i think maybe i lost the plot somewhere between my third gallery rejection and the second time the power got cut off last winter... i used to spend my weekends at sit-ins or painting these huge murals about global disarmament and then suddenly there are two little humans who need like actual protein and shoes that fit their feet and my principles started looking real expensive all of a sudden. so now i wake up at 4am and drink this lukewarm sludge that passes for coffee and drive out to this gray building that feels like it’s sucking the color out of my retinas just to make sure my bank account doesn't hit zero again. it’s not even like i’m making the whole drone it’s just these tiny little circuit boards and connectors that go into the telemetry system or whatever the hell they call the thing that helps it find its target. i spend eight hours a day under these buzzing fluorescent lights soldering things that look like tiny metallic spiders and i catch myself thinking about the ergonomics of the soldering iron instead of the fact that i’m basically a cog in the military industrial complex machine... it’s kind of funny if you think about it like how my hands used to be covered in charcoal and oil paint and now they’re just perpetually stained with flux and solder. i’m an artisan of death now i guess... lol i literally get a paycheck from the people i used to protest against. i don't know if this counts as a confession because i feel so incredibly nothing about it most days which is probably the worst part. like i should be weeping in the bathroom stall or something right... but instead i just think about how many hours of soldering equals one month of preschool for leo or how many capacitors it takes to pay for charlie’s dental work. my brain has become this weird spreadsheet where morality is just a column i stopped filling out months ago because the math didn't work. it’s like i’ve achieved this total *sangfroid* but it’s just because i’m too tired to care about the geopolitics of what happens after these boxes leave the loading dock. my supervisor dave came by today and told me i have great attention to detail and i almost started laughing right in his face because dude if you only knew that i’m imagining these little chips are just pieces of a very complicated sculpture. "you're a natural at this" he says and i'm thinking yeah i guess all those years of fine motor skills training finally paid off for the department of defense... it’s the ultimate sellout move isn’t it. i told my old art school friends i’m doing "technical assembly" which is technically true but also a massive lie of omission and i wonder what they’d say if they saw me in my hairnet and safety goggles making sure the laser-guided whatever-it-is is perfectly aligned.