Today was endless and undifferentiated. I did a handful of random work tasks. A couple minor house tasks. Cooked dinner.

I owe an email to some people who are asking after my health, but I can't bring myself to write back. The truth is the health issue is actually under control and probably needing no more concern, but I'm not done convalescing. I'm trying to figure out what to say that says I'm going to be without capacity for a while, without implying I'm sick. 

I have some virtual social time and a trip to the fancy bakery across the street on the calendar for this week. And a new lipstick is supposedly coming in the mail. How exciting! The world burns, and still we wear lipstick.

Folks, my sister is steel. My mother is impossibly strong. She's carried more people through things than anyone acknowledges. I'm very much like my mother. Particularly in the exasperating ways. 

So I've always figured I'd be carrying people through a lot of things. And I have, honestly. But I forget that she carries me.

I lit a candle and sat outside on the cool grass and poured a glass of Carmen Stevens Cabernet Shiraz blend into the dirt. Carmen Stevens is the first black winemaker in South Africa. I figured it was the most appropriate tribute on hand. 
We have so much work to do. 

I had lots of random thoughts today, but I have also been having migraine auras, so can't really look at the screen.

Also, the cat is sick. Nothing is easy.

Everything is fucked and today is a day I can't separate myself from the sorrow and impotence of living at the end of the world. It's not just that the US is over--that's not the world--it's that the climate is over.

I don't have kids, but I love some people who do. And I love some people under the age of 18. We destroyed this world. We let petroleum companies lie to us. We let governments perpetuate their dominance. We let people waste and divert water. We let factory farming create disease and destroy land.

I hate us. I hate myself for failing to make change.

So when I started doing court reform and judicial elections work over 10 years ago, one of the common threads was how much court systems assume that the people access them don't need[fn1] to know anything about the process. Especially if you have an attorney, you're expected to just go along without explanations or answers because the systems don't provide those answers and having those answers does not give you any tool to change timelines or outcomes.

It's this thought: having those answers does not give you any tool to change timelines or outcomes that I keep bumping into this week. Not in court access, but in customer service.

The pandemic has screwed up supply chains. It's screwed up business processes. It's hamstrung employers and a bunch of terrible things, even putting aside the people it's killing. But I'm seeing an interesting divide between business that are handling the disruption with candor and those who stonewall.

In April, I placed two orders: one with HerRoom (which sells mostly bras) and one with Ikea. Both took my money; both discovered problems with their supply chains. HerRoom not only updated me ("Sorry. We know you ordered this, but we still haven't received it to ship to you. We'll let you know more when we do. You can wait or cancel by clicking here.") at regular intervals, they answered my one email with what little they knew in response to my direct, specific question and a sorry, this stinks but it is what it is.

Ikea. Well, Ikea have been complete assholes. The phone tree disconnects you if you select "talk to someone about an existing order"; the webpage only has an option to cancel an order. The Twitter account is a bot that says "sorry. we're experiencing delays." I have a specific direvt question about the bill of lading which they emailed me. A specific question which the bill of lading directs me to talk to them about, at the phone number that hangs up on me.

See, Ikea knows the answer to the question and also what impact my knowing those answers will have. They have decided it is unnecessary to allow me access to that information. That is about as frustrating as not having the information. Even if the information is: we really don't know. This is how we will send you an update--that would 1000x more satisfactory than how they are handling it.

[fn1] oindeed, courts often assume people don't deserve to know anything about the process but that's a digression into the malice or brutal heirarchy of the law and I'm really thinking about the more benign or unthinking motivations or just inconsiderate choices.

Hi, everybody! 
I'm making a public post because I want people to be able to see how cool One Post Wonder is. Here are some things I can do with OPW. 
I can post a photo of my cat stealing my office chair. 

Isn't she a scamp? 

I can also post links to documents. I used bit.ly to make a shortlink to a document in JSTOR. https://bit.ly/3bX3eit

Here's a YouTube video of Mongolian throat singing. 

I hope my friends who can see this will leave lots of comments and sub-comments to show how that works. 

This could be a good thing for people who need an alternative to all the bad platforms that are out on the Internet. I hope more people will benefit from this post and the One Post Wonder community. 

What a horrible terrible evil world we have built here in the US.

I don't feel like talking about either the generalized horrible world we've built, nor the specific terrible evil medical world I had to grind through today.

Suffice to say, I had to drive. And then the parking garage machine refused to read my validated parking ticket. And then I still had to drive home. 

I've got an unexpected (nonCOVID) medical thing going on which is probably nothing but which is impossible right now. The upside is the hospital is right by our offices (which are not yet abandoned), so I can pick up some notes I might need. Unless I take some sick leave, which I might need, regardless of whether or not I turn out to be actually sick or just dealing with hyper-vigilant doctors.

I'm going to drive, instead of bike, because I am trying to clean all of my things out of my office and there are still things there too big for my bike.

In other news, a friend said "congrats! better done than perfect!" to me and I almost wept from validation and love.

I read this today and I relate to it:

And I am well aware of the difference in behavior, attitude, self-awareness, empathy, and compassion between adults who were treated with compassion and respect when they were children and those who were not. 

I should talk to my mom about it because I feel like we were and I'm not sure how my parents came to that model.

My sister in law's house is surrounded by smoldering woods. She and her daughters are fine and if the winds hold, so should their house be, but it's nerve-wracking.