Blazes It’s hard to not see the last signs everywhere in this season of his dying. Will it be easier next year to #reinvigorate places now so tinted with finals and penultimates? This was the park we once walked; here, where you told your grandson that joke. There, where he held your hand. #vss365

Last Meal On the evening on which he would later die, his wife wondered if #perhaps they could order ramen from the place with the curried noodles and momos? Two hours before his death, he had to call the restaurant to track their missing food. Their order had never been received. #vss365

All Clams Are Bivalves….

I’m guessing next folks get fired for not broadcasting the required Two Minutes Hate. #1984

As a person of a certain vintage there is nothing more bare bones creepy to me than that snowy screen on the old tube TVs when you lost your antenna signal. (Thanks, Poltergeist!) That and the "Experiencing Technical Difficulties" messages. What's going on at the studio?! 🔪📺😱 #HorrorWritersChat

Tech plays a role (or doesn't) in my writing depending on the worlds I'm scribbling about. Been busy lately digging my own burrow down in the folk horror hole, so tech not that prevalent there (except for the shovels). #horrorwriterschat

Hallo! I write weird stuff: some of it spooky, some of it creepy, some of it unsettling, some of it just plain WTF. As for tech it's a Macbook, a pile of the cheapest Moleskines for notes/journal barfs, and my sword, the Uniball Signo Impact 207 in BLACK. Fight me. (Not really. It's just a pen.)

Historical Perspective Her mother was born the year plutonium was first #synthesized, an element named for Pluto, the astral body also coincidentally given to rule her mother’s star sign. But now Pluto is no longer a true planet, and her mother is no longer the destroyer of her many worlds. #vss365

My old brain farted and I mistook the #vss365 word for this morning. I wrote a neat little ditty and posted it before realizing my error. This is what happens when the child wakes you up at 4:30 because he is worried the cat is in his room. The cat was, in fact, not in his room.

Just gonna repost this one again because JFC….

👇👇👇👇👇

🛎️🛎️🛎️🛎️

Early Signs She can’t help #flinching at the sounds of her son’s rising. She cowers in her office as he careens around the kitchen, opening drawers, rummaging in cupboards. She thinks of addicts taking stoves apart, vacuuming couches bald. He has found the sugar jar, and now he has a spoon. #vss365

Remembering MN house speaker Melissa Hortman, her husband Mark and their beloved dog Gilbert. Murdered in June at their home by a rightwing Trump-voting evangelist, who also shot another MN lawmaker and his wife at THEIR home, 9 and 8 times, respectively (miraculously, they survived).

Future Tense The child was up 3 times last night: too cold, too hot, too dark. I am #exhausted as I write this, wondering, again, if he has taken our missing paring knives, which keep disappearing from the kitchen. And where in his crowded bedroom could he possibly be saving them for later? #vss365

Any half-mast flags I see today I am going to assume are only to honor the victims of 9/11.

Three people, at least two of whom are students, were shot and critically injured at a high school outside Denver, Colorado, on Wednesday afternoon, the authorities said.

So anyway...what's everyone having for dinner?

Pretty much sums up all I need to ever say on this matter...

Easy Does It Is the pain #bearable? the nurse asks, offering morphine for the third time. He can barely unstick his dry tongue from the roof of his mouth, but he manages to refuse, a third, final time. For not even in his dying can he allow his mind to be removed from the present moment. #vss365

Last Meals Near the end, her father talked about how meat used to taste. Today’s beef, sealed in its plastic #wrapper wasn’t even leaking its own blood onto the foam tray. Pork, likewise, was bred, misused to be as bland as paper. Meat, he’d say, gnawing a bone, should remind you of life. #vss365

Home Aide Paul wished her a good morning but heard no response. She’d left him unplugged again; his #power supply was low. He called out a second time, vibrated, flashed a light. Nothing. After a third try he was supposed to call for help, but he wasn’t sure he had enough battery for both. #vss365

After my pops died last Xmas eve I went for a walk in my local cemetery and saw a red-tailed hawk catch a squirrel for dinner. This bird is now my pops, just as the kestrel I told my dying father about is now my dad. My two dead dads are birds and both visit me from time to time in my happy place.

What’s the German word for the immense feeling of calm after both your kid and teacher-partner are no longer breathing the same air as you for at least 5 hours? #firstdayofschool

I’d wait in this line…

🐛So this thing just appeared on my shoulder and bit me twice on the neck before I realized it was there. 1. Am I now going to make a chrysalis and emerge more beautiful than ever? 2. Where TF did it come from (I have been inside all day)?

Flowstone The cow took an #arbitrary turn in the far pasture and disappeared. The farmer squeezed himself through the hole that had taken her, a rope around his waist, lantern in hand. Beneath the ground, there was no sound save a steady drip. And no light, save his weak, wavering flame. #vss365

Woot!

Reflections Water covers where the town used to be, the railway station and the post office. The church and its small cemetery. His uncle’s farm, his father’s feedstore. Names #elude him all these years later, but on one road, down the back hollow, an old woman had refused to leave in time. #vss365

Hivemind The first bee buzzes at the kitchen window. The second, third thrum around the bathroom, still steamy from a recent shower. A fourth flies #past your ear as you open the door to usher the first one out. When they look for you it is hard to find your shape beneath the moving swarm. #vss365

Mm-hmm.

Forgot to share this cool critter/nightmare fuel from my walk yesterday.

Detached Her mother, giddy from anesthesia, tells her she is beige, #mundane, that she lacks color. She looks down at her clothes and then to her mother’s pink eye patch covered in glittery gems. She thinks about lifting it and poking an unpainted fingernail into the newly repaired retina. #vss365

Watchful Waiting Her son spots blue amid the pigeons’ gray: a budgie hunting for seed in the sidewalk cracks. A pet, she says, it shouldn’t be here. They keep a small #vigil while they wait for the bus. He wants to catch it. She notes the slow blink of its eye and wonders how much longer. #vss365

Cuomo is a sex pest. Also a shit person.

🤔 But…but…what would become of the poor hardworking real estate conglomerates and their profit margins?

Dear John He dreams of driving a street cleaner, sweeping up the humans collected under the highway overpass. He wipes them away as easily as dry leaves; the #abject looks on their faces spurring him further until he wakes, alone. His wife is not in bed; there is a short note on her pillow. #vss365

Also, as @danahoule.bsky.social points out, one clear theme of ICE's little reign of terror is that they are EXTREMELY sensitive to murals, signs, and other displays criticizing ICE. Which means that one of the most effective ways to attack the agency is to produce those things in great numbers

🛎️🛎️🛎️🛎️🛎️🛎️🛎️

🎵Some those that work forces…

Outer Banks The crabs skittered from the shine of their lights, hurrying to bury themselves or race back to the dunes. The children laughed and gave chase, collecting #pixies for their castle. The moon was high, the waves not gentle. It was late before they noticed one child was missing. #vss365

Sporting Estate The house was big enough to have #wings, east and west. Big enough that a family of 6 could spend days without having to see one another or hear a hint of their doings. Big enough also that others could slip in on quiet feet and stay just around the corner and out of sight. #vss365

Haven’t looked at Instagram in a minute and yeah yeah targeted ads etc but goddamnit stop talking about the [redacted] pounds I’ve gained on this road trip. Believe me, I am well aware.

Wampus First was River Cabin: a nighttime scream mistaken for fox. The next morning empty beds: no sign of the guests, not even their dog. Nothing living but the #spiders. A week later it was Holly, then Ridge. After Walnut, the caretaker began to wonder at the marks on each cabin door. #vss365

For those in the NYC area, those Kars for Kids radio ad are not just annoying but raising funds to facilitate the abuse of children and animals. (Trigger warnings: there are images of injured/dead animals in this article and discussion of child sex abuse.) www.mossplanet.news/p/oorah-find...

When you have to unexpectedly work on your vacation/roadtrip, the view could be worse.

Get ‘er done.

Eeek! Something tells me I’m gonna like this one.

Road Trip No AC in the cars of my youth. Or real seat belts, either. Her son taps his iPad, #hums dismissively. She continues: We ate candy every day, threw our trash into other cars’ windows. At campsites, we’d siphon gas in the dark, open trunks. Your grandpa was very handy with a knife. #vss365