2.) Please indulge this very Caucasian Super Bowl prediction:

• Kendrick brings out Taylor Swift for Bad Blood.
• She drops the Osment line before walking off the field.
• Drake moves to the Canadian sticks and becomes a Luddite.

Love to you all. Take care of yourselves and each other.

—30—

1.) The actual reason I came back: My best friend’s husband is the director of a teen shelter up in Oneonta that about to be shut down. GoFundMe is below.

This won’t save the world, but it can save a kid’s life—and every inch we gain in this fight matters. If you can spare anything, please chip in:

Finally, if I ever made you laugh, smile, think differently, if I’ve ever made any positive impact on your life, however mild, however fleeting, I’m glad.

And I’d like to ask you for a couple of favors…

To those who actually have missed me, and will be disappointed that I won’t be around here for the foreseeable, feel free to find me on PSN (DivisionPost).

To those of you who maintain the strength and will to fight for a better world, I salute you. Please keep fighting—for my sake, for the sake of those like me, and the sake of those that will come after me. What you do matters more than ever.

As someone who has trouble socializing face to face, Bluesky, and all the good people I know through it, will always have a hold on me. But as long as I can’t feel solid ground beneath my feet, this place will always be somewhat toxic for me.

It’s long past time to learn how to take care of myself.

I’d be lying to myself if I said this was all healthy. I’m turning 40 in a little over two months and there’s shit I have to figure out about what I want my life to look like—because it’s not this.

You know what, though? At least I don’t feel like the struggle is pointless.

What am I doing instead? I spend my free time switching between Final Fantasy XIV and Warframe; the former scratches my creative roleplaying itch, the latter my “kill and maim everything in sight” itch. I’m also working on stories and consuming lots of hip hop YouTube (this fuckin’ beef, man).

Like, how dare you protest the ongoing clownification of our society in a noble effort to stave off its collapse; haven’t you considered *my* feelings?

That’s an actual thought I’ve had—one I’m really not proud of. I’d rather remove myself from the conversation entirely before I say that out loud.

Problem is, I’ve never been able to turn that anger into anything productive or meaningful. It’s all directed inward.

In the past I’ve put accounts on mute when they’ve had to go off about unpleasant subjects, but I’ve never been fully comfortable with that, either. It feels judgmental.

I have trouble accepting reality on its own terms. I need to believe we live in a better world than we actually do because I have no idea what the point of moving forward is otherwise.

Sure, I can get angry about it. I’ve *been* angry about it. I can say it’s all bullshit and we deserve better.

Almost three months later, I don’t miss it.

Actually, that’s not true. I miss being able to gossip about the Kendrick / Drake beef and the ongoing fallout from that, because nobody in my immediate social circle cares about hip hop. Everything else, I’ve been better off without.

However, one of the things I had to do to keep myself safe was to get off social media entirely.

I didn’t proclaim as much because I felt like there was every chance I’d be back a week later, tail between my legs. If I was going to do it, I decided, then I had to just do it.

A few months ago, I had a severe meltdown. *Severe.* There was no suicide attempt, but there was self-injury—and if I didn’t go off the grid at that point, things were absolutely trending in the darker direction.

I’m okay now.