This is lovely, Lauren.

Welp, your last sentence got me. To my sister, I was the bee’s knees. She was the cat’s pajamas. It started as a joke after a movie with Glenn Close and then became our thing. We both loved Tom Petty without reservation.

Tom Petty is one of those musicians who becomes part of the fabric of your life without you really realizing it.

I’m sad I’ll never hear Tom Petty sing live again. But I am really sorry that Tom Petty the grandfather didn’t get to hang out with his granddaughter like he wanted to once off the road. That sucks.

All the good girls are home with broken hearts

Before his Super Bowl performance, I asked people’s favorite Petty song.

I had this comforting although unlikely thought that with the delay, maybe he was moved to a larger hospice room and members of his band could play him off in a last, private acoustic show. Hearing is the last sense to go.

I wish King of the Hill was on streaming. Petty was excellent in it, and it’s times like these when I wish I could watch it somewhere.

Truly, we just lost a great American songwriter, as well as another great King of the Hill character:

Quite the one-two gut punch today. Didn’t even know I even wanted TP in my life that much. Took him for granted. Take nothing for granted, I see now. RIP, all- and godspeed them who’s left behind

Bowie was shocking, Prince was devastating, and Petty is abandonment.

I’ve always admired Tom Petty* but hadn’t thought I was overly acquainted with his opus. Boy, have these threads proven me wrong: you are absolutely right — so much of his music has formed a tapestry for having been raised in the seventies and eighties.

Well, shit.

Is Scalise the asshole scum who happened to be shot at the baseball game a few months ago?

We need to call it by a more appropriate acronym (literally as it matches the letters) SHREA, and we need to ask in the wake of the worse mass shooting in American History why do Republican Lawmakers want to institute SHREA law? (it works better read aloud)

Nope, the armor piercing ammo, that’s for killing cops and the military. They can claim it’s for hunting, but nothing in the USA has armored hide except for turtles, and regular bullets can pierce their shell. It reeks of a bunch of stupid ass rednecks who want to form a militia and use ammo piercing rounds for when…

Say, I have an idea. Why doesn’t the US lift the travel ban on North Korea and ship all of these gun owners over there with their arsenals and let them go mano a mano with Kim Jong Un’s forces? Seems like a great way to deploy local militias against the threat of foreign invaders. I guess there wouldn’t be too many…

Pfft. Who needs gun control when you have thoughts and prayers.

The GOP need to be lanced like the giant shit-filled zit it is.

the legalization of armor-piercing bullets, so long as they are marketed for “sporting purposes.”