Scribbles in the Dark

It's exhausting trying to keep up with the craziness coming out of the White House right now.

Tariffs are go- oh wait, just kidding- gotcha, they're happening for real! I'm sure my 401k has tanked, but the cheeto who shall not be named told all his cronies to buy cheap stocks right before he cancelled the tariffs and they increased their wealth by billions in a day... I brought it up at work and my (conservative) coworkers were all, 'oh it's a good time to buy, we have time, we aren't retiring for decades, this will be good for us in the long term'. Well what about all the people on the cusp of retirement who just lost all their savings?

And I'm partially thinking that this just goes to show why we should be doing pensions and not betting our retirement livelihood on the damn stock market.... but it's not like I have a choice, do I?

And meanwhile the SAVE Act is once again on the table, which its supporters say will stop voter fraud by making everyone provide extra documentation for proof of citizenship before registering to vote. But voter fraud has been consistently proven to be nearly non-existent - certainly in too small of an amount to sway the outcome of any vote - and the only impact of the SAVE Act would be a chilling effect on voter registration, making it harder for large swathes of people (myself included!) to be registered.

https://www.npr.org/2025/04/13/g-s1-59684/save-act-married-women-vote-rights-explained

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/house-passes-bill-require-proof-citizenship-register-vote/story?id=120691270

Thankfully it hasn't passed the Senate - yet - but it's taking up a lot of space in my brain.

And that's really what I wanted to write about at the moment - how much of this noise is bouncing around in front of me, grabbing for my attention, and how exhausting it is to be constantly pulled to the next thing, the next outrage, the next human rights violation, the next power grab from the cheeto who must not be named. I feel like I'm drowning under wave after wave of malicious political action that I'm powerless to do anything about.

It's terrifying how much of this rhymes with the Diary of Anne Frank. If we're making history, I'd rather rhyme with the French Revolution and break out the guillotines.

So excited!!

I've been wanting a new phone for like a year, and desparately needing a new one since January when Eldest dropped my then-current phone on the back porch and shattered the screen. The only thing holding it together was the sticky film of the screen protector.

Wow ok the keyboard on this new one makes it very cumbersome to type limited html. That's annoying.

But still. NEW PHONE!!!!

Spent an hour today looking for 6yo's school portraits that never made it home. I have the digital copy that I paid extra for, but I also bought $30 worth of prints, where are they Lifetouch you f***ers?!

Went on the Lifetouch website and it turns out that the whole "You must order by Picture Day!!!" thing is not only a lie but a scam; if you wait until after Picture Day, you can buy just the digital on their website and make your own prints and not worry about "did they get lost in the mail? Did Child lose them somewhere between the classroom and the house? did I just hallucinate writing that check???

I am Prepared for next year, you con artists.