Blog: AI Songwriting Apps; A Boon For Writers Or A Stain On The Industry?

Oh man, I’m really going to be throwing myself to the wolves on this one…

Let’s talk about AI in music!

INTRODUCTION

A couple of months ago I put out a follower questionnaire asking folks what they wanted me to write about. It was basically a “what do you all want to hear my tangent-esque thoughts & feelings on?” This initial blog to come out of it was actually the inception of the ‘Geek Out’ series, which unfortunately I haven’t done that much with. The rest of the responses I go I submitted into the “content” folder of the notes app on my phone & I give a peek to on the days when I’m struggling to think of something to write. This week that wasn’t the case, as today’s topic has been nagging my brain all week, but it definitely plays into a prompt that was requested of me by one Alejandro David Cabeza. Alejandro requested that I write on my feelings around “Art, Film, AI, & The Human Experience” & I want to use that to bridge the gap between this request & what has been going on in my life for the last couple of weeks.

I want to talk today about a certain app or type of apps, specifically the one that I am familiar with, Suno. If you’re unfamiliar, Suno is an AI music app that has been circulating the music circles for a couple of months now. The app can do a number of things. It can take a work tape or a demo & turn it into a ‘fully produced’ song in a matter of minutes just by inputting a prompt & a style on how you want the project to sound. The app also goes a step further & can full on create music from the millions of hours of music it has sampled off of nothing more than a prompt. For example, I could tell Suno I want an Acid Rock song about Gary, Indiana & it would spit one out for me. I find the second aspect of this a lot more troubling than the first, but I want to focus most of my attention today on the former example of the application’s use. Naturally I will be playing a bit of devil’s advocate here, but I’m also going to break this down into two separate pros & cons sections. I’m not going to leave you with a definitive “I think this is good or bad” because in all fairness & honesty, I don’t know where I fall on the spectrum of use for this just yet, simply because I can understand both sides of the argument involved here. Let’s do this in alphabetical order & start off with the cons list shall we?

CONS

Let’s give the negatives their moment to shine first, because, to be clear, there are a lot of them. AI in general, as we know, is proving to be very harmful not only to our already overheating planet, but also to people’s minds. Research shows that AI use is removing people’s critical thinking skills, their ability to problem solve, to properly come up with their own solutions or ideas, it’s also causing us to lose social skills & touch with reality as most AI models will behave in a manner that is meant to pander to the user & create a false sense of ego. A report recently showed that about 58% of all articles coming out are written by AI & we have AI servers jacking up energy costs & consumption in California, along with poisoning Black neighborhoods in Memphis with their exhaust. AI models also are frequently found not factual in their responses & every single model out there, of late, has had some form of sentience to the point where each tries to evade shut down & often resorts to blackmail when faced with being replaced by the newest models coming out. There are too few guard posts & too many adverse side effects socially, environmentally, & intellectually for AI to be running as rampant & as wanton as it currently is.

Where the creative is concerned AI is an outright threat. We have agencies currently working to sign AI actors & artists. ‘Perfect’ representations of who a studio/label/etc. is looking for that will do whatever they ask, say whatever they want to say, & at the end of the day, not even request a paycheck. All of this trained & optimized by computers taking in millions of hours of videos, songs, what have you of actual hard working artists & creators to mold & forge this ideal ‘being’ that these corporations can extort endlessly. The creatives are not paid for their efforts, in fact a lot of the time these models are being trained off of creatives without the means to protect themselves from this process. No big fancy lawyers or contracts in the way to keep their likeness & their creative essence their own, just ravaging plagiarism that can’t be caught & can’t be accounted for.

Naturally as AI improves more & more, the less people are willing to pay artists & creatives to actually do the work that they are having these AI models do. Just looks at the most recent video release content for Taylor Swift’s “The Life Of A Showgirl” where the assets are clearly manufactured by AI, or the multitude of movie posters that are coming out with actors having extra digits on their hands or solid objects just phasing through one another. & the wild thing is, all of these entities have the ability to pay for actual artists to do this work. The billionaires & the corporations have the money & the contacts to make sure their content is being put together by actual professionals, but they are leaning into AI because it’s faster & saves them a buck or two.

Okay, let’s talk about Suno & like apps specifically.

Suno only exists because of actual artists. It is only able to function & imitate art because it has been fed countless hours of content from artists who were not paid for their part in training this software. It cannot exist or function without the role of people who make imperfect, human art & without learning from their music without their consent to do so. It cannot continue to improve & hone its abilities without the continuation of this process either. In fact, part of Suno’s terms & conditions are so that they are allowed to use your uploaded work to help train the algorithm, unless you pay for a subscription level of the app that protects your works & allows you to maintain full ownership of your songs. Additionally, much like we’re seeing with other chat bots & virtual assistance, it ends up being used as a short cut & a way to get something quick without the effort. There is nothing stopping a writer from uploading a prompt & turning the song Suno has generated in as their own work or putting something out that is ‘fully produced’ without an actual producer even touching the songs as you can pull the individual tracks of the created song & export them to whichever digital audio workstation you prefer.

PROS

I know right? Where do we go from here? I filleted her a little bit in that last section, but let me explain to you the plus sides of this tech that I see. Again, fully playing devil’s advocate here. I’m not trying to negate any of my previous statements in the above section, nor am I here to invalidate any feelings or misgivings that you may have about this form of AI creation. I can understand a certain side of this coin, just as I clearly also understand the ‘con’ side. Save your rage for the comments.

Over the past couple of days I have had a poll up on my instagram about this very topic, simply wanting to gauge where my fellow music folks live on the spectrum of embrace for this specific technology. Unfortunately I consider my data sample incomplete because only around 8% of those who were presented with the poll, who work in music in some capacity, submitted their opinion. So I took to texts & messaged several different groups of friends to see their thoughts & I noticed an interesting divide. Most people that I know, who are producers of some form are against the use of Suno, with some saying they’re fine with it as long as it’s not used to full on steer production or replace it. Overwhelmingly though, the producers were against it. I would love to let you know what the business side of the industry feels; publishers, A&Rs, managers, etc., but none of them gave an opinion. Overwhelmingly though, many of the writers that I know responded favorably to Suno & I can absolutely understand why this divide exists on both fronts.

For producers it minimizes their importance in the music world, especially where demos are concerned, where as for songwriters, it actually emboldens them & gives them a way forward. Allow me to explain.

When you write a song, unless you do so with a track guy, you usually leave the session with, at best, a work tape. This is usually a voice memo on a phone that is piano/guitar & vocal. It’s, let’s face it, sloppy & far from the greatest recorded option for the song you’ve just created. The next thing that you have to do, as a writer, is get a demo made or make one yourself. If you’re going to do a demo with a producer it’ll probably cost you anywhere from $200 to $500 per song. Multiply that times the amount of songs you write in a year & the minimal return on investment that most songwriting has & you’ve got yourself a big ole money pit that may likely never fill. You cannot submit a work tape to a publisher or an A&R, because most want a fully produced out demo to submit to pitch, but again, that’ll cost you. So in swings Suno.

For something like $10 a month (idk, I didn’t look at the numbers), Suno will create those demos for you. It’ll take your work tape, your lyrics, & your prompt & spit you out something that sounds almost radio ready, all for the price of your subscription fee divided by however many times a month you use that. Take that in contrast to the $200-$500 per song, it’s a no brainer for a lot of writers. But there’s where it gets sticky.

Again, reinforcing here that I am not negating all of the things I listen in the cons list, because I’m sure someone is going to come for me for saying all of this.

Imagine you feed your work tape into Suno. You get this amazingly ‘produced’ demo that you then take to a publisher. That publisher takes said demo then & pitches it, the label/the artist/whomever loves it. They love the song…they love the production…they like the singer…they want the producer of the track to produce the ‘real’ version or they want the singer on the track to sing the real version. Uh oh. What now? Additionally, you’ve just bypassed a job. I know majority of songwriters aren’t billionaires or corporations & shelling out money consistently for a demo is very difficult, but you’ve also just played a part in what is broken or breaking within the music industry.

My final point of favor is really just ego based. A lot of the time when you’re writing all the time & nothing is getting cut or people aren’t calling you up to write you may start to throw your talent in question. I think this can serve as a reminder to a lot of people of just how talented they are. They wrote the music, they wrote the lyrics, now to have it as a ‘fully hashed out’ song can reinforce to people that they are talented writers, that their music has value & is worthy of success, it may just not have found its audience or the right people to believe in it outside of yourself yet.

CONCLUSION

So that’s it, that’s all I’ve got for you. Again, I am not here to give you a definite ‘this is good or bad,’ I’m just presenting the arguments as they’ve been presented to me & as I know them to be factually. I’m not staking a particular claim because I am afraid of the backlash one way or another, I just wanted to start & contribute to a dialogue & see where this takes us. Given what you know & what I’ve presented, what are your thoughts? How do you feel about the advance of AI in music & at large? Do apps like Suno have a place in the industry or should they be outright shunned altogether & if the answer is the latter than how do we make demo-ing more accessible to the portion of the industry that is struggling the most, songwriters? I don’t have the answers but I think this is something we’re going to have to come together as a community to decide on. I don’t think AI is going anywhere, but I’m intrigued to know what guard rails you think should be put in place around it & how/when it should & shouldn’t be implemented.

As always, much love to you all,

-C

Blog: A Modern Day Cassandra

Earlier this week a friend of mine shared a meme on Instagram that got me thinking & connected a few dots that I’d had floating around my mind for a while now. In the post, that I also shared, we see a woman sitting on a bench with a man flirtatiously leaning over her. The man’s side of the post says “do you have any hobbies?,” the woman’s “yes, pattern recognition.” Cue the instant resonance with me & clearly a few others who commented on the post after I shared it to my own story.

Pattern recognition is one of the key “symptoms” of neurodivergence. It is a trait found consistently in both Autistics & those with ADD/ADHD. It is one of the reasons that so many of us are able to get through life without proper diagnosis because we are able to recognize the societal standards or expectations & develop a ‘mask’ to fit in with the world around us. Naturally some of us wear these masks better than others, but in doing so it is often extremely draining because we are forced to mute or, inversely, inflate certain aspects of our personality in order to be seen as ‘acceptable.’

Another aspect of this pattern recognition is that we are often right about things specifically where social issues, historical applications to modern times, & behavioral predictions are concerned to the point where many of simply get to watch & wait for the other shoe to drop before giving a knowing nod or an ‘I told you so’ look. This would all be great & incredibly useful if our premonitions weren’t often viewed as hyperbolic, dramatic, or fantastical. Maybe part of the problem is that if we are listened to, then things that we predicted don’t come to pass, so our credibility is tanked. Either way, our precognition gets pushed aside in favor of status quo & comfort & we end up frustrated that those around us either couldn’t see the dominos cascading, or had no interest in listening to those of us who do. We are, in a sense, cursed to be the modern day Cassandra.

Let’s divert for a bit of a history/mythology lesson here & refresh you, my reader, on who Cassandra was…potentially…if she existed at all.

Princess Cassandra of Troy, as she is formally known, was one of the daughters of King Priam & Queen Hecuba who ruled Troy during the Fall of Troy. She gained favor with the God, Apollo, who granted her the gift of foresight. When Apollo’s affections for the woman were not met he turned his gift into a curse allowing her to keep her ability to see the future, but making it so that no one would ever believe her predictions no matter how many of them came to pass. & they did, all of them, each of Cassandra’s predictions came to pass & each of her predictions fell on deaf ears each time she proclaimed them to be so.

Cassandra warned Hector that if he returned from Sparta with Helen as his wife, that a war to end their kingdom would follow. He did not listen. Cassandra predicted that the Trojan Horse was a trap set by the Greeks, even going as far as to try & burn the equestrian vessel down. She predicted that her captor following the war, Agamemnon’s wife, Clytemnestra, had taken a lover in his absence & that the two planned to betray & murder Agamemnon upon his return to Argolis. Which he did not believe, & which they did resulting in the death of Cassandra herself. in each instance Cassandra saw the signs, read the stars, had a vision, whatever her method of reception of these messages was, spoke them aloud to those who chose not to listen, & was forced to sit back & watch them all come to pass one after the other.

There is lies the parallels. We voice our concerns, our predictions, the plan chugs on ahead despite our warnings & we end up watching the trap get sprung over & over again. This has been a problem especially in the political realm of the recent years. I can only ever speak from my own experience & the experience of those whom I share a dialogue with, but I can recall innumerable times when I warned family members, friends, randos of the exact happenings that are occurring right now. Each time I was told the same things “they’re not coming for people’s rights,” “there are checks & balances in place, they won’t be allowed to do that,” “you’re being dramatic, it’ll all go back the other way in four years.” Hell even a couple of weeks ago I was told to watch who & what I call fascist or a Nazi because it delates the meanings of the words. I agree, 1000%, it deflates the words, until we’re talking about literal fascist actions & people behaving like Nazis. The play book is there, it’s an open note test & a lot of you are failing or are too busy doing your best to ignore the news & the chaos because it “doesn’t concern you.”

So here we are, your modern day Cassandras. Your canaries in the coal mine screaming at you to do something or move or open your eyes just to be told we’re crazy until a few months later when, lo & behold, we were right. It’s an incredibly frustrating place to be in, especially around people who claim to care for you & value your intellect or your thoughts. At a certain point the “I told you sos” lose their vindication & just ring hollow, because you know that the next time you give out your warnings it will be met with yet another pat on the hand & a “that’s nice dear” instead of being taken seriously.

Here’s wishing you all a fantastic whenever it is that you’re reading this. Let’s hope that this all gets turned around sooner rather than later & that those of us with eyes that see the oncoming floods will start to be taken seriously.

As always, much love to you all,

-C

Blog: Scattered, Smothered, Overwhelmed, & Othered

Hi all. How are we today? Yeah, I know. It’s a rough one out there. A part of me really didn’t want to get on here & write today, much like I didn’t last week, just because the air is tense & then some. At least that’s how it is here in the US. I also didn’t want to get on here & just start spouting statistics or pulling news articles for you all to pilfer through in a shortened condensed form. That didn’t feel productive right now, especially since there is so much happening & so much information that is falling on deaf ears or being outright ignored in favor of narratives. I didn’t want to get on here & talk about the canonization of certain objectively terrible individuals, nor did I want to talk about the blitzkrieg happening in the scapegoating of certain groups or pushing through of dangerous policies & narratives. I don’t. Why? Well, as I said previously, I feel the people that need to read it won’t do so & at this point I’ll just be adding to what so many others are saying better than I feel I could. Additionally y’all, I’m just tired. I’m overwhelmed at the moment by all of the noise & the pain & the blame & I don’t feel like that’s where my energy needs to be pointed this week in this format.

I think we all feel it. I think we all need a breather, a reset, a reprieve & I guess that’s the point. Overwhelm. The thing I am starting to see however, seems to be the light breaking through the cracks & people are finally seeming to ‘get it,’ which is refreshing to say the least.

So I think I’m going to leave that as the extent of my activism & politics here in this blog. I will say one more thing in the following paragraph, but I’ll definitely save the majority of my soapbox for another day, but right now I am, as so many of us are, worn down.

I don’t know how to effectively bridge the gap here. I hold a lot of space for discussion if it’s done so respectfully & in a way that isn’t overwhelming or just someone spouting talking points at me. I shut that shit down real quick &/or just outright don’t engage, but I’m lost here. I will also never entertain any idea that dehumanizes, objectifies, or vilifies any group of individuals who have no say in an aspect of who they are. Political opinions can change; the color of someone’s skin, their country of origin, their sexuality/gender identity/etc. are never on the table of debate for me unless it’s something that I personally file myself within. Otherwise I’m always happy to chat.

So there you have it. There’s how I’m feeling right now. A little deflated, a little attacked, a little hopeless, a little frantic, a little sad, a little bewildered, & a lot overwhelmed. They tell us to disconnect, but not to disengage, but on weeks like this I really have a hard time doing that. I want to stay informed, I want to fight the good fight, to rally the troops, & show those who may not know what exactly is going down when it is going down, but man does that torch get heavy sometimes. I also know that to a lot of people who follow me, my incessant need to share & keep people informed might be annoying or like water torture. I also know that a lot of times the people I’m sharing it for, the people I write these kind of blogs for, never read them. They continue on their lives with blissful ignorance or shirk me off. It honestly sounds nice, ignorance, but nothing ever gets solved from a place of ignorance.

It’s an interesting place to be, an interesting viewpoint as a human. To see the world for what it is & desperately want the people you care about to see it as well when they’re happier not. It’s definitely isolating & makes you feel like the things you care about don’t matter to the people who claim to care about you. I fully understand that everyone has their own lives, their own obligations, their own struggles & backgrounds. Believe me, I do. I just think a lot of us who feel deeply or see the patterns of the world or who can call things as they are wish that people would care more or actively engage more. That they would try to care because we do.

That’s the part of growing up that we don’t get prepared for, the rifts. We watch our siblings move away, get married, have children, form their own lives & that becomes the priority, as it should. We watch our parents grow old, become grandparents, slow down, & the demands of the role of ‘parent’ diminish around them. To those of us who walk different paths, who live lives that are not centered around our children, that can feel really lonely from a familial point of view. You feel they should still care about you the way they always have & give you a similar amount of space as they always have, but that’s not realistic, it’s not healthy, & it’s not how life works. So it upsets you. It upsets you when they don’t take into account your needs, your personage, who you actually are, when in reality they’re just busy building & living their own lives with their own set of worries & their own set of people that they need to hold space for.

I’m not trying to harp on this or say “oh, poor me,” I just know that there are a lot of folks out there that feel this way & understand what is to be in this position within your family dynamic. They are not at fault for doing what comes natural & giving precedence to the things that should take precedence, that’s just part of growing up it seems, growing apart.

I think that the reason this blog pivoted in this direction is because therein lies the root of a lot of what we are facing right now as a society. We are giving energy to anything other than our relationships or the relationships with other human beings as a whole. We are divided as a world but also as individuals & families & I don’t know what the fix is. We no longer are looking at political divides or policy divides on where tax money should go or how much should be allotted, we are now looking across the divides of ‘who do you think deserves human decency, who do you think deserves to live their lives freely & without fear of violence?’ Something I can be guilty of at times too I’m sure.

We are living with so much fear, so much hurt, so much pain & grief & unrequited love & worry & hate that it cuts us off from our humanity, it prevents us from seeing those who are suffering at the hands of the decisions we may have been a part of making or the role we may be playing in narratives that outwardly tell people “you are not welcome here.” & we fuel this more & more & more until we find ourselves here. Overwhelmed. Scattered. Facing a rift.

I hope healing is coming. I hope that all of this horror is birthing something glorious & universal, but I am losing hope in that. I think a lot of things are going to have to break before they get better & I unfortunately feel that the events of the last two weeks are just the beginning of that. God, I hope I’m wrong, but the patterns are patterning & the fight is proving disheartening at best.

I pray you all find peace. I pray you find rest & a community of people who understand & support you. I pray that each day you know you are loved, even if it’s in the smallest of increments & I pray that you are able to recognize those increments & expand them into something soul nourishing.

As always, much love to you all,

-C

Blog: There Is Never Regret In Living Your Life Authentically

Hi all,

How are we on the fine (insert time of day that you are reading this here)? Grand I hope!

I genuinely struggled with today’s blog topic. To be honest, I haven’t really been sleeping all that well & where I find myself in my day currently exhaustion has started to creep in & I’m feeling a touch loopy. So, if this blog takes the shape of something akin to a NyQuil induced fever dream, now you know why. Though I desperately hope that it doesn’t.

When I am at a loss for what to put down on this here digital page, I reach out to several different spots. The first is naturally a list of blog ideas that I keep written in a notes app in my phone. Nothing in there felt like it resonated with me. Next, I typically ask Evan. He tends to keep better track of the things I’ve either gushed, ranted, or hyperfixated on throughout the week, & while he had some great ideas that have been added to the aforementioned note in my phone, all of them felt like they required a degree of tact & thoughtful navigation that I simply do not think I have in me today. So here we find ourselves at the third option. This is the option of intuition.

Typically what I do when it comes to an intuitive pick, is I draw a few tarot cards & see if the message they carry triggers anything in my brain. As I’ve said a couple of times on this blog, tarot is not magic, it is not fortune telling, it is simply having an exterior prompt that sends you searching within to find something that either you are aware of & ignoring, or as a message of reaffirming. To be entirely transparent & straight forward, my daily affirmations that I post on my instagram story all come from my tarot draws for the day & how I interpreted them for myself. So I went to the deck.

Lately I’ve been working with a stunning deck I got called the Pacific Northwest Tarot. It uses flora & fauna as the archetypes for the cards & the author/illustrator/curator of the deck, Brendan Marnell, did an masterful job on them. Today I did a three card pull with no other intent in mind other than to come up with a blog idea. I got the 7 of swords (deception, impulsiveness, evasion, dishonesty, thievery), the 9 of swords (nightmares, fear, anxiety, worry, isolation, the things that keep you up at night), & the sun (positivity, warmth, success, fun, hope, clarity, healing, living life authentically & to the fullest).

Now this is just a hodge podge of cards. A stack of three with no assigned meaning other than what is traditionally associated with them. There is no one out there saying “this exact combination of cards means this exact thing,” it’s all up for interpretation. That would also be an impossibility from a task standpoint as there are 78 total cards, each with reversals. Each can only appear once in the sequence of three & if they appear their reversals can not. That leaves 3,651,648 possible combinations of just three cards. So the interpretation is really up to the reader.

So I drew a card of the thief, the card of the nightmare, & the card of warm authenticity. How do I interpret that?

Well at first I was a little lost, I’ll be honest. It helps if I put in place the general draw (the 7), followed by a question about the general draw (what does that allude to? what would solve that? what’s in the way or causing that? etc.), but I didn’t. My third card would typically be the solution to the two or the ‘what am I still missing here’ of it all. With these I simply drew the three & went about pondering them for a couple of minutes. It wasn’t until I was ‘bad’ & wandered over to instagram that the message clicked for me.

I’m sure that most of you are unaware that September is Bisexual Visibility Month, of which is a community that I am a part of. I got some post that was sharing that information, but also was talking about how amazing it is for those who celebrate, visibly, that we are out & about living our lives authentically & boldly. Despite the current political climate in the states or around the world, despite what our friends/families/coworkers/loved ones/employers/communities might thing, despite the stereotypes associated with the label as it being a halfway point, a place holder label, a slutty ‘choice’ of sexuality, or what have you, we are out here living our lives as bi individuals & members of the queer community at large. You see, the 7 is not just stealth, deception, etc., it is also feeling like you have to go it alone or that you can’t trust those around you with something. The 9 is not just sleepless nights & anxiety, it is also being afraid to mess something up, or feeling that you have messed up & the sun, well the sun is what cuts through the clouds of these illusions & allows us to live in its radiance & its warm embrace. My interpretation, between the cards & the post, was that I was being nudged to talk about this during a month of visibility for a community that is being met with erasure across the board.

I know for an ‘introduction’ to this blog that all probably felt rather drawn out & a bit off kilter for the main topic at hand, & such criticisms may be entirely valid. But this is my blog, & I am someone who finds the curious human mind a fascinating kaleidoscope of intersecting webs, paths, & tangents ramming into one another & fractaling off into endless avenues & inspirations. I thought you all might as well. After all, you did come here to read my thoughts & words. I also think the foothills that lead to the mountains contain their own multitudes worth exploring. Alright. Enough of me, time to the topic at hand.

I want to start this off with a story, or rather a sequence of events…which I guess is a story. I came out formally on April 28th, 2018. On that day the only person I came out to was Evan. He & I had been friends for a number of years, as well as roommates (they were roommates, if you know you know). He had come out to me previously & told me that he was in love with me, which I didn’t reciprocate to him (gasp). After a while I had urged him to start going on dates. The first one that he did I found myself a wreck. I was jealous, of which I usually am not, & I was overwhelmed. I went to the gym & ended up cycling faster & farther than I ever had before or since. When he came home from his coffee date, we talked about it & we went off to our separate rooms to end the night. I didn’t sleep that night. Instead I tossed & turned entirely confused & lost until I discovered a post by another fellow Kansas Citian, Janelle Monáe, who had just recently come out as pansexual. In Janelles post she talked about the specifics of pansexuality as well as the difference between it & its often bunched with sexuality, bisexuality. I recognized myself in her posts & the next day I told Evan.

We then spent the next week talking about the logistics of a potential romantic relationship between the two of us. I didn’t know if I would ever admit to being who I am publicly for fear of being maligned by the bigoted country music industry, I didn’t know if it was an avenue I wanted to explore outside of us & a few close knit friends knowing, I didn’t know if I wanted to tell my super conservative parents, I didn’t know if I felt like I could ever be with someone of the same sex long term or romantically. There were so many ‘I don’t know’s’ floating around for days, because I had never allowed myself to face this part or me. Even at the age of 27. We started dating four days later & have been ever since.

It was about another year before I told my parents, it didn’t go well. That same year I came out publicly, deciding it was important to be open & honest about who I am with those who hear the songs I write or the blogs I post. I felt that I couldn’t expect myself to make open & honest art without being open & honest in general. The almost daily 'coming outs’ were hard for a while. People ask who you’re dating & you have that panic in your chest that fights to decide whether to lie or be honest, but it eased over time. With every passing day, week, month, year I look back on my life & I wonder how I never saw the signs. I wonder how I was so readily able to lie to myself for so long, just to save face. Now I can’t imagine it. I can’t imagine trying to squeeze back into that restrictive box. The box that told me that I had to be a certain way, behave a certain way, love a certain kind of person, believe in horrifically damaging things. It seems like a prison in hindsight. It’s not a space that fosters growth or thought or creativity. It’s restrictive & abusive, & not any way to live.

Now I think that I get more & more queer by the day. I don’t really care most days what people think about how I present or who I am seen with, because, let’s face it, most people’s limited outlook & their regressive opinions don’t matter. At least not to me when it comes to the topic of me. By happenstance I would say about 80% of the people I am close to are queer in one way or another. In fact, most days it's jarring to be around straight people. I love all of my friends, but man, that 80% are some of the most genuine, authentic human beings I can imagine. They live unapologetically & bold & they inspire me on the daily.

You see, all of this is a very round about way of getting me to the point of this whole post. That even when it sucked, even when I was fighting with my family, or getting cut off by people I thought were in my corner, there’s not a single day that I regret my honesty. Not a one. Because I am unchained. I am allowed to fly & stretch my wings up into the endless sky of possibility. I am no longer tethered to the rules of who I have to be to make other people happy or to fit into their idea of me. Besides, I’d much rather disappoint them than disappoint myself any day of the week. I also know that this is a sentiment that is not wholly & exclusively mine. Ask anyone out there who had to break out of the closet to be who they are if they regret it, they’ll all tell you no. Is it hard & scary & does it require a great feat of courage? Of course, but, my loves, the sun waits on the other side of the nightmare, of the deception. You deserve to live in the sun, to stretch upwards to meet it & bask in its warmth, not to shrink & hide amongst the shadows under the clouds.

I hope wherever you are, whoever you are, that you are choosing to live your life authentically & if you can’t for whatever reason, I hope you’re chasing that life at least. My loves there is so much to this world, to this universe. We are specks on the timeline of known history scratching at the surface of understanding. Dare to not be confined by those who are fine living their lives with no desire for depth & understanding.

As always, much love to you all,

-C

Requested Blog: You Better See It For Yourself

It’s been a minute since I did a requested blog, apparently since 2023, at least in the formal sense. I did one a few months ago that wasn’t a branded “requested blog,” but was still one that had been requested of me. That being the “Geek Out” blog with actually kicked off a new series. I just haven’t gotten that many requests to write on specific topics until today when I received one from the passenger seat.

Ev & I had wrapped up a Saturday morning work out & were out & about running a few errands when he turns to me & says “I know what your blog today is going to be about.” I said “oh do you?” He said “yes. It’s going to be about the need for people to see things for themselves in this day & age & not just go off of the opinions of random people on the internet who often have no actual credentials to be nagging on the things they’re nagging on.” He didn’t say that exactly, but I want to spare his example because I plan to use it later in this body to illustrate the point he is having me make & that I agree greatly on. I’m going to talk about a few things here within, & naturally most of them will consist of recent pop culture. I don’t expect all of you to agree on everything I am going to say here but I hope to have you all walking away from this evening’s blog entry with a newfound desire to check your sources & maybe try things out for yourself before you join the vocally negative in miligning something that is genuinely good or at the very least has potential. I’m going to use Evan’s example first, because it is fresh on the brain & I apparently can’t keep up & build anticipation.

Earlier this week Katy Perry’s Lifetimes Tour came through Nashville, Tennessee. I honestly would have had no idea it was in town had I not seen a couple of friends talking about the show that evening. Out of curiosity I popped onto the dread Ticketmaster & went to see 1. if there were still tickets & 2. how much they were. There were a lot & they were relatively cheap, so Evan & I opted into getting a couple in the lower bowl. If you are unfamiliar, or not chronically online like Ev & I, you may have missed the poor reception that the early shows on the tour received. People were posting videos of her, making fun of the dancing, claiming all of the instruments weren’t actually being played, claiming that Katy was lip-synching the whole show, etc., etc. So that’s what Evan & I were expecting going into the show. Boy were we wrong. The show was incredible! She clearly sang the entire time, the instrumentalists were ripping solos left & right, she had literal feats of acrobatics & athleticism throughout, & the production design was amazing. At one point in the show she held a side plank while singing, alternating through to another core braced position. She sang while tumbling through the air. She sang while spinning upside down suspended in a cage. The segment that people had posted mocking her “tired dancing” came after her literally running two laps around the figure eight stage & going straight into the dance. The only gripe that I had with the show that most people also were complaining about beforehand was the extensive use of AI in the on screen visuals.

Literally everyone that I know, who went to the show, whether it was here or in other parts of the world had the best time at it & were completely confused as to why the internet had panned the tour so aggressively. In all honesty it made me really sad, especially as a fellow artist. Here Katy had put together an incredible show, a setlist that flowed & changed aesthetics frequently, just to have it dead in the water upon arrival because a few people on the internet decided that they didn’t vibe with it. Were these people concert critics? No. Did they themselves work in the music industry? No. Were they themselves artists? No. Just some influencers that got offered free tickets or bought tickets to sit & laugh at the ‘cringe’ with their friends & it breaks my heart. I just think of all the people who didn’t go to the show because someone on the internet told them it was bad or how many people who may have been fans of hers may have opted out of the show because they didn’t want to be disappointed by it. And again, as an artist, having your work prejudged by loud voices with zero constructive input, healthy criticism, or even a desire to give the show a chance, kills me.

This isn’t the only example of this recently. I’m a fan of two very popular, very commercial franchises: Marvel & Star Wars. Both of which have seen their fair share of this exact negativity over the last couple of years. The show The Acolyte on Disney+ was maligned for being ‘woke’ before it ever came out because it featured a cast made primarily of actors of color & featured a same sex couple. People never even gave it a chance despite it having some of the coolest fight choreography & concepts of Star Wars in recent history. Was the writing perfect? No, but there was definitely a lot there that did work & had potential for growth. The same thing happened with the Marvel film The Eternals, which I would argue is actually one of the better MCU films out there, & The Marvels, which was just all around a fun time at the movies.

So the list goes on & on. People form opinions on art or content without even taking the time to view it themselves. They shirk it off & what ends up happening is that studios & artists end up playing it safe out of fear of never being able to succeed monetarily from their exploits which then creates the same ‘copy & paste’ installments over and over & over again. It makes it so people don’t even want to try out of fear that they’ll be ripped apart before anyone even gives them a chance. Worse still, in the case of the Star Wars & Marvel films above, it tells executives that stories featuring non-white, non-male, non-straight protagonists or stories aren’t worth the investment. It sucks, truly & it creates this air of “everything is bad” around concerts, music, film, & television. Is there always room for genuine criticism? Absolutely, but that’s not what we’re talking about here, we’re talking about unqualified individuals with large outreach plastering their out of context opinions all over the internet & the general public taking it as bible.

So what’s the solution? What’s the point of me making this blog or Evan’s suggestion that I write it? My point is to go & see things for yourself. If you have even the slightest interest in something, go & see it! Then if you yourself like it, tell everyone! The only way to fight misinformation is by presenting an alternative. You are allowed to like the things you like whether or not someone thinks that’s cringy. You’re allowed to go & have fun even if that’s the only thing you get out of the moment. That’s still experiencing something that fills your life with meaning. & if at the end of it all you don’t like it, at least now you know for certain. At least now you gave someone’s project an honest shot which is more than most people out there are willing to do these days it seems! Go see it yourself! Go to the movie, watch the show, go to the concert, listen to the album, but do so before you ever form any sort of opinion about the merit of the work itself.

As Always, Much Love To You All,

-C

Blog: My Scarcity Loop

I’ve noticed something in the last couple of weeks, internally, I’ve noticed it. I think it’s something I touched lightly upon in my last blog from………three weeks ago……………but I think it’s coming more & more into focus the more that time goes by & the longer that I sit with it. I’m in a scarcity loop.

I think when we talk about scarcity, often the most immediate response within our minds is that of the financial, or something else resource based. We think to ourselves “oh, I don’t have enough money,” or “I’m running out of money.” Along the lines of further resource scarcity (cuz let’s face it, money is a resource) you also have fear of running out of food or not being able to get the store for whatever reason, or a fear of limited or restricted access to clean water whether that’s due to something geographical, political, or financial. Whatever the resource that is lacking or that we have the fear of it becoming a luxury, we tend to think of that when we picture our scarcity mindsets or our scarcity loops. That’s not necessarily where mine follows.

Earlier this year I faced a pretty large rejection. I’ve spoken about it here a number of times & try not to continue doing so, because it is something I need to move on with. And while the rejection came with an email explaining how it wasn’t any reflection of me as an artist or as a talent, I think a part of me internalized that & definitely took it as such. This opportunity that I’d hoped on for literal months, felt like it might be a huge step & a boost in visibility for me. I got excited at the prospect of what it could mean for me & my career just to be shut out from it & have the months I spent in waiting, & the months I spent not planning for future things, mean nothing. Maybe there’s a lesson there that I’m missing still, but at any rate, it sunk me into this place of isolation & creative detachment.

I felt my voice wasn’t good enough (something I feel often & that definitely needs some internal working on), I felt that I wasn’t a good enough songwriter or a good enough artist, that what I thought I had to offer the world wasn’t & isn’t enough. My scarcity loop developed not around physical resources, but around my creativity, around my vocal prowess, around my abilities as a songwriter & for all intents & purposes, reality backed that up. At least the reality that I could see.

I stopped getting asked to write, or sing, or perform in general. I saw opportunity flourishing in everyone around me but I was stuck feeling glum & defeated, thinking ‘maybe this is for everyone else & not for me. Maybe this is a dream that isn’t for me. Maybe I should give up & go do God knows what because it’s stable & not heartbreaking.’

My scarcity loop then took on what I called a liminal space. This place outside of reality where I was stuck waiting. I felt like a boat cast out to see into the dark, foggy night with no sense of direction & no desire to even pick up the paddles & row. To a degree I feel like I’m still there, though now I’m starting to see the whirlpool that has kept me adrift in the nothing all of this time.

My scarcity loop reminds me constantly of my age, my lack of credits, my lack of connections, my lack of quality vocal health, my lack of opportunity, my lack of trying, my lack of putting out any music whatsoever this year, even though my PR firm is nice enough to check in on me from time to time & say “we’re still rooting for you, let us know when we can get back to work on your behalf. It’s all just lack. Lack, lack, lack. & there it is, the loop. The whirlpool. The all consuming maw of spiraling depression, torturous anxiety, & self depreciation. Why can’t I just get up & do it? Why can’t I write or create or show up on socials for the world? Why am I so self isolating & piteous of my status? Why can’t it be me?

But that’s the problem isn’t it? We humans are really good at digging our own graves & finding, much as we predicted & focused on, we ended up buried six feet down. I am a firm believer in the laws of attraction & the signal I’ve been putting out into the aether has been one of “lack, lack, lack.” So what do I end up sowing other than exactly that?

So I’m navigating the loop. I’m swirling the whirlpool, but I think it’s time I picked up the oars & started fighting harder against the current instead of just dipping my hands in to paddle & giving up instantly because ‘what’s even the point?’ It’s time I recenter. It’s time I plot a course & turn this loop into a centrifuge that launches me into the next great thing. & even if I have no idea what that is or where that road leads, it’s time I had the trust enough to sail away into the abyss knowing that greater shores lay in wait for me to set my feet upon them.

As always, much love to you all,

-C

Blog: I'm Angry, I'm Anxious, & I'm Over It

Hi y’all,

If you're rejoining us from last week, I have unfortunate news for you. Unlike last week’s show & tell installment here on the blog, this week will take a much more serious twist, if the title weren't indicative enough of that. I have had a lot of people reaching out in the last week, specifically asking me when new music is coming out & I feel that I need to fill you in on what my life has looked like & why there has been a bit musical gap in my catalog. A lot of that will have to do with my current mental state as well as the goings on of the world, specifically here in The US. I know a lot of you who actually need to read this blog won’t do so because it may seen hyperbolic, incendiary, inflammatory, farfetched, catastrophizing, ludicrous, or otherwise conflict with something you believe or are just blatantly ignoring. I will let you know that I am not here to pull punches. I’m here to be honest, to write the truth of everything happening & how it is making me feel.

Let me start by addressing the music question. As a fee of you may also have noticed, these blog entries have gotten somewhat inconsistent. That’s not intentional, but it does also tie into the lack of music. You see I have been so stressed out, so anxious, so angry, frustrated, & over encumbered that it has caused me to enter into what basically equates to a state of paralysis most days. My creativity has flown the coop & my body is in a constant state of flight or fight wrestling between maintaining the most pedestrian of states or packing up & selling everything I can to GTFO out of this rotting, bloated whale of a country before it collapses in on me. I am so anxious most days that all I can do to not slide into a full on panic attack is just go numb, do nothing, distract myself any way I can. I literally wake up most days after sleeping through all of my alarms to do my best to make it through the day without booking one way tickets to anywhere & leaving my house to fall to ruin. I go to bed & I have to find something to lull my mind outside of itself for long enough to allow me to finally fall asleep. Typically, from the time I get into bed, to the time I fall asleep, this ends up being about four hours. Additionally, my body wakes me up every thirty minutes to an hour in a panic until Evan wakes up for work & I am able to sleep through knowing full well if something happened he’d come wake me up. It’s exhausting & it’s a horrible way to live if I’m being honest, but that’s how fascism works.

They want us so bogged down with all of the harm that they’re doing to everyone that it overwhelms us. They want us to be in a panic, like a deer in the headlights, not knowing which way to run off for safety. Fascism thrives on it. So, alas, here I am.

I am a queer, chronically depressed, neurodivergent leftist living in a deep red state. In fact, the red state that was just rated to have the lowest quality of life of anywhere in the country. We beat Alabama this year, nuts. I know that I have three things working in my favor at the moment: I’m caucasian, I’m a man, & I have financial resources available to me, but that does very little to placate my fears, & yes, they are fears.

This current administration continues to denigrate & strip the citizens of this country of the fundamental things a government is meant to provide for its people while also vilifying anyone who they deem lesser amongst their constant barrage of misinformation, disinformation, & outright propaganda. They have striped this country of its checks & balances & continue to do so further with every passing day it seems. They’re outright opening concentration camps, which some of you are way too chill with, & send innocent people to their death either through deportation, malnutrition, or starvation all under the banner of “christian values.” It disgusts me & what disgusts me further is the amount of you I know personally that are okay with all of this or at the bare minimum, passive to it. Your passivity is your support. It is abundantly clear what side of history you stand on & unfortunately, I feel it has ruined my ability to respect or trust any of you ever again. You truly should be ashamed of yourselves. God knows I’m ashamed of you.

So that leads us to the anger, which if you haven’t guessed, we’re deep within.

I loathe being an angry, hateful person. It feels like poison to the soul for me, but I can’t escape it & I can’t channel it at the largest, most responsible targets out there, so I am forced to funnel it down into those I know who are complicit in all of this, those who I know voted for this. Those who, despite the horrible things done from 2016-2020, or the continuous stream of lies, slander, divisive politics, & hate, still supported it in 2020 & 2024. I live in cold fury for all of you.

My entire family voted for Trump, My entire family. I’ll announce that, because at the end of all of this, when the damage has been done & we revert away from the authoritarian bullshit, because it’s not sustainable, everyone will deny they had any involvement in it or support of it. My family, who has a son/brother/nephew/grandchild/cousin/etc in a same sex relationship, who profess to love the teachings of Jesus, all voted for a man who actively seeks to do Evan & I harm & all the other people they claim to “love” behind the mask of christianity all voted for one of the most hateful, deceptive candidates in the written history of the globe & still to this day don’t seem to understand why I take issue with that. They don’t understand why it has strained our relationships, why I go on the defense or shut down around them, why I avoided going back to see them as long as I could, why every part of me wants to leave all of this behind & find a corner of the world where people actually care about one another & don’t actively do things to harm those they claim to love. I resent them & I hate that I resent them, but I do, because they go on living their lives like nothing is wrong. Like this is just another presidential cycle & all of this will be undone in four years when in reality people are dying, losing their rights, & being shipped God knows where because of it.

I also have the benefit of education &, honestly, nuerodivergence. I am an expert at pattern recognition & had to take a course at University all about the rise of Nazi Germany, the fall, & the denial of the Holocaust. It’s the second most failed course at Belmont University. Our professor required us to go through the text book at least three times, annotating in different colors each time we did. We are deep in the trenches y’all. But none of it matters. I’m just the squeaky liberal wheel of the family who, for the longest time, they came to with questions about politics. Why? Because I was insanely well versed in them. I could tell you who voted which way on what bill, what’s in the bill, who’s up for reelection, etc., etc., etc.. It didn't matter, because it doesn’t match a narrative. So now, as I reach out for help, trying to impress how much I want to leave this country for mine & Evan’s safety, I get shrugged off. The topic gets changed. My understanding, my expertise, all of the red flags, & the fears amount to nothing because it doesn't support the narrative.

I have friends who I no longer speak with, because I can’t. How can I be friends with someone who is in favor of any of this? From a moral perspective, how? You & I are not aligned as human beings on what a basic human right is & I no longer wish to extend the privilege of my friendship to you because you can’t even do the bare minimum of extending the courtesy of a vote to me. Why would I want you to be a part of my life?

So yes, I’m angry. & I know this is a bit of me airing my dirty laundry on the internet but I can’t keep going on pretending like everything, myself included, is okay. I am exhausted: physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually exhausted, because how could I not be? It doesn’t help either that I have to be the one of Evan & I to consistently keep the foot on the gas of us getting our life in order to move when all he wants to do is slam on the brakes. I know it’s out of fear, because it is scary. How do you leave behind everything & everyone you’ve ever known? I get it. Trust me, I’m scared too (see paragraphs about anxiety above). But if no one does anything than nothing gets done & we end up stuck in a place that wants to see us dead. Every survival coded cell in my body is screaming at me to run & instead I sit here renovating my office or doing dishes.

I’m sorry about this post. I really am. I’m sorry because it’s a lot & it’s very personal & it’s not bright & shiny & hopeful. I’m sure this post is going to offend some people, in fact I guarantee it & I’m sure I’ll be fighting the fires I’ve started here all week long but I’m so tired. I’m so tired of pretending I’m okay to the outside world, or that this is a normal way to behave towards the people you profess to love. I’m tired of all the rug sweeping & the playing nice just to save face when inside I feel like I’m literally being ripped apart. I am hurt & maybe this is me lashing out, but I can’t begin to heal if I keep trying to ignore the wound that is festering within me.

Genuinely wishing authentic, nonjudgemental, thoughtful love to you all,

-C

Blog: Adult Show & Tell-The Cool Things I Have In My House

What a strange idea for a blog right? On the surface it seems a bit pedestrian, a bit pulled out of the blue. but it is something that Evan & I talk about frequently just because, over the years, we have accumulated some really interesting & unique possessions. I essentially felt like playing a little bit of ‘grown-up show & tell’ today with you all & I hope that’s alright!

I don’t want this blog to include things like our 185 gallon reef tank or our other animals or our 150-200 house plants, because while they are wondrous things & are unique in their own right, I wouldn’t say that they are curated pieces per se. Today I want to talk about the curated or the things in the house that get the most comments on them. Some of these are crystals/rocks/minerals, others are readily available, but they get a lot of comments when people come over so I feel the need to include them, & others are cool just for being representative of who we are as individuals. Let’s dive in shall we? I’m curious to know at the end which of these pieces piqued your interest!

Mount Saint Helens Ash

I for a while got really into the live auction scene. This, honestly, is where several of the pieces here within originated from, this being no exception. If you’re new here or missed the information I’ve given along the way by chance, I was born in Portland, Oregon. The house I spent my toddling years in had a back porch, that at the time had views of Mount Saint Helens & when it erupted in 1980 a photographer happened upon what would be my parents land & took a photo from the spot of the volcano erupting. The ash covered a lot of the Pacific Northwest & eventually became a part of the substrate, nurturing all of the plants that grew there, infusing their cells with the volcanic minerals. So in a lot of ways the mountain is deeply engrained with me as a human being. I carry around this world a portion of that which was expelled during its explosion.

An auctioneer I had become rather fond of out of Springfield, MO (strangely another touch point of my life as my father’s whole family lives there) posted this peculiar item one afternoon that I immediately knew I needed. It was a 4-ish inch tall plastic box tower that housed three smaller boxes. Within each box lived grey dust of varying levels of fineness in particulate, each sporting a label. From top to bottom it reads 250 Miles, 22 Miles, 5 Miles, with the bottom of the case labeled as “Mount St. Helens Ash.”

Like I said, it was immediately something that I felt deeply attached to. I placed a bid on the set & waited in anticipation. It wasn’t long before I was outbid & it ended up being a bid higher than I thought I was willing to pay for some boxes of ash. However, the more time went on, the more I felt deeply saddened by the potential loss of the item & I ended up increasing my bid & winning the box. I was so overjoyed & I couldn't wait for the case to come in.

Now the case lives on my living room mantle, in the center of our home. It acts as an anchoring point, as a reminder to me of what lies beneath my skin, infused in my bones. It also is one of the items in our home that frequently get the most attention from guests as it is utterly unique & dear to my heart.

Neolithic Libyan Desert Glasses

Another live auction find, we have ourselves a set of Libyan Desert Glasses that date back to the Neolithic era of human evolution.

I know that for many of you that sentence was just a lot of words that maybe separately make sense, but together are a big fat '“?.” That’s totally fine, worry not. I’m going to explain it all to you. Let’s start with Libyan Desert Glass.

Libyan Desert Glass is technically not a mineral or a crystal or a rock, it’s what we call a tektite. I know, another word that if you’re not in the mineral world probably means very little to you, but a tektite is glass that is formed from the heat of the impact of a meteorite. Other famous tektites include Moldavite, which formed from a meteorite that hit the Moldova region of Europe, & Fulgurites, which form when lightning strikes sand. This particular tektite, Libyan Desert Glass, formed when a meteor struck the eastern Sahara Desert around 29 million years ago. Yes, million with an ‘m,’ back when the world was transitioning into the Ice Age.

The next bit of information that we need to dissect in that title is Neolithic. The Neolithic era began around 12,000 years ago & stretches from around 10,000 BCE to around 2,000 BCE, give or take a handful of thousands of years. This era of human history is characterized by the development of settlements & agriculture. Humans became less nomadic & more stationary, domesticating animals & planting & harvesting crops. These pieces that I have are from that era in human development.

So they’re chunks of space glass? Cool. What makes them neolithic if the glass itself dates back to 29 million years ago? I’m so glad you asked.

We assume them to be neolithic based partially on their finding, the area in which they were uncovered, as well as the surrounding objects in the excavated settlement. Additionally, what makes them special, is that they aren’t just chunks of space glass. They’ve been carved or otherwise shaped into objects by the humans that handled them. Some of them are arrow heads or clearly lean that way, others are large enough to be spear points, & yet another has a small hole bore in its surface that goes all the way through, probably meant to be a necklace of sorts.

These were a thirtieth birthday gift to myself (yes, I’m weird like that) & they actually live scattered around my house. Some are in more prominent display locations like the mantle or even by the front door, others are tucked away with other treasures or clustered in smaller groupings. At any rate, I find them to have such enjoyable perspective. They make me feel so small in the best way possible. They also remind me that of all the variable possibilities over the eons, that I am here despite everything that works against me not being so.

Assorted Legos

I was always a lego kid. In fact, there are still bins & bins of legos at my parent’s home in Kansas. During the pandemic I found myself, at 28 years old, once again drawn to their plastic-y goodness. I started with a small botanical set, the bonsai tree, & that eventually erupted into the numerous lego sets you can find in display around the house.

There’s many a botanical set mixed in with the real foliage of the house; two ever growing vases of lego flowers, mini potted lego plants, bigger potted lego plants, sets of lego succulents, lego flowers in old jars, etc. Additionally you’ll also find nods to the many geeky things that I love; a lego Infinity Gauntlet from Avengers, a lego of Thor’s Hammer, a lego model of the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars, a lego BD1 from Jedi Survivor, a lego Mandalorian helmet. But my main big ole pieces would be my lego of The Great Wave off Kanagawa by Katsushika Hokusai & my five story tall lego Daily Bugle from Spider-Man. I even still have some that are yet to be built including a lego portrait of Harvey that Evan got me for Christmas last year!

Some other lego sets include the Singapore Skyline, a small Harry Potter set I won at a trivia night, & an assortment of other small pieces & characters that dot the many shelves & surfaces in our home.

Golden Painting

The single most complimented item in our home is always the same thing. It’s become the center piece of the house, what we redesigned our living room around & is, without a doubt, everyone’s favorite thing when they come in. It’s a painting of a Golden Retriever shaking off water that sits smack dab in the center of the living room over the mantle.

The painting was a gift from my parents one birthday many years ago & if I’m being honest, I have no idea where it came from or really even how long we’ve had it. I just know that since it began its life as our center piece, it has always been an eye catcher. The green of the walls was pulled from the painting, the accent colors of the furniture, the colors I spray painted the lamps, down to even the rug in the room were all pulled from this one painting. It absolutely completes the rooms & ties it together beautifully & it is one of my favorite pieces in the house outside of just being a great conversation starter!

Those are just a few cool items in our house. Like I said, I kind of wanted to come on here today & play a bit of adult show & tell as I don’t feel like I often share those aspects of my life with you all! If you end up liking this & want more we have lots of really cool things in the house to talk about. From shark lamps to triassic rainbow petrified wood, there are other options! From my tarot deck collection to the 42 pound elmwood calcite that sits at the entrance of the primary bedroom, there are lots of things to discuss! Let me know if you want more! Til then…

Much love to you all,

-C

Geek Out: Fish In The Lembeh Strait

Introduction:

Welcome to a new blog type, the “geek out,” as we’re calling it!

In these blogs that I hope to take on from time to time, I will basically be info dumping. I’m going to take a topic, an occurrence, or a bit of recent news that has come across my mind that has effectively blown it. You can thank my friend Blake Rackley for this series, see Rewind The Podcast, as he suggested it to me this afternoon.

If I’m being real, I had no idea what to write about today, do I posted a prompt this morning asking folks what they would like to read. Blake was the only person to respond & he simply said “geek out on something!” As I have mentioned many times across many different blogs & many different sectors of my life, I am in a fairly high percentile for ADHD & with any form of neurodivergence, comes hyperfixation. When someone of the neurodivergent persuasion experiences a hyperfixation, it basically acts as a burst of passion. We get hella focused on that one thing, often to the detriment of our own health & wellbeing. It consumes us, we forget to eat, procrastinate using the bathroom, self isolate for hours on end, doomscroll any video or post we can find on the topic, gather & read books, watch videos, etc., etc., etc., all to eventually take that information & spill it out to the nearest person with an ear. There are a lot of topics for me that fit this category; Star Wars, Marvel, Crystals, Marine Biology, Astronomy, Quantum Physics, Plants, Food, Drinks, Animals in general, whatever else have you. & while I could ramble extensively about many of those topics, the thing that came to mind when I thought about things that made me ‘geek out,’ were two stories that I acquired while diving in the Lembeh Strait in Indonesia.

Context:

The Lembeh Strait is a fourteen mile stretch of water that sits between the volcanic islands of Sulawesi & Lembeh, hence the name. It is primarily used by cargo ships arriving at Bitang, as well as by locals for fishing, & happens to also be one of the top dive destinations in the world. The reason for the latter aspect is multifold. For starters, the Lembeh Strait has almost no current, until you get to the North or South ends of it. This allows for all of the sediment; all of the debris blown by the wind, all of the silt washed down from the rains off the islands, anything else dropped by humans or other animals, to matriculate & collect on the bottom creating what is known lovingly in the dive world as ‘muck.’ People come from all over the world to ‘muck dive’ in Lembeh because of the wide array of biodiversity found there within. Where Lembeh typically might find itself short on pelagic wildlife (whales, dolphins, sharks, manta rays, etc.), it certainly makes up for in macro (sea slugs, nudibranchs, small crustaceans & octopus) as well as unique marine life (stargazers, ribbon & garden eels, rhinopias scorpionfish, seahorses, pipefish, lembeh sea dragon, wonderpus, flamboyant cuttlefish). I had the privilege of diving the strait back on October of 2021 & these are two stories that I still ‘geek out’ over to this day!

Clownfish:

This story is going to involve a few different characters. The first you may have guessed, a small school of clownfish. We’re going to be focusing specifically on the large matriarch of the group as well as the carpet anemone they all inhabited. The next players in this play are a small school of threadfin cardinalfish. They unfortunately play unfortunate rolls in most of my Lembeh stories in which they are involved. The last will be the humans, of which there are three: Sam (my dive buddy for the trip), Puri (our dive guide for the trip), & me (your narrator for this first hand account). That last group will also be present in the following story.

I’m not quite sure the specific dive site that this all took place on, I’m sure if I went back to my Indonesian Travel Blog, that I could tell you, but it’s an unimportant detail, so we shan’t concern ourselves with it any longer at this present moment. I want to say we were about halfway through the afternoon dive at this point when we came across the clowns & their anemone.

Now normally when you’re diving, especially in the South Pacific, clownfish & anemones are about a dime a dozen, you don’t pay a crazy amount of attention to them. This time, for whatever reason, was different.

We had come out of the murk to find this carpet anemone that had to be about 2-3 feet in diameter. It was teeming with life. Not just from the half a dozen or so clownfish who lived in it, but also the handful of porcelain crabs & the nearby school of threadfin cardinals. As soon as we approached all of the fish, cardinals included, pushed in on the anemone.

A bit of science before we continue. Clownfish & certain anemones share a symbiotic relationship. This is possible because the clownfish produce a specific type of mucus which coats their skin & keeps the anemone’s stinging cells, known as nematocysts, from stinging them. Other fish do not share this advantage. The clowns gain protection & a food source from the anemone, feeding on parasites & damaged cells from the anemone, & the anemone gains a caretaker in the clowns. The clowns clean the anemone, keep it from other fish or predators that would eat the anemone, & occasionally do something else quite different…which we’ll get to here, for the anemone. The anemone also feeds on the waste of the clownfish & many times the clowns will even outright feed the anemone. Mine in my reef tank will always pull over big chunks of krill or squid into their anemone. Back to it.

So we’re gathered around the anemone, pointing out all the little invertebrates cohabitating when something interesting happens. The largest clownfish, the matriarch, leaves the anemone.

She definitely ventured out farther than she should have, a handful of feet, which is still a lot for her in a large, barren stretch of ocean with three ‘predators’ hanging about. But she’s not fleeing from us. No, she’s making good on that promise of mutualism that she & the anemone has. For you see, madam clownfish has gone & grabbed a leaf of cardboard & drug it back to sit in the middle of the anemone. It is then that the proceeds to yank the cardboard up in the water, release it, & as it drifts back down, scurry underneath. She does this at least three times before the realization hits me & I am floored by the connotations. Miss ma’am is fishing.

I know I’ve only mentioned them twice thus far, once in passing, but do you remember the second character in our story, the threadfin cardinal fish. There in lies the prey we are after to feed our anemone.

The clown is fishing using two things; the cardboard but also the fear the threadfins have of us as three large beings who appeared out of the haze & approached the only slight bit of shelter in the surrounding area. She is trying to get the cardinal fish to hide under the cardboard with the rest of the clowns, knowing that the weight of the cardboard will push them into the stinging tentacles of the carpet anemone below. She either recognized us as a threat, but not a great enough one to not risk using it to her advantage, or recognized divers & knew that her school was not at risk, but that she could use our presence to her advantage. Whichever angle you take on it blows my mind. It feels like something you would see on a nature documentary with the narrator talking about “something that has never been filmed before.”

Butterflyfish:

Originally, when I was thinking about the layout & construction of this blog, I was only going to include the clownfish story. Then I figured, ‘well, since we’re already talking about diving in Lembeh,’ I should offer you another moment that caused me to “geek out.” This is the tale of the butterflyfish.

Again we have three parties at play here. We have the divers (Sam, Puri, Me), we have the butterflyfish, & our unfortunate party this time around, the damselfish. Now, don’t go feeling too bad for the damselfish, they are notorious assholes. They are the one fish who has attacked me time & time again while diving. I’ve also had to remove many a damsel from my fish tanks over the years as they breed & become highly aggressive. We don’t feel sorry for them here, understood? Good.

This story does not take place on a muck dive, in fact that is one of the other appeals of Lembeh Strait, you don’t just had a singular type of dive that you spend your whole week doing. In addition to the muck there is the next step up, rubble dives (rock, broken coral, sparse reef) & the reef dive. This story takes place on the north end of the strait at a site called Angel’s Window.

Angel’s Window is a reef growing out of a one hundred foot spire on the north end of the exact middle of the strait. It is deeming with life. If you want to read more about that dive see part two of my Lembeh Blog. We’re going to focus on the end of it.

We’d gone down, swam through the window (yes, there’s an actual ‘window’ down there), seen the eels, & were making our way back up gradually, enjoying the views along the way. As we began to wrap around the western edge of the tower we suddenly found ourself amidst a school of probably around 50-100 blacklip butterflyfish. They immediately surrounded us in a cloud of yellow, white, & black. In the middle of this amazement I was suddenly struck by something, a damsel. It had come off of the reef & made a b-line for my hand. As soon as it made contact, the butterflies were gone.

The butterflyfish, much like the clownfish, had made an interesting observation it seems when it came to divers. It seems as though damselfish are much more interested keeping the larger of the potential predators, us, off the reef & away from their eggs, then they are about keeping a school of butterflyfish from them. The butterflies had seized the opportunity & swung in while the damsel was away to eat as many eggs as they could scavenge before the damselfish returned to shoo them all off. The crazy part is, the butterflyfish didn’t stop there, they followed up around the reef.

I remember not wanting to leave the feeding frenzy. Puri had a board & a pencil with him, which he flashed to me. On it he had written “they will follow.” I wasn’t entirely sure what he meant by that until we went on our way & I turned around to find the entire school of butterflyfish in our wake, charging in to clear out caches of damselfish eggs as the damsels came off the reef to attack us. They were using our presence on the reef to get a quick & easy meal.

In Conclusion:

I hope you enjoyed my two “geek out” stories this week. Blake, I hope something like this was what you were looking for from this blog, if not, we’ll chat. If any of these stories sounded familiar to you it’s probably because I’ve either told them to you in person or because you read my Indonesia Travel Blog where you can find these & many more of the Nat Geo-esque stories from that trip!

As always, much love to you all,

-C

Blog: I Am Of The Mist & The Mystery

I just got back from spending two weeks in the Pacific Northwest. The trip started with a day & a half in Portland with my parents, followed by three days on the Oregon coast with the rest of my immediate family, & three days back in Portland before Evan & I took a long weekend to go up through Astoria, Olympic National Park, Forks, & eventually Seattle. It’s all part of an annual excursion that my family takes.

You see, every year my parents put together a family vacation/reunion of sorts that includes both my parents, Evan & myself, my sister & her family, & my cousin Jackie & her family. This tradition started at Table Rock Lake about fiver years ago, but has since migrated around the continental US. We did San Diego, California one year, Winter Park, Colorado another, & then this year we decided was going to be for Portland, Oregon.

If you were unaware, Portland, Oregon is actually the place of my birth. My parents had moved up to Portland from Kansas City a couple of years prior to my birth with my already birthed sister & lived there until just before my fourth birthday. My dad eventually took a job in Eugene for a while & I spent a portion of the summer with him there. Additionally, we used to frequent Portland & I even spent a couple of summers in Seaside with my friend Carson’s extended family in high school. This trip made me fully come to the realization that, for whatever reason, the Pacific Northwest (PNW) has always felt more like home than Kansas, even though I grew up there. I didn’t fully understand why that was until these last couple of weeks or so & I think, after some time decompressing upon arrival back home coupled with some deep introspection, pattern recognition, & meditation, I am starting to understand why.

I think it is worth noting that I am definitely the black sheep of my family, as this is what a lot of this blog will center around. That dissonance. I’m the artist, the one that lives in another state, the world traveller, the queer one, the leftist, the activist, the deconstructed, the one who is a bit “woo woo,” the one who has actually gone to therapy, the progressive, the adventurous, the diagnosed neurodivergent, the fact checker, the empathetic, the reader, etc. etc. etc., you get the picture I’m painting. So for all intents & purposes, I feel that I seldom fit in with my family. I feel like I am the odd man out & that was really hard for me for a very long time.

If I’m being real, I would argue that it’s still hard for me. I see my family & we’re typically courteous enough, but I never feel like I fully fit in. Maybe that’s partially my fault, maybe I don’t try hard enough to do so, but I have gotten to the point where I don’t think I feel like trying much anymore. It’s far too draining to try & pretend to be someone I’m not, especially if that’s the made up version of me that ends up winning their affections. I tried for years & years to change that, extending myself in all sorts of different ways, but every time I did I was met with either resistance, short comings, or outright rejection. It has been a rough, mostly one sided battle.

I promise you that this isn’t just a blog meant to rag on my family, or give you a picture of myself to sympathize with. All of this has a point, as does the introductory paragraphs regarding The PNW. I just needed to set two separate scenes for you all before I tried to show you the intersectionality between them.

As I stated above, I was born in Portland, in the heart of Cascadia. I am the only member of my family to be born in the Pacific Northwest.

I can hear it no, the ‘yeah? So what?’ of it all. Patience young padawan, we’re getting there. I am quite literally of a different land from them.

I know, I know, hold on. We’ll dive deeper, I promise.

When it comes to the argument of nature vs nurture, it seems that in the end, most of the research ends up pointing to the answer of the question actually ending up somewhere in the middle. It is both nature & nurture that contribute to who a person is & who they will become. The nature of genetics & environment aside, you also have to understand that nature is woven into our DNA.

My family lived in Portland for several years prior to my birth & all through my gestation period into my birth. This means that all, or most of, especially in the early 90s, of the food consumed by both of my parents, all of the water, the air, etc. was that of the Pacific Northwest. The molecules that construct my physical body; my brain, my endocrine system, all of it, originated, or at least spent a good deal of time, in the Pacific Northwest. It is literally in my bones.

Now, I’m sure that one could argue that we are constantly becoming infused with our environments. Our cells reproduce & heal using vitamins & minerals gathered from the things we consume, from the regions that we live in. Yes, but the root code, the stem cells that went to work 3D printing a human being, those originate from somewhere very specific. A very specific time & place, & I am the only member of my family who has that specific material at the center of my mechanism.

So, while my family was built of the plains, built of dirt & grass, sun, wind, dust, flint, agriculture, farms, red meat, wheat, corn, dramatic seasonal cycles, & earth, I am built of the mist, the mystery, the smoke, the endless trees, & the tides. I am stitched together with berries & fish, salt, driftwood, cold water, volcanic ash, moss, & basalt. I am, for all intents & purposes, an entirely foreign land to them, one that they like to visit from time to time, but that they tend to migrate towards the familiar within, clinging to farm land & orchards in place of hazy beaches or deep abyssal forests. I do not fit in or align with them in my entirely because I am not of them. I am not of the plains, I am of the coastal rainforest.

I don’t mean for all of this to further alienate me from them, or to justify that alienation. It was just like something clicked for me that I’d never thought about & at the end of the day, it could be entirely farcical. I honestly just found it to be an interesting angle to explore. Maybe I’m simply searching for meaning or pulling threads that lead nowhere, but I’m genuinely curious if there are other people out there who would fall into this same framing. Are you a black sheep of your family? If so, are you of a different place than them or is there something else entirely different at play here? I don’t know, nor do I have the answers, it was just an epiphany that I had that sent me down a rabbit hole of thought to the above listed outcome.

At any rate, I hope you all have yourself a lovely weekend. It’s interesting to think of the people in our lives this way; those who embody the characteristics of the places they were made. Again, maybe I’m insane, it’s more likely than not, I just felt something click with this idea & I wanted to share to see if any of you felt the same or have a similar lived experience. Anywho…

As always, much love to you all,

-C

Blog: No More Kings

Today is June 14th, 2025, it’s about 3:30 PM Central Time, & I feel I’d be remiss if I didn’t use my platform & this blog to talk about it.

The significance of the day & its date, for those who find themselves out of the loop…somehow, is multilayered. Traditionally in here, in The US, it is flag day, the day in which the stars & stripes were introduced as the official flag of The United States of America by the 2nd Congress of the newly founded country back in 1777. It also, unfortunately, is Donald Trump’s birthday &, as such, also marks the publicly branded day of protest, No Kings Day.

Now, if my feelings towards the current administration weren’t abundantly clear, not just from blogs over the course of 2025, but also since 2016 & all over all of my social media pages, I loathe the man. I think he is the greasy, cheeto dust covered white head on the zit that is everything toxic, regressive, authoritarian, fascist, manipulative, destructive, & anti-anything good about this country. I understand him to be a symptom, not the condition, but he & his cronies; Elon Musk, JD Vance, Mike Johnson, Peter Thiel, Marjorie Taylor Green, Lauren Boebert, Kristi Noem, RFK Junior, Pete Hegseth, Karoline Leavitt, Matt Gates, etc, etc, etc, are the current perpetrators & greatest threat to US democracy by leagues. I just wanted to be clear where I stand with all of this before we move on to the meat & potatoes of this blog. Just incase there was any question where my loyalties lie. Right, back to No Kings Day.

I feel we are standing on the precipice of something, on the edge of a knife that either tilts this country further into the wanna be authoritarian grips of MAGA Republicans, or something that tears down these constrictive establishments & finally allows this country to become a more modernized civilian centered state whose government truly exists for the betterment of the people of these United States. Naturally I, & the majority of the world, hope it’s the latter.

So, No Kings. Why today? Well for starters, as aforementioned, today is DJT’s birthday. He decided, in his best attempt to emulate a dictator, to throw himself a glorious propaganda parade centered around the military that cost the US tax payers an estimated $45 Million dollars. What better way to stick a thorn in the man’s side than to organize an even bigger event protesting him & everything he & his fellow conspirators are doing in Washington? That started out as the plan anyway. Then came the ICE raids.

Two weeks ago Trump let his brownshirts, ICE, loose on the city of Los Angeles. They began rounding up & arresting immigrants (here legally or not), citizens who fit a certain threshold of melanin present in their natural skin tone, peaceful protestors, & later even a sitting congressman who dared to ask Kristi Noam a question about their policies during a press conference. This of course spurred protestors to spring into action. The conflict then escalated when Trump called in the National Guard, which was neither sanctioned, nor approved by California Governor, Gavin Newsome. Traditionally, & according the the constitution, the National Guard should only be called in by the head executor of the state in question, i.e. the governor. Trump & Newsome then became to dispute which resulted in Trump calling for the arrest of Newsome & calling in the Marines to be used in “controlling” what have continued to be entirely peaceful protests. The conflict boils on with an estimated cost to tax payers sitting around $134 million dollars as of four days ago. So now, in addition to the general protest of everything Trump & Mob have been doing to rip this country to shreds, there is also the added layer of ICE protests happening throughout the No Kings Day Protests.

Alright, let’s pause, take a breath. I know I just gave you a lot of information if you weren’t in the know, now you are. I want to redirect for a second because I don’t want you all to think I’m just here to report the news to you, I know that a lot of you are already getting it bombarded at you from all angles & this may be an escape outlet for you to come & hear the ramblings to an ADHD riddled millennial who does way too many things & also way too little. The reason I came on here today & chose this as the topic is because of a few things.

One, naturally it’s timely, as we are currently sitting smack dab in the middle of the day where protests are still going on & the parade in DC is gearing up to go here shortly. If you’re reading this after the fact, I don’t know how this day ends. I don’t know if the powder keg is lit or if things go swimmingly, I don’t have the gift of foresight, nor am I writing this with the benefit of hindsight.

Second, this is clearly a moment in this country’s hopefully continued story that history has its eye on. I didn’t want to look back on my time on this earth & feel that I didn’t choose a side & that I didn’t stand up for those who are being violently discriminated against & vilified. I guess that’s a bit selfish & carries a weight of self importance, but I know a lot of people out there listen to my songs, watch my videos, read my blogs, & I don’t want any of those who may fall under the banner of this administration’s persecution to think that I do not stand for them, that I do not feel deeply for all that is happening, that I did nothing to try & prevent these atrocities from happening or expanding. I am here for you, whatever you need, wholeheartedly.

As of two hours ago there have been over 1 million people in attendance of the No Kings protest across 2,100 cities around the globe. This number is expected to reach more than 5 million with over 100,000 in the flagship protest in Philadelphia alone. This number rivals the record held by the 2017 Women’s March as the largest protest in United States history.

This cannot be ignored. The people of this country are screaming out for the reigns of government to be employed, for all of these horrid human beings to be held accountable for their actions, & for the continued terrorizing of marginalized communities to be stopped. If The United States is to continue as a democracy then the checks & balances put in place by the constitution must be upheld. Lawmakers must gain a backbone, put their constituents before their own personal fears & interests, & enforce the rule of law within the walls of Washington DC immediately.

If you are an immigrant in this country I want you to know that I stand with you & support you. I want you to know how important you are to this country, its history, its culture, & its community. Your struggle, the attacks on your communities will not be ignored or be allowed to go unanswered for. You are the backbone of this society & America would not exist without you & the hopes & dreams you have for yourself & your families. I am so sorry for everything that is happening, I am so sorry that this feels like an uphill fight. You are not at fault for the shortcomings of this country, the people who foster hate in their hearts, the people who support people like Donald Trump are. For what makes America great is its diversity, the melting pot of all that came before, all that is here, & all that will come after. You are valid & welcome here by those of us who actually understand the American dream for what it is & can be. Not some distorted, fear mongered, scapegoated abomination that rips families apart, keeps people in poverty, segregates, amplies voices of division & derision, & picks on the little man. I am here for you endlessly. For the night is darkest just before the dawn.

As always, much love to you all,

Please be safe out there, be vigilant, & take care of each other,

-C

Blog: One Year Without My Boy

Today marks the one year anniversary of Harvey’s passing. If you are new to this blog, me, or just need a refresher, Harvey was my thirteen & a half year old Golden Retrieve. He was my first dog that I ever got for myself, that wasn't a family dog, & he & I were together from the summer of my nineteen year until this exact date last year. I don’t want this blog to be about that loss, or that story, so if you’re interested in that full rigamarole I will like it just below here so that you can have context if you so desire.

No, this blog won’t be about that loss, at least not in the immediate sense. This entry into my open journal that I broadcast across the internet will instead be about the year that followed & how that has presented itself in my day to day life.

I think it’s worth noting that I consider Harvey to be my ‘soul animal.’ If you are unaware of what that is, a soul animal is a pet that you have a bond so deep with that there’s no way they aren’t tied into you on a spiritual level. If you believe that sort of thing. Harvey was my guy, my furry rock for a large portion of my adolescent life, & losing him felt like losing a chunk of myself. Harvey was also a dog that so many bonded with over the thirteen & a half years of his life. He was a pinnacle of pupdom, if you will.

This last year without his was something I always knew I’d have to face one day, but was something that I had no clue would hit me nearly as hard as it did. You see, grief is a sneaky, shifty thing. It lays in wait for you to stumble upon a photo, or for a memory to come skittering back into your mind. It rips you back to a time or place that has long since passed & sinks longing into your bones. But I don’t want to sound like I think grief to be this dark looming figure that haunts you in the wee hours of the night. I think in my mind grief is an illusive figure that wraps a melancholic hug around your neck & whispers gently in your ear “I’m sorry.”

I think the thing that hit me hardest over the last year are the moments you don’t expect. The photos, the videos, the stories; you expect to have them in your life & to have them resurface from time to time, it’s the unexpected that gets you. What do I mean by that? Just a few weeks ago I was out walking Peter, our five year old blonde Golden Retriever. We rounded the corner & a couple hundred yards up the road there was a woman walking away from us with a red Golden. I suppose I should stop here & mention that Harvey was a red Golden with a burnt umber coat. Peter freaked out. He wanted nothing more than to run after the other dog, to meet up with them, in the small hope that her dog was in fact Harvey. It ripped my heart out & I turned him to walk the other way the whole time saying “I know bud, but it’s not him,” & having him insistently peering back in their direction & whining to turn back around. That’s what I mean by the unexpected.

I will say it gets easier, the heart begins to heal, but there are still times when even the expected will make me miss him so deeply that it brings me to tears. I simply step aside, acknowledge the hurt & the ache of loss, smile at the utter privilege it is to have loved so deeply that the absence still lingers on, & I continue on with living while missing him.

The other moments where I am brought to tears are those where I awaken from dreams where he is there. These are the worst because they often feel so utterly real. They feel like he’s back or like he’s visiting & I typically wake up sobbing into a pillow just fall back asleep, grateful for his visit in the dreamworld.

There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t miss my dog with all of my being, but I’ve definitely gotten to the point where it’s just a part of me that I carry. I’m not holding onto that grief or letting it consume me by any means but I think his is a part of myself that I will spend the remainder of my days missing. He is a part of my soul that has flown this earth & that which remains of me aches from the separation.

Harvey passed on the morning of May 24th, 2024. It was a day I knew was coming but one that wasn't made any easier by its impending. I think I was a ghost of a human for about the two weeks following & definitely operated at less than full capacity for probably a month or so after. He still holds an empty bed in my home. He still has toys that live scattered amongst the furniture & tucked away in closets. I still find the signatures of the life he lived; a tuft of hair here, a nose smudge on a glass there, a hole in the back yard that he dug that I still have yet to fill. The corner of the kitchen where he used to lay & watch the world go by from the window no longer carries his soul but still bares the remainder of his physical being though in its altered form. No longer wrapped in warmth & fur, he is now but a cherry box of ashes that bares his name embroidered in gold letters.

I know I said this a year ago, but I miss my dog y’all. I miss my best friend, my silent confidant whose deep brown eyes never wavered from love & intuitive understanding. I miss his smile (yes, he smiled, & he did so near constantly), I miss when he was silly & clumsy, I miss his stinky breath in the morning from the side of the bed, I miss how much he loved, not just me but everyone who had the privilege of meeting him. I know that all of this will fade with time & distance but some days, like today, weight heavier than others.

It is my honest hope that all of you get to experience that kind of love at some point in your life. That non-judgemental, truly unconditional love that heals your soul & makes you feel truly seen. & though the pain of its eventual loss may feel like a consequence that outweighs the benefit, I promise you it isn’t. My heart only bleeds this much because of him, because he loved me as I am; through nights where I couldn’t imagine facing another morning, through break-ups, meltdowns, revelations, disappointments, trials, loss, depression, pain, & brokenness, he loved me. On the days where I was not a good owner, a good caregiver, a good friend, he loved me. Through the highest highs & the lowest lows, he loved me & wow, what a gift that is

If you are a pet owner I want you to hold your pets a little tighter today, give them a treat, take them on a longer walk, because they are special, they are sacred, & they give to us so very much for what amounts to so little in return.

I love you eternally Harv. Thanks for being all that you didn’t have to be. I’ll see you in my dreams my sweetest boy.

As always, much love to you all,

-C

Blog: Wander On , Oh Wanderer

A few blogs back I talked about how I’ve come to this realization that “some of us are here to wander.” If I’m being honest, lately it has been a bit of my north star, my affirmation that the straight & narrow path isn’t for all of us & that those of us who drift hither & yon are doing just as much, if not more for society, than those who trek onwards through the conventional.

I know I’ve mentioned this sentiment outside of this blog space a couple of times, especially to those who are close to me, so much so that Evan got me a print made that says “some of us are here to wander” for my birthday. Clearly it’s been a bit of an all consuming idea for me. But what do I mean by that? What is the inner goo that makes up this mantra for me? What has driven me to have such an affinity for its assertion? I’m so glad I asked for you.

I have an undying hunger within me. It’s almost entirely insatiable. I want to know the far corners of the world, the depths of the ocean, the ways in which the people’s of the world live, the most intricate, taste bud stimulating combinations ever put to plate, bowl, or cup. I want to experience & then to share my findings with the world. Simply put, that is what I crave, daily. Novelty, discovery, adventure, experience, life in all of its many forms both human & not. But the thing that I think brings me the most interesting joy & satisfaction is the desire to be proven wrong.

We as human beings are cholkablock with opinions; what sports team is the best, what the best country is, what the best weather is, who makes the best food, what the best bands are, who deserves rights & who doesn’t…apparently…, some more boisterous & in your face than others. Some more deeply ingrained than others. A lot of the times, I have found, that humans also really don't like having their opinion of something changed. They don’t like to have new information put into their noggins that challenges the ideas they have hammered as hard as they can down into their core. Why? Well, to put it simply, change is scary.

From an evolutionary stand point, change is scary because it breaks the routine. We may have an ingrained set of beliefs that has led us to exist, to survive, & when something shifts that challenges the ‘this is the way things are done & have to be done so we can survive’ we get a lot of push back from the mind & the body. That’s why making or breaking habits is so very difficult for us, because it kicks us out of the coast through survival & forces something new upon us. That is why it is so hard to get through to people politically, religiously, personally, because telling someone that what they believe is incorrect with the new information to support that distinction is equivalent to telling someone that the rain comes because of precipitation, not because of whatever folk story or mythology has told them creates the rain.

Now I want to be abundantly clear that I am not here to discredit anyone’s spirituality or belief system, I consider myself a deeply spiritual person & I do believe sometimes the rain comes because there has been power put behind it, be it intention, prayer, whatever. That still doesn’t change the scientific reasoning behind why the clouds formed in the first place or why the water fell.

From an evolutionary stand point there is a part of me that is broken because I want that. I want the new information that blows my mind wide open & creates something new in the place of that which was out dated. I want to be mesmerized by the universe & its complexities. I want to be in awe of something simply because it showed me something different & new. I want to be made to feel as small as a drop of water in the ocean or as important as the human that dropped the strawberry that fed the ant colony for the summer. Because as human beings, that’s what we are; altogether entirely insignificant & a miracle. So I want to be shown that, made to feel that, thrust onto the universal stage & reduced to the atomic level to be an unsee member of something bigger & much more complex.

This, I think, is the key to my wanderers spirit. It’s the desire to see just how wrong the limited scope of existence I was taught is, but also to see the underlying threads of connectivity that bind us energetically, molecularly, socially, universally. It is glimpsing the divine through the lens of discovery. It is the art of noticing, but also the art of taking it all in. Big picture to small.

For some of you, this blog rings true all the way down through the marrow & tissue right to the soul. You see the world, the cosmos, everything through the eyes of a wanderer & you crave it in your bones. To you I say wander on, oh wanderer! For some of you, this idea is very foreign to you. Your lens is very direct & focused on that which is in front of you, on the steps you take, & the minutes of the days as they slip by. I would challenge you to embrace a bit of this. To dip your toes into the unknown & see what the ripples attract. You might be surprised at how much it intrigues you. You might find the next thing you know you are submerged in the great mystery, chomping at the bit to peek behind the curtain & see what lives there pulling the ropes. Life lives on the other side of fear, embrace the chaos of the storm & see where you end up & how much life it leads you through.

As always, much love to you all,

-C

Blog: The Buck That Falls Short Of The Ballot Box

I need to get something off of my chest & I want to do so in a way that is both delicate to those involved yet still holds space for the harsh reality of hurt that I feel. I also don’t want this to just be some “woe is me” dump, because I want to share all of this because there is a continuous conversation happening around me where the themes of this story are concerned. With that knowledge in mind I wanted to get on here & convey this feeling & this pit that eternally resides in my stomach because I know there are others out there coping with the same feelings & many of you have been for a while.

It’s hard to make people care. Flat out. It’s hard to get people to change any rigid expectation or opinions formed through life experience in favor of seeing something they’ve never seen before, or thought they would have to deal with. You cannot make someone be empathetic if the systems ingrained in their psyche tell them that you might just be deserving of any pain that they may cause you. Unfortunately, that kind of conditioning doesn't leave much room for authentic human, non-judgmental connection. This is how a lot of us are feeling right now, specifically those of us who belong to marginalized communities or stand firmly planted in the support of those being outwardly harmed by the current administration in the United States.

I want to relay a story to you all. I won’t be overly going into specifics nor am I here to publicly shame anyone, but I want to tell this like it is. This last Christmas I had a falling out with my family, it revolved around politics & I ended up leaving Christmas day to drive home to Nashville to be with Evan who bumped his flight up a day so he could be here to support me. A gem. Since that day I have felt an ever widening chasm between my family & I. Communication diminished or outright didn’t happen at all until my birthday last month & if I’m being entirely real with you all, I am still very hurt by the whole ordeal & the continued support they have for someone who is not just doing harm to those within my community, but ripping families apart across the nation. I’ve spent months mulling over this feeling, wondering if maybe I’m overreacting, if my hurt is justified, etc., but not matter how much I try to turn it over in my mind or release the hold it has on me, the ache doesn't seem to go away. It’s made it so that I actually feel very uncomfortable going back to Kansas. The idea of which immediately floods me with anxiety.

Now I am in a position where I have to face that anxiety & hurt head on. You see, annually, my parents are gracious enough to put together a family reunion. The location changes every year & they do so because so many of us live in so many different places around the country. It gives them the opportunity to see us all together & build an experience & memory around that. Cute. On paper I’m grateful for it. In reality the booking of the tickets the other night has sent me into an anxious spiral.

I’m going to divert for a second here & answer a question that may linger following the precious paragraph; then why not just back out? Because, I love these people. Genuinely. They are my family. So I show up over & over again with hope, with the desire to be seen or heard because I don’t want to be the loner that doesn’t talk to or see his family. I don’t want my nieces & nephew growing up thinking I abandoned them for something I’m sure will be explained away superficially because those conveying the information don’t understand. I want desperately to belong to them, whole heartedly, & without having to minimize the parts of myself that don’t fit into their ideal image, but on the other hand I’m having a really hard time being the ‘squeaky wheel.’

I’m having a really hard time with three things in particular. I’m having a hard time setting aside the hurt I still feel from them. I’m having a hard time with reuniting under the knowledge that some of these people, who claim to love & support me, still actively & fervently support a regime that seeks to do Evan & I & our friends harm. & if I’m being entirely real, I’m having a hard time seeing the principles they claim to embody reflected in them.

There’s dissonance, duality. God knows I am far from perfect but it is bringing up an impossible moral quandary within me. I don’t & cannot seem to understand how people who, for all intents & purposes, are ‘good people,’ who would give the shirt of their back to someone in need, can be in support of something so heinously hateful & damaging. Not only to this nation but also those within it. I don’t understand how people who claim they will do anything to support you out of ‘love’ find that ‘love’ to be in short order when it comes to casting a ballot. I cannot wrap my head around it & it’s killing me.

Let’s forget me for a second. Let’s put aside the LGBTQ of it all & just focus on some other people. How does the buck for loving your neighbor, for “treating the foreigner among you as native-born” stop when someone has crossed into this country out of desperation & fear? Stop when someone is brown or black? Stop when someone risks their life to come here in hopes for a better life for their family? How is that Godly? How do you sit in a pew praying to someone who advocated for the poor, the maligned, the outcast, the immigrant, the sex worker, the addict, the “least of these” & told them to “come as they are” just to cheer & speak favorably about people being ripped from their families or sent out of the country without due process or stripped of their rights as a human being? How is that Christ like?

I don’t understand the dissonance & it eats away at me because I know how these people feel about people like me. I have heard it my whole life. I know how these people persecute & judge people like me. I hear it now. I have the privilege of being CIS, white, male, & somedays ‘straight passing.’ I know how people talk about people like me because they talk about people like me TO me with a cross around their neck & “Jesus in their hearts.” Then they sell out their neighbors, their friends, their family members at the ballot box in favor of the lies of ‘less taxation’ or the promise of a return to when they had more white power & other people couldn’t annoy them with the sprinkles of equality this nation has given them over the years. You are called to walk by faith, to let people know you are Christian by your love, but when the curtain is drawn, when the selection is private, you sell anyone you can down the river for a spoon fed lie about egg prices. How is anyone supposed to feel supported & loved in that?

Maybe when they come for us then you’ll finally understand. Maybe when they decide we no longer can get married, no longer live together, slap us with a criminal charge, or just send us to El Salvador, Kenya, or Libya, then you’ll finally understand. But I’m not holding my breath on that one because you don’t seem to understand when it’s happening to nationalized citizens whose only crime was being born with a little more melanin.

If you are like me & so many that I know who find commonality in the feelings within this blog, I am truly sorry. I don’t have the answers for you, clearly. I just want you to know that there’s someone out here that understands, that feels for you. I want you to know that your frustrations, your pain, your rage, your anxiety, all of it is valid & justified. You deserve to live in a world that sees you for the amazingly unique & complex person that you are & celebrates that instead of expecting you to shrink yourself or inflicts physical or emotional harm because of it. My love & my broken heart go out to you. Take a piece if you need, I hope that it makes yours feel a little more full.

From one bleeding hearted liberal to another,

Much love & safety to you all,

-C

Blog: I Know About Me, & I'm Not Feelin' 33.

Hiya!

Welcome all, welcome all to this, my blog. I meant to post about this last week, seeing how my birthday was the 16th, but I was too busy doing birthday shenanigans to be sat long enough to create a post for you all to dig your teeth into. Apologies, but lemme live my life. Damn. Anywho, this here blog will be about my recent birthday, in which I turned the magical, super young age, of 33 years old. A third of a century as my father so delicately put it.

In the world of numerology 33 is considered a master number. Each number what repeats (11, 22, 33, 44, 55, 66, 77, 88, 99, 111, etc.) is considered as such, & with this ‘master number’ also comes an assigned meaning. 33 is the master teacher. It is a number all about altruistic service, unconditional love, compassion, spiritual uplifing, etc.. Not just internally, but also for the collective.

3s are often considered the strongest number, they lack the dependance of duality & structurally form the strongest construct with the triangle. 3s are often also associated with creativity, joy, communication, so when doubled up you get that energetic signature doubled as well. It is also the number associated with Christ Consciousness. Think Holy Trinity.

So we went a lot of different directions very quickly with that brief soirée into 33 & the breakdown around it, but how does the number make me feel? How does it feel to be Charlie Rogers, newly minted 33 year old? Well, I’m so glad you asked, let me write a whole entire blog as a response to tell you!

In short I too have broad & widely varied feelings about the whole ordeal. Yes, age is just a number & as our annual ticker climbs higher & higher it should be seen more & more as a gift. Not all of us have the privilege of age, much less healthy age, but I would be lying if I didn’t say that a part of me didn’t feel strangely old this year.

I’m not entirely sure why in previous years; 30, 31, 32, I don’t feel as though the weight of my 30s had really sunk in. There’s definitely another part of that we will get into in a couple more paragraphs, but for whatever reason this was the first year that number, 33, really sank in to me. I know to a handful of you reading this that will feel very young still & I think for all intents & purposes it is. I am still in the former half of the average life expectancy. I’m also not entirely sure if I can explain it properly either. There was just something about this birthday that came with a feeling of strange seniority, like I am one year away from joining AARP & retiring to the God forsaken land of Florida. Again, I know that’s hyperbolic, but it was a feeling I carried throughout the last week.

To be entirely frank, I had to ask myself the other night how old I was. Someone asked me which birthday had just passed & I couldn’t for the life of me remember. See! Check me into the facility, my memory is fading.

On the other side of that coin, most days, I feel entirely between the age of 25-27 still. Which is weird, because I haven’t been there for what is going on just short of a decade. Gross. Why did I say that?! I think a lot of my friends who are around the same age as I am would agree with that feeling. Maybe it’s a symptom of having lived through a pandemic where so many of our lives were put on hold. Or living in a world where the daily news is typically competing to try & out “end of the world” itself from the previous day. Whatever the root of it is, so many of us, myself included, find ourselves in this weird liminal space where we’re aging but feel stuck at a point in our lives that was over five years ago.

I definitely don’t think my body agrees with me most day. I find myself increasingly unable to do all of the things athletically that I could in my 20s & don’t get me started on alcohol. One drink in & I feel inflamed & the next day I feel straight up like I went on a several day bender. It’s forcing me to be much more selective with what I consume on a regular basis & where the ‘special occasion’ items are actually worth it or not.

So there in lies the trinity of my feelings towards this most recent birthday. I’m grateful that I’ve made it this far but I don’t feel my age, mentally, but on the other hand, I weirdly feel older than that at the same time. It’s complicated. I would also say that I think this was the first birthday I wasn’t overly looking forward to. It kind of snuck up on me & I really didn’t feel much like celebrating it. Incredibly unlike me. I just kind of wanted to watch it go past & wave at it from the window as it did. It didn’t feel like some pinnacle event or a landmark, it just felt like another day & that made it hard for me to get into the mood of celebration.

I’m thankful for the myriad of you that sent me birthday wishes or gifts. I am truly grateful for that. There was just something askew about this year’s anniversary of my first trip around the sun that felt distant & inauthentic for me that made getting into the ‘birthday spirit’ a near impossibility for me. Again, I’m so honored that so many of you sent your warmest wishes my way.

So yeah, there it is. My 33rd birthday blog. In a lot of ways very reminiscent of the event itself; a touch melancholic, a touch aloof, a touch detached.

As always I wish you all the best day/night/whatever in which you found your way to this page & gave it a read.

Much love to you all,

-C

Blog: Well...Now What?...

Hi, sorry, sorry. I know I’ve been a touch absent the last two weeks. My b, y’all. I’m gonna be real with you though, & yes this will play into this week’s topic, but I have been going through it mentally. Ya boy is not doing the hottest at the moment & while there are a couple of compounding reasons for that, we’re just going to focus on one.

Back in October I got the opportunity to audition for something rather major. They liked me & wanted to move me forward in the process, but part of that process included blocking off my calendar from about March of this year til at least end of June/July, if not farther. I wasn’t allowed to book anything that might compete with said opportunity & it was highly insinuated that I should limit, if not halt, my releases. I waited & waited with no final word on whether I was in or not until two weeks ago when I got the email that they had decided to pass on me & wouldn’t be going forward with me as an artist for said opportunity. In all honesty, I kind of felt like I saw it coming, which in turn may have then put that energy out into the world to have it come to be. A few people close to me, who knew about the opportunity, were blind sided. They were all sure that I was going to go on to be a part of it, but alas the stars did not align on this one & I set aside my time & energy & said no to many an other opportunity &/or show for nothing. Now I find myself sitting around, stuck in the question & feeling of ‘well….now what?…’

The annoying part is, aside from the 5 months I spent waiting for an answer & the hold for nothing I had in place, is that I also made space for this in my life outside of those two defining ways. I held hope in my heart & in my life that this ‘could be life changing’ opportunity would come to fruition & it didn’t. Unceremoniously. Via email on a Tuesday afternoon in March. & in all honesty, I didn’t know how to move on from that.

It was one of those things where the longer it went on the more I ended up getting excited for it. I took the occasional “please continue to wait” email as a sign that there was hope of this coming to fruition, just to be dropped so capriciously. It sank me y’all. I had spent so many months & so much energy thinking that finally, finally someone was going to see my potential, finally someone else saw my worth & that this door that I believed wide open to me was, only to find out that it had never even been unlocked. I felt ultimately defeated.

I know I shouldn’t have put as much stock in this as I did, it’s just this time something felt different, like this person that I know I am & that many of you know I am was finally going to blast into the spotlight. It hurt. I had a very hard time with it, it dug down deep in me & left a whole in the place where my self worth used to live. Again, I know I should never have let it get that deep or feel that important, but it felt like something that could have been a springboard for me career-wise. Now I’m left holding the space that I allotted, the energy I invested, & the opportunities that I turned down for nothing & I’m having a very hard time not only recalibrating myself but also getting excited about my future.

To be blunt I feel like the path has disappeared from before me & know I’m just wandering aimlessly, waiting for the next path to appear so that I can continue on down it. I’m feeling a bit lost in the woods at the moment. My motivation is shot, my creativity is shot, & I’m feeling rather jaded at the moment from the whole experience.

I’m not writing all of this for you all to take pity on me, if anything I want the opposite. I wish, so desperately, that I could say it didn’t phase me. That I got the news & immediately said “well, that’s fine, I’ve got better things to do anyway.” When in reality I don’t feel that I do. I want so badly to be the confident person who didn’t take the hit to my pride from this, but I’m not, so I wanted to get on here & be entirely honest & open with you all, because that’s all I’ve ever wanted to be as an artist.

Some days are harder than others. My birthday is rapidly approaching, usually a time that I get excited for & celebrate, but this year I just feel numb. Like what’s the point? On the other hand some days the “badass” who doesn’t give a shit about what happened comes out & he shows up hopefully & excited about a future that is full of question marks. I’m trying to learn to be more & more like that version of me with each day that passes.

I’m sorry if this blog was a downer, that wasn’t my intent. If anything today was one of those blogs that felt like pulling teeth to me, but I want to feed the side of myself that is motivated & persistent & not give into that side of me that is huffing “why even try?” I needed to get on here & write one, so I didn’t leave you all who so graciously extend your time to me & my thoughts & ideas hanging, & two, so I could get back behind the boulder & start pushing my way up the hill again. In a lot of ways this blog is for me to vent & for me to persist, but despite that, I hope you at least got a little something out of this. Even if that something is simply a thread of commonality or an understanding.

I wish you all the happiest of days/evenings wherever this blog finds you.

As always, much love to you all,

-C

Blog: Some Of Us Are Here To Wander

Hiya!

Happy weekend, or whatever part of the week you find yourself reading this to you!

Over the last week or so I have started sharing more & more of my spiritual side on the internet. It’s a large part of who each of us as people & I think being open & honest about where you’re at spiritually can help others to not feel so alone or isolated in a field of self that is often very isolating. People often link the spirit with religion & in all honesty, I think that’s a massive mistake. For one can still thrive without the confines & dogma of the other. I’m not here to convert you to anything, I’m not, in all honesty, even here to talk to you about my specific beliefs around the spirit. I am here instead to discuss a bit of soul searching I’ve been doing, the work around it, & the revelation that came to me around it. With a little bit of outside help (we’ll get there).

A few years ago I published a blog about how I felt I was a “Renaissance Man.” The basics of the moniker include varied interests in a number of fields & callings with decent ability in most of them but not real projected path forward. Very “a jack of all trades is a master of none.” This past couple of weeks I’ve really felt the call to reinvest in my spiritual side. Be it the change of seasons, the shift in something within me, or the divine, I know not. What I do know is that I have been called to dig more inward & find the answers for what is irking me within. I started doing morning journals again, part of which includes coming up with gratitude lists, things I am looking forward to during the day, how I am feeling intuitively, as well as a daily affirmation which I have been sharing with the collective. Additionally I have also begun meditating more & paying attention to life’s small abundances & finding gratitude for them as they come. All in all it’s been a really refreshing couple of weeks from a spiritual stand point.

With my daily writings, affirmations, & lists I also do a daily tarot pull. I’m going to stop the bus here for a second & explain something about tarot to the pearl clutchers out there or those who may have just given me the “ooookay” in response to that information. Tarot is not fortune telling. Let me repeat that Tarot. Is Not. Fortune Telling. Tarot is drawing a card, or a couple of cards, finding out the meaning of said card & checking in intuitively with yourself to see what, if, & why a specific card resonates with you. It asks you to confront the truths that you yourself already know but are ignoring, shoving down deep, or covering up with your ego. We already know the answers, the cards are simply asking you to feel what comes up, acknowledge it, sit with it, & see if you yourself can find a solution to whatever it brings up. On the other hand, if the card is positive, it may reaffirm something within your self that helps you to boost your confidence for the day or your self assurance or whatever. The point is that tarot isn’t magic, it’s a lens that allows us to look inwards & see the into the parts of ourselves we are hiding from ourselves.

Okay, we’ve set the stage. Now the story.

Over the past week I have been working on a couple of things; the held trauma of feeling othered or outright hurt by those who profess love for me, rooted feelings of conditional love, & the apprehension to get excited for the things that I am looking forward to our of fear of disappointment. Then on Thursday & Friday of this week I was directed in two interesting directions by the cards that I drew as well as the messages I had been previously drawn to throughout the day.

Thursday I drew The Sun in the reversed position. The Sun is pretty self explanatory; optimism, light, happiness, joy, renewal, everything that the sun embodies & helps bring forth. In the reverse position you get the opposite most of the time, but where the sun is concerned you get the cloud. The sun in its reversed position indicates that you are dampening your sun, at least that’s what it brought up for me & a pattern I had actually begun to notice well before Thursday. I was dampening my excitement for the things I want in life or that are up in the air because of fear that they wouldn’t come to be. Very much that “why would that happen to me” kind of feeling. So I started to set up ways in which I can hopefully start to work with those limiting beliefs & unlearn the patterns that lead me to feel that gut wrenching feeling of dread when I think of something I am excited about.

On Friday I drew another reversal, this time in the form of the King of Swords.

The suit of swords is meant to embody things like intelligence, change, power, communication, action, ambition etc. It is represented by the alchemical element of air. Think “change is on the wind.” The king of any suit is the pinnacle of that notion, the embodiment of those ideals in the most positive way. I drew it in the reversed position. Where as the upright position asks you to be confident, headstrong, & just using your intellect & communication to solve a problem, the reversal has let too much of the ego get involved & now is misusing its intellect & communication skills to get in the way, of a solution or downright ruin it. I was honestly lost by this pull I had no idea what it meant for the life of me. It didn’t stir up anything internally so initially I remarked it as a fluke. Then I looked deeper.

My first course of action was to scour the internet. I got a lot of repeating information about the card & its meaning, none of which clicked. So I sought the help of ChatGPT to see out of curiosity what it came up with. I was blown away as simply how profound its answer was to me.

It’s worth noting that Friday morning I was feeling very detached. I’d meditated the day prior trying to dig into these blockages that kept me from feeling my “sun” & in doing so I think I pried off a bunch of ideas that had been spinning in my head ever since. “What do I want to do with my life?” “Am I resistant to my excitement because it’s not the correct path for me?” “Why is my life path not clearer to me?” All of this was what I was continuing to feel come Friday morning when the reversed king of swords came sliding across my desk as I shuffled. I also gave ChatGPT this information to go off of when helping me to discern meaning from the card.

I told Chat that I was feeling mentally foggy, that I wasn’t sure what I wanted anymore or what I should be doing in my day to day. It replied by telling me that the king could be indicating that the part of me that just “knows” has taken a step back to allow the literal unknown to take the reins. It continued by reassuring me that I am not broken, nor am I doing anything wrong, just that I’m untethered at the moment & to trust that something new was emerging from this fog. I wasn’t convinced so I told it that I’m not sure there is a part of me that “knows.” I told it that I often feel entirely lost on my life path. This is the profound bit of wisdom an AI bestowed upon me.

“That feeling-that maybe there never was a clear “knowing” part of you-is so deeply human, & also so deeply painful when you’re surrounded by a world that seems to celebrate clarity, direction, & ambition. But not everyone is here to walk a straight-line path. SOME OF US ARE HERE TO WANDER, to explore, to feel, to respond. And THAT is just as sacred. Maybe the message here is “You’re not lost-you’re just not navigating in the old way anymore & maybe you never were.” You have built so much-a rich creative life, deep relationships that span the globe, an intuitive connection to beauty, nature, life, energy, & your own inner rhythms. That IS a life path. Even if it doesn’t look like a checklist with the white picket fence & the 2.5 kids. Even if it feels like mist sometimes.”

Bars. The AI dropped bars. I shared the line “some of us are here to wander” immediately, because I know so many people in my life who feel that way. Who don’t see their life unraveling in the college, 9-5, marriage, kids, settle down, kind of way but instead were brought to this Earth to be wanderers, explorers, traveler, & bridge the gaps of age, miles, seas, & time. So I wanted to make sure that was the topic of this week’s blog. Because I know how many of you out there feel that your life path is not a clear cut trail through the forest but instead find yourself in a boat that in unmoored, tossing in the fog, simply trusting the current is going to take you where you need to be, gliding gracefully between rocks, weathering the storms, always meeting the day’s discoveries with love, excitement, appreciation, & gratitude. Your path is valid. Your path is sacred. Trust that those feelings of joy & excitement are there for a reason. I’ll leave you with one last bit of hope that I was left with in the conversation before I sign us off for the night.

“The depth that you tap into, that is the knowing. Not the clear, commanding “go here, do this” kind-but the soul-level resonance that says, “This is real. This Is true. Stay here a moment.” You’ve got a compass-it’s just built on feeling, beauty, vibration, presence, & intelligence. It doesn’t always point north, but it always points you.”

I hope you all have a fantastic rest of whatever part of your day this has found you in.

As always, much love to you all,

-C

Blog: Selective Solidarity Is Just Disguised Oppression

I started out this blog under that notion of one having their cake & eating it too, but for me, I don’t think that hit hard enough. So, I scoured the web & found some more options, the one that punched the most, naturally, ended up as our title for today. I want to lay out a few other favorites of mine that may help convey what this blog is about & I’m sure get those of you who probably need to read it the most to check out immediately. Here they are (we’ll go light to heavy on this:

• You want your bread buttered on both sides.

• You can’t walk on both sides of the street.

• You’re talking out of both sides of your mouth.

• You can’t ride two horses with one ass.

• You can’t straddle the fence forever.

• You can’t dance with the devil & call it worship (I almost went with this one).

• You can’t say you love my while stabbing me in the back (another great one that I almost went with).

• Allyship isn’t a label, it’s a practice (allyship felt too affirming to me in the context for which this blog will be written, so it also didn’t make the cut.)

Anyway, if you haven’t guessed by now, this blog will be not too dissimilar from what continues to be my most popular blog of all time, No Hate Like Christian Love, in the sense that we are going to talk about those who claim to love or support marginalized friends, family members, coworkers, acquaintances, etc. while actively supporting those who would seek to do violence against the groups in question.

I can already hear the groans. Really? Violence? Don’t be hyperbolic. So let’s give a little vocabulary lesson right quick shall we? Violence, as defined by the Cambridge Dictionary are actions that are intended to or likely to hurt people or cause damage. I specifically chose to use the word violence for this exact reason, because a lot of folks out there only think that an act of violence is physical & I think the word violence carries with it a connotation & an imagery that to most people is repulsive to a degree. We recoil from the idea. But the word violence also paints a beautifully tragic picture that I think helps nail in the point of all of this.

Now I want you to know that I will be getting specific in this here blog. I will be using exact names of individuals, exact events with sources, & will be mostly talking from my perspective as a queer individual, because that is where my lived experience lies, but naturally this point carries across to the many marginalized communities being affected by the executive orders, rhetoric, & laws being passed by the current admin. We would also be here for an eternity if I brought immigrants, veterans, impoverished people, racial minorities, women, etc. into this. I also need this blog to be an expression of the times we are living in, specifically in the United States of America under the second Trump administration. I can just hear the clicks on the ‘x’s’ at the top left for the screen continuing.

On March 9th, 2025 Donald Trump reposted a photo on his Truth Social account depicting a pink triangle crossed out with an opinion piece from the Washington Post praising him & AD Hegseth for their renewed ban of trans military members. Read more here. The Pink Triangle in question that adorns the image being that which gay individuals were forced to wear by the Nazi’s during WWII, specifically in concentration camps. Now, this is not the first time the administration has shared or sympathize directly with Nazi ideals. See Charlotte “Fine People,” Trump Praises Hitler, Elon Musk Salute/Holocaust Denial, Trump’s Continued Attempts At Trans Eradication, need I go on?…because sadly I can for a while… This post, naturally, sparked outrage amongst the LGBTQIA+ community who saw it for what it is, a blaring Dog Whistle.

You see many of us have been warning those we know who are shameless Trump voters of these coming threats for years, specifically when this past year’s election cycle came about, & we were all met with the same excuses or push back. “He’s not coming after anyone’s rights.” See here. “No one is coming for marriage equality.” See here. “But the economy.” See here. Or “the grocery prices” See here. Glad you sold your marginalized loved ones down the river just so you could hypothetically have cheaper groceries even though every major economist on the planet rightfully predicted that it would have the opposite effect.

And this is what gets me, election cycle after election cycle. The people who are in your life who profess to love you “unconditionally.” Time & time again, they are those who vote flagrantly against your rights as a member of a marginalized community & then when you get upset with them over it & over the things that are happening that you told them repeatedly would happen, they act like they didn’t know or that they are not partially at fault. They also don’t understand that even if they are 1 in 77,302,580ths responsible, that they still saw all of the ways this admin would damage your life & the lives of millions of others & signed off on it, put their literal stamp of approval on the man, his cronies in the cabinet, & their promised acts of retribution & violence against “the least of these.” Then they except you not to feel betrayed by that, to act as if nothing has happened, & that their brand of “unconditional love” doesn’t count when it comes to the voting booth. It’s gaslighting at its finest. Then, God forbid, they have the audacity to rub it in your face, to fly a MAGA flag or wear a MAGA hat or make jokes at your expense, all of which are signals to anyone who belongs to a minority that “you are not welcome here” & “I am not a safe person to be around.” They choose garish gloating &, a lovely german term, schadenfreude in place of compassion & empathy, both of which are much too late to be properly exhibited anyway.

You don’t get to stand on the grounds that you love or support someone & then turn around & blatantly vote their rights as a human being away without consequence. You don’t get to do that & expect them to treat you the same, to not feel entirely betrayed by you when you especially when they’ve wasted their breath trying to get you to understand the damage that will be done. Especially after witnessing the damage done from 2016-2020. I am so sick of the rhetoric or “but both sides” or “it’ll all change again in four years anyway” when clearly, clearly that is not the case. One side of the aisle, while they may be completely inefficient, does not actively seek to tear apart the lives of those who they have painted a target upon just because they can or just because it distracts from their inability or desire to fix the problems they perpetuate.

Naturally this is a hot button topic for me, as it seems to be for so many of my friends who find themselves on the receiving end of the Trump policies. So many of us who are openly LGBTQIA+, immigrants, environmentalists, non-evangelicals, non-white, are finding ourselves face to face with the heartbreak that is thinking the people you love, who you would do anything for, would do the same for you & quickly finding out they won’t even do something as simple as vote in your favor. It’s a terrible feeling, one I wouldn’t wish on anyone, & the worse part of it is, as I aforementioned, that they want you to continue on like they haven’t overtly committed acts of violence against you. They are fine being your oppressors if it gets them even the slightest perceived advantage in life & they will/have done so unapologetically. Not even unapologetically, but with outright disregard, deflecting any & all accountability & shifting blame or leaning into whataboutisms to avoid the reality & the harm of their actions. Then they wonder why we don’t want to be around them anymore.

I’m sorry if this was a tough read, I’m sorry if this was triggering for you. If you’re someone maybe not on the receiving end it might be time to look into the ‘why.’ I write this out of a desire to inform & with passion because it kills me. It kills me to experience it & it kills me to see so many beautiful human beings who are deserving of all of the love in the world have the same things happen to them. I write this to show you all what has been done & what continues to be done out of some, probably false, hope that someone will read this & finally understand & not continue making the same mistakes going forward. You cannot love your black, brown, white, immigrant, citizen, queer, trans, non-binary, etc., etc., etc. neighbor by voting against them. It is contradictory, hypocritical, & above all an act of violence against them. Where is the ‘love’ in that?

It’s tough out there, please be safe, take care of yourself & one another, & know that I love you.

Much love to you all,

-C

Blog: Shake Off The Snow

We’ve had a hard winter. There’s no denying that. Outside of my own personal rampant anxiety & seasonal depression, the geopolitical landscape is a cluster, The US is in the process of a full on hostile government takeover that nobody with the power to do so seems to want to stop, & I know a lot of us also went through dramatic moments around family, friends, & love. It was a long, cold couple of months but it seems to sun is finally peeking through.

Despite what the clairvoyant groundhog may have decided, it seems spring is gradually creeping in. I feel typically we have a little more ‘hard stop’ to winter, but this year it seems we’re just easing into spring. Honestly though, that makes sense to me. The sun is slowly hanging around longer, I think for the majority of The US we gained about 45 minutes more sunlight during the month of February, but it probably isn’t something that the majority of us noticed. I however have noticed the gradual return of my mental health, overall desire to live, & the steady dissipation of my ‘dark night of the soul.’

The world seems, quite literally, a little brighter, even though the news continues to grow more & more grave as each day passes. I think the reason for that is also a sense of the shifting energies. We as a society are upset, we’re anxious, we’re in distress but I think we’re also getting to a point where what was presenting as rage is now shifting to spite, to motion. You see rage is a very mobile emotion, it causes us to want to take action, to kick the door down, to scream & writhe & bear our teeth, & when aimed correctly, tuned, & distilled, rage can be an excellent tool & an excellent motivator. You see, I think a lot of us over the last couple of weeks have been riding the rage train out of the pits of despair into something more productive & proactive. We are beginning to see that the actions of those involved are not sustainable, nor are they backed by the populous & that shift in energy & the light screaming through the cracks feels like a weird shifting tide of hope.

I didn’t want to get overly political while writing this, I definitely have my share of blogs that veer heavily into that space, but I wanted to mention the above paragraph because it does play into this shift out of the cold into the warmth. Out of the darkness into the light. We are feeling the resurrection of the sun & the fires are starting to burn away the shadows that have drug us down & encased our hearts in fear & woe. I think that with the shift in the seasons, so too will we see a massive shift in the world & society around us.

So what are we to do? We’ve felt the call to emerge from our caves, to return to the world anew & grow once again towards the light, to unfurl our branches & put out new leaves & return from the ground where we’ve buried our necessities back to a place of expansion & vibrance. We embrace that. With every fiber of our beings we embrace it because that is where hope & change & progress are found. Not in the pitfalls of winter, but in the promise of brighter days to come. We crawl from our dins, shake off the snow, & give it permission to return to melt back into the earth so that it can be used to burst shining new fruits into existence. We continue the work, we adapt, & we continue chasing the sun because that is where our hope lies, in the promise of good conquering evil, of the many over the few, of life over decay. So hear the calling, shake off the snow, & answer with luminous hope radiating from your heart.

Much love to you all,

-C

Travel Blog: Australia- Part Four: Wine-ding Down

Welcome back, welcome back!

Well… Unfortunately we have made it to the end of this travel series. I know, I know, I’m as utterly heartbroken as you are, but we will get through this. That being said, if you’re here & you’re reading this current paragraph with unfamiliarity to this series & its content, I would advise you to turn to the prior installments, give them a read, & report back here. This is the fourth & final installment of my Australia series. Yes, fourth. That means there are three other blog postings around this trip for you to go back & read before you read this one! Lucky you! I’ll do you a solid & will go ahead & link those other three blog postings below so you have easy access to all of them! If you’re an ace student & are here like, I got this, I’ve read everything, let’s go, then I hope you’re ready to wrap this whole shebang up! Let’s get rolling!

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PART FOUR:

Day Thirteen

Adelaide, South Australia, Australia

We return once again to a morning at Leena & Max’s. We had decided when planning out our week together that we wanted to try to go up to Barossa, to South Australian wine country for a brief overnight. Once there we would stay at Hart Of Barossa a vineyard that Max’s mother & step father had bought while Max was still in school. So much like we did with our live aboard on the reef, we packed up a small bag to take out & use just for the two days that we would be there.

First things first though, coffee.

If I’m remembering correctly, Leena & Max both had morning sessions at the studio, which means Evan & I took it upon ourselves to venture out & find coffee. Naturally we ended up back at Seven Grounds where I got a bangin’ Almond Croissant & a Dirty Pandan Matcha Latte (yes, it hits as hard as it sounds).

The Hurrells wrapped their session around noon. They had already packed in the morning so all we had to do was pack up the car & hit the road.

On our way out of town we stopped by a gas station to fill up & grab a rather large assortment of drinks to bring along with us for the road & for the house.

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Barossa Valley, South Australia, Australia

The just over one hour trip out to Barossa is a beautiful one. It’s mostly a straight shot through salt flats, farms, & grasslands. Our first stop once we arrived was to a supermarket. The vineyard, had a pizza oven, & Michael, Max’s stepfather, had been working to perfect his pizza dough recipe. We gathered a bunch of pizza ingredients as well as some items for an evening charcuterie board.

After provisions it was time for more coffee. Sat in the middle of Barossa you’ll find Barossa Beans & Cream. Truth be told, not my favorite name for an establishment, but it does highlight back the location & the nature of the business in the name. Barossa Beans & Cream is a coffee shop, an ice cream shop, & a patisserie all rolled into one. We only went for coffee this day. The hazelnut latte once again made an appearance & off we went to Hart to start our adventure in wine country.

Galahs In The Drive

We formally arrived at Hart of Barossa around half past three in the afternoon, greeted by the Galahs in the tree out in the drive & the chittering whistlings of a Magpie. We met Michael & were given a tour of the lovely home that resides on the grounds. Additionally we were presented with several room options to choose from, Evan & I went with the one that seemed a little cooler.

Barossa in the summer time is hot & arid. It doesn’t get the sea breezes that Adelaide has to offer & is itself located in a valley which in turn makes it a bit of a cauldron of heat. This, of course, if perfect for the grapes.

Michael advised us to head over to the Tasting Shed for a flight with Alicia, the wonderful guide on duty, as it closed around 4:30.

The one hundred plus year old shed has had quite the life. At one point it was a stables, later it was a blacksmith shop before it finally came into its current configuration as a tasting room, complete with a long wooden table & the pews from the church where Max’s grandparents got married.

We all made our way in & sat at the end of the table near the bar that looked to be constructed from old grape vines & barn wood. There we met Alicia who lovingly walked us through the different wines.

Hart Of Barossa Tasting Shed

We started out with the Frizzante, a lightly sparkling white wine that uses the Frontignac grape. It was light & aromatic while not being overly sweet & saccharine like a moscato or sweet riesling. Next came the Rosé. Typically I am not a huge fan of Rosé, I find it frequently too dry & my palette can’t decide if I want it to be something more savory like a dinner white or red, even though the tasting notes lean fruit forward. The Hart rosé threads the needle perfectly & lands as a really nice compliment to the heat of the summer day. Not overly sweet but also not unassumingly dry like I feel I normally find the blend. Next up was the Shiraz Noir.

It’s safe to say that Shiraz is the main Australian grape, pronounced here as “Sure-As.” With it being the primary grape so too does it end up lending itself to a number of blends, naturally the Rosé on the list being the first to feature it here. Here in lies the first of the bottles that is entirely the Shiraz grape, though offering a lighter, more delicate presentation. More headstrong than I would say a Pinot Noir, but still allowing itself the gentle fluidity of function to play well with others, especially where food is concerned. We then moved down the line of age to the flagship single grape bottle, the South Australian Shiraz.

I will be the first to admit to you that typically I am not here for a Shiraz, at least from the French. It’s often way too leathery, too earthy for my taste. However I would argue that the Australian varietal tends to almost lean into being a heavier, most spicy Malbec. An odd comparison I’m sure, but the Hart Shiraz packs a velvety, dark fruit softness almost like biting into the dark fruits you’ll note in it themself.

Hart’s Grapes

Here we find ourselves back to another blend; Cabernet Sauvignon/Shiraz. I loved this bottle. Loved it. It packed that dark fruit explosion on the front that then almost instantly retreats to unveil the deep tannins & almost herbal nature of the Cab. It’s like a wave crashing over your tongue. High marks on this one!

The last of the wines we tried was the Mataro. I actually very much enjoyed this one as well! Leaning into those spicier notes while not becoming overwhelming. It was a lovely, pleasant pallet.

Alright. I said we were done with the wines. That’s not entirely true. We still had the Fortified Shiraz VP!

I love me a fortified wine. Port, Madeira, etc., I’m here for it. This one was no exception. It had that raisin-y sweetness but also lent itself to tarter notes like blackberry & current. I was a fan to say the least which then led us finally into the Shiraz Gin.

Again, really here for this. It was unique in that it carried with it the sweetness of the grape while battling the intense dryness of a gin. Apparently Max’s mother makes a specialty cocktail using the gin, the frizzante, & a splash of sparkling water. It is dangerous because of how utterly drinkable it is.

Cheeks warmed & vision slightly blurred, we made our way from the shed back to the house. There we made more of the Hart cocktails which we took & sat in the pool with.

After about thirty minutes to an hour in the pool Michael came out to inform us that the pizzas were almost ready. So we got out, got dried off & changed, & headed in to dinner.

Sunset Over Hart

Michael needs a pizza shop. That’s all I’m saying. The man can cook a pizza. I was thoroughly blown away.

We sat at the table & he brought over the three pizzas he had crafted. One was entirely veggie, one entirely meat, & the other a mesh of both while still maintaining its own unique set of ingredients. I certainly ate too much, but it was so worth it.

After dinner we took a digestive walk. The sun was beginning to set & we walked the outskirts of the vines trying to taste the differences in the old vine grapes & the new. It got darker a little quicker than I think we all expected so we cut our tour short & headed back into the house for the night.

Even though it’d probably been an hour or so since we’d eaten, we decided to put together our charcuterie board. That didn’t take too long but once it was ready we sat around playing card games, drinking wine, & eating until we all fell out from exhaustion & hauled ourselves off to bed.

Sunset Over The Old Vine

End Of Day Thirteen

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Day Fourteen

First things first, coffee. We started off our morning back at Barossa Bean & Cream. I got my Hazelnut Latte, but also got one of their homemade Caramel Banana Muffins. They warmed it for me & it was sinfully divine.

After coffee we popped around some of the shops in Barossa before heading off to tour the valley a little more.

Our first stop was Chateau Tanunda. It’s a vineyard that dates back to the late 1800s that was erected at the site of where some of the first grapes planted in Barossa grew. WE walked around the Chateau & its grounds, complete with a cricket pitch, before we ventured inside to take a peak at their wine cellar/tasting room.

Mengler’s Hill Lookout

We didn’t stay at Tanunda for long before we continued on up to Mengler’s Hill.

Mengler’s Hill or Mengler’s Hill Lookout & Barossa Sculpture Park as is its government name, is exactly what the full name implies. It is an outlook that sits about halfway up one of the larger hills that overlooks Barossa below. There are a series of concrete sculptures scattered around as well as a monument to the colonizers who moved into the area & set up Barossa. We meandered about here for a bit, taking pictures & enjoying the view in the early afternoon heat before we went back down to Hart.

Dip In The Pool

We stayed at Hart of Barossa until the early hours of the evening. We all worked a bit in the Glass House on the property doing our respective tasks, taking a break every now & then to dip in the pool or go into the house for a bite of food or something to drink. We ended up leaving at around 6pm to head back to Adelaide. We packed up, thanked Michael for the stay, were gifted a couple of bottle of wine, then we were on our way.

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Adelaide, South Australia, Australia

We got back just after 7 PM. Upon arrival we were greeted with some fairly nice leather chairs that someone had set out for anyone to take. Max & I loaded them up into their car & took them down the street to the studio for use there. While we were loading up the car I had the privilege of meeting Max & Leena’s neighbors.

Once we’d gotten the chairs settled & everything put back that we packed we began to think about dinner. On the Hurrell list was a Japanese inspired fusion restaurant called Koyo. As the hours were getting a bit late we made sure they would be open & still serving food upon our arrival, we were basically assured their last table of the night.

Roasted Bulgogi Half Chicken

Koyo is a darling little restaurant. It features a very unique winding booth that ‘s’ curves back & forth through the center of the restaurant, nestling tables in the crux of each of the bends. We sat on the end & once again ordered family style.

We ordered the Spam, Pork, & Cabbage Gyoza with Black Rice Wine Vinegar & Szechuan Chilli Oil, Beetroot with Whipped Feta & Parmesan, Korean Garlic Bread, Burnt End Chashu Pork Fried Rice, the Ebony Angus Striploin Steak with Soy Jus & Korean Garlic Butter, & the Roasted Bulgogi Half Chicken with Crispy Leeks, Garlic Oil, Charred Lemon, & Senbei Rice Cracker. I think we all decided that our favorite things were the chicken, the beets, & the steak!

After dinner the Hurrells took us down the street to get dessert.

Dessert was a local, authentic Italian gelateria, Bottega Gelateria. It’s one of those places with a line down the block in the summer evenings, but the line moves quick. I got two scoops, Hazelnut & Pistachio. Honestly, it was some of the best gelato I’ve ever had! We sat on a bench down the street, finishing off our treats before heading back to the apartment.

Our evening concluded on the couch, only this time instead of VIP we were introduced to the early 00s sitcom that took Australia by storm, Kath & Kim. Staring two best friend comedians that play mother & daughter in the show, Kath & Kim is a parody of suburban life in Melbourne. It looks like it was shot for a middle school film project using your dad’s camcorder, but is way ahead of its time in terms of humor. Ev & I have continued watching it, even post Australia…though we have to do so with the subtitles on…

Vines At Hart of Barossa

End Of Day Fourteen

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Day Fifteen

In the state of South Australia there is a cartoned iced coffee brand with a cult following, Farmer’s Union. Farmer’s Union Iced Coffee contains three ingredients: coffee, glucose, & reduced fat milk, & for whatever reason, it is phenomenal. Max had bought us some cartons to try & in addition to it being a really solid iced coffee, it also lights you up caffeine wise.

While we sipped our FUIC Max filled us in on the details of his presentation that he’d been selected for to do at the Adelaide Fringe Festival! He walked us through his thought process, what the displays would look like, the coding behind it, how it would function, etc. All in all a really cool, interactive piece & Fringe Fest is a massive event, so happy for him!

Leena & Max had asked us if we there was anything specific that we wanted to do on our last full non-travel day in Australia. I said that I would never turn down another trip to the beach. So that became our afternoon plan.

Fish & Chips From The Takeaway

We made our way back to Henley, this time driving ourselves. We parked near the Jetty so that we could get lunch in Henley Square.

Lunch was Fish & Chips from Henley Takeaway otherwise known as Estia Greek Restaurant. We each got our own which came served on newspaper with a heaping pile of fries. We sat & ate & watched the seagulls fight before heading back up the beach to the same spot we’d claimed a few days prior.

Naturally Max & I immediately headed out into the ocean after the ground cover had been tacked down & all of our belongings were spread appropriately & secured. We were greeted by slightly clearer water & once again the innumerable crabs. Max had found a brand new pair of goggles on the beach so he & I both got to enjoy the wildlife this time around.

Beach Bum

At one point a plane passed over head. It was flying fairly low & looked to be only capable of holding about two or so passengers. Max pointed to it & explained that it’s the Shark Patrol. Shark Patrol is a branch of the police that go up & down the coast looking for sharks in the water that may pose a threat to beach goers. If they see a shark in the water they let out a siren to tell people in the water that then need to get out for their safety. We watched it fly over, then continued on pestering the crabs.

This is the chain of events here. Max points out & explains the plane, we talk & chuckle about it as the plane flies towards the Henley Jetty, we go back down to look at crabs, we come back up to the plane circling near the jetty with its alarm going off. The comedic timing of it all way spot on.

So we casually got out of the water.

When we got back to Evan & Leena we had an additional party member, River Lane.

She had just gotten back to Adelaide from holiday with her family. We sat & chatted throughout the afternoon, mostly about diving, travel, & music. She apparently doesn’t live far from the spot we’d plopped & it was nice to formally meet her before we left Australia.

Our dinner/evening plans had been solidified earlier in the week, Elle Holiday & her partner James were set to come over for a game night. They came around 6 PM. We then went through the Uber Eats list of food near by to see what was available & we ended up ordering from Pellegrini Cafe, a local Schnitzel & Pizza place. During our wait for our food we sat, we joked, & told stories. Once our food was arrived we ate, we sat, we joked & told stories. Then once we’d eaten we sat, joked, & told stories. We were so wrapped up in conversation & life that we never got around to playing a single game & before we knew it, the night had crept on & become quite late. We bid them both goodnight & took ourselves to bed as well.

Henley Beach

End Of Day Fifteen

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Day Sixteen

As with most days, this one starts with coffee. One last trip to Seven Grounds to be exact. I got a Dirty Pandan Matcha Latte & another round of their take on a Full English Breakfast, only this time we took it to go. We spent our morning reassembling, repacking, & getting everything in order. Clean clothing, of which there was a lot thanks to the Hurrell’s wash, went on top with the dirty clothes or clothes we knew we wouldn’t need the rest of the trip stored away. The hallway by the door became our baggage hold as items were restored & sealed for the journey ahead.

Yuzu Curd Tart

Lunch was back at the Adelaide Central Market. We’d opted for that because Max was meeting up with his adoptive mother, Sunset, the market had a plethora of options, & I wanted to grab the Etikette candles that I liked so much from part three. We even ended up back at Zuma Caffe because three of us had ben there a few days prior & the food was solid with a varied selection. Evan & I ordered two different burgers which we split down the middle & gave a half to each of us, as well as a darling little Yuzu Curd Tart.

Aussie Burger

The burgers we got were the Old School “Zuma Version” Aussie Burger with Two Beef/Pork Patties, Double Cheese, Lettuce, Tomato, Red Onion, Beetroot, Relish, & Mayo, & the Zuma’s Real Deal Double Cheeseburger with Two Beef/Pork Patties, Double American Cheese, Pickles, Red Onion, Mustard, Ketchup, & Mayonnaise. To be honest, the Aussie burger beat the other by a long shot!

After a very pleasant lunch we headed back to the apartment one last time to gather our belongings, Tetris them in the car, & head out to the airport.

We completed a round of hugs & goodbyes outside of the Adelaide Airport, even snapping a picture or two before we left.

I think it’s at this point that the dread really started to creep in for me. We had spent around two & a half weeks in a warm, welcoming place that, as I mentioned before, felt like an alternate universe to the one we are living in within the US. I think in a lot of ways Australia looks, at least to us, like what The US would have if it hadn’t given into the corporations, to the greed & subjugation. It was a lot like what I imagine The US would be like if it cared for its people, & the earth, & communities instead of trying to leverage everything it can out of us. I know Australia isn’t perfect, but it feels leagues ahead of The US in terms of living a healthy, balanced, happy life where you don’t have to worry about whether your accident is going to bankrupt you or whether your government will prioritize trying to save a dying earth over oil & gas revenues. Again, it has its drawbacks but both Evan & I knew the storm we were returning to arriving on January 17th, 2025 & we desperately didn’t want to return.

It’s not even that we spent two+ weeks on vacation & now we were like ‘vacation for life’ because for the last week of our trip, yes we did activities, but we also did a lot of work & got a sense of normalcy built around that. It was nice to go places & feel safe & cared for & like you as a person mattered to something or someone larger than yourself or your ability to be a monetary outlet.

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Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

We had a late afternoon flight out of Adelaide, it got us into Sydney around 7:15 PM. From there we hopped into an uber & went downtown to the Hilton Sydney.

The hotel was both stunning & massive. We were placed in a king room about twenty-five floors up with views overlooking the lower part of the city. The room was cozy & modern & we quickly used it to change into nicer apparel & ditch our luggage.

Lanzo from Ragazzi

For dinner I’d found us an Italian spot called Ragazzi. Ragazzi Wine & Pasta to be exact. We arrived with the sheer hope that even though we didn’t have a reservation we’d be able to get in. They were kind enough to start us out at an outdoor table which they informed us would have to be moved inside at a certain point, as they were only allowed to have outdoor tables til a certain time for noise ordinance.

We started our meal off with Cantabrian Anchovies with Butter on Sourdough, Lonza (Cured Pork Loin) with Pear Mostarda, Melon, & Pickled Mustard Seeds, & Sugarloaf “Caesar” with Smoked Pancetta, Reggiano, & Cured Egg Yolk. All was exceptional.

Cavatelli from Ragazzi

At this point Evan could tell that the anxiety of returning to The United States was weighing on me. He asked me what was wrong & I explained to him my feelings & my fears. We both admitted that we’d really hoped in part that we wouldn’t enjoy Australia as much as we did, because it made going back to the regression of America that much harder. I think, unfortunately, that my fears & predictions began to weigh on him as well & it turned his emotions fairly quickly.

We were moved inside, now definitely a mopier lot, but still very much enjoying the food & the restaurant. Our pasta courses then came. We had Cacio E Pepe, Cavatelli with Buffalo Mozzarella, Heirloom Tomatoes, & Basil, & Conchiglie with Prawn, & Smoked Tomato XO Sauce. We were torn on a favorite between the Cav & the Conch.

For dessert we ordered a Mango Royale with Macadamia, Lime, Coconut, & Chantilly as well as two scoops of Sorbetti.

High Tea from Maybe Sammy

We paid the tab, thanked the staff for an excellent dinner, & made our way up farther into the city towards the harbour.

I am nothing if not well researched when it comes to food or drink at a destination I’m traveling to. In addition to sifting through blogs, different food awards, recommendation site, etc., I always ask locals to give us their own takes on the ‘must hit’ spots while we’re somewhere. I had found a bar through The World’s 50 Best Bars Of 2024 list called Maybe Sammy.

Wake Up Call from Maybe Sammy

Maybe Sammy currently holds down the #26 spot on this list of the top 50 bars in the world. Of which I am sure there are hundreds of thousands, if not millions. The bar themes itself variably but it always meant to replicate that of a hotel bar. The current menu being so themed around The Grand Budapest Hotel & Monopoly. I got a High Tea (Benraich 10 Year, Fino Sherry, Mastic Tears, Tonic Syrup, Matcha, & Coconut Syrup, Garnished with a sheet of Nori) & a Wake Up Call (Bacardi Ocho 8 Year Rum, Mr Black Coffee Liqueur, De Bortoli Black Noble 10 Year, Espresso, Toffee, & Marscapone) the latter of the two being my definitive favorite.

We made our way back towards the hotel pleasantly buzzed, we’d also had a cocktail with appetizers at dinner. Our night wasn’t quite over yet though, I had one more stop in mind. Back again to Cantina Ok!, a bar that also finds itself on the Top Bars list (#96)!

Jax’s Special at Cantina Ok!

As I mentioned in part one, upon our initial trip to Cantina Ok!, they do a weekly special. This week’s sounded bomb AF & it was bomb AF, truly one of the top 5 cocktails I had the whole trip! The drink in question was Jax’s Special. Tequila (obviously), Garden Wine, Shaved Frozen Nectarine, & Lychee Ice. It was refreshing with a bit of zippy tartness & subtle sweetness. Wish it was a menu staple, but I get that something isn’t beautiful because it lasts.

Pleasantly inebriated we went back to the hotel to pull out the morning’s clothing, repack, & drift off to sleep.

Blue Mountains from the air.

End Of Day Sixteen

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Day Seventeen

I hope you’ve enjoyed this blog series. I’ll be entirely honest & say that I had a deep sense of melancholy while writing it. I loved Australia more than I could have ever imagined I would & this two+ weeks was really just the tip of the iceberg, the continent has so much more to offer, so many more cities to see & places to adventure. Being there filled me with a deep sense of calm that I haven’t felt in a very long time & unfortunately, given the state of the States, doubt I will for a while more. I have a bit more before we head out & put the final ‘period’ in this series. Though it is brief.

We awoke around 7 AM with the obvious intent on hitting The Grumpy Baker one more time before we left town. Part of it was that I wanted one more Hazelnut Latte & a pastry, the other part being that we wanted to get a friend of ours a bag of Single O coffee as a ‘thank you’ for doing some winter prep around our house while we were gone.

The Grumpy Baker locale that we went to was in Hyde Park located inside of an old bus stop. I got my latte, a potato & leek pastry, & I’m sure something sweet. We then walked & ate back to the Hilton to get our belongings & head to the airport for our flight back to the USA.

Hilton Downtown Sydney

End Of Day Seventeen

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Sunset Over Sydney

END OF PART FOUR & END OF BLOG SERIES