Does anyone else have an elderly cat who wants to snuggle in the morning while also hitting them in the face repeatedly, or am I just lucky?

It's important for Bluesky to know that someone has left a potato in front of the mysterious cable building in my neighborhood. It can only mean one thing. (But I don't know what.)

Lately I've been saying that almost everything is better with chickpeas and the NYT just posted a sheet-pan ratatouille with chickpeas that confirms my point. This is the only life hack I have: When in doubt, add chickpeas.

Language revitalization is improving Indigenous physical and mental health, UBC researchers say

One of my many moods. Also what happens when I don't get what I want.

"They had this idea that, if they kept stories about camp in the local paper and didn’t allow the community to forget about their neighbors, that it would pave [the way] for them to be able to come back home." More people need to know this story from Bainbridge. www.seattlemet.com/eat-and-drin...

It's kind of embarrassing how often I think about the Zorp the Surveyor moments of Parks & Rec, and today's failed rapture is no different. (PS: Every time someone tells me to "engage" with something, I think of Zorp.)

This is maybe a weird flex but I was just interviewing Mark Canlis and we came up with "the Sound Situation" as a term to refer to the Puget Sound area. It's somehow both complementary and pejorative at the same time!

Shana Tova to all my fellow Jews who remember that (almost) everything we need for this moment we learned in Hebrew school. I don't remember anyone mentioning anything about Tylenol, though.

If you're in Seattle this fall, I recommend a visit to the Henry's show Spirit House, which is focused on artists of the Asian diaspora grappling with ideas of ghosts, hauntings, and ancestral trauma. I wrote about it here: publicdisplay.art/article/spir...

This. I think it's very tempting to impute far more organized intelligence here than actually exists. (Not that the bozo-ness isn't terrifying on its own.)

When I was teased in fourth grade for being weird, I should have yelled at the bullies: "Someday my book will be on the bottom shelf of a Halloween display at the grocery store!" Because that just happened. (If I sign them, will I get a discount on cookies?)

I'm sorry but I still just have moments where I can't believe we're letting the people behind the Four Seasons Total Landscaping press conference destroy the entire world.

Have you noticed Google is getting crappier? Curious about sources AI can’t reach? Want some help creating research plans for creative projects? My class with Morbid Anatomy goes into the tools I’ve used to write and edit bestselling books & prizewinning articles. Plus, it’s fun. bit.ly/41AZoGO

If you’re around Elliott Bay Book Co maybe I hid some stickers in the book I recently illustrated that came out today.

I just realized that if you're Jewish and you drink many cups of matcha a day the plural for those cups is matchot.

As someone who wrote a whole short story about mail being delivered decades later, I love this.

Using one photo already on your phone, what is the announcement tomorrow at 2?

Heavy Twin Peaks vibes in this 1978 photograph by Sam Isamu Kimura, held at the Frye museum in Seattle. Also seems ripe for a badass t-shirt. (@markfrost.bsky.social‬ may enjoy)

Favorite person at the vet's office today said she has been referring to ~current reality~ as "microdosing hell." Seems about right.

Because I am completely unable to focus today, now I'm wondering what Lafcadio Hearn would have thought of goth music. I have to imagine he would have been pro?

I didn't realize k-goth was something I needed in my life, but this is hitting just right today: pastself.bandcamp.com/album/premon...

I submitted today, and maybe you should too! (How could I NOT submit a story to a publication called Uncanny?)

Tis the (beginning of) the season: the spiced pumpkin candles are out at the store and I just saw a press release use "goulash" for "ghoulish."

Seattle is really in love with St Rat this summer (and so am I) but rats always make me think of this great feature my pal Lucas Reilly wrote for Mental Floss: www.mentalfloss.com/article/5065...

Gotta hand it to...Dan Brown

Somehow scored a free bottle of Chanel's "Vamp" nail polish (fine, it was in the trash) and I am truly irritated by what a gorgeous blackberry it is. I kind of want this as my signature shade, but would love a color that wasn't a fascist's favorite. We need, like, a Bela Lugosi version of Vamp.

Just me here, reposting readings that strike a spark in me

The Panama Hotel tea house in Seattle has great tea and a great (if very lazy) cat.

In today's hard-hitting research I have discovered that Clippy's name is not and has never been Clippy — it is Clippit. Obviously this is another example of the Mandela effect.

Friends in Seattle, if you have any interest in the strange and uncanny I highly recommend the Jamie Wyeth show at the Frye right now. Don't look at the pictures online or bother with anything like that. None of the magic really comes through unless you go. Just go.

NewsGuard is an important resource for tracking mis- and disinformation circulating online, and it's pretty chilling — if unsurprising — to see them being the target of a Russian “dezinformatsiya” campaign.

Can't stop thinking about that report that said one of the jobs least likely to be replaced by AI is being an embalmer.

It’s the final week for my friend Loren Rhoads’ (@morbidloren.bsky.social) Kickstarter for her new book, Still Wish You Were Here. It’s a cemetery memoir unlike any other: part travelogue, part love letter to the world’s graveyards, and entirely full of Loren’s signature humane voice. bit.ly/4m14sMC

Attracted by a note on a sandwich board, I went in to my local John L. Scott office yesterday and saw they have the staircase and chandelier from the OG Frederick & Nelson downtown. A dapper man at the front desk told me people love to come in and tell him stories about their time working there.

It's not every day I am gonna share a Danny Westneat column, but this has some great data on how ICE's own data contradicts the administration's claims that it is arresting "the worst of the worst" www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news...

Working on a fact-checking project in which the writer has actually annotated their document (comments! with sources!) and may I say this makes all the difference. (Also, this article has introduced me to the word "astromancer" for "astrologer" and I'm here for it.)

I had a great time on the Crawlspace podcast talking about why cemeteries are good for you, my favorite stories from Rest in Pieces, and much much more. However, I regret to report that we failed to solve the real mystery — why I blink so much. Maybe next time! www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChQ1...

For everyone who told me to watch Taskmaster: You were right. Also, I am going to need Noel Fielding's yellow skeleton slicker.

I wrote an appreciation of Leonora Carrington that also tries to answer why she's everywhere right now, after decades in which she was often considered Britain’s "forgotten" surrealist. publicdisplay.art/article/Leon...

Hey, did you know that as of this morning Seattle has a new small press, with THREE books planned for 2025? I wrote all about it for Public Display Art! A big mazel tov to @frizzlit.bsky.social, the FrizzLit team, and the 3 fantastic authors on the docket! publicdisplay.art/article/Friz...

The perennial fear, after Zoom teaching or interviewing, that someone is still somehow recording and can hear me asking my cat for the umpteenth time today whether he is in, fact, a baby.

Fantastic recent piece in The Open Notebook on finding historical figures to write about, researching them, and presenting the material sensitively, with a particular focus on the history of science. I highly recommend it! www.theopennotebook.com/2021/10/05/r...

Fantastic piece in The Open Notebook on finding historical figures to write about, researching them, and presenting the material sensitively, with a particular focus on the history of science. I highly recommend it! www.theopennotebook.com/2021/10/05/r...

The vibes in these 1976 photos of Greek diners at the NYPL are just *chef's kiss* digitalcollections.nypl.org/collections/...

Attention fans of Leonora Carrington's writing: This reading series in Portland looks wonderful. literary-arts.org/event/leonor...

Accurate picture of me writing pitches after drinking two cups of cold brew all alone in my co-working space.

It's a special time in a writer's life when they discover that the articles on a website they used to write for are all gone, the "contributors" replaced by a series of AI-created clones. Can you imagine the utter, vantablank, fetid soullessness that would lead someone to run a site like this?

Also! Next research class for Morbid Anatomy starts THIS SATURDAY at 10 am Pacific! Teaching these is just the absolute highlight of my week. www.morbidanatomy.org/classes/p/re...

For Public Display Art, I spoke to Pulitzer Prize winner Tessa Hulls about comics, creativity, activism, and how Seattle made her the weirdo she is. It's my first time writing for PDA, and it should be available around the city in print! publicdisplay.art/article/hung...