Every day after work, I go to the shady side of town and call over a prostitute. I fuck her against a grimy brick wall and give her my day's pay, then I go home and kiss my wife. After she goes to bed, I take a pill short of the lethal dosage of Prozac and spin the chamber of my gun. I walk out to the garage, you see, with my wrinkled suit and muddy shoes, and I pull the trigger. One of these days my brains will splatter across the black land rover that sits among the boxes and tools and sawdust, and I'll finally go to hell. If God grants me any mercy, that day will be tomorrow.

A man stands at a train station in the middle of the night. Nameless and a vagrant, he will be gone by tomorrow. But today he is still here.

The wind blows at 70 miles per hour and delicate snowflakes cut the skin like a knife. They come for a moment then disappear into that utter darkness surrounding the station. Only the empty fluorescent light of the overhead lamps and the occasional train—which even then were sparse—broke the black embrace of night. The dull gray stone of the platform was comforted by neither snow nor trash; the strong wind brushes away anything that may try to find its home here.

The man stands in front of a small bulletin board nailed to the head house. His Russian green parka darts around in the wind, and he stays still, his gaze frozen straight ahead. He holds no ticket and doesn’t react when the trains arrive and de...

the creeping light of spring is nice, but everything looks the same again. i hope you come home soon

• tidyverse
• taxonomizr
• taxa
• phyloseq

Kissing the corpses of brides-to-be.

Reading about the recent hand sanitizer recalls reminded me inadvertently of the whole Drinking Hand Sanitizer In Lieu of Alcohol situation, which I actually think is really interesting. For context, ethanol is a primary ingredient in hand sanitizer, so when people suffering from an alcohol addiction (or normal teenagers, even) don't have access to alcohol, they sometimes will resort to drinking it. Beyond the obvious issue of the very high alcohol content of hand sanitizers (usually 60% or higher), there's the issue of the alcohol in them being denatured by methanol, which can easily cause a myriad of health problems including Going Blind or just Dying.

The reason why I find this so interesting is because of how it correlates to COVID. Alcohol consumption has increased significantly since the pandemic (wow... saying that made me realize how little it even...

My emotions have a force behind them. When I feel something, I push it until something breaks under the weight of my sentiment. I want to love someone so hard it consumes me. I want to tear flesh from bone and rip a whole apart. I want to blow up, be swept away, implode, lose myself, burn so hot that nothing is left. I want to lose control.

• inspired by a video i saw; 4/24

There’s something so peaceful about seeing your mother with the head of a deer. She stares vacantly through the chestnut French window situated above the sink. There’s nothing but black through the panes, and it matches her eyes. You don’t move. Neither does she. You’re not sure if she knows you’re here. The dim, warm light of the fading lightbulb your father screwed in last spring illuminates the soft shades of brown that adorn your kitchen. The teak cabinets and patterned stone tiles are all drenched in an artificial yet comforting amber.

You both stand, stagnant. Her body is the same, but she has antlers. You look past the biological discrepancy; it’s the smallest violation of the laws of nature occurring at the moment. It’s beautiful, in a way. She looks calm, and it almost ...