Sending lots of love to my colleagues in Europe: please be very careful. The wet bulb effect is real and deadly! Sincerely, An archaeologist who worked in swampy SE Virginia in the height of summer where the horses were allowed inside before the rest of us

Put on pants today to do my civic duty and then embarrassed everyone by thanking the poll workers profusely for doing this work to make sure our community is heard and then sauntering away saying “I’m a government teacher!”

Couldn’t go to the parade cuz of OCD but I’m watching it from my couch and CRYING!!! I love this city!!!!

I actually don’t think I could handle living in England this summer if they do well in the World Cup because I know how *I* would be and it’s exactly how I’m being right now about the Knicks.

Also quick reminder: if you see someone stealing baby food or formula or diapers or children’s medicine, NO YOU FUCKING DIDN’T.

Stop calling the police when you KNOW they are going to shoot first, ask questions never, especially if the target is Black. White people quick to dial 911 for NONSENSE are getting people killed.

THE KNICKS FUCKING DID IT OH MY GOD

Back in New York after a 7-hour drive, Knicks in 5 🏀

LMAO someone unexpectedly internally bid for the open social studies position at my school that everyone said I would be a shoe-in for, and now I am basically unemployed for the next academic year.

Sometimes not getting something you think you want is a sign the Ancestors, maybe not even YOUR Ancestors, were looking out for you. My personal example is this: at 16, I attended a prestigious program at Brown University for the study of Ancient Egyptian language.

I actually love being from a city that is beefing with its own most famous 3-year-old for saying he wanted both teams to have fun. Elmo knows now he’s on thin ice in his hometown.

The kids dismissed weirdly today so my plan to be at the door to catch everyone to say goodbye did not work and now I’m PISSED OFF because I might never see this little heathens again!!!

When a descendant community says they don’t want a key cultural figure’s tomb or other site investigated, it absolutely not the archaeologist’s job to do so anyway for their own careers by cloaking it in a superficial “for science” excuse.

Just five more days, y’all. Five days and then I am sleeping at least a week and reading books and playing MMORPGs and not leaving my apartment until I have healed from this horrible academic year.

Just saw “Pressure” and it was GREAT! Brendan Fraser was incredible and it was totally not how we usually think of Ike so it was refreshing and humanizing for a larger-than-life figure. Andrew Scott’s facial expressions were extremely powerful.

This is the quote from the Pope’s encyclical that I keep coming back to, because it points DIRECTLY to disability justice and the evils of eugenics-based worldviews and systems (*cough* fascistic capitalism, closed borders etc):

PowerSchool being down when senior grades are due tomorrow

When predominantly white organizations ask you about diversity in interviews or consultations, it’s a trap if you are a person of color. They want to know if they can tokenize you. They also want to know if you are going to “cause trouble.”

My dad was telling me the other day before seeing a friend I hadn’t hung out with in person in years to make sure I know what is in their trunk before getting in their car just in case they became a murderer. “Dad, do you know what is in my trunk right now?” “What?”

I do understand that we don’t want Congress to be a job only the independently wealthy can afford to run for and do, but they make way too much for working, what, three months of the year? And have the best health benefits in the country?

On CSPAN2 at 2:00pm, my cousin who is a military historian will be talking about his new book, an edited collection about Grant’s son during the Civil War!

PJ putting pressure on Tolkien estate to get more rights…tbh I think the LOTR trilogy is absolutely perfect but after his constant ick moments (The Hobbit as 3 movies of CGI, ruining NZ film industry, bad blood with ROP, and his stance on AI) I don’t really want him involved with the IP anymore!

Oh this is some GREAT detective work, and very much an example of how anthropology is rightfully taught in the US as a multidisciplinary field: bioarchaeology and primary sources that allude to cultural norms working together to tell a story worthy of a movie or miniseries!

Big few weeks of press for my favorite men in their fifties: Pedro Pascal, Karl Urban, and Brendan Fraser are all making me feral. And I’m willing to admit that under my government name!!!!

Ain’t no rule says a Pope can’t play basketball…

A student knocked some minifigs being used in the animation project into one of those computer cord cutouts in my desk and I instantly shoved my hand in to reach for them before realizing this desk was designed by Jigsaw and I was now paying for all my sins. (My arm was stuck for several minutes.)

Huge day for the Franklin Expedition girlies… uwaterloo.ca/news/media/d...

Do I like music from the 18thC? Hard to say, but I do like music that makes me feel like I’m in the 18thC: Last of the Mohicans, POTC, the streets of Colonial Williamsburg, etc.

I just renewed my @americananthro.bsky.social membership, and it’s been great because there is a k12 educator rate! It’s not great because I am still mad that theeeee Michael Blakey crashed our panel on mishandling and lack of repatriation of the Morton Collection to derail question-time!

I met the British king when he was just a prince, and it took all my strength not to instinctively karate chop him in the throat because I do not play about the American Revolution.

So it’s paywalled but if you have a @washingtonpost.com sub check out this excellent article by @thurka149.bsky.social about how crucial anthropological training is: www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...

The only misstep in the production of these books is that neither cover features medieval horse-from-the-front illustrations! Alas!

My dig team is basically my family, and it sucks that we only get a few weeks together in the summer, but especially now when I’m stressed out about career 2.0, I know at least there is a place where I will always be welcome and valued.

Maybe these last few weeks are the sign I needed that the building culture is not collegial and I need to move on.

Okay so what if I did threaten to the bite the head off a rubber ducky because my most difficult kid wouldn’t stop squeaking it? Who among us wouldn’t have done the same?

Unaware this was a field that was gaining well-deserved peer support, I started applying sensory teaching and language learned as a museum ed (stocked with touchables) in my archaeological tours and lectures at Bamburgh. It is a really fascinating way to engage with visitors. This is RAD!!!

The Maasai in Tanzania are being abused by UNESCO’s henchmen and their own government in the name of “conservation” even though they have stewarded the land in question for generations. Fortress conservation is anti-Indigenous, pro-capitalist, and IT DOESN’T ACTUALLY WORK. svlint.org/NCATW

Had to write my first cover letter for career 2.0, and it took all my strength not to yap about archaeology exp. Also coworkers keep strangely-cheerily saying “not anymore” when I mention being an archaeologist, and it is in my soul so deeply that I will refer to myself as such until the day I die.

Anyway, men do not interact because y’all are so condescending all the time.

Oh I have thoughts! Strap in.

Used the word “popemaxxing” on another new social media site and accidentally almost immediately went viral. I KNEW TWITTER WAS THROTTLING MY GENIUS.

Deeply insulted by most difficult class today; not normally one to take things so personally as I have healthy self-esteem as a scientist and humanities scholar/practitioner. I did NOT deserve disrespect of that class today, and it really made me second-guess whether I have a future at this school.

Free Palestine, Sudan, Congo, and all the peoples on this one planet we have who have been oppressed for the sake of greed and white supremacy. One day, hopefully before it’s too late, we will truly be doing things like this for all humankind instead of for the bottom lines of a few extractors.

I wouldn’t be an anthropologist if I didn’t believe deep down that humanity is amazing and worth saving and trying to be better every moment forward even when we have lost our way, so this Artemis II moment is a really big deal that is making me cry!

As much as I worry about how the return to the moon is going to lead to extraction and possibly the destruction of the moon, I still feel like I need to watch this launch that feels BARELY publicized (probably because America is doing so much Bad right now).

Scholars and professional scientists: do you ever read preliminary research or peer-reviewed publications that lay out a completely reasonable argument with evidence but in your heart, you’re just like “no” and quietly close the PDF?

Just had another successful Fossil Day at Grave Creek Mound Archaeological Complex (Moundsville, WV)! I have volunteered there for years, and my table this time was “Fossil or Artifact?” Any excuse to work in St. Cuthbert’s beads (crinoid stems) and St. Hild’s snakes (ammonites). IYKYK.

Catastrophic drone incident today while the kids were flying for class leading to the death of the drone, a splat on the building facade, and my left arm bloodied. Y’all, we (teachers) do not get paid enough.

I am not watching the awards obviously because I value my sanity and I do not trust the academy to think deeply about and honor films that will remain transformational and timeless beyond the current cultural moment…but GO “SINNERS” (and maybe a few for Frankenstein, bye)