These didn’t make the photo challenge but I still like them. The theme today was “union”.

union 📸 Michael and I just had our 6 year anniversary. When I think of union I think of us being married. These are our engagement/marriage rings, made of rosewood, sitting on the bedroom dresser in front of a jewelry box.

SHOULD PERFORMANCE VENUES HONOR PRIOR COVID-19 PRECAUTION RELATED PROMISES OR JUST GO BACK TO NORMAL FOR-PROFIT MENTALITY?

Most of Broadway Ends Vaccine Checks as Cases Rise in New York - The New York Times: “Our patrons have purchased tickets, and in the case of subscribers, been assigned performances through May, with the understanding that they would be entering a fully vaccinated and masked environment,” Steve Dow, the Roundabout Theater Company’s chief administrative officer, said in a statement about its Broadway run of “Birthday Candles.” This article is about Broadway (nonprofit theaters are keeping proof of vaccination policies in place, for-profit theaters aren’t), but I have this exact same concern in Ohio.

park 📸 Here’s a photo of Bonsai in better times at a state park in Ohio. Good vibes for Bonsai are appreciated. Her arthritis and heart murmur are progressing quickly. She’s my special ol’ gal and I’m so grateful that she’s been with me so long. 🐕

silhouette 📸 This is one of my favorite photos of Michael. It’s more of a somewhat silhouette than an actual silhouette and he’ll probably hate that I shared it since it was taken back when he was wearing his oxygen…but I really adore this man and this is but one reason why. 🐈‍⬛ 👤

Earth 📸 Meshell Ndegeocello Earth Compact Disc Maxi Single (2002) 💿 🎵 Original version available on the Maverick album Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape

DAN RATHER NAILS IT AGAIN

Cruel Intemperance - by Dan Rather and Elliot Kirschner: Most news accounts also noted that the leak is “unprecedented.” If we want to talk about unprecedented events at the Supreme Court, though, let us cast our gaze farther back in our history. The court’s intervention to decide a presidential election in 2000 with _Bush v. Gore _was unprecedented. So too were Mitch McConnell’s machinations to block the court appointment of Merrick Garland.

Anyone interested in promoting abortion in Ohio should donate to @WHOohio @PretermCLE and @aggiefund! WHO-O: womenhaveoptions.nationbuilder.com/donate Aggie: www.aggiefund.org/support-u… Preterm: www.preterm.org/support-u…

MANDATORY FUN

Today we have a mandatory in-person all-staff and employee recognition meeting. 160 of us, give or take a few, in an enclosed space breathing the same air. 😷 I guess this is a good litmus test for how I’ll feel about being in crowds. I have a ticket to a Tori Amos show that I’m not sure I’ll use because I just don’t know if I’m comfortable yet. So far today?

thorny 📸 A rose thorn in Michael’s garden 🌹 for today’s photo challenge: thorny.

experimental 📸 Experiment IV [Extended Mix] [2018 Remaster] 🎵 Kate Bush playing with Apple Music visualizer. (Today’s photo challenge: experimental)

photo 📸 Today’s photo challenge theme is meta. I mean, er, photo. And here’s my submission. It’s a photo of me taking a photo for the theme photo.

Didn’t realize Kim Deal played on Tanya Donelly’s Star demos, or that those demos were originally intended to be a Breeders album. I’d love to hear the Breeders today cover Star from start to finish. 🎵 tanyadonelly.bandcamp.com/album/dem…

switch 📸 I’ve never done a photo challenge before. Think I can make it through the entire month? Today’s theme: switch

A few weekday morning photos from the Ohio Statehouse’s north lawn, facing east

4 Photos from Michael’s Garden

THE COUPS CULT CONSERVATIVES

[There’s Nothing “Conservative” About a Coup](steady.substack.com/p/theres-… “There’s Nothing “Conservative” About a Coup”): There is nothing “conservative” about plotting to overthrow American democracy. It isn’t “conservative” to undermine our institutions. Quite the contrary. It isn’t “conservative” to preach extremism and marinate oneself in lies. It isn’t “conservative” to usher in a radical new vision of American government, one supported by intimidation and violence and rooted in minority rule. I’ve been saying this, albeit not as eloquently as Dan Rather, for years.

AN IDEA WORTH SPREADING

I’m thinking about breaking up with TED.com. Their mission of “ideas worth spreading” has a caveat lately that comes with a price tag. I don’t want to become a member, which they’ve been hounding me to do for months. And my organization isn’t about to plunk down the exorbitant amount of money they’re asking for in order to license their content for use in the corporate classroom (I don’t remember the exact price but it was well beyond prohibitive.

THEY’LL COME FOR YOUR BOOKS BEFORE THEY EVER COME FOR YOUR GUNS

Today, state legislators are introducing — and in some cases passing — educational gag orders to censor teachers, proposals to track and monitor teachers, and mechanisms to facilitate book banning in school districts. At the same time, the scale and force of book banning in local communities is escalating dramatically. In recent years PEN America has typically encountered a handful of such cases each year. The findings in this report demonstrate a profound increase in both the number of books banned and the intense focus on books that relate to communities of color and LGBTQ+ subjects over the past nine months.

I’m just saying if you can afford to take a rocket ship to space, your ass doesn’t belong anywhere on earth. 🚀 🌍 💰 👎🏼

Kate Bush | Rock & Roll Hall of Fame: Bush burst open doors for women artists to experiment more radically with their music, image, and theatricality,/inspiring Bjork, Tori Amos, Solange,/St. Vincent,/and countless others. True story. Yet Duran Duran is in the lead to be inducted this year with 895,000 votes. They’re currently beating out more talented and deserving and influential groups and singers like Pat Benatar, The Eurythmics, and Dolly Parton (not to even mention Kate Bush).

*LINDA BELCHER PSYCHIC SOUND*

I swear I’m becoming a musical psychic. It’s weird, you guys. Not long ago I was at the dentist and they had an 80s radio station on. For some reason I suddenly hoped they’d play I Just Called to Say I Love You. I thought to myself how I hadn’t heard it in long time and it would be nice to hear AND IT WAS THE VERY NEXT SONG. Then this morning I rather randomly decided to listen to Been Caught Stealing while I was showering.

It’s Easter morning. I’m still in bed on the computer listening to music. I just put on Horses by Patti Smith. I did not put on Easter by Patti Smith even though it’s Easter because it doesn’t start off with “Jesus died for somebody’s sins but not mine” the way that Horses does. G-L-O-R-I-A indeed. 🎵 https://music.apple.com/us/album/gloria/1038568061?i=1038568064

Someone said that social media is a lot like cocaine in the seventies. When it first arrived on the scene, a lot of people thought, Wow, this is amazing. A decade later, everyone thought, Wow, this is godawful. Linford Detweiler, Over the Rhine

They blocked us from using GIFs in MS Teams at work. I feel like someone took away my favorite red stapler. I also have never been so unhappy at work in my entire career as I am now. My stomach is starting to hurt more. I’m snippy with my staff. I don’t like feeling like this.