________ ________ _______

________ ________ ________
2019-04-14 / \/ \/ / \
/ __/ /_ _/
Writing this at 4am, have been up for / _/ / /
about half an hour, anxiety off the charts. \_______/_\___/____/\___/____/_
Life stress, wedding stress, money stress, / \/ \/ / \
health stress, age stress, weight stress. / _/ /_ _/
/- / _/ /
I feel like my cognitive capacity is \________/\________/\___/____/
diminishing lately, I keep reading back over
stuff I've written and finding stupid mistakes in grammar and language.
Missing words, repeating words or making the same point twice. It's
frustrating to see and frustrating to fix.

Likewise I'm feeling somewhat alienated by the Gopher and PUBNIX
communities, through no fault of theirs. It's just been predominately tech-
talk in those circles lately and I just find it hard to care about any of
that. Again, no fault of the people in these communities and I participate in
them knowing full well what the they're about, I just have generally my fill
of what distro or software you're running/what language you're learning/what
software you're submitting pull requests to/etc pretty quickly and have to
step away.

I need to find a new middle-ground, the level of hostility in surface-level
social spaces has driven even neutral people into private Messenger groups,
Discord and other deep web spaces but I ended up in a space I *kinda* fit but
only if I shave off my corners.

I think that's maybe why I have a soft spot for ~town, though it's a PUBNIX
space it has a loose emphasis on art that I can appreciate. Their IRC though
is not a real good fit for me, the few times I've loitered in there the
discussion has been very social-media-lite '10s politics du jour which, even
on my best day I don't have much of a stomach for.

Even one of our private groups turned out that way, it got so bad that I
had to leave. People I've known 20+ years succumbing to an endless cycle of
scandal and social-political outrage, like a gross peanut gallery clinging to
whatever stupid shit was being sold to them by media, social or otherwise.

Probably I need to just admit defeat and withdraw completely. No space left
online for the baudpunk generation.

Fuck it, at least I've got drugs, music and live train cams on YouTube
yeah? Haha.

This past Saturday we went to see some bands.

Diploid I've seen once before, I think I may have written about them here
but I'm not sure. I wasn't impressed by them then and I'm not really now.
They're ok, don't get me wrong, but not for me. I heard their new album got
some real traction so I was curious to see what they'd be like live now but
didn't come away a fan.

NO HAVEN I'd already been a fan of for a little while off the back of their
debut album, it was pretty good, but earlier this year they put out their
sophomore album Deep Ends of Shallow Lives[1] and it is amazing, I highly
recommend it if you like sludge or crust.

They didn't disappoint live, really amazing. Heavy.

Third band was Sydney's Lo! and I don't really have much to say that I
haven't already said in these files; they're amazing live. They played some
new songs and that was wild, I dunno if they were a bit heavier and more
intense or if it was just a case of them getting hype about having new stuff
and throwing themselves into it. I would welcome a new Lo! album this year.

Headliner was Cult Leader and they were fantastic. Their 2018 album A
Patient Man[2] has been on my radar for a little while but I hadn't circled
back to give it a proper listen. I did so in the weeks before the show and was
really impressed, it swings between heavy crust and sombre, contemplative
rock. I explained to Dani that, though I really enjoyed the album, it still
felt like it kind of barrier between it and me but seeing them live dissolved
that. It's a fascinating, exhausting album and seeing Cult Leader live really
cemented it as a favorite.

[1] https://nohaven.bandcamp.com/album/deep-ends-of-shallow-lives
[2] https://cultleadermusic.bandcamp.com/album/a-patient-man

EOF