today is st brigid's day, and it is now a national holiday in ireland.

Herstory is calling on all counties and diaspora centres across the world to illuminate for the first official national holiday on Brigid’s Day 2023. From the shadows into the light, this will be a joyous celebration of all Mná, our Celtic Goddess, Matron Saint and Imbolc, the ancient festival of Spring.

The Herstory programme is now live for Brigid’s Day 2023. Join us for a spectacular Festival of Light across Ireland from 27th January - 1st February. Discover the the Galway, Roscommon, Kildare, Clondalkin, and Donegal programmes. More will be announced soon.

Our new dedicated website for all things Brigid is now live - www.brigidsday.org - packed with events, activities, fascinating articles, art and more

https://www.herstory.ie/2023

pretty cool.

chgo radio legend lin brehmer dead.

Lin Brehmer, Our Best Friend in the Whole World, 1954-2023

It is with a heavy heart that we must inform you that we all lost our best friend. Lin Brehmer fought cancer as long as he could. He passed early this morning, peacefully, with his wife and son by his side. Tomorrow at 10am, his XRT family will celebrate the incredible life of our best friend in the whole world. We'll hold each other up through this heart-breaking time. Lin would want that. Take nothing for granted.
~Terri Hemmert

https://www.audacy.com/wxrt/Lin-Brehmer

no more at the link atm. all over twitter, tho.

y'all! i found a choir!

no idea how i managed to evade this knowledge this long, but apparently my hippy hood has a community choir. and they practice in a gorgeous old wpa field house.
a person who follows my farm on fb reached out to me after i was whining about how rough the plauge has been for me. trying to find other gardeners, cuz it’s time to admit i’m old.
so we just talked, and trying to figure out when to connect, she mentioned that tomorrow she has choir practice.
me- there’s a choir?
she- yes, the yada yada choir.
m- there’s a choir?
s- we practice once a week at xy field house.
m- there’s a choir?
s- do you sing?

you get the drift. she was on her way to dinner, but she offered to pick me up so i can check out the choir. ‘i had put my lessons on pause, cuz i’m broke af atm. coach is fine, but i’m not. he wont bill me anyway. but i’ve been in a shitty, worn down place. complicated money woes, and depression, and bullshit. and the plague.

my new pup is a pretty good antidote, trying to be the mom she deserves. so i walk her every day, and, gasp, talk to random ppl. not that many out in this cold weather, tho.

but a choir? the perfect antidote to the covid blues. meet at noon, too. most of my chances to sing are at night.
my voice lessons got me through the plague. a choir would be great to get me out of this funk.

gd cross post-

man, it breaks my heart to see the trumpification of the whole gd planet.

big reason i’m sticking around on twitter is news from across the pond.
i so want to see a united ireland in my time. to read twitter, it’s on the way. in the real world, i have hope, but…

this kind of nonsense makes me want to

https://twitter.com/moneillsf/status/1613225020561723394

live link to debate on rules package- the assholes stuffed an abortion ban in the package!

what the actual fuck? pontificating about ‘shady’ practices that they are gonna stop. like not sticking unrelated stuff into must pass bills.
i’m not sure what they proposed exactly, but every dem is railing about abortion.

hakeem jeffries will be the real speaker.

there are some r’s that squeaked by in districts joe won. unless they are complete idiots, they know this is their last term if they buy into the shenanigans. their only hope is to keep their heads down, their mouths shut, and bring home the bacon.
not sure how many there are, but trust that their arms are already being twisted.

also trust that dems on oversight are armed and ready. i’d be shocked if there wasnt a plan to pick the traitors off and steal their seats. at the least, any nontroversies will be met w a mountain of evidence against their own. there will be no benghazis. there will be blood on the floor 1st.

what doesnt help.

so, i heard from my sister yesterday, 1st time since may 20, when she trekked to my house to tell me that i needed to get some ‘help’.
now, there are a lot of folks w issues in my fam. my oldest sister struggled w depression back when it was supposed to be a shame. i’ve spent plenty of time on the couch, etc, but it is rooted in my physical health, so all the therapy did was convince me my life was fucked, and the cause of my issues. i kept changing my life, and it doesnt go away. but to them, i am weak and f’d up.

the plague has been chewing on me from the start, and by may things were already exploding in my life. but i was in more of a ‘too happy’ place back in may. so obviously i was manic.

all my family has ever been there to do for me is demand that i ‘get help’. never asked- what can we do? they just have never been there for me the way they are there for each other.
this is the sister that i got elected in 18. she’s mad i wasnt there for her re-elect in nov. now, she didnt rly ask me to help. she just asked me to dig up some of the stuff i did for her in 18. she was already mad at me. told her- too bad, so sad. use your own words. she did fine. ftr, i rarely work a re-elect. i would have if she’d offered me an actual job, and money, but that wasnt the ask.
so i got a package yesterday. a nasty note on her results, and a pin i had bought her at the beginning of the campaign. when we won, she gave me an $80 pan of pot brownies, despite my telling her, ad nauseum, that edibles do nothing for me. she returned the pin cuz i had pointed out that i spent $135 for it.
i not only got her elected, i was at her side when her hubs died suddenly half way through the campaign. and before that, i had lent part of my divorce settlement to their house flipping venture.
but trust me when i tell you that not a 1 of them has done anything for me since i was in my 20’s.
she had the nerve to tell me she wasnt gonna put up w MY ‘shit’.

well, they can all eat shit and die. srsly. so much better off w/o them. it so fucking painful seeing them helping each other and only ever shaming me. (it’s my dirty house, ya see.)

this prompted me to post this on twitter this a.m.-

if u know someone who is struggling w depression/mental health, pointing ur finger at them and telling them ‘u need help’ doesnt count as helping.
‘what can i do?’ is helping. judging isnt needed.
we know.

anyway, fuck the shamers. they have no idea.

face it rethugs-

control of the house is gonna be in hakeem’s hands no matter who u hand the gavel to.
unlike the last 2 yrs, u will do nothing on ur own. u can do nothing w/o dem votes.
do kev a favor, and just give it to jeffries.
7 of u stay home. save ur party from itself.

procedural question-

on the off chance that traitors are charged, convicted, and removed from the house, which i hold out a bit of hope for, and we rocked the specials, like we do, and regain the majority-
is a vote for a new speaker automatic, or does it require a motion to vacate the chair?