log

Everything I post and everything below in this thread is released to the public under the CC0 license, posting in this thread retroactively confirms you are releasing all of your posts under the CC0 license:
Transcription of all previous posts (3-8-2024 - 6-30-2025).
Transcription of all previous posts (7-1-2025 - 12-31-2025)
Transcription of all previous posts (1-1-2026 -)

 

[GemersonLakeAndPalmer]

November 5th, 2025 (Continued): “I don't see a wider range. I'm sad about that. I see in America today. that we have become so partisan. There's very few people in the middle. I uhh- and I think that's really sad. You don't find Democrats that are willing to vote for Republican issues and are in the center. They're much further on the left, and they're the ones that seem to have taken over the party. Converse, the same thing happens to Republicans. Republicans have become very conservative, and they're very much on the right. And the problem is is that the individuals in the middle have a very difficult time because if you're in the middle as a Democrat and you vote with Republicans, you're more than likely going to have a primary of somebody on your left. That's more progressive, more socialistic, and if you're a Republican, you vote with Democrats, you're gonna have somebody far right. And that is how our legislature has evolved both at the state level and at the federal level. I don't like that. I think- I think more people, more individuals are in the middle, and they would like to see Democrats and Republicans work together and solve problems. And I don't see that happening, and I don't see it happening for a while, but I think, uhh I think it's I think it's going to become more partisan in next year. And I think there's hope in the presidential year that maybe the presidential candidates will try and reach out and try and help solve this partisanship in America. That's what I'm hoping for. Whether it happens, I don't know. But right now, it's very, very partisan out there. And that's why my idea, you know, of calling in the Democrats and Republicans, I used to tell them, I said to the Democrats: ‘you can fight me, and I won't be able to stop anything. And you're gonna and you can go against me in the fall thinking you can get elected governor. But I'm here to tell you, you're not gonna Nobody none of you are gonna be able to work as hard as I can, because I'm noted for that. And I'm gonna win. So let's get something done.’ And that's what happened. I said, run as a Republican, run as Democrat, run hard. And argue and debate, but after you win, why don't you join the W Party, the winning party? and find out what you can do to be able to come together and solve the problems. Come on, we have so many problems in [city]. The education system isn’t wonderful. Huge problem! We've got problems all over the state, and with drugs, and now data centers and transportation. Why don't we try and get candidates to come up with solutions? Ideas and solving. That's, you know, what I always ran for public office. I always had five things that I wanted to accomplish, and I'd go out and talk. You got to candidates right now. All they can say is I don't want you to get one from me, cause you're gonna end up with Wyatt, and that guy is scary. Even though he's a friend of Amber's, he's scary! So, you can't vote for him. And that's sad. And I ask you, what's your issue? What's your position? What do you want to do? What do you want to do with education in [city]? How are you the problem? How do you get more minorities to graduate? How many are you able to get more students to read? Properly. Let's find some solutions. Let's start in America looking for solutions. And I think that's why if you start doing that, I think you're going to be able to bring more people in, they may not want to be on the hard right or the hard left, to work in the middle. That's what I'm hopeful.” - Governor
27:28
“What about the backside? Who’s got a question? Okay, we got one over here?” - Laura
“Oh Hi!” - AJ
“Hi. You got to talk up. I don't hear very well. That's why I talk so loud!” - Governor
“Sorry, sorry. I might. My name is AJ.” - AJ
“Asia?” - Governor
“AJ.” - AJ
“A.J?” - Governor
“AJ. sir.” - AJ
“A&J, what a great name.” - Governor
“Thank you.” - AJ
“Are you from [city]?” - Governor
“Um, no, I was born in West Africa and we moved to Dallas when I was two years old.” - AJ
“What part of West Africa?” - Governor
“Benam, It's right on, like, the horn of the coast. It's right next to Nigeria.” - AJ
“What is it? I've been all over Africa.” - Governor
“It's right next to Nigeria, it’s a French speaking country right on the coast. Beautiful.” - AJ
“Oh, you’ve been back home?” - Governor
“Once It's been a very long time.” - AJ
“What's the name of the country?” - Governor
“Benam, BENIN” - AJ
“Sure, I've been there, I started the Global Fund to find AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. That program has saved 63 million people from dying from me. One of my biggest accomplishments. I say that just because it's helped somebody people. So what's your question, AJ? And what do you want to do? What are you taking up in school?” - Governor
“I'm actually also studying journalism, advertising, and media…” - AJ
“Oh my God! What do you think of Wyatt?” - Governor
“I've never met either of them. I’m also a junior and my minor’s in political science. I hoping…” - AJ
“You're like Wyatt! Wyatt, you got two beautiful ladies, you call both next week or this week and talk to them, all right?” - Governor
“Nice, ice breaker!” - Wyatt
“Yeah, the goal is to go into investigative reporting or political press work of some sort. Question mark.” - AJ
“Good, good for you!” - Governor
“Um, my question for you was, after accomplishing so much, obviously, like, you were just speaking about, in the world that we currently are, that is so partisan and opposing and like just full of, I guess, disarray and disappointment and kind of difficult to make things work for you, kind of in the sense by Wyatt was saying, like, there seems to be a gap of what used to be able to do versus what you can do now. What motivates you to continue bleeding in a world that isn't the most agreeable?” - AJ
“Because it's the right thing to know. I mean I've had success. much beyond what anybody ever expected from. I was not supposed to leave my small hometown in Elroy, population 1500. And I had just been extremely lucky. And when you're lucky and you have a lot of things given to you, the right thing to do is to give it back and the right thing to do is to try and build. And I keep going back to this building. The right thing to do is to try and build a society that's better and try to help people that are less fortunate then you are. And as I've said, I've been very fortunate, and I like- I love helping people. And I love trying to change politics, because I know there's a better way. Instead of fighting, it's better you know to belong to the winning party after you win and do what you ran for it. Serve the people, and serve your job and try and accomplish things. You'll feel so much better being able to say, you know, you got something done. It's going to benefit, maybe half a dozen people, maybe one person, but you benefited something. And use your power to do that. It's fantastic. And that's what people don't- right now they in society and in politics, especially, people want to tear down. They don't want to build, they don't want to make society better, they want to tear it down because they think that benefits their political party or their political philosophy. I beg to differ with everybody that's in that belief. And I want to try and change it. That's why I'm fighting so hard to try and change it. That's why you know, when a candidate comes up to me, I said: ‘Tell me this. What do you want to do?’ And it's amazing they got a blank look a mile running in front of the assembly. Well, what do you want to accomplish? Well, if I don't win, the guy with that Thompson shirt on it over there, you may win, and he's bad. No, you're not. You, I love your shirt…” - Governor
“I have to interrupt.” - stern lady
“What? - Governor
“I have to take you.” - stern lady
“Well, I'm just getting started.” - Governor
“I know. I know. You have other things.” - stern lady
“But anyway, you gotta do that. And the next time, you have a candidate come up to you. Ask them what they want to accomplish. And then, when they say that they're running because you're better than that, then your opponent, ask that candidate: ‘Tell me three good things about your opponent.’ They'll pass out…”
[laughter]
“...But just ask him. Just tell me three things, that Amber's good for. And you, you know, they can't do it. In your case, they could. But I'm, I'm just saying, ask that question. Can I have one final question or no?“ - Governor
“No- One quick.” - stern lady
“Quick. Yeah. Okay!” - Governor
“We have to keep going!” - stern lady
”Quick question. Quick answer!” - Laura
“Quick question.. Yeah, sir. Major.” - Seraphim
“Very nice meeting you. Where are you from?” - Governor
“I'm from Brookfield.” - Seraphim
“Hey, sir. What's your question?” - Governor
“So, I used to be in the military, and there were a lot…” - Seraphim
“Where did you serve?” - Governor
“I was in the Navy, you're in the army?” - Seraphim
“Captain.” - Governor
“Oh, I'm a second class officer. But so we have a lot of culture about leadership. What were the biggest failures you felt that like, was a part of your leadership skill, that like you had to tweak as like your career, like light on?” - Seraphim
“I had many failures, more failure than success, but you don't, I don't rely on it. I don't on my failures. I want to talk about my success. I about how I can be helpful to people. Why be negative? be positive! You got everything going, you’re from Brookfield. You're in that elite group of people serving on the field, you're in college, you’re in the navy, you've got everything going for you. So you can talk to me about your success. Not be about your failures!” - Governor
[POST SPLIT INTO MULTIPLE PARTS DUE TO CHARACTER LIMIT]

 

[GemersonLakeAndPalmer]

November 5th, 2025 (Continued): We got kicked out then sadly because he went to speak with some VIP people. I went to hang out with Pen Guy, Mahdi, and this one person who paged in the US senate, he told me the nicest person in the Senate: Katie Britt, she’s always nice. Biggest asshole went to: Mitt Romney in private like most Mormons he said. Tom Cotton was a complete asshole regardless. He detailed this humiliation ritual he would make the pages go through, with one line standing out:
“Tickets to my office.”
Mike Shumway Lee is a nice guy also. John Fetterman needs things digitized for him because he had a stroke, like you can’t just go up to him and ask him a question, you need to speak into this phone which transcribes stuff and then he’ll answer your question. Mahdi was working on game developer trying to get things to save for his RPG. I swear I saw Logan working today but when I went to get my QR code scanned, I checked his nametag and it was for a guy named Mark, I felt foolish. I went inside and got to pick our seats. I sat down next to Markus’ brother and another guy in Markus’ brother’s group. The speech went on for a while and I wrote down my railway question on my card and handed it to this woman. The Governor mentioned this issue with some stuff about a veto he had to make rendering an issue with a friend of his. During the speech, Markus’ brother was browsing Xitter mostly, he liked some hayasaka_aryan tweets and another one by Joshua Connor Moon’s account. I knew he had a KiwiFarms account, now to figure it out. The governor didn’t answer my question. I saw Liseuxa after the former governor completed his speech and she told me the good news that my company wants an interview set up.” After wading through the crowd, we finally talked to the former governor. I told him my mom says hi and that she made him irish bread on St. Patrick’s day. He told me:
“Tell her I said hi!”
I did and got my picture taken with him with Liseuxa holding my camera. I took one for Liseuxa with her very thick phone. It was around 8:35pm so I saw Liseuxa go to Markus’ brother and meet them. I said bye to them all and walked home, took a shower at 9:00pm. When I got out I cut myself a slice of pumpkin bread to satiate my hunger and checked what my family said in the Whatsapp groupchat. Dad brought up never meeting the current governor while my mom mentioned that my sister and I were at the current governor’s first inauguration ball and shook his hand, when my sister asked him what his thoughts were on school choice, Tony said:
“I don’t have an opinion, sorry!”
I found it hilarious. I finally went to sleep.

Song of the Day: Everything I Own - Bread (1972)

 

[GemersonLakeAndPalmer]

November 6th, 2025: Another day of classes. I woke up and had 2 softboiled eggs with 2 slices of pumpkin bread. I checked my mail to see if my new debit card had arrived yet and I still don’t have anything to use. I packed up and got dressed before walking to the library on campus. I stopped at the cheap coffee place along the way and bought myself a $1.00 cup of coffee. When I got to the library I plugged in my headphones and went to transcribing the governor’s speech from yesterday. I recorded 35 minutes of conversation exactly and got done with 20 minutes and 23 seconds at 10:20am, I browsed KiwiFarms more until I went to the outside of my first class at 10:45pm. I sat down with the girl from my German class and we discussed the upcoming fair, I gave her 1 ticket she could take to get in and continued writing in my diary. At 11:00am the fat girl posted on her story about a mini golf bar accessible by this route to be shut down. I replied:
>They’re cutting route 55…
And she replied in what I thought was an angry tone:
<oh let me just kms
<i got someone in the comments being like "iT'S oVeR aN hOuR bY bUs"
context clues would tell you it's 20 min driving :)
And the conversation continued:
>I don’t have a car but it looks fun!
>I didn’t mean to be mean.
<no no you're good
<the other person in the comments is the one that's pissing me off
>Tell them it’s an hour and 8 minutes exactly.
>[Map by bus from the two locations]
<amazing
>Post this image.
>Is it open on Saturdays?
<yes, just no bingo
I continued writing but didn’t talk to her much. A bit later I got her Instagram and she had 8 followers, quite few compared to my roughly 500. A bit later at 11:16am, Lizzo and her friend came out, I said hi to Lizzo and asked her how she’s doing, she replied:
“Hey Gemerson! I’m trying not to kill myself right now!”
In the middle of the hallway that people were using. I comforted her:
“If you need to talk I’m here!”
I waved bye to her and her friend, then I went into my class. We did some more bingo exercises (on a 4x4 grid instead of 5x5 and no free space in the middle) and I got partnered up with the A10 girl for the two way prepositions again. I got out at 12:45pm and stopped by the bank to get 10 dollars in $1s. I got to the bus stop and talked with Onyx for a bit, I found out he’s graduating this fall. I got on the bus at 1:07pm but 2 stops later, this old Black guy had to get on in his mobility scooter and he took longer than usual for someone who needs to move up the disabled row. At 1:15pm, NT got onto the bus, we didn’t talk. The Black guy in the mobility scooter got off. I ended up at work at 1:35pm and clocked in a minute later. I went over for lunch and got mac and cheese pizza. I did see Joy and Portia come in from lunch when I got back. Seth M and Ahwahn went out to get lunch again. But most of my day consisted of making signs for the Latinx lady. I snuck a little chess.com in again. The Ukrainian man had some chocolates from this brand called АВК, a company created in 1991 after Ukrainian independence. I tried one and it had wafer filling in it which I loved. The Ukrainian man was glad about that. I asked Seth M for things to do and he had nothing. I was called into Zach A’s office to continue work on the van tracking Google form which resulted in me having to catch a later bus while waiting with Ahwahn. Shima C came into Zach A’s office later and I left at 4:21pm and got to my stop. The up and coming sushi place now has its LED sign up and active. I caught the bus home 2 minutes later. I got in and worked on my report due tomorrow morning. We had no group meeting for our capstone preparation. Dinner was mac and cheese with milk, I didn’t leave any leftovers. At 8:17pm I messaged Lizzo on Snapchat:
>Would you like to talk about what’s been bothering you in your life?
Reading it with only the context of the Snapchat discussion makes it sound too probing and passive aggressive. I continued transcribing the speech the governor gave when at 8:28pm, I got a notification that Oriang and Nash were playing pool on campus so I walked out to join them. On my way there I saw Dollar Store Asuka, I said hi to her and she shouted back:
“Hiiiii! Get home safe!”
I corrected her:
“Actually I’m not heading home right now!”
I didn’t see her at that point and got in to watch Oriang and Nash play Morgado and this other guy. The other guy talked to me in the same way someone might talk to the special ed kid in class so that put me off. Oriang and Nash won so I left at 9:04pm to walk home. I got back and received this message from Lizzo:
<Honestly not really
<I got a therapist tho so I am trying
Just like I absolutely suck at evangelizing, I absolutely suck at helping others mentally. I took a shower and went to sleep. At 11:51pm: I woke up suddenly remembering my debate exercise for Greek Mythology is due tonight at 11:59pm, I panicked until I realized that it's actually on Friday. And so to bed.

Song of the Day: The Kid Is Hot Tonite - Loverboy (1980)

 

[GemersonLakeAndPalmer]

November 7th, 2025: Final day of the workweek today. I set my alarm clock for 6:00am but only got out of bed at 6:30am. I had 2 softboiled eggs for breakfast with the last slice of pumpkin bread. I was dwindling down in supplies for lunch so I just packed the last of my squid ink spaghetti. I got some coffee with the Italian creamer. I got on the bus at 8:05am and it was already somewhat crowded at this point with all the people going to work. I got off and into work, the door for my office branch is working now, so good news I can get in and out at the start of the day, the bad news is I need my key fob to get in and out. I messaged Dollar Store Asuka:
>Were you also going to campus?
She replied and started the conversation:
<no
>Were you going home?
<nah to a friends place
>Imagine having friends
I went into the main office to start brewing coffee there. I did all that and found out that the Zimbabwean showed up today when he usually works from home. Interesting, I had to help one of the volunteers set up for an event, when I went into the meeting room for the event, I saw Shima C and another guy putting out bananas and oranges for all the people there. More people trickled into the lobby for the event and they were mostly brown Muslims. Some Black people, and plenty of kids. Later on while I was distracted on my phone, Zach A called me to his office and I thought I was getting a warning for that. I put my phone in my backpack to correct myself and I went over, turns out he was just checking in on progress with the van tracking form, I tested it again and it just sent me an email (from my own email account nonetheless) that showed the cost as $25.00 despite me putting numbers that should have resulted in getting $25.65. I checked the form's spreadsheet and whenever it would get a new entry, it would get the values from the cells below when it absolutely shouldn't. I used ChatGPT to help me and it gave me this rule for the column that I did for both on the spreadsheet. Zach A was satisfied and wanted me to later add something which calculates the cost for each department. That should be easy. I went out and got in a game on chess.com and then went inside the main office to do my IT rounds, in the printer room I saw Staples wearing a headband and told her:
"With your headband, you look like someone from the 1960s."
She laughed and then left. When I was over by Tia's room she came out and told me:
"Your friend is coming in for an interview on Monday."
Which I was quite glad about. The Latinx lady came over to my desk and asked me to help transcribe this large word document into this glitchy website where I had to add the name and the price, there were only 14 rows somehow despite multiple different tables having more than that, and for one example the Latinx lady gave me, it had the item and the price in the same cell in both columns to save space. I was hungry at that time and it was around 11:30am that I started and completed at 12:15pm and then went to the main office to heat up lunch, I dumped my spaghetti into a bowl that couldn't hold it well enough and put it in for 1 minute, tried to stir it, and then put it in for another minute, I took it out and accidentally put on too much fine ground black pepper, the preground stuff so it tasted cheap. I carried it to the table at 12:30pm and sat with a volunteer, Elon, and the younger Ukrainian lady who got McDonalds, we didn't speak and I felt like vomiting due to how much pepper I put on. I had to drink so much water to make it tolerable, but I gave up and put the rest back in my food container. I noticed there were donuts still in the fridge so I grabbed one, but it was cold so I microwaved it for 30 seconds on a paper towel, I took it out and tried to bite it normally, it burned the roof of my mouth so I waited a minute and ate the white frosted donut holding it with the fork. This whole thing felt comedic. I later went back to my desk to read Wikipedia more and saw Ahwahn and Seth M coming back from grabbing lunch to eat it here with smoothies, I told them the story of the spaghetti issue and she gave me half of a slice of her roast chicken sandwich as compensation, I enjoyed the sandwich so much.. I was asked by the website guy to ask Ahwahn to take pictures of the doctor speaking at the food distribution event, I went over and whispered to her but she told me:
"My phone storage is full."
I went to tell the website guy about that when Ahwahn motioned to me to cut it out. I thought what she was doing was dumb. I went back and told the website guy about that. Kiana and Keke were complaining about some dumb shit. I went to Seth M's office for some reason I forgot and then saw the Zimbabwean working in the breakroom for that office, I told him there's donuts in the main office's fridge and we went together, he instead got coffee for himself and talked to this other employee about potentially getting a coat from the basement for himself. I checked in the board room where the event was and there was trash everywhere, I picked a piece up and saw that there was one Capri Sun pouch left, I didn't drink it nor touch it. I went back to my desk to email the Latinx lady that I got it all transcribed. She told me I had to correct some names for items and did that quickly before sending it back to her. Harmony C came into the website guy's office to discuss getting the Zimbabwean wanting to do data analytics for our company, potentially getting on full time, as he had completed the database with Seth M's help. I had little to do until I got out at 4:18pm and clocking out, I walked over to the bus stop and waited a while before getting on. I took it home while it was getting dark and got into my apartment, I saw that I got a letter from my bank and took it upstairs before walking to the nearest grocery store. I walked a bit until I realized I forgot my new card. I walked back home to open it and realize it's just a bank statement. No card, but I found multiple $50 bills in my black metal drawer. I took one and walked over to the small grocery store, passing by 2 women walking their dogs. I got in and things were actually kind of expensive, the pasta was also so I ended up getting 3 small grapefruits to eat. I got charged $1.59 for them and the cashier put them down as oranges. I said goodbye to him and walked home with my 3 grapefruits. I cut one grapefruit in half and poured some sugar on the exposed parts. I got to work on my Greek mythology assignment and completed half of it before finishing my first grapefruit and cooking some risotto I had laying around. I watched YouTube on the TV and then ate all the risotto. I continued with the assignment and completed it at 8:30pm. I wrote in my blog more and took a shower, I had a noticeable amount of hair come out while washing it. I'm pretty sure I'm balding. I checked online and it said the chance of me going bald is influenced by my dad's hair, he's not bald at all, but my dad's dad is but not finished balding yet. My maternal grandfather's hairline comes into play, he wasn't finished balding at 89. My mother's brothers were also some people to look at (neither of them are bald). But I noticed there was no white ends on the hairs thankfully. Another symptom was hair on my pillow when I wake up in the morning, which I never noticed, although I should clean my pillowcases soon regardless. I spent the rest of the night writing in my blog before publishing it. I ate a second grapefruit with sugar on it before going to sleep.

Song of the Day: Gold - Spandau Ballet (1983)

 

[GemersonLakeAndPalmer]

November 8th, 2025: I woke up at 8:00am with no hair on my pillow, thankfully, I then got up and grabbed some cash I had and walked to the convenience store. I bought some cereal and that’s about it there. I walked back home and had breakfast. I got on my desktop to play some more heavily modded Minecraft. I spent most of it building houses for villagers before it got to roughly 11:00am and I realized I should head outside and explore some today. I got my brown leather jacket, my black carpenter’s union beanie, and some dark grey gloves. I started walking over at 11:30am and just missed the bus because I took a detour to fill out SuperLocalMaps some more. I walked down to the stop that was next to a gas station and spent most of my time picking up trash with my gloves on until the next bus came by. I paid with 2 $1s and spent most of my time on my phone, it took like 40 minutes to get to my bus stop to get off at. I hopped off at the eastern end of the soon to be canceled bus line. I walked to the gas station and waved at a grandma watching me through the window of her house, she waved back. In the gas station was this Malaysian guy and I bought a watermelon flavored Monster energy with Dorito’s offbrand takis for lunch. I ate them and went back in to get napkins (I ate the takis without my hands) and got on the bus. I waited for a bit and then opened up my laptop and got to writing, it took like an hour to get to the end and along the way I spotted some people like a guy with lots of piercings in his face with headphones on pretending to play the drums until he got off, and an old guy with crossed eyes. I went past the place the girl talked to me about on November 6th, and then I got off at 1:10pm, I walked to the gas station to get a strawberry cream flavored Dr. Pepper, the Indian cashier let me keep a penny which I felt weirdly happy about. I wandered to this parking lot to take a picture of me pointing at a highway sign and captioned it:
>The elites don’t want you to know this but you can ride busses to their ends for fun
I posted at 1:18pm and then got back on the bus heading westward. The first people to get on were this old White lady with her daughter who had the frumpy miserable White woman who dated Black men phenotype, and her mixed race son. I saw a few people get on and off before hopping off at my stop. I did a detour and walked to the library to go to the bathroom there. It was a fancy town and I walked more until I got to the bus stop where I heard this guy say:
“I need a Miller Lite and 10 tacos!”
I got on the bus and continued writing all the way until I got back home. I hopped off the bus and messaged the girl from 2 days ago saying:
>By the way I passed the place on my bus ride today!
She liked my story but didn’t reply to my message. Xiuhcoyotl aka @ecstasy replied to my story with:
<bvilt
Because I was mimicking the signjak pose.
I got home and watched some more One Piece, I got Velveeta Mac N Cheese cups for dinner and ate my last grapefruit before taking a shower and going to sleep.

Song of the Day: Another One Bites The Dust - Queen (1980)

 

[Idkchud]

frozen peas won btw

 

[GemersonLakeAndPalmer]

frozen peas won btw

What is the context of this?

 

[Idkchud]

What is the context of this?

cooked peas taste bad

 

[Apeson]

frozen peas won btw

are you like, eating them cold?

 

[GemersonLakeAndPalmer]

cooked peas taste bad

Why do you think this? How old are you? Where do you live?

 

[Idkchud]

are you like, eating them cold?

I'm eating them frozen

Why do you think this? How old are you? Where do you live?

genetics

 

[GemersonLakeAndPalmer]

I'm eating them frozen

genetics

How many do you eat frozen at a time?

 

[GemersonLakeAndPalmer]

November 9th, 2025: Sunday today, I woke up at 7:30am and got out of bed to have cereal for breakfast. I looked outside to see snow on the ground overnight. I turned on my computer to start watching One Piece more. I got in 2 episodes of One Pace and then at 9:30am I got dressed for church, I walked over at 10:00am and got in at 10:15am. Kristine was handing out the things for mass when I volunteered to be the reader and she didn’t turn me down. I chose the first reading. Ezekiel 47:1-2, 8-9, 12:
☛1 Then he brought me back to the door of the temple; and behold, water was issuing from below the threshold of the temple toward the east (for the temple faced east); and the water was flowing down from below the south end of the threshold of the temple, south of the altar.
☛2 Then he brought me out by way of the north gate, and led me round on the outside to the outer gate, that faces toward the east; and the water was coming out on the south side.
☛8 And he said to me, “This water flows toward the eastern region and goes down into the Arabah; and when it enters the stagnant waters of the sea, the water will become fresh.
☛9 And wherever the river goes every living creature which swarms will live, and there will be very many fish; for this water goes there, that the waters of the sea may become fresh; so everything will live where the river goes.
☛12 And on the banks, on both sides of the river, there will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not wither nor their fruit fail, but they will bear fresh fruit every month, because the water for them flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food, and their leaves for healing.”
I sat near the entrance to the chapel and some more people came in like Mahdi, Markus and Markus’ brother, Morgado, Oriang, Kalifornia, Nash, Drawmij, Drawmija, and also Zephyr. I waved to Zephyr and she waved back. While up at the lectern practicing my reading, there was some contention between Elijah and Frociaggine on whose acolyting, they came to the conclusion they’re both gonna do it when I said:
“I would go with you two both serving.”
And Frociaggine replied:
“Dude we already know!”
Elijah wasn’t hostile to me at all. I went to sit down with Markus ending up next to me. I went through with the mass and the reader after me was the married girl’s sister’s boyfriend, the sister was the only person at mass out of 45ish people, so like 25 women. The homily mentioned that today’s the feast of the dedication of the Archbasilica of Saint John Lateran, the actual name of it is Major Papal, Patriarchal and Roman Archbasilica, Metropolitan and Primatial Cathedral of the Most Holy Savior and Saints John the Baptist and the Evangelist in Lateran, Mother and Head of All Churches in Rome and in the World. There was no Saint John Lateran, the Lateran refers to the powerful family that gave them the land. The priest was talking about the temple as mentioned by Ezekiel and his the slaughter of 100,000s of sheep when he asked how many gallons of blood does a human have, I said:
“Five liters!”
And everybody laughed, some guy next to me told me he asked for gallons and I wanted to tell him to stop. But I did nothing, I saw Henry and his girlfriend a few rows up. I went up with my arms crossed and then prayed a bit before going out to get my second breakfast. I got in line behind Zephyr and asked her about her hat.
“I got it from a thrift store.”
She casually remarked, she seemed pissed off at me so I avoided her. Turns out Henry’s girlfriend and Married girl’s sister went to the same elementary school. I talked with Henry for a bit and then left at 12:00pm. I got back home and continued watching One Pace for a couple of episodes until I just felt depressed and stuck in life like I can’t change the trajectory my life is on, only the other people in my life can do this and they hate me. I paced around my apartment a lot. At 4:35pm I decided to text Lizzo:
>Do you watch/read One Piece.
>I just got back into Wano.
I went out to catch the bus to the grocery store to buy stuff, I walked a bit to the grocery store and spotted Rama outside on the way, I waved to him and he waved back. I got on the bus and off later before getting 2 boxes of bow tie pasta, 2 boxes of fettuccine, a gallon of milk, arrabbiata sauce, 18 eggs, and a 6 pack of ramen, I got screwed over by the bus so I had to walk all the way home. I continued to watch One Piece via One Pace until I got to episode 9 of Wano (rip off Japan), I had the rest of my mashed potatoes mix until 6:30am when Luigi posted in the groupchat:
<We are having a Study-a-thon tonight! We begin at 7:30! Be an academic weapon.
I went over at 7:15pm and got there at 7:25pm with my backpack in tow. I went downstairs and accidentally interrupted one of Father Aquinas’ Catholic initiation classes. I saw Agaw, Markus’ brother, and Nash there. But I went upstairs to see the others actually for the study session, including Oriang, Luigi, and Upsilon, the deal was that we were to sign this board laying out the study sessions, usually 30 minutes of silence and then 10 minutes for a break. I said I’d be there until 10:30pm. We started it and we all got focused, I started by completing my Art history quizzes due tomorrow followed by my German quizzes. I got to my first break and we talked more, I learned from someone that the UW-Madison Newmann center is cult-like, the topic naturally shifted to Magdalus, and at 8:09pm, this guy said his sister taught school in the city of Madison for 7th graders and they straight up had to learn words like ‘marginalized’ and ‘transgender’ are the two I remember but the others were either DEI woke buzzwords or “How the fuck does a 13 year old not know this”. But I continued with learning about Ancient Greece and finishing up my German stuff for the second study session, by the time that ended. We were talking more and Luigi said to me in public:
“Gemerson, you're a fun addition to the Catholic center, we’re gonna miss you when you graduate.”
I half whispered half bemoaned:
“Really wish y’all would show that appreciation now.”
There was discussion of how many exes people had, Luigi was one, Oriang and Upsilon were both at zero, This other guy and I were at two, and this last person was at six, this was the guy who talked about pregaming (getting drunk before) the upcoming dance. I found it funny. I paid some money for Oriang to order us Insomnia cookies and got the mint chocolate chip cookie. At 9:00pm the people from downstairs came out of their class and Markus’ brother, Nash, and the priest got the modded Wii working with the USB loader GX, which only had one game, Super Smash Bros Brawl. I downloaded more Wii isos, including: Wii Sports + Wii Sports Resort, Super Mario Galaxy, Super Mario Galaxy 2, New Super Mario Bros Wii, and Mario Kart Wii. I got them done but I tried taking the SSD drive plugged into the Wii and using it for my laptop and it wouldn’t recognize them. A bit later Nash asked me for everybody in the room to hear:
“By the way, where did you take the bus to yesterday?”
I told them all how sometimes I ride the bus for fun and I could feel the weirding out that I caused amongst them. I ended up leaving a bit early after annoying Oriang a bit and got home, I took a shower, and went to sleep.

Song of the Day: High Hopes - Panic! at the Disco (2018)

 

[GemersonLakeAndPalmer]

November 10th, 2025: I woke up at 6:30am and had cereal along with coffee, I caught the bus at 8:11am and got in a bit late, I brewed coffee for the team and got to my desk to clock in, I sipped coffee there until 9:00am when I remembered the Monday meeting and ran over, sitting next to the Polish lady and the CEO was there before me. This is his speech I recorded:
“Morning. Oh, man. I'm looking a little tired today. It's because I got all my vaccines for the fall in the winter. Oh, man, I am wiped out! I had all three at once on the weekend. So that I have again, but you know, take care of yourselves, this stuff is still going around, you know, flu and whatnot, so take the necessary precautions that work for you. Umm I'm up to three times a week now, probably going to be unless there’s meetings probably like Monday, Wednesday, Thursdays. I'll be here half a day and then the rest of the time working at home. I produce quite a few artifacts already, but probably by time we get past HFF I’ll probably be here full time, so far risk is moving along. On a side note, the team said they'll be able to get me back on my bike in a couple of weeks.”
“That's an extraordinary recovery!” - Elon
“I'm on the upper end of the curve, you know, so that's cool. I like to hold that up. Let's push new boundaries, right? But I do what they tell me, so I'm doing good. And yes, I do ride in the winter after this really cool thin high tech material. So I dress and things that look lighter than this, but you heat up. If you're just standing there inside, so you got to go outside and work out. So it breathes, but you do heat up quite a bit. So it's really cool gear. It's a real thin material. It wasn't cheap, but it works great. So that being said, generating artifacts, I just want to point out that when I was reporting to the board and I realized that it probably is not a bad idea for me to look at my notes and talk about what I had said about when we work from home producing artifacts, that kind of thing. The artifacts are actually a result of something you provide. So it can't just be whereabouts it needs to be tied with something that you do. and there has to be some kind of result for it. So for me, it's pretty easy. I have a lot of contracts and whatnot. I have to sign a lot of emails with directions with outside community, inside community, communications award, I'm on the phone quite a bit. I do have, I pulled down form directors, but I probably should get in the habit of saying with a phone call a lot, just to be thorough, but Most of the time, I have my notes on the phone calls here, so I think it might be nuts. But that being said, just make sure that when you work from home, that you work out with supervisor, what is the item you're producing that goes along with your effect that shows that work was being done because the reason why I bring this up is that we're in the midst of signing MYUs, and we have to actually show that we're working with clients. [coworker], for example, you're doing some really good historical shoring up things and you know, saying, this is what we did, when it was done, this goes to your knowledge. So [coworker] is quietly working in the background, producing results here, but I'm certain that you're always thinking about and I appreciate the work you're doing to keep the work is going because the state and the feds, they look at our records of how many clients we take a look at what are the services we’re providing, are they hitting the scope of services and the cooperative agreement, and what was the quality of the care? And then based on that, they do the rewards and also pass history how much an award and whatnot. So you'll see some organizations, they have a lot of people. If they don't perform, they'll give less money and they workforce reduces because you can't pay for people. You guys have been really good. We've been expanding the whole time that I've been here pretty much. We had a little bit of a hiccup once, but we're on the upswing yet. And I appreciate all the work you guys are doing. It's just the reminder. It makes my- I'm gonna be selfish here. It makes my job a lot easier when I go look for funding from the community or from granting agencies. So I'm going to keep up the good work on the documentation and then always look for ways to make it better, right? There's always ways to make your documents better. So we'll take a look at that. Funding on the horizon, we're still in a holding pattern oversight community Committees are on hold because of the way the government is working right now. I do see rumblings in [5 letter acronym] that they're ramping up so they must know something. Whenever I see a national agency start to hire, that's usually a good sign, so I keep my coats high on that. So hopefully it's something that will positively affect us. They do more than what we do with them. They do unaccompanied minors, they have refugee camps, they do a lot of things, so they were doing women’s health, abroad, that type of thing. So it would be neat to see what else can we do with the [5 letter acronym] That'd be really neat. And I think once the dust settles in the next two years, I think the legal landscape is probably going to be opened up, so to speak, and there's probably going to be a bigger need than what we can actually handle by ourselves, so that's a good that's a good sign. And so just as I see things happening, I'll let you guys know. I suspect I might hear things right around HFF. Most likely in January, February, those time frames, but we have funding that's carrying us all the way to June, for the most part, right itself?
“Yes.” - the Latinx lady
“June, so, and then the [3 letter acronym] goes all the way through, you know, the next year. So [3 letter acronym] is probably the most stable though there's some reductions there, so that's good. So I just keep on thinking about what else can we do for the clients? There's no bad ideas. It's just what is well hanging through. What can we do first? So we'll look at that together. So no bad ideas to start from the supervisor. Any questions before I turn over to the Latinx lady?”
“Who's, who was the name? [3 letter acronym]?” - Elon
“[explanation] [5 letter acronym]. They're a national agency. They're not government, but they're a national agency that actually works with the OSS and they used to work with [PM] I very closely with just population of refugees and migrants. and they get money awarded by those two agencies, and then they distribute it to their agencies, their network part of their network. the Latinx lady, I think is what, 36 or 37 in their network?”
“Yes.” - the Latinx lady
“Yeah.”
“They work about 40, but now three less. 37.” - the Latinx lady
“So and I think this is a a good time to point it out. We're held as one of the we're regarded very highly at [5 letter acronym] right now. Much of it is due to the good work the [2 letter acronym] team. So thank you, MG. Thank you so much. And I also thank [2 letter acronym] as well, so [2 letter acronym] as well. And that's where much of the money for people that are arriving is coming through because that's the only mechanism I got dismantled, I laugh because it's stressful. Otherwise I'd cry. So I think we really need to take a look at what else can we do for our clients and tell our local community and then we might be able to get some funds that way. I know Diego, you're looking at grants from local foundations here. It's a long process. But just keep on thinking about what we could do and we'll see what's out there and what we can actually dovetail into what we do. We're human services, basically. So But that being said before our t, we need to concentrate on the fair. So whatever the Latinx lady is saying we're going to do, I actually come to her and say, the Latinx lady, what am I doing?’ She's got her finger on the pulse and a director for that event, and their TV radio spots are going really well. I go directly to those spots, I think I have a couple of these this week. And then as we get closer, I start doing like two, three, 4:00am. the TV spots, those are hard. So you got to look chipper and you're not, so it's actually kind of fun, though. I mean, the people who work, That’s their jobs and they have their own pattern already, so they're really excited, so they bring some energy. I just hope it's a warm fair for the temperature wise, so. And I guess one announcement, just for fun, because I'm so proud. My daughter's actually going to have a cultural book this year, so it's gonna be fun to see what she does. She's already correcting my Tlingit language, so she's outstripping me and she's getting asked to get her certificate so she can teach the Tlingit language at the college level. So she's really good. A little powerhouse. Just like her mom.So any questions about a holiday folk here? I'll direct it to the Latinx lady.”
[POST SPLIT IN HALF DUE TO CHARACTER LIMIT]

 

[GemersonLakeAndPalmer]

November 10th, 2025 [continued]: We went around and did our speaking. The topic shifted to getting October and November birthdays updated. Someone mentioned Edgar was born November 1st and Joy was born sometime November. I mentioned that Zach A’s birthday was November 27th, 1996 exactly, I got a laugh from the office and Harmony C told me:
“You’re not supposed to mention the year they’re born.”
I then joked by saying my full birthday (September 8th, 2003)
I found out some stuff like the Zimbabwean is getting his masters in Computer Information Science. After that we went to the break room to eat bagels, I told Joy she should get a raspberry one with the strawberry cream cheese on top and we toasted ours together. One employee asked me if I had photographic memory due to me remembering Zach A’s birthday. I said no. I got to my desk to work some more until 10:35am when I left to head to campus. On campus I got a 3rd cup of coffee for $1.00 and then ordered a new debit card. It took a while to get my card, like 2 minutes, but when I got it, I noticed issues with the black strip on the back with the printing. I walked to my first class and outside I saw the married girl’s sister talking to her boyfriend, who will now be dubbed Lewis instead of fucking married girl’s younger sister’s boyfriend. Lewis and his girlfriend talked a bit before going inside. I spent most of the lecture at the back of the hall until we had to go to the discussion where we had all the fun. We got to see some authentic Orthodox icons, I got partnered up with this one girl from class and I had an absolute blast talking about the Christ Pantocrator and the Hodegetria. I talked a bit with the teacher and my partner about it during discussion but I think she was starting to find me annoying. I left after saying bye to Macie’s friend. I got some pot stickers and a free sandwich from an event and ate them before heading back to work. I got in and clocked in to start working on the new ID cards because the whole reason why I wasn’t getting the cards is that the website guy kept using my intern email even though I’m not an intern anymore. AND I TOLD HIM THIS MULTIPLE TIMES. But I was helping a woman up front with her label printer when Liseuxa came in for her interview and met Staples and Tia. I shook hands with Liseuxa and that’s about it for the work day. I got out and took the bus home and had ramen with 2 eggs for dinner. I was plagued by how much everyone I know hates me, not a single person, friend or family I could say reaches out to me in my entire fucking life. I ended up going to this event celebrating the Packers game with free chicken tenders and ended up being bait and switched by the Green Bay girl when she would randomly try to ask me something and then get all dry. I feel like I’m being groomed by the feds, I was the only one to sit at the event alone. I only saw Swifte there. I went home, and started watching the film that was due tomorrow but only 51 minutes of it. I took a shower, and went to sleep.

Song of the Day: Arabian Nights - Siouxsie and the Banshees (1981)

 

[GemersonLakeAndPalmer]

November 11th, 2025: Another day of classes, work, and mental torture, also it’s Veteran’s day. I spent most of my morning finishing up the movie in the living room when James came back from ROTC and brewed himself coffee while I watched the movie. He didn’t mind but I continued writing in the Google doc while watching the movie, pausing and rewinding sometimes. I got done at 8:45pm and walked to campus. I passed Day walking to the library but got coffee elsewhere. I got into the library to post on /n/ saying:
>My city is cutting bus routes starting in 2026, so tell me me/n/, do you ride bus routes for fun?
The only response I got was insane:
<I guess you could say that. I generally take the train one stop to the "good" grocery stores instead of the shit ones on my block but but but, sometimes I take citi bike and sometimes I take the bus and sometimes I walk, depending on how bored I am of the subway
<Bus passengers seem to fall into two categories: old people for whom the subway stops are too far apart, and younger people who are strange. I am not as young as I used to be but I would probably fall into the second category. But sometimes I see a young lady who seems fertile and mentally not all there, dressed in that tacky way that poor people always dress, and I think to myself, I could have that. I could knock her up and we could have a brief, mutually abusive relationship, and then I could pay child support after at least one of us ends up on the police blotter for a domestic. Probably me since I'm the male. That could be my life.
I then completed my Film 2 discussion project and here’s what I wrote:
>I watched Der ganz große Traum on November 10th and 11th, 2025
>The film is about Konrad Koch in 1874 Braunschweig bringing the sport of soccer to the German empire. The film starts off with Konrad Koch getting dropped off at the new school he is to teach. He gets acquainted with his class when one student, Jost, is disciplined for sawing a discipline rod in half. The lives of Felix and Jost are explored and contrasted. At an event later where Richard Hartung mocks his son, Richard and Konrad get into a debate about how to raise children. A bit later after being unable to connect with the students, Konrad takes his class to the gym, which the students then get the hang of. An issue of a student of Konrad’s correcting another teacher’s pronunciation leads them to investigate them playing soccer, where Jost accidentally kicks the ball into the choir director’s stomach, which requires him to go to the hospital, they have a meeting with Koch and as a result ban soccer. But Koch is not deterred so he starts to practice soccer with the boys at the local park. The boys then raise gymnasium equipment up while teacher Dr. Jessen is on it to trap him. The Retired officer Eugen zu Hohenlohe comes in to promote a career in the military despite missing part of his leg. The boys then do soccer on their own and get rounded up by the police of all people. Discussion during the meeting results in soccer being banned in the entire Duchy of Braunschweig and Konrad voluntarily resigning. Later in secret Felix hands Claasen a copy of the imperial school regulations to save the game just before Konrad is to resign. However, the news publishes negative articles about the sport leading to the parents to forbid them from playing the game. Konrad eventually comes with his friend, his friend’s English soccer team, and the imperial board to determine if soccer should be legal or not, resulting in most of the town coming. Konrad/s team ends up winning the game, leading to the game being legal.
>The film is about the fight for acceptance of the sport of soccer, whereas in the first film Mostly Martha, Italian cooking is far more accepted in Germany (due to it being set in the modern era) while English soccer is far less accepted due to the film taking place in 1874. Mostly Martha is somewhat about the connection between Germany and Italy while Der ganz große Traum is moreso about the relationship between England and Germany. There is a lot more conflict involved in the second movie with the more conservative members of the school, one of which is the Greek and Latin teacher who tries to get the sport banned multiple times. Another aspect not present in Mostly Martha is the themes of class conflict present between the bourgeoisie suck as Felix Hartung and his family and the proletariat such as Jost Bornstedt. Felix initially hates Jost but changes his mind after playing soccer with him and reconciles to represent the even playing field that soccer brings, another aspect that the more old fashioned teachers hate.
>An interesting relationship notable in the film is Jost Bornstedt’s relationship with Felix Hartung, they are 2 students at the same boarding school Konrad Koch teaches at, introduced by Felix telling the teacher that Jost cut the disciplinary rod in half, Felix hates Jost for being proletariat and has gotten into fights with Felix beforehand. Felix has the facade of a model student, even offering himself to be disciplined for a remark he made about Konrad, but in actuality he hates Konrad and says to Jost while stealing Jost’s shoes. Despite this, Felix has a thing for the lower-class maid Rosalie in his household and she gets kicked out of the household by Felix’s father. However the maid then proceeds to help keep lookout over Koch’s games and Felix proceeds to join Konrad despite the teachers and Richard not knowing and eventually warms up to Jost more on the soccer field. Later Jost comes to get Felix from his house when he was locked inside but Felix ends up falling and Jost has to flee. Eventually they are friends at the England vs Germany game and hug when Jost gets a goal at one point.
>I learned a lot about my own German skills during the movie, including that I’m much sreal womanger with the language that I thought I was, although this could be attributed to the subtitles enabled during the film. I recognized a lot of words like ‘Verboten’, ‘Medizinball’, ‘Bürgerlich’, ‘Proletariat’, and many others through the power of subtitles or words being identical in English and German. Many of the words in this film are ones that I would use in my everyday life if I lived in Munich, Bavaria instead of Milwaukee, Wisconsin and I was more sporty. I couldn’t really pick up on any regional accent in the film except for when the boys are trying to learn English.
>In Der ganz große Traum, the English model of fairness is heavily contrasted with the German model of strictness and discipline. In the German school, the students are disciplined heavily for any and all wrongdoings, including being struck on the backside of their hand for talking out of turn in class. The architecture is much more beautiful than today. There is more of an emphasis on fitness in general, but mostly Additionally, the Germans in the film show a great reverence towards the Kaiser (Frederick III at the time) in great contrast to the United States, where they hardly do so, even if they had voted for him.
>The five words I chose were: Gründete (found), Turnen (Doing gymnastics), Pionier (Pioneer), Beißen (to bite), and Flugeigenschaften (Aerodynamics)
>I really loved watching the film and my roommate even saw some of the film, he was somewhat invested while making breakfast, but I think he’s learning Japanese instead. I expected there to be less conflict in the film then there was but the whole thing about parts of Germany banning football up until 1927 in Bavaria of all places shocked me, I thought the conflict was exaggerated for drama, but it was only slightly.
[POST SPLIT IN HALF DUE TO CHARACTER LIMIT]

 

[GemersonLakeAndPalmer]

November 11th, 2025 [Continued]: Yeah it’s a lot. I got to my first class and was running low on my iPhone battery and computer battery so I had to pay attention for once in the semester but got out a bit early, I walked past Day on the path to my second class and said hi to her but she didn’t really respond enthusiastically. I got outside of my second class when I realized I didn’t have my German learning book. I started to read Sharpe’s Triumph because it’s what I had in my backpack. At 11:18am Lizzo and Laundrea (that’s what I’m calling her now) came out and Lizzo had somewhat shorter hair now, slightly above her shoulders. She told me that she regretted cutting her hair so short because she can’t put it up in a bun anymore but I didn’t think it was that bad. I said bye to them and then went into class to put my laptop in the charger at the right angle, but the orange dot next to the charger helped me. I was still frustrated because of various personal stuff and we had this game where one person had to turn their backs to the smartboard and the others would act out the German verb. I got pulled up and had to guess ‘schwach’ (weak) but I forgot that word and I gave up in frustration both times, but tried to keep myself subdued, eventually the guy sitting next to me passed me a note saying I did well and I silently motioned to him to say thank you. After that class was done, I texted Talia at 12:51pm:
>Why weren’t you at your class today?
We had this conversation:
<Wanted to work on a project for my job.
>Which project?
<I make five posts a week about current deals at the grocery store for which I manage an Instagram. These include pictures of the items on sale, and I just got access to a bunch of new pictures for the month of November.
I walked to my bus stop and said hi to Torvalds along the way. I got on the bus at 1:03pm and clocked into work at 1:26pm. I went over to the pizza place for lunch and had a slice of the California pizza, at 1:33pm I texted Lizzo:
>Do you and Laundrea want tickets to HFF? I got them for free.
She actually replied quickly:
<I will ask!
>Do you want one yourself?
>The food is kinda expensive at HFF.
<Nah
>Do you know anybody else who would take them?
No response after that… I went back to work and after sitting on the computer for a bit, Seth M had me make a list of all the Windows accounts in the system and their roles for an audit, actually it was somewhat easy with the Ukrainian man working on some of the other stuff. At 2:30pm I got handed a phone by Keke and it was the website guy. I saw Tia walking through the hallway and when going to see Seth M’s friend, I saw a very large drum in the Polish lady’s office. I asked Joy (nearest person) what it was and she told me it’s a Japanese drum. I printed out the first card front and back for Lillehammer but I went for the backsides of all the cards before I got a card printer error. I gave up until leaving at 4:00pm to catch the bus home, I got off, took my backpack off and got a bit more dressed up for mass, and walked over to mass. I got in and it turns out that there were a lot of people there, the Quad, Seraphim, Cliffe, Stearns, Markus, Markus’ brother, Swifte, Agaw, Mahdi, Oriang, Drawmij, Drawmija, Nash, Alley, Quinci, Sideburns’ cousin, Sydney, and lots of others, Elijah was serving for mass and unfortunately Mahdi invited Punk’s friend from the Halloween party who hates me. The single Black mom and her son were in the seat across from me. The priest gave a good homily that kind of spoke to me. When we went up for the Eucharist (for me just a blessing), the order goes: the choir then 1st row left, 1st row right, 2nd row left… all the way to the 5th row on the right, I was in the 4th row on the right so I was the first one in my row, but the Black single mom tried to enter line in front of me, I had to motion to her to wait as I got behind Markus’ brother who also got a blessing. I did a short prayer before heading upstairs to get ribs for dinner. The upstairs was packed but I got in early with Markus’ brother and I was served 1 set of ribs by Seraphim. I ended up sitting on the couch that they rearranged due to the extreme number of people here. I sat at the end of the couch just across from the Honduran, Markus, and Markus’ brother. I had 3 napkins for eating the ribs and I joked that I was being betrayed when Agaw sat at the table next to us instead of with us. At one point the Honduran said:
“I am the Nietzschean ideal of the Dionysian man!”
I instantly replied:
“Get a job!”
And the Honduran just kept laughing.
“That’s the appropriate response to that.”
I saw Punk’s friend look for a seat and I gave her the death stare for fun, she left. Markus called Mahdi to get him to sit with us and he said no, later I tried calling him to joke that he betrayed us but he didn’t answer, I walked over to find him with Pen Guy, Punk’s friend was also in the room and I made sure not to make eye contact with her. I asked Mahdi to pick up the phone whenever I call and he agreed. I left afterwards and walked home, completing my final German assignment for today before taking a shower and going to sleep.

Song of the Day: Yakety Yak - The Coasters (1958)

 

[GemersonLakeAndPalmer]

November 12th, 2025: Another day of classes and work, I got up at 7:30am and had froot loops for breakfast with milk. I didn’t brew myself coffee because I went onto campus and got coffee there. I passed by Lara’s friend and did a slight detour to say hi to her. I went to the library first but I realized I shouldn’t seclude myself on the 3rd floor out of sight of any windows, why there weren’t any there I have no idea. I walked out and back to the busy building, at 9:45am I encountered Lara’s friend back in her original spot and asked if I could sit next to her. She said she was studying but agreed. I was quiet for a bit waiting for my computer to charge when I started talking to her, she had her resume out and it was for a job at the San Diego zoo. I saw Zephyr in the distance working so I waved to her and she waved back. The conversation eventually turned to plants and she showed me this app called iNaturalist. I first took a picture of this bush outside and it said it was a conifer of the order Pinales. A minute later at 9:52am I took a picture of Lara’s friend with the app to see what I’d get. It identified her as a human but told me that moderators delete all photos of humans. She had to leave soon for her meeting at 10:15am but I left before that. I remembered it was my dad’s 58th birthday so I called him to wish him a happy birthday. He was grateful but the call was short. I entered my first class, Greek Mythology. We had a writing task for this class and here’s what I wrote down:
>1. The collective experience of fictional stories could help a society navigate real-life struggles through the power of distraction. Like the Leneia festival to help cope with through the power of comedy.
>2. One instance of the characters failing to maintain soprosunē is when Aphrodite sabotages Hippolytus’ life for the crime of not wanting to get married
>3. The concept of soprosunē is still relevant in society today because it isn’t being followed in the slightest yet needs to be.
While discussing the first question related to Euripides’ Hippolytus and my response, I asked if the place the play was set (Troezen) and the place it premiered (Athens) had harsh winters or not, the teacher told me that Athens experienced snow once every 10 to 20 years and Troezen was very closeby. My second class we went over Byzantine art and I fucking hate the 726 to 843 Iconoclastic period, I wish the pope ordered a crusade on those 60 IQ soulless cacaots. I went home and had Mac and cheese for lunch before taking the bus down to work. On the bus, Lizzo replied to my message I sent her on Snapchat on Sunday with:
<Thanks for offering but I'm good
I replied at 12:15pm:
>I was just asking if you watched it.
>+ you're welcome.
I had a note from the website guy that I needed to print the rest of the cards by tonight. I had to email him that the printer stopped working, I got Seth M in to help figure out the issue and it turns out his friend ordered a slightly different model that wasn’t compatible with the C50 card printer. I found out the C50 card printer is roughly $1,200 instead of $300 like I would guess. I accidentally removed the C50 printer from my laptop. I had to ask Seth M to re-add it like 7 times. I got it back and then I was able to print cards #33 and #34 out of #35 before the correct ink cartridge ran out. Seth M’s friend would have to order more. I proceeded to do some more writing. Joy gave me some Haribo gummy worms. I really appreciated her for that and thought of bringing her a whole bag tomorrow. I got called over by Harmony C to help her with her printer refusing to scan, I just unplugged the printer and plugged it back in, worked like a charm. At 4:09pm while browsing Instagram, I saw that Lewis’ girlfriend reposted a reel of a girl complaining about asocial boyfriends being on their phones while meeting the girlfriends family and I almost felt like laughing but I’m actually rooting for their relationship. I left at 4:11pm and just narrowly missed the crowded bus. I stood near the front with this girl going to Culvers, she smiled at me a few times and I said nothing until I worked up the courage to smile back at her and she asked me if I went to the same college as her, she said yes and saw me at the Halloween event where I walked through the woods (she’s one of the first actors), she couldn’t get into the dorms so she lived off campus, I brought up Lizzo being in the same situation. She was a sophomore in college while I was a senior. She’s ending work at 9:30pm and just as I was about to ask her what her Instagram was when she mentioned her storytelling class where she had to ask someone to tell a story so I got her phone number. At 4:31pm I texted her and started this conversation:
>Hello A V, this is Gemerson-Lake Palmer from the bus for the storytelling project.
<Hello Gemerson-Lake Palmer. I would love for you to tell me about an experience you’ve had in the city! Can be as short, or long, or detailed, or simple as you’d like! And the story won’t be shared with anyone unless you give me permission to use it as an example
>Will this be recorded as a speech or over text?
<Whichever way is more comfortable for you, I can collect it either way
>When is this due by, I could do an in person recording at the busy building on Saturday.
<It’s due the 17th. But it doesn’t need to be anything so complicated. For the project I need to report on my experience collecting stories rather than the stories themselves. I plan on taking note of general themes and whatnot, but I mostly need to record how I connected with people. Though I’d love to meet up with you either way.
>Ok! So can you do 9:00am on Saturday, November 15th?
<Would we be able to do 10:00am possibly? And would you still like to meet at the busy building?
>Yes and yes, I’m free all day Saturday.
<Perf, I’ll see you then!
I got off and then prepared for Magdalus’ Bible study. We studied the patriarchs such as Noah, Shem, and Abram, with Elijah coming in late as usual, and Sideburns also showed up. I had 2 slices of pizza and took some of the italian bread, buttered it, put the raspberries on it and mushed it around and ate it. I talked a bit and then went to Eucharistic adoration, I remember lots of people being there like Cliffe, Colon, Colon’s older friend, Nikki and her boyfriend, The South African and his girlfriend, Quinci, The Quad except for Gabriella. I left after getting confession from Father Palmer and got groceries including lettuce, mini-donuts, bananas, italian bread, and a yogurt drink (I’m constantly burping, relative to normal) and took the bus all the way home. I got back and read the news some more. The government shutdown finally ended today. Mitch McConnell snuck a provision into the budget bill which outlaws some hemp products, I hate that boomer cacaot so fucking much, at least the other Republican senator from Kentucky, Rand Paul, finally was right on something and called out his mental dummyation. I took a shower and went to sleep.

Song of the Day: Big Shot - Billy Joel (1978)

 

[GemersonLakeAndPalmer]

November 13th, 2025: Woke up at 8:00am when I had a online therapy meeting at 9:15pm, breakfast was eggs, toast, a banana, and a mini-donut. I got on my computer and got a shitoko link from Epic saying that they found me and wanted me on as a software developer, for what is the equivalent to one of the FAANG companies of Wisconsin, I doubted the link they sent me. I right clicked it and archived it using archive.today. From that website there were archives back to 2023. My therapist sent me an invite link with the following quote attached:
<“Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake.
<― Kurt Vonnegut
I got on and it took a while to get in so I just made it a checkup meeting, I needed to get to class soon. I did that and got in, I completed my only German assignment for today which was just to write this:
>I use technology a lot in my life but I don't travel as much as I would like to. Everyday I use my laptop and oftentimes I'll use my desktop also, I use my iPhone constantly, more than I'd like to admit. I take the bus to and from work every day and rely on lightbulbs and electricity to light up my apartment. Some advances that have been achieved in my lifetime are the creation of the iPhone in 2007, the creation of the iPad, improved storage of HDDs and SSDs, the widespread implementation of generative AI starting in November 2022. I feel like the iPhone had hindered my attention span and limited my ability to focus sadly. Generative AIs like ChatGPT, Claude, DeepSeek, and Gemini have additionally hindered my focus more but I have been abstaining from them more. For traveling, I take the bus almost every day and sometimes I'll take it for the fun of it, like riding a bus line to its end and back. I do not have access to any sort of heavy rail and I do not ride the overglorified streetcar downtown because it's the same speed as driving at best and slower than walking at worst. I am very pro-public transit because of this.
I tried charging my laptop during this and no matter what angle, nothing helped. I asked Lizzo:
>Aye, + what’s your middle name, I’m curious.
She responded at 10:27am with:
<Rose
And started this conversation:
>Doxxed!
>Although that’s a super common middle name.
<I've actually met so many people whose middle name is [first name]
>I’ve met nobody with the middle name of [my middle name].
<Yeah me neither
>
>Uhh, me?
<Im joking lol
I got a response from her on Snapchat at 12:47am in regards to One Piece:
<Oh
<(⁠๑⁠•⁠﹏⁠•⁠)
I replied back to her:
>What have you watched bruh?
I got out of class and walked to my second class to wait outside, I got this text from Talia:
<Just letting you know, I’m missing class again today. Hope you have a good weekend!
I replied:
>For work again?
She replied:
<No, just catching up on a paper. My Ancient Greek religion class doesn’t grade much for attendance, and my second class of the day has been canceled all week.
I waited a bit more and then I saw the Black haired girl sitting outside and sat across from her, I joked with her about her absence from class being her going to hell and crawling out, she was waiting outside because she didn’t want to be the first person in alone so I went in with her, failed to get my computer charging again, I went out and waited for Lizzo and Laundrea to come out. I continued texting Lizzo:
>Focus on class!
<F u
>Please say that in Korean!
I was laughing at that comment. Laundrea came out first and she said Lizzo was examining the board to study it more. She asked for more info about the fair and I told her I could message her, she had lots of social media so I added her on Instagram. Lizzo then came out and she got the Korean joke, she said she didn’t know how to but she told me:
“I know how to shout it in Chinese.”
“Simplified or Traditional?”
I asked jokingly.
“There’s no difference between speaking them.”
She said, I replied:
“Actually that’s what Xi Jingping and his CCP goons want you to believe.”
They were weirded out by it and I went into class. The girl with A10s in my class commented on me wearing a belt and she was wearing one but it’s one of those buckles you’d find on a backpack. German class was kind of normal and I was partnered up with the purple haired girl’s group. I left at 12:45pm and accidentally ran into Punk’s friend but I ignored her.
I texted Lizzo an apology which turned into this conversation:
>I’m sorry about if my CCP joke came off weird.
<I was just thrown off
<Idk if u meant for overgeneralization to be part of the joke but I'm not chinese
>I know you’re Taiwanese and I didn’t mean to make it seem like you’re Chinese.
<It's alright
<I wasn't hurt by it
>Ok.
I took the bus to work and was told by Seth M’s friend that the ink still wasn’t here. I spent most of the day helping the website guy set up banners to show to people like Joy, Seth M, the Polish lady, Harmony C. We had one issue of this aluminum pole being distorted for one end to be like an oval so we couldn’t assemble it. The website guy took it outside to heat it up and hammer it out. I went into the branch that Joy works in and I encountered Elon wearing replica samurai armor, it made lots of noise and had a fake mustache of white hairs. I took a picture on my phone and then some on Elon’s phone. Joy said 1 person could wear it each of the 3 days. The consul general of Japan would be here so I told Joy:
“I think Mr. Mizobuchi should be allowed to wear the armor one of those days.”
Joy and Elon said he’d probably get offended because it’s a replica instead of actual samurai armor. I want to tell him about it but in a safer way. I ended up seeing Elon later and he used one of the photos on his phone and had some video generative AI make him pull out and whip around a flaming katana. Wow. I left at 4:04pm and took the bus home to drop off my backpack then walk to campus to set up for the dance. I met up with Ava in the drop off and the first thing she had me do was bring up a cart of items to the ballroom. I did that and by the time I got out, Morgado, Nephri, and Swifte were there to help. Seraphim went to grab hay bales and I helped haul up more stuff. Luigi and Nash came later to set up. We got to the balloons and when I inflated them, the smell of fresh paint just hit me. Everybody agreed but kept blowing up and trying balloons together for the display. Lewis came in without his girlfriend so I pondered if they broke up. More people came in like Markus’ brother. Agaw, Angela’s friend, Alley, Markus’ girlfriend, Jade, Bernarda, the Honduran, Kalifornia, the Quad, Drawmij and Drawmija. I got this really nice rose rosary that wasn’t made of plastic and started wearing it. I got someone to take pictures of me borrowing someone else’s hat:

I couldn’t get into one of the circles the first round, but the second round I got with Jade, the 31 year old married woman. One new dance moves the same caller from last time, an old short guy who wasn’t bald at all told us to do was the swing, where you swung the girl around with your hand on their back and swung them around. Also the one where you would step 3 steps out from your partner, 3 steps towards your opposite couple’s partner, 3 steps inward, 3 steps out, and then reverse. Second dance I got partnered up with a coworker of Rose’s, she introduced herself to me and was super nice. Third dance was a line dance where I tried to dance with Bernarda but got arranged around to this unknown Hispanic girl. I know this guy and Urbino were partnered up for it where most couples at this point were two women. I then got pizza and lemonade. Casta came in and I asked her:
“Where’s John?”
She replied:
“Oh he’s at home!”
I joked:
“So you locked him up in your basement?”
She laughed and then I went to dance again. I tried to get Agaw and Markus’ brother partnered up multiple times and that failed each time. I danced with Angela’s friend and then next with a girl who's a friend of Markus and she’s from Sheboygan, she asked me about partnering up and told her:
“The unspoken rule is that you always go with another partner every time you dance.”
But not the other unspoken rule that if you had a boyfriend, husband, girlfriend, or wife, you always danced with her, Like Drawmij and Drawmija. She seemed interested in me but when I added her on Instagram, I saw she posted her 1 year anniversary dating her boyfriend on November 7th. We did a giant dance in a circle and then the Church clap. I went to show one of the other people there how all the clapping made my hands red during the Church clap and I happened upon Ava.
“Dude look at how red my hands are…”
I told her, she put her hands on mine and I told her I was just showing people how red my hands were. I got in for the photo and then left with one bag of unopened lemonade. I walked home and saw this announcement from my operating systems teacher about a max length fix. I did that fix and posted the completed C file later in the night. I then took a shower before going to bed.

Song of the Day: The Majestic - Dion & The Belmonts (1961)

 

[GemersonLakeAndPalmer]

November 14th, 2025: Final day of work for the week. I woke up and had 2 eggs with toast and a banana for breakfast. I waited to have coffee at work and got dressed up like usual, with my blue and white plaid button-down and my brown leather jacket, with black dress pants. I took the bus to work at 7:55am and got off. I clocked in at 8:25am and went to brew the coffee but someone already beat me to it. I got my coffee anyway and I had my first assignment of the day to help transcribe the menus for the various nationalities into Canva so the displays with the prices can be printed. I got assigned to work in this person’s old office that was mostly empty, but this super short Pashto woman came in looking through the documents for some that were still stored in the guy’s office. At 9:46am, I overheard Edgar in his office talking with a student from Malaysia asking them where they went to school. They said this was their first time and that instead of school, they worked at a television factory. He asked her and she said she worked from 8:00am until 5:00pm at a television factory with her husband. She said she liked working there but didn’t love it. She moved to this big city and described the police as aggressive, work wasn’t secure and neither was the money, she got a green card to the United States. She came here in October of 2022. The lady said she watches YouTube but not television (she doesn’t own one) and Edgar jokingly asked if her sister could build one. Edgar makes YouTube videos and so does his kids. She lives with her sister, mother, father, and I think her husband, her brother’s still in the city in Malaysia and works as a painter. Her younger brother is 26. She loved playing Tennis and Badminton back in Malaysia and when she repeated his address, I looked it up and she lived on the south side of the city. Edgar said there was a hockey rink nearby her house that she and her siblings could go to. I completed my task soon enough and then went on my lunch break at the pizza place. I loved the stuff they had there and then went back. I was handed 4 ink cartridges for the card printer and instantly got to work printing them all out. It was a tedious process and I had to print out all the cards, I counted 39 including mine. I opted to personally hand them out, some people like Ahwahn complained about the simplified job title while Joy said hers was straight up incorrect. I went and reprinted Joy’s, I printed one for the Ukrainian man (I forgot his the first time) and one for Kiana (also forgot), I brought the one for Joy to her and she thanked me. But the Latinx lady said I didn’t have to print the variant cards because the company wanted to save on money. I didn’t do a lot for the rest of the day and clocked out at 4:00pm after getting just over 20:00 hours in. I took the bus home and spent the rest of my day up until 6:30pm gaming because I had a speed dating event to head to and possibly get lucky there. I thought of dressing back in my white button-up but it was far too dirty for me to wear. I drank a little bit of vodka I stored beneath my bed to warm up for socialization. I took the bus at 6:45pm and got off at 7:10pm. I took a walk for a bit until I went into the bar, there was a previous socialization event with the same thing where I saw Pethuel and the Keralan woman. I went upstairs to where it was actually held and I got prepared, met some cool guys there along with Sideburns, but he’s 20 so he can’t drink. While I was ordering a Milkshake style beer (never had one, sounds interesting.) I saw Liseuxa come in wearing an emerald green dress, she told me she got the job and I was super happy to hear that. I met a somewhat muscular guy who reminded me a lot of a mixture between my cousins 5th Division and 7th Day Adventist Cousin. Pethuel came up and we got started at 7:30pm. Pethuel and Liseuxa got into the 27-39 age group while I got into the 21-29 age group. We started off with a prayer and here’s how all the rounds went:

1. I was an extra with one other guy, but I talked with another dude named Jacob, his date at table #10 was a no show. He’s 22 and born earlier in the year of 2003 than I was, has 4 siblings, his pareal woman saint is Saint George, and he worked as a volunteer firefighter but recently went full time. He gave me the advice of speaking up because of how loud it is. I texted my family’s groupchat and they were despite my setbacks.
2. Alyssa at table #10, the fucking round got extended to 10 minutes instead of the usual 5.
3. Maria, another no show at table #9, Sideburns sat with me and he told me he found the girl at table #11 super pretty.
4. Blonde girl at table #14, She’s 26, from Milwaukee, her pareal woman saint is Saint Cecilia like my mom. I talked with her about theological readings, I had only read the Bible and snippets of Summa Theologae, told me to read On The Incarnation and Cosmic Liturgy. Her favorite gospel book is Matthew (mine’s Luke), mentioned Bible study with a Protestant friend. I was interested in her.
5. Table #8, I found out she’s confirmed at 13 and is currently 23, her confirmation saint is Saint Catherine Labouré. She’s from Alabama and went to college in Kentucky at a Benedictine college.
6. Table #3, Table #8 girl’s friend whom she meet at college, she’s from Oconomowoc and sometimes goes to the Wednesday night Eucharistic adoration that I go to from what I wrote down on my sheet.
7. Table #6, cute woman, 22, loves music, including singing and playing the piano or guitar, she’s from West Bend, Wisconsin and she knows Gina which is super nice.
8. Table #12, Interesting girl. Saint Teresa of Ávila is her pareal woman saint, she’s 26, lived in Boston for 4 years and has 2 siblings, a 15 month older brother and a younger sister. She’s from Hartland, Wisconsin.
9. Sat out this round. I saw Sideburns with the girl he fancied at table #11 I ended up introducing myself to the girl at table #7 while she was getting some water and we connected, I was midway telling her the story of my company ID picture being me kinda dressed like Indiana Jones when she had to go back.
10. Table #5, only fat girl here, she’s pretty cute and I saw her on the dating apps before. She’s 21 and from Milwaukee, Wisconsin but is moving to my home place for an internship in accounting, she already graduated. I got the question: Are you more traditional or modern in relationships? She said a mix while I also said a mix but because of how many people these day want modern “relationships”, I was basically a trad in most people’s eyes.
11. Table #7 had the most beautiful woman dressed in a long-sleeved black shirt, a teal long skirt, and a belt. She’s 24. It reminded me of how Margaret would dress. She lives in Kenosha, Wisconsin and is from Forest Lake. She works as a car mechanic because it’s faster and cheaper to get into the work force than college. I drew the card about what you’re looking for in marriage, she said marriage and however many kids the Lord wills she has. I also said marriage and 7 kids. I told her the story about lowballing my desired kid count to 3 and seeing people’s (read: Jewish therapist) shocked reactions. I completed my company ID photo.
12. Table #13, 23, another Saint Teresa of Ávila girl, she does yoga… so not that trad of a Catholic. She moved here a month ago.
13. Table #9, 27, from Mequon, pareal woman saint is Saint Lucy, probably going to move here soon because she loves the city.
14. Sat out this round.
15. Table #4, 22, loves making music, she came here all the way from her birth place of Fond Du Lac, Wisconsin.
16. Table #2, 27, this is her second speed dating event, I remember seeing her at Wednesday night Eucharistic adoration. she grew up in Suburban Chicago and went to the Jesuit college on a scholarship
17. Table #11, 23. Lives in Mequon, Wisconsin, went to UW-Madison for undergrad, went to a previous speed dating event at Saint Paul's in Madison, Wisconsin. I wish I could go there.

I finished up after that and I ended up only thanking the Table #5 girl for getting to meet her. I walked to the bus stop and sat on a wooden bench. I took the bus home and then took a shower before going to sleep.

Song of the Day: Unfit - KMFDM (1997)