind you. Military Circle, Greenbriar Mall, and Lynnhaven Mall were all much, much bigger at the time, but they were far from home and tended to be an all-day trip.  Tower Mall had everything you could get at most other malls. The mall was open Mondays through Saturdays because at the time, Virginia had "blue laws" that kept most retail businesses closed on Sundays and oddly didn't go away until Walmart entered the region.  The mall was anchored by Montgomery Ward, Rices Nachmans (later Hess's), Miller &...

  The last week of January is always the coldest week of the year for me. Two women who were a huge part of my life passed away decades apart in the same week.  I think that's partially why I'm not really a fan of my birthday week because it comes so close to that cold week. People passing away suddenly never sits well with me, and that's why that coldness never really goes away.  Twenty-seven years ago, I lost the first person who really understood me, helped guide me into the person I am today, and never made me feel like I was weird.  My grandma was a saint. She was my mother's mother. A teacher, a helper, someone who would give her all to help someone else, even if it was a total stranger. She had this aura, this presence of peace and kindness that was just omnipresent. She was creative and encouraged my creativity, much like my mom does today. She had seen a lot of the world for what it was, endured the prejudices within it, but held on to her faith and empathy ...