June 2, 2025

One of the frustrating parts of writing these journal posts is that there's actually some interesting things I can talk about but I feel I have to censor for other people's sake. An example of this was this weekend with the cornhole tournament. I know full well that how I've been keeping details rather vague or making it all sound absolutely boring but I'm still in the Learning to Walk phase of making a public record of my daily activities. How much do I share? What's going to hurt which people if I divulge too much?

With everything being supercharged and superheated, I feel responsible in keeping my mouth shut so I can protect people's identities and keep them from being tracked through me. Example of this was that the tournament was sponsored by an organization helping and made up of LGBTQ+ service members. With the backlash against their presence in the military, it's hard to tell what kind of psychos might be trawling for ways to doxx or attack them. Most of these folks are far more capable of protecting themselves than anyone (they were all military, I never was) but I also can't help but feel the least I can do is protect privacy and not draw too much attention to where they held this event. Based on knowing them, they would probably feel I'm making too much of this ("We can take care of ourselves - it's not our first time dealing with this shit") but little actions can at least help I imagine.

Another part of this, though, is the self-serving concern for my own welfare and all the uncertainty around employment. If "DEI" is a thing that's being discouraged, I feel the next step that occurs is companies purging all employees unwilling to tow the new line. I fall into that category and I happen to like both my job and getting a paycheck. So when I share information, the questions become how much should I hide and whether censoring myself like this is either prudent or cowardly. I also have to think about my family and their safety, not wanting to do/say/write anything that gets them hurt in return. These times are too scary to make those kinds of missteps and I don't usually know what the right answer. One of the tenets of writing nonfiction is not omitting the truth but I don't feel brave enough to risk everything else just to record my truth. - A.B. 6/2/25

P.S. I hate writing about politics since I've grown up with it my whole life. I'm a product of both the D.C. metro area and the U.S. Government. Honestly, if there's a subject I'd rather not talk about with strangers, I always pick politics first (then religion, sex, and money/work in that order). I'm well aware of current events at all times but there's so much else that's interesting in the world that should be illuminated instead. I'm not a journalist or a pundit, so why should I dedicate my time and my blog to the rest of the chatter?

As for everything else, it's been pretty quiet - sunny today, making soup for dinner tonight, finally finished Heroes last night (the whole thing with the carnival barker villain was lame) and hope to focus on getting things taken care of in the house throughout the week.

Today's album is Concerto for Group and Orchestra by Deep Purple with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (1970), a proto-prog metal oddity I found out about while compiling an upcoming Something Interesting about concertos. I've heard of the album before but not being a huge Deep Purple fan, it was kind of hidden in my brain for a while. Not a personal favorite but still worth a listen at least for curiosity purposes.

Featured image is a photo from Kevin Grieve, chosen because it looked cool.