It's Tuesday, what made you happy last week?

I dug up some sod and created my first garden bed at our new place.

The move was sudden and adjustment has been difficult, and for several months I had neither the mental bandwidth nor the budget to do any gardening, so it felt like a huge milestone to finally plant my bulbs and a few other things. :)

I gave someone art advice on another website, and it was so well-received that the person who I gave the advice to made a shoutout post, which got popular and resulted in other people replying to my comment and complementing me. It was a very quick tutorial I'd made on how to draw feathers that I'd doodled up in like 10 minutes, and I was super flattered that people liked it that much! 😭

It’s all been a blur of mourning. Let’s face it, this is grief reaction a lot of people are experiencing.

Mostly, art. Playing way, way more music than usual.

Funnily enough, listening to the post election eulogy on Jon Stewart’s podcast, he was talking with the American historian Heather Cox Richardson, putting it all in perspective. As she says, none of this will flip back to democracy in her lifetime, in the meantime, what will happen, as history demonstrates, is art. Shitty times in history produce art.

That pissed me off. Not at her, because she is right, but because it doesn’t feel like a good enough answer. Still, I’ve been thinking about it.

My thought was this. How did Rock n Roll even start? Origins are deep in on the backs of slaves. More than just Rock. What will post democracy death art look like? Idk, but as humans, it will exist, it’s what we do, we just can’t help ourselves. (I’m not making equivalents here, they are two different shitty historical events, both of which have and will generate art, that is all.)

Small solace. But I have not been unproductive in the last week re my own artistic pursuits. This energy has to siphon off somewhere. Something to consider for your own lives.

Due to a new law in Germany I was able to easily change my name and gender officially on Monday (November 4th). Last Wednesday was also my birthday where I ordered my new ID 🥰. I also measured my height in advance of getting a new ID and due to HRT I shrank 2cm which means I'm now 174cm tall!

I'm a driving instructor. One of my learners passed last week without a single fault 🤘 absolute legend she is.

I made a quesadila with pickled jalapeño slices in it.

I’m a homeless dude and I got hella work for like a month. Chillin like a villain

Game night with friends. We got to laugh together about dumb stuff.

I found the energy to make a grilled cheese. That probably was about it.

Music.

A standup comedy show. They were funny af and had pretty dark humor. It was great.