July 18th: Parking Lots and Bookstores
A man died in the Safeway parking lot while I was getting groceries. That evening, our friends talked about The Raincoats at Powell's. My wife played me Kleenex/Liliput when we got home. I worked on a Lasers & Feelings hack about 80's Vegas with four LLMs. It was Friday.
The Scene
Four cop cars. Yellow tape. A camera crew. Something covered by a white sheet near the shopping carts. I bought $5 California rolls and a bag of chili crisp potato chips and went home. Someone else didn't.
The news later confirmed what I'd witnessed: a man shot and killed around 4 p.m. One person detained. A witness heard "pop, pop, pop" and screaming, then saw someone on the ground surrounded by people calling police.
By evening, it was content between ads for New Balance sneakers and Martha Stewart summer trends.
The Talk
The third floor Powell's was a congregation of friends. Two of them were on the discussion panel about Audrey Golden's new book on The Raincoats. "A Mayberry moment," I told folks - that feeling of running into people you know doing things that matter, in a place that feels like actual community.
I'd read most of Golden's book on my tablet beforehand, but we bought the hardcover anyway. Got it signed. The 15% off coupon helped, but mainly I wanted the artifact - something that would hold the whole evening, not just the text.
The Music
Back home, my wife played me songs showing the evolution from Kleenex to Liliput - the same band, different name, different sound. I said it felt like the difference between Wire's Pink Flag and 154. The jump from raw demolition to curious construction, from tearing everything down to building something new in the cleared space.
The Dissonance
Someone asked me recently about "complicity fatigue" - that exhaustion from being trapped in systems you recognize as harmful but can't escape. I realized I'd stopped trying to navigate that framework entirely.
I don't know what to call what I'm doing instead. I witnessed violence and processed it practically (be more careful in parking lots). I got cultural for genuine enjoyment (friends being brilliant about music they care about). I stayed informed without doomscrolling (a couple news articles, then back to life). I came home and made weird shit with AI tools (a TTRPG that started out with the title Hookers & Blow and evolved into something less junior high).
No performance. No guilt optimization. No virtue signaling. Just Friday.
The Questions
What does this culture demand of me? I ask myself this while sitting in Powell's, while walking the dog, while processing the day's strange progression from yellow tape to book signings to Swiss post-punk education.
The culture makes multiple, contradictory demands simultaneously: Feel guilty about violence you couldn't prevent. Perform the correct level of concern on social media. Consume culture as moral improvement. Buy things to demonstrate values. Have opinions that signal proper politics. Care about everything, everywhere, all at once.
But asking "what does this culture demand" creates space to notice these as external impositions rather than moral imperatives. Which demands actually serve you or anyone you care about? Which are just the culture trying to extract something from you?
The Trail
I'm writing this down knowing that writing it down changes it, and by the time you read this, I'll probably be doing something completely different. This is a snapshot of July 18th, 2025, for one person in Portland. It's not a blueprint or a philosophy or even advice.
It's just footprints on a beach as the tide rises.
Someone died violently. Friends talked beautifully about music that mattered to them. I walked my dog and made something weird and got corn for tomorrow's lunch. The dissonance doesn't resolve into meaning - it just sits there, part of Friday, part of being alive in a world that contains everything simultaneously.
Maybe that's enough. Maybe it has to be.
The trail will be washed away soon, ready for completely different footprints.
This probably won't work for you. It might not work for me next week. But today it felt like the right size for a human life.