I really need help. I am a newly minted PhD and I research Denial rates for FEMA programs. I use FOIA request and public facing data to put this together. In one disaster, in rural America no less, a whopping 76% of applications for Individual Household Assistance were denied outright. Let the repercussions of that sink in. This data is crucial and is in danger of being removed, if it has not already. Any help you can offer or shout outs would be incredible.

As some of you know, I'm also trying to help my LGTBQ+ and BIPOC colleagues protect and defend their work and themselves. Any advice on networking or organizations I can steer people towards are welcome.

Question for all of you: My therapist (who I meet with virtually) did not show up for our session today. That is not like her. I emailed her about ten minutes in to confirm that we were on for today with no response and then 30 minutes in to tell her I was logging off and expressed that I hoped everything was okay. I haven't heard back and I'm somewhat concerned about her since this really isn't like her. Would you reach out again or just let it be? I'm trying to decide if I was in her position if I would prefer privacy or people showing they care, and I really don't know.

Job hunting is brutal. Like soul sucking. Every time a website application refers me to Workday or another management system of AI filtered horsehit, I die knowing I probably missed something and will get auto rejected.

And now I have covid 🙄

It was OK I guess. Did some petsitting, made a little money, bought a new desk. Thought a less claustrophobic setup might help me get back into art. Then I read the news and I was like, literally who fucking cares? The chips in my drawing tablet are made by slaves and my PC is a tool for multiple spy companies. Countries I'll never visit are being decimated by capitalism to provide the fruits and veggies for my healthy diet that I'm supposed to eat to be less depressed.

The internet mocks me for calling my reps instead of overthrowing the government but none of them are overthrowing the government either.

This is selfish but I wish I'd die in a horrible accident so I at least don't continue being a cog in this machine.

Generally, I'm starting to be skeptical about each seemingly positive event. They are fleeting, and then it's back to this insane hell. In theory, I've met another local vanlifer who wants to join forces to ease each others' burdens, but I'll believe that when I see it.

Really bad. My health is deteriorating as there is something wrong with my brain and no medical 'professionals' are helping.

It is difficult to think, remember things and understand things.

I replaced most of the lights in the basement, rewired stuff so it wasn't switched on the neutral leg anymore too (seriously, who does that?). Pretty sure I had to deal with some sort of FNG today, I was getting all sorts of weird questions. (Note: These are all standards, if someone at the level this dude is supposed to be at is asking these kinds of questions...um....yeah.)

"Hey, what the hell kind of security screw is this?"
"Um.....it's a Phillips #2, although if you push hard enough a Phillips #1 might also work."
Somehow, that wasn't the mist bizarre question out of someone who really should not have been asking questions like that today.

I did get my full wellness reward at work, so my wife and I used part of it to get new heart rate chest straps so that's kind of exciting.

Things could be worse... not sure exactly how, but I bet they could. Last week got some flu again, breathing has been hard for the last few days, stopping to is tempting.

Fighting hypervilgilance that wants me to keep track of all the new everywhere all the time, since I know that I'm as safe as I can be in the US and if something big happens I have lots of channels of information to find out about it. Just need to focus on my life and the little joys I can have, like making a cup of tea and enjoying this absurd song I heard that's kind of a dance club remix of a synthetic voice reading PR stuff about queer people? It's honestly great.

I managed to get zero hours of sleep last night... Wish me luck at work today!

Horrible as usual, sorry for it being negative but you asked. Still stuck in my whole afraid to go outside, unable to get friends or anything around where I live. Just rotting inside bored AF.

Ugh. =)

We had snow and ice for a couple of days this past week and it's something I haven't seen for several years since moving farther south. So it was quite frankly crazy to see what we got here.

I am excited because in the next couple of days I should be getting my meshtastic node and it's the first time that I will be playing with meshtastic and so I'm really looking forward to it.