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Politics

Day 740 and Immigration Failed Us Again

My second attempt at a securing a tourist visa for a friend failed this morning. If you’d have asked me a few years ago if I thought the American immigration basically worked, I would have agreed that, sure I thought it probably worked ok. No reason to think otherwise right? Phew I was wrong. But […]

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Uncategorized

Day 739 and Immigration Anxiety

My family has been working on a visa for a friend to come visit us in the United States. It’s felt like the longest 2 years of everyone’s lives. I had no idea how broken our visa and immigration system ones until we tried to invite a family friend with a bad passport on vacation […]

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Politics Travel

Day 1170 and The Machine

I hate failing. The sense of doomed futility I have when I interact with the broken bits of the American bureaucracy weighs on me. Every time a crucial piece of the business of government fails I feel helpless. Like I am a loser. I feel deeply that the machine has ground out some remaining spark […]

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Chronicle

Day 1095 and 2023 Round Up

I’ve been sick for the last week and a half or so, so this round-up is coming on the last day of 2023. As you may have gathered from my title schema, I have been writing every single day for 1095 straight days. That means I’ve been doing this for three years which is a […]

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Internet Culture Startups

Day 1036 and The Right Direction

I’ve been in Europe for the last month. My itinerary included Tallinn, Helsinki and Amsterdam. It was a personal trip with work overlayed on top as the digital nomad as become a regular part of my life. I have said it before but I don’t take as much pleasure as you might imagine from these […]

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Culture Emotional Work Politics

Day 972 and Falling Faster

I’m starting to feel like summer is losing its grip on me. I cannot even begin to express my relief that September is almost here. I loathe summer and this one has been particularly hot and horrifying. Being in Montana for the summer has given me the nicest possible version of summer still possible on […]

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Aesthetics Travel

Day 944 and InstaHo

I suppose it’s fitting that just one day after feeling glimmers of hope that our networked chaotic youth culture is rebelling towards whitepilled optimism that my mood would immediately take a darker turn. You just can’t sustain a vibe these days when you have to interact with reality. Or at least reality as intermediated through […]

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Politics

Day 922 and Inconveniencing Americans

I’m enjoying a tiny moment of schadenfreude as I hear more stories of Americans being inconvenienced by our systemically fucked federal bureaucracies. Every time a reasonable person encounters a petty injustice in the renewal of their passport I see hope. Because our immigration, visa, State department sundry consular services are so fucked. Like if you […]

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Emotional Work

Day 908 and Joyful Grief

I’ve had enough emotional and mental work to know that grief is a complex and personal process. I knew as the death of a close family loved one came on the summer solstice that I needed to grieve. I revisited the frameworks. There are the three Cs (chose, connect, communicate) for a simple framework to […]

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Politics

Day 907 and Unaccountable Bureaucrats

We’ve reached a point in America where the consular visa services (for tourism, business & academic visits) as well as the wider immigration services (for people intending to work here, become permanent residents or citizens) have made finding a clear legal path for any type of visa non-viable. The Cato Institute describes it as nearly impossible. I haven’t been […]