I used to pride myself on keeping up with current events around the world. But lately I just don't have the mental fortitude to see what new horrific shit is going on. It seems to get worse by the day, and the added anxiety would probably push me over the edge.

I slept horribly last night. Tossed and turned and didn't fall asleep until well after midnight. Jenny woke me up a little after 6:00am, and I ended up petting her until it was her breakfast time at 7:00am. After that I went back to bed so I could read some documentation for work and... somehow dropped off to sleep again, and didn't wake up until nearly 10:00am?? That's something that just doesn't happen to me. When I wake up, that's it. I'm awake for the duration. But not this morning...

Nearly eight hours sleep? That's very rare. Any more I feel lucky if I can get five or six!

Then I somehow ended up falling down a rabbit hole of shelter dog adoption videos. Like this one...

And this one...

And this one...

And then I listened to Martin Luther King Jr. speak, amazed as always how his words are more relevant than ever, then got back to work while listening to a podcast called Why this song? which talks to the artists behind popular songs. It started with Hold Me Now by the Thompson Twins, which is one of my favorite tracks of all time. Good stuff.

I don't know that I'm necessarily a "Swiftie," but I do like some of Taylor Swift's music. But where my appreciation really lives is her tour movies and her videos.

She really knows how to present her music in entertaining ways.

And here's me... in that moment half-way through the brand new video for Taylor's Opalite where I figured out exactly what's going on. And it's so good.

And if you watch to the very end, they tell you what's going on if you hadn't figured it out. In order to watch it, you have to see it on iTunes or Spotify. It will end up on YouTube this Sunday, but you can see a tiny piece of it on Taylor's YouTube video shorts right now UPDATE: And here you go...

It's pretty amazing how Tay-Tay's videos have become so brilliant after she started writing and directing them. And this one is no exception. Not necessarily for what's in it... but for the reason why what's in it is actually in it.

What blows my mind is how business-savvy she is about it all.

She's waited a very long time after releasing the first video from the album The Life of a Showgirl for the lead single Life of Ophelia. And it's because that video had such legs to it. There was no point putting out the second video until the first one started winding down. And I honestly don't know that it has, because people are still doing the "Ophelia Dance" on TikTok and the song is still on the charts. Though some people are coming up with their own dance...

But time marches on and she probably wants to get these videos out before her next album drops, which is likely just months away given how frequently she releases them. For heaven's sake, she made The Life of a Showgirl in the middle of her Eras Tour!