Under the Weather

I will be discussing two things in today's entry: current events, and possible plans:

I woke up yesterday feeling as though I was getting a cold—my nose was runny and my throat felt itchy. I told my dad, who promptly asked me if I still wanted to go out for coffee. Of course, I said, as there has been little in over 25 years that has prevented me from going out for our weekly coffee dates. We have now attended the local coffee shop The Can Opener for so long that it has almost replaced Fowler's in my mind as where we've always gone, and I have to think about our time in Peabody Place over twenty years ago to put the pieces together. This, of course, is a miracle in itself—when Fowler's was bought out by Parker and Otis, we adjusted. It wasn't quite the same as where we had gone since I was a teenager, but it was close enough, and most importantly still in the same location as we had made all of our previous memories. So, the adjustment, at least for me, wasn't too bad.

But the year the pandemic started, this property management company called Asana Partners came from Charlotte and not only bought Peabody Place, they gutted Brightleaf Square and the old St. James building that used to house Torero's, Fishmonger's, and several bars over the years. This, course, would be fine if they left my city the way it was, but they raised rent in all of these properties, essentially kicking out Parker and Otis, Morgan Imports, El Rodeo (my favorite restaurant I had gone to since I was a teenager) and gutting the Brightleaf District. It's never really recovered, all these years later. Some of the buildings have sat empty (like Morgan Imports and Parker and Otis), and the rest have been turned into completely different establishments. The Brightleaf Square sign that had been there for as long as I could remember was torn down. And I've never seen a single soul in the square since. Not in the restaurants, not in the boutiques, not lingering in the square. I used to sit in Brightleaf Square after going to Fowler's and write poetry when I lived in downtown Durham. But now that it's empty and they've ruined essentially one of the most popular haunts in Durham, there's no use in my mind. Why would I do that? Everything has changed. This company did not and continues to not have Durham's best interests at heart. I would have at least given them time to show me what they turned the properties into, but since they've mostly sat vacant they've done absolutely nothing. No improvements were made to my city when Asana Partners came to town. They ruined a lot of memories for a lot of people, myself included. I've heard that they're planning on tearing down the Saint James building all together, replacing it with at least a 5-story mixed use development. But of course, that hasn't happened.

It's a miracle, really, that the Can Opener has meant as much as it does to me and my dad. I was honestly depressed when Parker and Otis moved out of Peabody Place, and I sulked about it for years, refusing to go to any other coffee shop. We tried, of course, but nothing felt right. It's hard to replace a location at which you've built so many memories in 25 years. But the Can Opener has become our new place, now, so when my dad asked me yesterday morning if I still wanted to go out for coffee of course I said yes. So we did.

Our conversation at the coffee shop yesterday gets to the heart of what I want to discuss in today's entry. Some of my readers know, yet some are unaware, that I had to fight to get my first installment of my series Sad Premonition published here on Blogger. Apparently the subject matter could potentially be triggering for some viewers—I'm not really sure who these viewers are, as my blog isn't that popular, and children would have no incentive to read the daily ramblings of a middle-aged housewife-turned-writer. But I digress. The entry that I painstakingly planned out and crafted over a few days was immediately pulled upon its initial publication and essentially put behind an age-verification wall. Of course, the average reader of my blog isn't going to take the time to go through that, because, let's be honest—my writing isn't that interesting. Entries appearing on my blog is one thing; but I was informed that even my subscribed readers did not receive the censored entry in their inbox. So I pulled the parts of the story that I figured had triggered the ban, and rewrote others. I even had to pull the sources because one of the links contained a potentially-triggering word. This is why there were no sources listed below the installment. But this is all-encompassing issue. Even yesterday's entry which mentioned the childhood ghost story of the Simon brothers had to be sanitized before I posted it. The scariest part of the story—and what horrified everyone over the decades the tale was told over and over again—couldn't be discussed. I was scared that if told the entire tale, my entry would be pulled again. And of course, there is potentially a hidden counter of how many times a blog is able to be censored before it is pulled from the web entirely.

I have mixed feelings about this. The maternal instinct in me—believe it or not, under all my social awkwardness I suspect I do have one—does not want to scare or upset vulnerable people with my writing. But the free speech advocate in me thinks the entire situation is upsetting. After all, in each case, the scary part of the article wasn't the main point at all. It was something that was mentioned in passing. But of course, that doesn't seem to matter to the AI Blogger employs to make these backend decisions.

Why do I mention this? Well, there are other blogger platforms I could move to. I've been on Blogger since the early 2000s, and it's currently the only platform I understand. It's free, too, and if I were to move to WordPress, for example, not only would I be responsible for having my entire template recoded to work on their website, I'd have to pay to have it hosted. This is some of what is keeping me on Blogger. So far the censorship hasn't gotten to the point where I want to jump ship yet, but the thought is in the back of my mind. Of course, if this happens, you, dear readers, will be the first to be informed of my new address, but in the meantime, I plan on keeping What Remains (At the End of the World) here.

This discussion is a corollary to my next point: my dad mentioned to me yesterday that he is glad that I'm finally pursuing my passion of writing. I don't primarily write for other people—I use writing as an outlet for my own problems and thoughts, and if another people enjoy reading them, so much the better. But I noticed a calm and purpose that has returned to my life after the much-needed hiatus I took from blogging for a few years. I enjoy having an outlet to discuss my feelings, and most importantly, I enjoy having an outlet to perhaps help others dealing with addiction and mental illness.

As an aside, this brings me back to what I mentioned first in this entry. I'm really, really sick today. I tend to get upper respiratory infections worse than most people I think because most of my lungs are scarred from bronchial pulmonary dysplasia. I went to bed early last night, of course, after having gotten up so early yesterday morning, but I was woken up in the middle of the night by excruciating pain due to my cysts. So there I was, nauseous from the pain of my cysts and completely wracked with an upper respiratory infection. Today I doubt I will leave the house at all. I want to get as much of this sickness out of my system before I inevitably have to get up tomorrow morning at 4am to go to work. The older I get, I find I recover from brief periods of illness slower and slower.

I plan on continuing Sad Premonition perhaps later on this week, but if I do not post another installment right away, please know that I am recovering from an illness. Entries like I wrote today are easy to compose, but series like Sad Premonition require research and planning. I do not feel as though I have the mental clarity currently to dedicate the time needed for this endeavor, so these next few entries over the week may be on other topics before the series picks back up—but it will pick back up.