Me, in bed at a "reasonable" time for an insomniac: "I'll read one chapter." *167 pages later* Whoops.

No, sweetie. Donetsk was a city of a million roses when its own Ukrainian flag flew above it. Back then, it was also the fastest-growing and most rapidly prospering city in Ukraine -- home to what was the finest regional airport in Eastern Europe, one of the world's best football stadiums, a state-of-the-art railway terminal, and one of the cleanest, best-maintained cities in the region. Its elites were running Kyiv, and every time I visited Donetsk as a student, riding the famous trolleybus Route No. 2 through the city, I was amazed by how many new office buildings were appearing, how much money was flowing into the city, and how many international companies were opening their doors there. Fifteen years ago, to us kids from Donbas, Donetsk felt like the center of the universe because it had everything one could possibly dream of. It was a young city of universities and libraries, where the overwhelming majority of boys and girls from across Donbas went to study, including those from my own small hometown an hour away by bus. Names like Liverpool or Detroit Rock City may mean nothing to you, but our Ukrainian Donetsk was a city of great rock clubs and unforgettable concerts. We traveled there to see Western bands perform. We bought rock merchandise at the legendary Right House store near Krytyi Market. Scorpions, Rihanna, and Beyoncé performed at the famous Donbass Arena. Schoolchildren from across Donbas were bused in to watch Shakhtar Donetsk matches. The city even had a famous monument to The Beatles. It was a city where we sang songs on guitars in its beautifully maintained parks and along the Kalmius embankment before heading out to buy the famous "green Donetsk burgers." Our older friends moved there after graduation, formed rock bands, recorded full albums, and held wedding celebrations in the squares around Donbas Arena. We traveled there to visit the legendary Radio Market in search of films, music, and books. And then you arrived. And you turned the wealthiest, most prosperous Ukrainian city into a piece of shit. You deceived many of its people with sweet promises of Russian oil-fueled prosperity broadcast from television screens, but what you brought instead was war. You transformed a thriving city into a criminal wasteland ruled by ethnic gangs from Russia, into a kingdom of Stalinist terror straight out of the 1930s, complete with torture chambers in the infamous Izolyatsia prison camp. You turned the magnificent Donetsk Airport into lifeless gray rubble, while the vast stands of Donbas Arena have spent a second decade slowly being reclaimed by weeds instead of hosting Champions League finals and Metallica concerts. You swept away an entire generation of the city's men through your forced mobilization and threw them against Ukrainian machine guns until there were barely enough people left to keep basic municipal services running. Because of you, prosperous Donetsk became a withered desert without reliable water, because your war destroyed the canal system that carried water from the Siverskyi Donets River into Donbas. For years now, people have lived with chronic water shortages and have been reduced shitting into plastic bags forever. You dragged Donetsk back like seventy years in time. You turned it into a depressed backwater, devoid of hope and future. Even ten years ago, tens of thousands of people, the most active, the most talented, the most entrepreneurial, fled the city and found refuge in Kyiv and elsewhere in Ukraine. Many of them still remember our Donetsk with tears in their eyes, the Donetsk that existed before the arrival of the "Russian World." You transformed it into something that even my pro-Russian acquaintances are shocked to see when they return after years of occupation. It was you who trampled the million roses of our Ukrainian Donetsk into shit beneath the tracks of your tanks and the boots of your death troops, turning them into a foul swamp of death and despair. And that stain will forever remain on the conscience of fascist Russia, which brings nothing but destruction, decay, and death wherever it goes.

This may sound childish, but...players on PokemonGo are pathetic. I've deleted 60 friends who do not reciprocate, and have culled the many who have become inactive over time. The irony is that most of my 100 friends were from "serious daily players only" groups. Firstworldprobz

Gilmore Girls season 7 is like a parody on the first few seasons.

How are you supposed to feel when you get married and half of the (small) family that was invited didn't come or treated it like it was a only boring dinner reservation, but then you find out they took your ideas and made a wedding renewal event everyone attended with enthusiasm?

Having a rough day.

Crying on the chiropractic table? 10/10 do not recommend

I miss when Twitter was 140 characters and not novels or clickbait.

Medical maltreatment of women: case 999⁹ Mom injured her knee 1.5 years ago. ER/docs: she was "65 & overweight." She went without treatment/therapy/pain relief/a plan for her pain 1.5 years Finally asked for an MRI; doc reluctantly prescribed. Torn meniscus, blown ACL. 1.5 years

Literally nobody needs AI but everyone needs clean water.

Reading is my favorite way to avoid doing literally anything else I'm supposed to be doing

BYE, ORBAN!

When the cat's away, the mice will play*. *drink wine out of a goblet whilst watching the Tudors again

Four years ago in Bucha, Russia killed over 500 innocent civilians. Among them were 43 children. The youngest was just 1.7 years old. After that, Russia kept screaming that everything was staged, that it wasn’t true, that it was Ukrainian propaganda. The truth is: they did it, and those innocent people will never come back. And they got away with it. Remember that.

Nothing is much better than a cup of hot coffee or tea on a cold night, and an entertaining novel to read.

Current mood: Stepan

The X is silent. It’s still pronounced Twitter.

I'm at the movie theatre an hour early. I don't know the last time I was this early for a film (or this excited). I hope you're happy, @andyweirauthor !

This is what happens when people cannot engage in logical, fact-based discussions. They use racial slurs and other insults and then block you. No love lost.