“Rain is a very special blessing,” my mother says. Even when I was little, she’d already been saying it to my sister and me for as long as I could remember. Just as my grandmother had said it to her, when my mother was not my mother but only herself, in the dry Texas summers of her own childhood. Eons ago and continents away, as children reckon these things.
It’s summer now. It’s been cloudy all day, but they wait until the thunder starts to clear out the pool.
Continue readingSince I stopped posting daily, I’ve been doing a lot more writing by hand. I have a very nice journal (this one, if you’re curious) and it’s been nice to get more tactile with my art again.
Of course, the big downside of handwriting is it’s harder to get it into a computer so I can revise and publish it.
I’ve been working on a complete rewrite of my poem “is,” and I figured I’d try getting an LLM to transcribe my draft for me instead of typing it in by hand. (I mean, if you can’t use these things for OCR how useful can they possibly be?)
The results were quite a bit funnier than I expected! At first, my phone’s AI transcribed the page perfectly (in between smothering me with sychophantic flattery), but when I started trying to crop the image to get a transcript of only part of the page…well, see for yourself:
Filed under Microblogging
I like to snack throughout the day, so I try to keep my desk stocked with all the basic food groups:
Filed under Microblogging
Lady Justice/Lady Liberty enemies-to-lovers yuri as a metaphor for history’s transition from totalitarian governments to democratic ones.
(C’mon Tumblr, this is your moment!)
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Me: Alright, time to leave soon. I’ll start wrapping up.
Five minutes later: Okay, I think that’s everything.
*checks watch*
Me: …it’s been THIRTY minutes??
Filed under Microblogging
So there I was: the kids were finally asleep, I’d managed to squeeze in a few chores, and midnight was fast approaching. My self-imposed deadline didn’t give me enough time to finish a more substantial post, and even if I fudged the deadline a bit I’d end up going to sleep much too late. I was dreading the idea of trying to come up with yet another micro-post on too little time, energy, and inspiration, but I had to come up with something. I came up with that rule for a reason!
Except…I started writing again for a reason, too: it was because I missed writing. If I’ve started dreading writing, I’ve lost sight of my original purpose. The last thing I need right now is a second job that doesn’t pay anything.
So I decided to rethink this particular ambition. As I recently mentioned, I’ve been wanting to write more fiction, and I still want to finish more long-form posts, too. So here’s my new goal: I’ll continue posting at least one long-form essay, poem, or excerpt every week, and I’ll continue writing at least a little bit every day. But I’m not going to be posting every day.
The microblogging won’t stop–there’s plenty more I want to say that will only need a paragraph or a sentence or a photo to be said–but I won’t be writing posts like this anymore.
Nobody wants that.
(Note to self: Steve the goblin will try to tell you that changing your rule means you’ve failed. Remember that Steve is full of it. Keep being proud of yourself!)
Filed under Essays
This week’s been rough. I’d like to share one of my all-time favorite essays with you. It’s called “The Routine Boredom of Misery,” and it’s about joy. Normally I would put an excerpt here to entice you, but I can’t pick just one part. Believe me, I’ve tried. Every sentence of this thing carries weight; every paragraphs leans on the ones before and after it for support; every point builds on what’s already been said while simultaneously setting up what comes next. Just read the whole thing, it’s not that long.
Then, if you like it, read some more!
Joy and health to all of you.
Filed under Essays, Microblogging, Reviews
This is my office mug. It’s got a bunch of banned books on it, which is great, but it also has THIS on the bottom and I can’t believe I didn’t notice it sooner:
Here’s the rest of the mug, if you’re curious:
Filed under Microblogging
Why, you ask? Because if I don’t, I’ll be in danger of writing more posts like this one.
Nobody wants that.
Filed under Microblogging
Filed under Microblogging
Me: The Palworld type system needs fixing.1
Nobody:
Filed under Microblogging, Reviews
In Search of Secrets 