This blague post is about me not doing a show tomorrow, and also about Other Subjects, and I am interested in What You Think about the things.
I'm sad to say I'm not broadcasting Phoole & the Gang this week, Friday, 3 March 2023.
Please do the following instead: Tune in to the Urban Love Ulcer live interactive rock'n'roll show! Pete Howard broadcasts live from the leafy, bohemian West end of Glasgow, Scotland Fridays from 4:00 p.m. Central US time / midnight UK time. His show combines rock, punk, glam, metal, psych, garage, shoe-gaze and affiliated sounds with smart entertainment and antics. I've heard you say you like Scottish dialects, too, which he also has. You like sport? Pete supports the world-famous Glasgow Rangers. See? You have so much in common. Catch him live Friday at slipmat.io/urbanloveulcer, twitch.tv/urbanloveulcer and mixcloud.com/live/urbanloveulcer!
Also, I have a well-stocked archive of hundreds of shows which you can enjoy any time. Visit phoole.com/rewind or smash the Show Archive link at the top of the page.
I'm thinking about writing future blague posts about perimenopause and about living the Zero-COVID life. SHOULD I? Tell me.
I feel really lonely and exhausted about these two subjects, and if maybe you also feel lonely and exhausted about these subjects, we could, through me writing and you reading and telling me about it, and then us initiating a conversation, connect, and feel less lonely and even slightly less exhausted about them.
On the perimenopause subject, half the time I'm out of my mind with rage that the subject isn't more talked about and isn't better researched. The other half of the time, I'm out of my mind with rage at nearly all of humanity, and not inclined to help anyone by sharing anything that could lighten a burden of shared experience, because my hormones, reader, are doing my head in, as my UK pals says.
Note that I am, all of the time, out of my mind with rage. It's a new feature of my hormonal chaos.
Perpetual rage is a new experience for me, and I gotta say, I'm mostly not a fan. I do, however, enjoy knowing that this perpetual rage could help me to defend myself with ultraviolence in public, should an unpleasant encounter occur, say, if some yokel wants to fight me over my respirator-wearing or whatever. Like, no hesitation to brawl will occur. I'm fixing to scrap. "Backpfeifengesicht" is my new favorite German word, and I mutter it a lot. In grocery stores, for example, and parking lots. And elevators (lifts).
It's not yet to the point where I think I need to start ingesting things in order to cope. I take a lot of deep breaths and I don't fight anyone. Yet.
The rage is accompanied by an urge to exit everything and disappear entirely. Psychologically-interested people have told me this is called the Dark Night of the Soul, hearkening back to a religious poem, apparently. I'm doing this, a little. I am 95% gone from Twitter, for example, and henceforth won't be broadcasting Phoole & the Gang there. Sorry, 8,275 Twitter Phollowers, especially the 23 or so who interacted with me there. The app is overrun with Nazis and I can't be there. I've also mostly left Instagram. I get close to deleting myself from every part of the internet except here about once a week.
And as I have shown in a previous blague post, at my dayjob, I am not really an individual - I am part of the Lizness, the Elizabeth Collective. That is oddly comforting. I have been assimilated. Takes the pressure off somewhat. Many public organizations are gutted of support and feel set up to fail. If my little corner of the public sector caves in, well, it's not me. I'm just part of the Lizness. My own individuality is infallible, because it is absent.
But this too is exhausting. Didn't I already have a Dark Night of the Soul, in my late twenties and early thirties? Have I not already burned away a previous version of me? I thought I pupated and turned into goo and came out a butterfly already. Is this not my final form? I'm tired. Don't make me hang upside down and chrysalize again.
If these things befall you too, say so - phoole@phoole.com is always open if you prefer a private conduit, or command me to start a channel for this subject at our Discord at phoole.com/discord.