#Journal 4/12/2026 @starjump you have me discovering Glenn Branca, his symphony number 1 predates Godspeed You Black Emperor! by decades but sounds pretty similar (though more minimalistic). Today was my 46th birthday. Yes I'm officially beyond an oldster, late Gen X. I got a nice desk chair for my home office I work from so that was nice. I am working on a map of food discounts you can see at => https://eat.grandrapids.co eat.grandrapids.co Though it only has Grand Rapids deals, a lot of the national chains, the coupon codes are the same wherever you are in the U.S. 4/9/2026 @mousepepper, like your stuff, keep going! Some cool experimentation. @evilswampmonster I am moving in the opposite direction from you with regards to seeing relationships with the lens of hierarchy instead of compatibility. I think part of it is I'm pushing 46 and male and low status, and people get more status-obsessed as they get older, particularly people who have made something of themselves. I tend to gravitate towards high-status people and they blow me off. I know a lot of people revile the Jordan Peterson lobster hierarchy but if you are me, and one of your core experiences are losing deep friendships due to being low status you think about it a lot. Your treasure might be where your heart is, but your amnesia is where your soul is. What I mean by this is the thoughts that fill your mind, so intense and raw, that it feels like you are experiencing them for the first time every day you think them. For me it's hierarchies. Psychologists want me to "shift" my mindset elsewhere but they don't realize my thoughts stem from observed reality so changing them won't work. 3/24/2026 @bugleague you write some amazing poetry, keep it up! I know what I'm supposed to be doing, I'm just not doing it. Bed rotting during free time instead of vibe coding. The issue is I have no audience. Back in 2005 there was this DeviantArt like site called Sheezyart which has a lot of furries on it. I remember coding something in Flash to demo my gradual undo technology and getting support and debug info from the other artists. It was great and I never had that experience again in all the years I've been online. I watched Aladdin recently and thought this meme held true: =>//brokenpen.flounder.online/disney_first_dates_meme.jpg 3/11/2016 It's cold again here. Our streets were rivers last night due to the crazy storms. There were a ton of videos of it on the Grand Rapids subreddit. @evilswampmonster your reflections on social media are spot on, it's difficult to ascertain whether you are having social or parasocial relationships @punkrefles I feel you on the religion thing, I'm only 1 of 19 in the immediate family and 4 or 5 of ~55 in my extended family that is not Christian. It is a lonely road and you have to build your own community which I was starting to before COVID hit and derailed things. 3/1/2026 Insane how this song sounds post-classical, like something Max Richter would write, but it's not from the 2010's, it's from 1963. => https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhihzktyGsM&list=RDuhihzktyGsM&start_radio=1 Gorecki - 3 Utwory w dawnym stylu (3 Pieces in Old Style) : III. 2/28/2026 To the teachers on here, you don't get paid enough. That is a tough job, and I have many memories of inspiring teachers. War again, and it's personal for me because I was in one when I was nine. I journaled then and did a write-up of it below => https://autisyphus.brokenpen.net/war-doodle/ War Doodle 2/26/2026 It was nice for a while and now it's freezing again. I saw Nine Inch Nails last Sunday night and it was loud but amazing. Singing Hurt with everybody, where people were holding up their phone flashlights, was truly an experience. And I went with my dad, who used to be a preacher. How wild is that? I'm supposed to view AI as an exoskeleton that lets me carry a heavier load. It can certainly code better than I can based on my food specials map project, even the cheaper Google AI (Anthropic AI is the best and most expensive). 2/13/2026 @idi I LOVED Microsoft Publisher, it was one of those programs that wouldn't get in the way of what you wanted to do. InDesign is just too complicated. Back in the early aughts I used Publisher to distributor a satirical zine called The Ugly Times. It had headlines like "Ugliness Implicated in 85% of Cases of Singleness", and "Ugly Petition ACLU to Wipe Valentine's Day off the Face of the Earth." 2/12/2026 My ADHD always has me in the eternal present. It makes me think anything that is happening right now is always and has always happened. This is especially true growing up with chronic pain in my early 20's. When it was flaring up i felt it would always be that way and stoked my depression. When it receded i thought it would always be gone and my mood lifted. Suffice it to say that's partly why i ended up bipolar going through all of that. My higher order processes measure time and circumstances correctly but they can't override what is coming from my ADHD. It's also why i put off stuff i don't want to do because the eternal present i'm in now is much better than whatever crap i'm going to have to do. My mind doesn't cognate that having done the task will make me feel good. It doesn't care about after, only during. 2/8/2026 The profession of Christianity might have left me almost 20 years ago but the iconography of it lingers because i was so steeped in it. It usually takes two generations for faith to completely go away unless you put in hardcore raw dog effort to expunge it. It's like i am an old lobster and faith is a shell i can't molt anymore to shake off. There is no better example than this song i keep coming back to: => https://lukebrindley.bandcamp.com/track/crazy-grace Luke Brindley - Crazy Grace 2/6/2026 @petthecat watch out for mania with Lexapro even if you don't have a bipolar diagnosis. It is very activating. They put me on Lexapro without checking for bipolar and I went manic really bad because nobody was watching for bipolar symptoms. I know it's kind of like "Old Man Yells at iCloud" but I can't stand those "He Gets Us" Jesus Superbowl ads. We get it, Jesus had a lot of good things to say. We aren't questioning that; what we are questioning is the outworking of what his followers say and do. Christianity is a dish, not the dish's recipe. Christianity is Christians. The fact that so many people on the inside are blind to this is disheartening. 2/5/2026 @starjump for some reason Duruflé's Requiem puts me to sleep which is strange because it's one of the most beautiful pieces of classical music ever written => https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t28llw2m6iw&list=PL4nRLof9vJNkDN-OiOByKmDP3lKcYoLbP&index=11 Duruflé - Requiem, Op. 9: IV. Sanctus 2/2/2026 This vibe coding thing is really freaking me out it's so good. And i'm using the cheapass Google one. It's letting me vibe code something that pulls WordPress posts out of the XML and sort them by ranked category. I need this for if i'm going to publish books out of my blogs. On a positive note there are job openings for: => https://www.doodycalls.com/about-us/employment/ Picking Up Dog Poop 2/1/2026 @credence, loving the word play, also your name is in a great Casiotone for the Painfully Alone song. Dreamt about a high school crush I hadn't seen in 30 years. I'll take it! 1/30/2026 I am sick as a dog with a cold. Reminds me of my favorite Jerky Boys skit => https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UxNEm_uzYA Fava Beans This would never fly today. 1/27/2026 This is a Polish composer played by a Polish orchestra about sorrows that are very relevant in that (and all) regions of the world => https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YlGYxCSDJU Górecki - Symphony No. 3 Final Movement 1/25/2026 @alex i signed up for your Patreon, this is a really good service, a breath of fresh air from the other sites out there. 1/24/2026 It was -17 F this morning. Not a bad day but got into a foul mood thinking about how i will never be able to afford my own place. A friend from college introduced me to the musician Perfume Genius years ago, and it is great when moods are down. 1/23/2026 For this nasty cold weather, there is a perfect band, Parhelion Try a song: => https://cycliclaw.bandcamp.com/track/solitude Solitude Both their albums are good: => https://cycliclaw.bandcamp.com/album/midnight-sun Midnight Sun => https://cycliclaw.bandcamp.com/album/farthest-north Furthest North 1/22/2026 It's going to be in the negative digits here in West Michigan. Hope the heat doesn't go out! I was just thinking about how i actually get nervous vibe coding because i know it's gotten too good. It's like John Henry having to work next to the steam drill and knowing that his vocations' days are numbered. 1/20/2026 @bugleague nailed it: "If you can believe it there’s a cure for depression. And it’s mutual aid. I’m pilled. I’m all in. I understand." There was someone I volunteered with who had her husband drop off some AMAZING gumbo at my house during the dead of winter during COVID. It made my week and I still remember it these five years later. This has been the most concentrated depression in a month in as long as I can remember, certainly since I've been logging my moods. 1/18/2026 I saw something profound somewhere online that said some people with ADHD don't form habits and it describes me to a T. I have to intentionally remind myself to brush my teeth in the morning, it's not something that happens automatically. 1/17/2026 R.E.M.'s Automatic for the People hits differently in middle age. I didn't connect with it in high school (liked Fables of the Reconstruction more then), but now, at 45, I do, and I have a feeling the older I get, the more it will. 1/16/2026 The opening weeks of 2026 have been a whole pile of depression compared to a year ago. Don't really know all the way why. I track them with eMoods which my psychiatrist told me about. It gives you a multifaceted look, letting you track depression, irritability, anxiety, and elevated mood independently. As I am bipolar 1 I have many of those things at a time every day. => https://insights.emoodtracker.com/ eMoods Tracker 1/15/2026 Some heavy news, my 72 year old mother can't get back surgery to fix it so she can walk long distances because it doesn't cause her pain. And that's against the backdrop of people getting away with murder being blessed by the highest offices of this country. It's just too heavy for Superman to lift (this is the Iron and Wine version of the Flaming Lips song) => https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUb85TnTiBk&list=RDNUb85TnTiBk 1/14/2026 Last night went down to Founders (our local microbrew bar) and saw my brother-in-law's band. It was good, they even opened with Just Like Heaven by The Cure. 1/13/2026 Had an ophthalmologist appointment today, and it went well. My glaucoma was under control with pressures just under 20. That cannot be taken for granted. @starjump you might like Starflyer 59, Silver (from their shoegaze period in 1994). It's further from Alcest, less metal, more like 90's alternative. 1/12/2026 I need to thank @starjump for the music rec of Sadness. I am playing New Body and for some reason both my regular computer speakers and my Echo are playing it at the same time with about a second delay. So it even sounds better. I love Alcest and Sadness reminds me of them somewhat. =>//brokenpen.flounder.online/ Back to Home