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For obvious reasons, I hate this branding.

The country, the state, the county and the city have failed us, not the other way around.

Am I drinking too much? Sure. Why? Because I lost purchasing power for 23 years and see no path forward. As I am 46, this means that it was only the first half of my life that I had hope.

I mean, I was already a journalist to start, so it was likely inevitable I'd end up steeped in alcoholism.

As folks pen breathless analyses of the fall of corporate media, those of us who lived it and didn't have expensive bylines are aghast at what is happening.

But that's not important right now.

So, I have been homeless since 2023. I have solar and batteries, but little else works at this point. My 5G hotspot, laptop and phone survive because my fridge died.

Homelessness is not a one-stop shop for blowing up your life; it's death from a thousand cuts, as one thing after another goes wrong.

I sort of get the impression that there's this idea of "I'm working three jobs; why are you so lazy?"

Well, that's on you. If you think six hours of sleep while you pay to drive to three different jobs is an acceptable life, I guess, hooray?

I won't.

Pay me what I'm worth, allow me to afford fixed housing, and we have a starting point. "You can just get a roommate" is not that. Fuck you and your usury.

And fuck you for normalizing this when you're happily housed with your income. This is not my failure; it is society's. You're not a millionaire waiting in the wings for your big break. Stop believing that!

bowsershark604 is a YouTube channel with 6 subscribers created in 2017, that uploaded a 2000s Windows Movie Maker-style lyric video on July 16 2020 of the song "Everybody Hurts" by R.E.M, that was posted to the r/DeepIntoYouTube subreddit a few years later. As of writing this post, the video currently has 1.4k views.

However, what made that lyric video stand out was the surprisingly incredible effects starting from 2:17.

Despite all of this, the user hasn't uploaded anything since, and has never responded to any comments left on their only video, and has never explained how they made those effects on Movie Maker, or what secondary software they used for the effects.

I have a theory that bowsershark604 was supposed to be an ARG that never had anything else come out of it. Because, in the past few years, there has been a relative abundance of ARGs that imitate the earlier days of YouTube, primarily games like Minecraft, Gmod and Team Fortress 2. Even the username itself is reminiscent of something you would have seen on YT back in the day.

My ex-wife (whom I've lately erroneously referred to as my wife, given recent events) is, well ... there are certain people you're made for, and then there's everyone else.

Explaining how something this somatic could happen has proven to be problematic over the course of the 16 years since we met. Charitably, I'm considered crazy.

You don't look for the other half of you. I mean, that's folly. There isn't another half ... until there is, and now, holy fuck, how did I survive before this?

I don't know that this sort of relationship is healthy, but holy shit, is it appealing. The sense of being home, that you're not alone, that someone has been waiting for you, and what the fuck took you so long?

I've been at her place a couple of times over the past two months, and, well ... we're really bad at confirming the divorce from a decade ago.

Knowing we can't work does not mean anything has happened physiologically, which is inconvenient. She kept my name and my collar.

It appears she also kept my heart.

I don't think I've ever admitted how I got Nichol's attention here. I mentioned sleeping with a stuffed animal in my profile. There was a bit of back and forth thereafter (and it basically turned out to be an afterthought), but by the time I showed up at her house, I was holding Snoopy.

See? I'm not full of shit.

There's an irony to this. I went full-bore with Snoopy, and she didn't believe that I was a newspaper editor. Odd thing to claim, as it comes with neither prestige nor income.

When I was staying with her last month, she was fine with the fact that I was playing with his ears in the living room, because she's used to that.

I think she finds it cute.

Teddy is another story. When I moved the family here from Oregon, she stopped to pee roadside, and, well, Teddy fell out. Which would not be realized for several hours.

I was already here, finding housing, and she was driving down with the boys and a whole harem of animals (mostly rabbits).

Every several years, Snoopy's ears run out. I've torn little bits out, and at a certain point, there's very little left to work with. And I have spare ears.

Only a couple of years ago, there's no way I would have trusted her to not mangle my stuffed animal. Oddly, now I don't think she has it in her to hurt me in that manner.

Time changes things.

My ex-wife's grandson hit a 104.7 fever, and she was not amused when I mentioned that was the frequency in MHz for KZZP in Phoenix in the '80s.

Like, when you've heard a jingle often enough, you can't just hear "104.7" and think "this is a terrible fever."

He's got Covid. Of course they didn't immunize him, because, well, I didn't marry for intellect. I'm not calling my wife an idiot; she just needs a bit of hand-holding to believe that she's come to the rational conclusion on her own.

It's somewhat excruciating to watch from afar. But once we start heading down the path of bad decisions that get us to this point, you'll be bored, and it won't excuse a fucking thing.

I'm feeling a pull back to her. She, back in 2009, warned me this would happen. She said that people somehow decide to be in her orbit, and she didn't understand why.

I know why, but ... no one else does. This ends up being a problem, as it makes our reconnection look arbitrary.

Over the course of 16 years, you learn to know what your partner is thinking, even if they haven't quite grokked it. You're ready to respond to the question that hasn't yet been asked.

I have been of late haunted by the image I see when trying to sleep. I'm at her door, crying and crumpling into a crouch, and I look up at her, and she kisses me deeply and then invites me inside.

I'd not head there if crying in reality, but I dislike the implication, because with her, we know how to make shit work.

For very brief periods of time.

Nonetheless, we are seemingly stuck with each other. Neither of us has found a better alternative in a fucking decade, which is twice as long as we were married.

We still do not use each others' names. If there's one thing that really stands out about our interaction, it's that names are the knives-out last resort. If we've gotten to names, someone's likely sleeping on the sofa.

And yet, though I don't want back into some fresh hell, I can't pull away from the other half of me. The one I can't feel via touch because it's just another limb.

Well, fuck.

Actually, if you have a moment, fuck, fuck, fuckitty fuck mcfuckface.

Despite having a very clear idea of the reasons we can't work, she and I have apparently decided (without the express written consent of the NFL) damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.

The ongoing problem is when we touch. I've been in her apartment for a total of five days over the past two months, and ... things did not go according to plan. We just ... I don't really know how to explain it, as it's ineffable.

My body does not register touching her. You might think this is a bad thing, and it is, but likely not for the reasons you imagine. Rather, neither of us recognizes the other as a foreign body. Touching her hand was like grabbing my right hand with my left the night we met, setting everything in motion.

We can still easily pull off "old married couple" interactions. Cards. A nice fire in the fireplace. Some cold beers. Good music. Getting into bed naked. For your listening pleasure, I'll stop there.

We did such a good job of hating each other for like eight years. This detente is welcome but also alarming, given why this has to remain a fantasy.

First off, no, they won't. The journalism of 30 years ago isn't coming back in any form. May as well be hoping for a resurgence of semaphore (granted, there is a news site with a closely related name).

"Normal" is a rather tricky thing to nail down in news, in much the same way that NOAA produces new "average" temperatures each decade to include only the prior 30 years.

What was normal in 1986 is not normal 40 years later.

The problem is, to break the problem of shareholder value, you would need thousands of people willing to buy papers, take on printing costs, hire lawyers ...

"But some papers are digital only," you may respond. Yes, and the proportion increases each week. When I learned the paper I worked at from 2010-2011 went to publishing a print edition only three days a week a few years later, it was a sign.

Time was, we had the monopoly on the AP feed locally, grocery circulars, what kid got a Little League trophy, and of course, quilting bees. Not to mention "Drunk Driver Runs Into Pole" (and we have art).

There are economic, systemic and sociological reasons for this. You may be able to shift one with out a clutch, but all three is an impossibility.

It is up to each of us to maintain media literacy and understand we're not going back to where we were. Vigilance is indicated.

Longtime readers may expect this not to involve my ex-wife, but fret not; it does.

She has been working in insurance for six years at this point and works for a brokerage because apparently in that industry, brokerages pay for your ongoing certifications instead of that being out of pocket.

She makes a decent hourly wage (I'd not call $23/hour luxurious), but as with any sales job, the commission is the main event. They signed contracts that set commission rates.

And then came the end-of-year sprint for Medicare open enrollment, a six-week period from October to December where you work seven 16-hour days a week and make no small fraction of your annual income.

It's grueling.

That commission check is arriving in her account overnight. The issue is, it's $3,000 instead of $12,000. So, the planned car purchase and move to be closer to her grandson are off the table.

There was understandable consternation among the rank and file at an all-hands announcing this sudden change yesterday. Some are losing everything.

So, there's a breach of contract in play just itching for a class-action attorney, but with more information, this is a much larger problem.

As a brokerage, they sell plans through many different providers. This would turn out to be the issue at hand.

Before October's sprint, both Humana and United Health decided to do their own underwriting, severing her employer's ability to do sales. But did they tell the agents?

Of course not.

Jan. 1, everything resets. Both firms take control of their policies and everything sold by her team (which was 80% Humana and United Health), meaning that the people at her brokerage lost credit for the policies they'd sold.

In raw numbers, this is bad enough, but as anyone familiar with sales knows, there are compensation tiers. Losing 80% of her sales kicked her compensation from a $220/sale tier to $55.

And they fucking knew and still pushed agents hard. This is fraud.

ETA: They only paid half the reduced commission this month, promising the other half will be provided in four pay cycles. She now cannot pay her rent.

Pinch-hitting for Alyaza; no book club this week but how about a selection of music?

Amaranth

She stocks 50 vol, which is not fucking around. I never went above 40.

And when we were together, I never paid for haircuts. She did mine just as the boys and her own. A Nr. 6 was long for her.

So I sit with blond hair at a Nr. 6, which has been my standard since 1997 but fell by the wayside during Covid, sitting next to my ex-wife without talking as she watches a TV show and I peruse the internet.

It is a strange thing to graduate to that portion of your life where staying with friends means, for the most part, you self-entertain. Sure, meals, a bit of TV or games, but it's nothing like crashing somewhere in your 20s.

I have clean clothes, and this time I'll be headed back to Austin tomorrow wearing my own. Ahead of fighting possibly hourslong lines at HEB ahead of the deep freeze forecast for most of Texas starting Friday night.

I have a motel for the week already booked, so tomorrow will be rather busy. She's already paid for my Lyft back to the van, then I need to hit up HEB and hopefully can time things to be aligned for it not being frosty by the time I'm checking in.

I made dinner last night for the first time since 2023, cobbling together a red curry soup and mushroom tortelloni (with much garlic and pepper) into a very satisfying dinner. It felt really good to provide nourishment for someone else again.

A lot of "days since" signs have been reset to zero over the course of my visit, with some having previously resided in the four figures.

If I didn't know my own history, I'd be inclined to think this is a totally reasonable way to live. But we can't work right now. It's likely we'll never be able to.

This said, she told me off in 2004 on my first attempt at communication, we finally met via other accounts in 2009, got married in 2011 and divorced in 2016. If nothing else, this relationship scales in years. Not having resolution in a couple of months is not a concern.

She invites me up and into her bed, and then complains in the morning that she's been single for so long that it's difficult for her to sleep with someone else in bed ... even though when we met, sleeping alone was her hell.

I appreciate that she's restored my appearance to residual self-image. But we are back to "there's no fucking way this is over yet." I'm not going to repeat prior posts, but my gut has been telling me she's mine for more than 16 years.

There is a tattoo to that effect, in my handwriting, on her mons.

We make for an interesting couple. Pretty much the only thing we have in common is our last name.

People in Beehaw are nice (thank you all for that), but I am put off of the idea of reddit-like sites because of how toxic Reddit became (and also because of it lumping all USians as you-know-what), and when I select "All" for all lemmy instances in post view, it brings back bad memories of reddit.

I am very sorry if i anger anybody in Beehaw. this is also the reason why I am not active in beehaw.

Basically the usual setup here ... I get a Lyft up, she insists I do laundry, then she feeds me, then it's shower time. I'm wearing her clothes again because she pointed out that mine -- even having gone through the wash -- still smelled funky.

So I'll be doing the full cycle again tomorrow.

Not that we wear clothes to bed. Which this time led to the one kink activity that drew us together 16 years ago, but neither of us had done with others in years.

In the midst of this, as I'm twitching violently, she whispers into my ear "god, I fucking miss your body."

And here we get the separation of powers. In terms of interaction, we're a fucked-up mess; but when it comes to physical connection, I've not really heard a tale of what we intrinsically have.

We can literally touch each other without anyone realizing it. Hence her foot and my ankle. She's asleep, and she moved slightly at one point. It wasn't until getting out of bed that I realized I had to extricate her from my foot without waking her up.

We were lying down back-to-back (with fewer interruptions), And while I felt warmth from her body in my shoulder and hip to hip, it still, still doesn't feel like I'm touching someone else.

I'm still here for another night (possibly two) before heading back home so that I can stock up on food ahead of fleeing to a motel because of an ice storm.

Her sons do not like me. There are reasons for this, some more valid than others, that mean we can't reconcile. So we are trapped in this weird purgatory where our bodies just know each other, and our minds know why it can't work.

Meanwhile, when I come by, we just act like we never got divorced. I mean, I don't give her a deep kiss after knocking on the door, but practical matters are handled first, then some entertainment, and the intimacy doesn't come until bedtime.

Now, to provide a good example of the sanity of this relationship, three days before the "i miss your body" remark, she was canceling an offer to visit because she thought I was getting "too attached."

This is starting to feel like a movie.

It just occurred to me when calling my college roommate that basically, it's three. With my mom, I let it go all the way to voicemail, as she's nearly 80 and may be on the other end of the house.

But with most of my friends, if they don't answer in two rings, it's a lost cause absent external influences.

Each Wednesday, there is something referred to as "Church Night" at the regional burner warehouse that happens to be in walking distance.

It's really a salon. You break into a conversation when you have something of use to say after overhearing a conversation while other activities occur to a varying extent. Interrupting is almost encouraged if you have useful information or insight.

I wouldn't say I attend Church Night religiously.

But this week, I met someone new, and as it happens he can actually fucking spar at my level because of his writing background, but he also happens to work for a solar installation firm that may be in need of a writer.

I believe in this shit, so count me in. I don't want to start the chalk marks of 2026.

this week's book is Open Democracy: Reinventing Popular Rule for the Twenty-First Century

I don't want to be redundant, so I'll sum up: We are the couple in movies who damage each other but can't quit.

After initially not wanting me to know where she now lives, she relented and gave me her address for a Lyft. I paid to get up there; she paid to get me home.

Now, this is not the first time my gut has decided to interrupt the conversation ... that happened a few minutes after we met and I was in her kitchen, knowing that I already lived there (moving in would take 12 days). That was supposed to be a one-night stopover on account of weather, and yet here we are 16 years later.

If we're to accelerate things, shit gets spicy in a hurry, as her boys can't know. They hold me responsible for several things I actually did, as well as several poor decisions my ex made that were easier to use me as a scapegoat for.

Anyway, she wants me back up there next week, same payment terms.

Compared to a van in January, an apartment with HVAC holds certain appeal. I just fear we may end up with enough time together to fall into old patterns separate from the supportive ones we sustained over two days in December.

This is the definition of playing with fire. We know it can't work. We know why it can't work.

And yet we are, again, moths to a flame.

So, my dad dying, having a remote call with his lawyer tomorrow, and then ... my ex. This is exactly the point in the trance track right before where shit resolves.

Which is to say chaos.

It's Dec. 11, 2009, and I'm on the phone with a woman I've chatted sporadically with on OKCupid for a week and a half, working out terms of crashing at her place for a night to avoid a frozen freeway.

Dec. 11, 2025, I have to take a Lyft back from her place, as we got divorced in 2016.

Yes, yes, yes, it's Pete's "woe the hell is me, my life is falling apart" on schedule after four days since my last post.

I know when I've been shot down. She, herself, shot me down in 2004, leading indirectly to my first marriage. It's not out of the realm of possibility that her initial rejection is the only reason we could eventually find each other. (Her kids in 2004 were 1 and 2, and no thank you.)

But that's precisely the issue. I've not been shot down. She claims to not want to date, period, and I'm sort of resigned to our familiar chaos being about as good as I can do -- while remaining a secret from her kids!

Hey, when you live an a van, almost anything looks better. Not that we could make it work. Her kids are in their 20s now and do not like me ... she basically offloaded all failures on her part on me from the time we were together.

In reality, I had to seize control of SNAP benefits in only a couple of months because we were running out of food two weeks into a given month. I'd noted shopping behaviour and was like "no, if we have enough money to make it through the end of the month, sure, buy the smallest Doritos you can at 7-Eleven, but otherwise, I'm done with this bullshit."

The first Wednesday of the month, I'd pore over the circulars and find ways to turn $500 into $1,200 ... I had to leave some on the card because for some reason, one of her sons refused to drink anything but milk. (I was the new guy ... I couldn't just say, "Hey, babe, have you considered telling him to try water?")

Anyway, this is the person whose pajamas I continue to wear. Our reunion really only brought up old ghosts.

Nichol fucking Hahnloser is being ... deliberately obtuse.

It's her right, of course. I brought up our time together from last month, and she kinda went off on a bender.

What is crucial to bring up is that we can't be in the same room without feeling what's happening. That was our downfall in 2009, and it remains the issue today.

I'm not sure we really like each other. But we are drawn like moths to a flame.

I can say that we love each other, but that eventually feels a bit hollow. I think we both love what could have been, but 16 years in, that's less of a possible outcome than a reality.

She had very different goals. She wanted kids. I wanted to avoid kids by all means. The timing of our divorce was to ensure Texas law didn't rope me into child support (at five years, it doesn't matter whether you're the biological father -- this is now your problem). My lawyer got us divorced mere days before hitting that cutoff.

My lawyer, of course, being one of my columnists in college. I think he was better at lawyering than writing, but hey, he was in Austin, and I needed a divorce.

It's sort of crazy that Jonathan, a columnist I decided to give a shot at in the late '90s, would be my divorce attorney. Life can be funny sometimes.

All this notwithstanding, I am left with the reality with Nichol. Her phone is off because she paid for mine, and I don't really care what your metric is there, but it seems pretty damn obvious.

I envy those of you who do not need friction to enjoy a relationship. Those sound nice. I can't do that. Unless someone is mentally and physically challenging me, I'm bored.

I am currently going through a maelstrom. My ex is a viable option, as learned in mid-December. Not totally viable, but holy shit, are we still on the same page.

If only she didn't have kids ...

It's fucking hell to be next to the love of your life for two nights and have to leave. She told me she actually couldn't relax with me there, as she expected something to go wrong.

Which is not an expectation one holds when inviting a former partner to your apartment. She knew better.

I'm not going to once again revisit how things went, but they went well.

The problem is now disentanglement. Though I'm not sure I want to. She's absolutely terrible for me, but I can't see being happier with anyone else. Maybe that's bias, but ... she's exactly my brand of crazy while we're not trying to destroy each other.

I did not say this was a healthy relationship. It is not.

This said, I think there's a weird dichotomy in the world of relationships. Sure, something where you're just working together without issue sounds appealing.

But for some people, the fight is the point. And if you're mismatched on this front, problems will ensue.

She told me on the night we met that she'd most likely get bored of me within a week, as she needs a certain level of challenge.

That was 16 years ago.

I also don't care for a compliant bitch, as that's usually my role, so things moved along.

I just don't know what to make of it currently. We met up, we obviously still connect, and yet ... we can't make it work.

Life has been, in my experience, a bunch of waiting followed by an explosion of things just short of what I can't handle.

For reasons that escape me, I'm listening to music again tonight.

Bringing me back to trance, which is pretty much notorious for going absolutely nowhere for four to five minutes before finally losing the plot for several bars ahead of getting to the point.

Look: I love the genre, but you really have to be invested to put up with it, as I've learned from friends. They want tracks done by the time the foreplay is just beginning; I'm rarely interested in something that doesn't run at least eight minutes.

But, you see, here is the parallel to my life, and why I think trance attached itself like a fungus: devoid of direction, followed by complete collapse before triumphantly being assertive in major (usually ... some trance is in minor past the breakdown, and that's certainly for a certain mood).

It's always wait, wait, wait, oh fuck, shit went off the rails, and oh, look, here's a solution. I don't know a better way to describe trance.

Maybe that's why it speaks to me so deeply. I don't need lyrics -- make me feel.

this week's book is Shade: The Promise of a Forgotten Natural Resource

I never knew what I was going to write from one week to the next. Once I was managing editor, I was like "fuck, fuck, fuck, I have to write a column" while herding cats.

You run a college newsroom sometime and tell me how it goes.

But back to the topic at hand, I had a very simple process that lasted my whole career. That title? It's why I'm writing right now.

So as not to bury the lede, the formula is this:

• Have a headline.
• Have a thesis.
• Know where the fuck I'm going.

I'm only posting this because I know where I'm going.

Being a columnist is one of the easiest jobs in the world. Even with a few interviews here and there, you get to spout off about current events. One of the nice things about student journalism is no one has already worked in, say, the White House press office.

So we just wing it. Not the East Wing at this point, I'd imagine.

There were several Tuesday evenings where I was concerned I'd not fill the left of A4. On Tuesday nights, as such, I became far more interested in what reporters were working on.

Here's the bar: "Oh, you have got to be fucking kidding me!"

And then, usually about 25 minutes later, my column was headed to the copy desk, after which the edited copy was discarded, and I ran the original, because, oh, yes, I was also the designer.

Look ... I'm a copyeditor by trade over the decades, but in college, the desk may as well have been the error-introduction desk. The chiefs were all solid, but under them? Yeah, I'll keep my original copy, let you play editor and then run what I wrote. (This is, incidentally, a very bad idea, as everyone needs an editor.)

It has been the same every time since I settled into column writing in the late '90s: Once I have a hed, the whole thing flows out so fast I'm not even thinking about it. Maybe that's an odd writing process, but until I've seen the whole thing writ large, I can't even start. Once I know, then it's a simple matter of getting from Point A to Point B.

Unlike the rest of my life.