For those of us caught in this cold spell, here are a few photos of Tom Holland sans shirt to heat things up. If this is what not drinking alcohol does for the body, how do I not look closer to this? I digress… and apparently I must diet. Anyway, Mr. Holland is celebrated as much for his non-alcoholic turn in these parts as he is for all the other fine attributes on display here. See other shirtless male celebrities here.
As our country continues its descent toward fascism, I originally intended for this website to operate as it always had – with an eye toward escapism and amusement with the odd and only very occasional political post. Andy and I have totally turned off the news as it continues to normalize the convicted felon that half of the country supposedly elected, and that has made a profound improvement in our daily existence. Still, turning a blind eye to egregious assaults on the country we love can only go on for so long, and every once in a while I will have to take a stand and make a post as I did yesterday, if only so that future generations know that not all of us are cool with what’s happening.
None of this is ok, and simply going back to making frivolous or cute comments about Melania’s wardrobe or Elon’s weird moves will not cut it. One day your children are going to look back at this time and ask what you did or said or wrote – I don’t want my electronic footprint to show me critiquing the First Lady’s fucking hat or fashion like the rest of it doesn’t matter (or like she wasn’t monstrous enough to say “who gives a fuck about the Christmas stuff” while her supporters craft some false-narrative about a War on Christmas – classy elegance my ass).
That said, I will largely be back to the non-political in a very intentional effort to offer some sort of escapism from what is happening in the world. This website was only ever about me entertaining myself, and in the process perhaps entertaining others. It will be about what inspires or moves me, what I find interesting and beautiful and important. At the same time, it will not operate in a complete vacuum and bubble. I’m too honest to pretend everything is ok, and I’m not evolved enough to let those who set this into motion off without accountability.
Outside, the icicles are either growing or diminishing, melting or amassing greater girth, and it’s not quite clear which. The sun is strong but the icy wind chill feels stronger. There is balance somewhere, I just don’t have the discernment to determine exactly where it lies.
REPORTER: You would agree that it’s never acceptable to assault a police officer. Among those you pardoned, DJ Rodriquez, he drove a stun-gun into the neck of a police officer who was abducted by the mob that day – he later confessed on video to the FBI and pleaded guilty of this crime – why does he deserve a pardon?
DONALD TRUMP: Well I don’t know…
Your FOTUS (Felon Of The United States) Donald Trump just pardoned all those January 6 insurrectionists – including the ones who brutally attacked, maimed and killed police officers – in an act that is as expected as it is despicable. He literally told you he was going to pardon them. Anyone who backs the blue and believes in protecting our officers needs to explain how they ever supported Trump in the first place. Today the #FAFO award goes to The Fraternal Order of Police, the largest police union in the country, who endorsed Trump even after he told the world he would pardon those criminals. They now seem to be concerned about his pardon for all these criminals and have uncensored him. (Spoiler alert: too late, morons, you helped get him elected.)
Breaking into the Capitol and attacking police officers seems pretty violent to me, so how do people feel about letting such violent criminals free again? Because in New York State a lot of people seem VERY concerned about letting criminals back out on the street.
How do you reconcile supporting our officers when you release those who were convicted of assaulting police officers? How do you explain supporting the candidate who said he was going to pardon them? So many seem so concerned when it comes to letting certain criminals back out when the jails can’t hold any more – where is your outrage over this?
To The Fraternal Order of Police, this is on you. You endorsed him. You were told he would pardon them. He told the world he would pardon them. Now you are concerned that he pardoned them. It’s too late. Reap what you sow. Fuck Around and Find Out. You did this.
We know what happened on January 6, 2021. The Fraternal Order of Police knows it too. And their President, the one they endorsed multiple times, just pardoned all of the violent criminals convicted for their actions on January 6, as he promised he would.
PS – Still waiting for grocery prices to go down, the war in Ukraine to end, and gas to plummet. Weird that he kept the free-the-Jan-6-criminals promise first.
“I am not going to apologize for asking for mercy for others.” – Bishop Marianne Edgar Budde
Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde is the very first Bishop to be named as Dazzler of the Day, thanks to her courage and grace to eloquently and calmly speak truth to ill-gotten power. In a service at which FOTUS (Felon Of The United States) was in attendance, she used her pulpit to defend the very essence of what it means to be a true Christian, and a true American:
“Millions have put their trust in you. As you told the nation yesterday, you have felt the providential hand of a loving God. In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now. There are gay, lesbian and transgender children in both Democratic, Republican and independent families who fear for their lives.
The people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings, who labor in poultry farms and meatpacking plants, who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals. They may not be citizens or have the proper documentation, but the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals. They pay taxes, and are good neighbors. They are faithful members of our churches, mosques and synagogues, gurdwara and temples.” – Bishop Marianne Edgar Budde
And for those who disagree with using the pulpit to espouse mercy for people, I don’t think you understand Christ very well.
A perfect encapsulation of recent days, this plume of smoke from twin factory chimneys is a vivid representation of all that humanity has done to the earth. Maybe it’s producing heat for someone somewhere – I hope it’s worth whatever might be going into the atmosphere. I hope somehow we learn to embrace our planet. I hope… for more hope, even as I feel it dwindling away.
This Tom Yum soup is the ideal antidote for these frigid days – warm to the taste, both from the spice and temperature – and packed with the traditional flavors of Thailand. I’ve made a few variations and deviations based on what was in the house, but it’s a soup that bends beautifully beneath such changes. Instead of Thai chiles, I used a habanero. Instead of galangal I used ginger. Miraculously, we had the lemon grass and kaffir lime leaves in the freezer from a previous summer. Andy had a pound of shrimp on hand from a batch we forgot to put out for a recent family dinner. I picked up some mushrooms after work, and used some remaining tomatoes and a new bottle of fish sauce to round it all out. It was just the slightest bit too biting when I first sampled it, so I added some coconut milk to temper it – not too much… these are icy days and nights.
Through the fronds of a Norfolk Island pine, I sit lotus-style as the ringing of a Tibetan singing bowl slowly fades into silence. Outside, a snow-covered world of white and blue sends light ricocheting throughout the room, while the sun itself pours in through the green branches of this little tree – beauty in dappled light reminiscent of summer and sunny days. This is the room and space in which I do my daily meditation – and it’s the moment of the day I find myself craving and enjoying, so I’m slowly going to elongate these sessions as a way of getting through the winter.
While the floral bombast of an orchid may steal the show for a week or two, and the re-budding of a Thanksgiving/Christmas/Easter cactus might shift focus, the greenery of this Norfolk Island pine is something to which I return most. Its green glow in the early afternoon is a happy reminder that the outside world will be green again too; it is a promise and covenant as powerful and reassuring as any rainbow – perhaps even more-so with its consistency and fortitude.
If solely for the fact that she had the moral fortitude to reject attending the coronation of the FOTUS (Felon of the United States) Michelle Obama earns this Dazzler of the Day. Now that we have effectively ushered in fascism – check your social media settings and who you’re suddenly following for proof – we need more people to stand against everything that is currently happening. Not attending any of the felon’s official events is one of the most effective ways of sending a message that this will not and should not be accepted. And check out this speech if you want to be inspired to keep up the fight for what’s right.
(Oh, and anyone who had a problem with her skipping this inauguration, please let me know where FOTUS was for the last inauguration and sit all the way down – your racism is showing.)
A Sunday night snowstorm with a Monday holiday made for a cozy, comfortable evening at home with Andy. As he finished putting together a pasta dinner and warming a loaf of bread in the oven, I did a meditation in the living room. With Monday off, there were no Sunday scaries, a relief in itself, and this further embrace of a winter night kept the evening warm. As we have done for almost twenty-five years, we will continue to find comfort in such cozy evenings, no matter what madness swirls in the outside world. Sometimes I think the colder things get there, the cozier we make it inside our home. A lesson and blueprint for the next few years…
Our Monday morning recap gets a late start due to the holiday and our 22nd blog birthday entry, and perhaps this will help to distract from everything else going on today. Going forward, it may be wise to close ranks, which will simultaneously bring us closer to those we love while making it easier to defend ourselves against those who would hurt us. Lack of morality is a choice, and entirely non-negotiable. On with a robust weekly recap, and the promise to continue to be a bastion of escape, beauty, truth and love.
Today we mark Martin Luther King Day, and nothing else.
There are two quotes that speak to today’s dim world more than ever:
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”
“Cowardice asks the question, is it safe? Expediency asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? But conscience asks the question, is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because it is right.”
While this year will be filled with far more signifiant numbers, twenty-two years of a personal blog is a pretty remarkable feat, especially when one considers the average age of a blog these days (at last check, and this data is sketchy at best, it was about 2.4 years). That makes ALANILAGAN.com an absolute dinosaur, not entirely unlike its namesake (speeding along to 50 with no respite in sight).
In all that time, and while the rest of the world discovered social media and technology expanded at terrifying rates, I’ve kept this as a personal diary that has remained largely unchanged as far as basic content and format goes. It was always intended to be clean and simple (though in its planning stages I went broke for baroque – requesting sound and animation and even preliminary discussions on how to incorporate fragrance into the equation, which I accepted a compromise with scented promotional mailings) – and upon hearing the opinions of others, and realizing what blog formats I myself enjoyed, I’ve intentionally kept it relatively clean and spare. Sparing the bells and whistles has allowed me to focus on the substance, though I do my best to dress it up whenever and however possible.
The arc of over two decades allows for assessment of patterns and habits, and the perspective of that time gives one a certain bit of wisdom, not all of it welcome or wanted. It’s hard to face your own failings, and I’ve been staring at myself through the eyes of unmitigated self-expression for so long that I am very much tired of it sometimes. What keeps me going is seeing those infrequent but precious moments of growth and evolution, even if seeing them reveals some embarrassing behavior and opinions of my past. Were it not for so many mistakes, there would be far less learning.
So here’s to the next year of missteps and atrocities, and putting them on display for all the world to ignore – and here’s to the last twenty-two:
I used to think that not responding to a text in which a specific question and deadline is given is ruder than saying ‘Fuck you’ to someone’s face. At least the ‘fuck you’ indicates you care the bare minimum to respond. To simply ignore someone means you don’t even give the slightest fuck about them.
That said, it seems to be the acceptable mode of operating these days, so rather than try to fight it anymore, I’m giving in… and not responding to texts. Especially texts that request a response.
Sometimes it’s easier to be a flake than to fight with a flake.
(And I still don’t really understand what a flake is.)
PS – This actually wasn’t written with a specific person in mind, but if you think it’s you, well…
