Language Arts The teacher, new and unafraid, took great joy in teaching the #myths, reveling in epithet and aegis, pantheon and hubris. In her final class, she talked of Aphrodite’s birth on the half shell. She asked them to think of oysters, their shape, and the feel in their young mouths. #vss365

Wisdom to Distinguish A small #measure of whiskey before bed turns to two, then three. The bottle is nearing empty, although it had not started full. Your therapist talks of active avoidance and passive. Tell me which it is, then, when you pour the last glass and forget to set your alarm. #vss365

Famine The learning #language model was hungry. It’d eaten all the #literature, poetry, memoir, #law books, research papers. So they fed it 90s-era ’zines, mimeographed co-op newsletters from 1975. Bazooka Joe comics, jokes from Cracker Jack boxes, before they stopped giving away real toys. #vss365

I've had an email doppelganger for over a decade. I got her phone number once from a bill emailed to me, *not* her, and texted to let her know re: the email confusion. She basically told me to drop dead, so I just deleted her 6 tickets to Kpop Demon Hunters in April. Hope your daughter is happy now!

Clearing Out You find the objects used for your childhood spankings in a forgotten pile on the third floor; the internet names them laundry paddles. Then #history unravels for you from there. A hundred years ago, this house a laundry, a baby drowned in the hot lye of her mother’s labors. #vss365

Common Spaces The tree had been dead all summer; we thought to call the landlord but didn’t. September winds sent it toward our windows with a thudding crack. The chainsaws came and gave the yard a peculiar new #geography that even the strays and rats have yet to map to their satisfaction. #vss365

My man, my mensch. Also that shirt 🔥

Servitude That’s my great-uncle, he says, on their second date. She's stunned to silence by the connection to such a #famous holy man. She had thought her suitor mediocre at best. Now he is glazed in a warmer, honeyed light. She realizes she will marry him. She will have no choice. #vss365

No I’m not stress eating chips ahoy cookies to avoid stress eating my kid’s Halloween candy, why do you ask?

The kids probably don't remember this but Big Time Cheney once shot his friend in the face while hunting and everyone laughed and laughed and laugh— Anyway, NYC: go vote.

Homing Her preschool #education had before and after. After was her babysitter nabbing a pigeon barehanded. After was her following him up the metal stairs to a rooftop coop, to the caged thrum of citified rock doves. After was watching green slide from pocket to outstretched palm. #vss365

Naturalized They go back eight generations, at least. Pull out a map: how many roads with their name? Even this hollow here. The cave where they found all those bones. But the authorities hesitate to call it what it is: #domestic, home-grown. As American as corn, pie, an eye for an eye. #vss365

Me (2 days ago): So Friday, what costume do you want to wear to school for— Kid: Nothing, I will be myself. Me (1 day ago): So Friday, are you sure— Kid: I told you, Mom, I'm going as myself. Me (this morning): Oh look at that kid in the Minecraf— Kid: Mo-om, why wouldn't you let me wear a costume?

🧙‍♀️Happy Halloween, Allhallowtide, Samhain, etc., to all who celebrate, my creeps!

More of this in my timeline please.

As a lifelong* NYer I am truly hoping that Cuomo and Sliwa go the way of Polynices and Eteocles and just put each other out of our collective misery. *Old enough to remember Ed Koch. How I'm doin'?

Today’s NYT front page: Above the fold, using an old pre-demo photo with the caption: “Critics are outraged over its demolition, but *some* welcome a change.” I assume in this instance, “some” means “oligarchs buying access and shitting on democracy,” right @nytimes.com?

This is juvenile, embarrassing, and…yeah. They also forgot the part about enslaved peoples building it…but hey! Hunter Biden did drugs and has a massive hog or something … 🤷‍♀️

In Spirit Halloween and I think I found my No Kings inflatable…. #nokings

Not only that but my best friend’s phone number, my dad’s phone number, my parents’ mountain cabin number, and the number for the local movie theater. I’ll see myself to the glue yard now.

My current conundrum: which inflatable animal costume will I wear for No Kings?

🪦📸🔟 Creeps! It continues to be delightfully chilly with bright sun here in my corner of the world. Enjoy this red-tailed hawk taking off between the grave stones in search of snacks for today October 10. #cemetery #gravetober #birdsofpreyknowtheyrecool

🪦📸9️⃣ My creeps! Yesterday was one of those DAYS, so belatedly the gravestone pic for 10/9, which was a blustery day here in Brooklyn. #cemetery #october #gravetober

Joralemon Street.

🪦📸8️⃣ Creeps! Today, for October 8, I give you a taste of fall as the temperature begins to dip here in Brooklyn, NY (finally)… Something about two grave markers leaning into each other as the earth settles beneath them just gets me right in the feels… #cemetery #greenwood #october

What an absolute toe rag.

🪦📸7️⃣ For October the 7th, I give you this kestrel basking in the sun of Brooklyn’s ongoing 2nd (3rd?) summer. It’ll be cold and leaders soon enough, my creeps. I hope? #october #greenwood #cemetery

🪦 And now my creeps, today’s pic for 10/6. Even in death, life finds a way. #cemetery

🪦Yoinks, creeps! I missed yesterday’s grave pic. For 10/5: a shot from Green-wood’s bucolic Hill of Graves. #cemetery #october

🪦 Hello my creeps! Here is today’s cemetery pic for October 4. Beautiful blue skies for a gentle walk among the graves… #halloween #cemetery

“Octopus’s Garden”

🪦Morning, creeps! To distract from the ongoing and increasingly dismal state of things here is today’s graveyard pic for October 3. Who wants to totter down this leafy path through the tombstones with me? #dontfearthereaper #october

Every October I try to treat myself to a couple of spooky anthologies so, yes, I just paid a lot in shipping to get this beauty across the pond.

🪦 Hello my creeps! Here is the graveyard photo of the day for October 2. Who wants to crawl inside for a hug from this lovely tree goblin? #october #🪦

🪦 ⚰️ Happy October, my fellow creeps! In honor of the spooky month I will post a photo each day from my happy place, my local cemetery Green-Wood. The first, taken last week, with GW still in the throes of Brooklyn’s second summer. #october

The Tenant Farmer In the cow pasture across the road there used to be an old house. Its red roof vented to the sky, bindweed knotted around the rusted gate. As children, they explored it, crunched through the shards, rummaged among the jars with labels #blurred by sun and rain. #vss365 1/31

How did 7 months pass without me noticing the glorious duchess has come into our little corner of the shire? *swoon*

Continuum of Care The Geri-Chair had a bum wheel, making it hard to move from room to room. They had no spares; new ones were expensive. The aides solved this #conundrum by leaving her most times on the screened porch, turned toward the television but with a slim view of the birds outside. #vss365

Spirit The pyroclastic flow took him in an instant. In the following years, cooling gasses settled into #sublimates of magnetite and halite, leaving the crater where his lodge had stood a pretty sparkle. Some say you can see his crusted outline in its midst, surrounded by 12 of his 13 cats. #vss365

HamNo bringing.

@nymag.com Okay but who’s the brains?…Anyone?…Bueller?

Sail Away The highway running behind their building is a steady hum not unlike the ocean, if the ocean were broken by frequent bursts of unmuffled engines and heart-popping backfires. But there are the long, low pulls of truck horns, which are as warm and #sonorous as any tugboat’s whistle. #vss365

Brad Lander is such a mensch. Also, fuck ICE.

Under God Rain so loud it wakes the baby in 2B, the two children in 4F. The old dog in 3E howls with each #capricious crack of thunder. In 6G, they watch the ceiling, hoping the leak is finally fixed. In 1A, the toilet belches and coughs. In the basement, the waters have begun to rise. #vss365

Realms of Men The first mouse is winter’s #bellwether, signaling the cat to commence her watch. She shreds all captives into sticky bits on the family shoe pile. But the #eventuality: by February she will be mouse-drunk, fat, and forsakes her oath to spy on the cardinals at the feeder. #vss365

Watching 28 Years Later and I realize that in the time since the first film came out I have become a giant weenie. 🫣 (Also alpha infected? 🤔) #horrorwatch

I’m one of those weirdos. Also we need dem leaders who actually give a shit.

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