And Release
Day 5: ｍａｊｅｓｔｙ, jrdsctt
New mailing platform. No version number. No design. Same hypomanic messages.
Last you heard from me (welcome new subscribers), I was entering the world of technology management, and then I promptly disappeared for two years.
It chewed me up and spit me out (fired for "performance" reasons--long story, unimportant) with no severance into the middle of a global pandemic during one of the worst economic crashes in recent history on a Grand Strange scale as COVID-19 tears apart our fragile structures, ecosystems, and our poor bodies.
I can't think of a better time to bring Glitchet back. Now with 0 accountability and an extra dose of hope AND cynicism!
I missed you.
One of the things I've been dealing with since I realized what a Big Problem the virus was in early March is failure. Failure to prepare. Failure to cope. Failure to succeed. Failure to stay "healthy" or to stay "focused". Failure of belief in our institutions and education. Failure in my body, energy, and thoughts and feelings.
I have seen and have been the failure without and within, which begs me to go small. Minute. Miniscule. Killing fruit flies that spawned because I couldn't bring myself to don the nitryl gloves to take the trash outside to the dumpsters where people and their uncertain breath walk. Designing an apocalyptic Animal Crossing island. Hustling to do tarot readings in small spurts so I can keep some semblance of a schedule. Procrastinating everything. Dreading the post office, the still air, the old men not wearing masks.
Sensual Distancing, Ras Alhague
I like some of the things I've read about working during this time--you're not working from home, you're trying to work at home in the midst of a global pandemic. Just like I'm trying to send you an email.
The pandemic has taught us that a great many things we considered sacred are not. Outings, entire swaths of businesses, working in-office (for the techies), the things you once did with your time. The elaborate plynth of hobbies, ideas, self-structures, and ambitions and plans that we constructed in the idealized form of self where we are immune to viruses and immune to the larger conditions of the world.
It begs us to go small. To look in the corners of our homes and selves and contemplate. I found in the process of slicing away pieces of my budget, paradoxically how little but also how desperately much I need to take care of myself and those I love. I've been looking at the accumulation of dust and body hair under desks and next to bookshelves, occasionally sweeping it away and pondering what I might become if I organized my desk. I have been thinking piecemeal about the constituent parts of my life and wondering, if all this can change and end, then what isn't possible?
Constraints point to the possibilities, assuming you have the time and luxury to contemplate. For those of us who don't, these moments look different: a breath here and there, small kindnesses, shattered and kintsugi'd hope, scraping and scrounging for opportunity. I feel you.
I crave moments of connection and find myself looking for opportunities to be kinder or more affectionate toward people. I also find myself trying to be kinder to myself; to allow myself room to breathe, take on weight, move through this car crash in slow motion, tense and relax the parts of my body that feel ready to take impact while shielding others.
I have been entirely too precious with Glitchet because I thought it was something in particular and that that mattered greatly. In turn, it calcified, hardened by the technological choices and the tyrannical ruler that is Brand. It's no mistake that a brand is also the term for the sigil you sear into flesh, unchangeable, a scar. Thankfully, minds change more easily than skin.
Expect more emails, shorter, more stream of consciousness, possibly NSFW, guaranteed erratic and strange. Exactly how it needs to be right now.
And if you're new, welcome to the party!
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