This winter I am grateful for my bucket shovel, and my in-house teenage labour.

If you want to understand why rich guys are turning back to eugenics and recreating the rhetoric and theology of slavery, it’s because they know on some level this level of wealth inequality is unjustifiable bsky.app/profile/marl...

I was grumpy for half a dozen small reasons yesterday, and I woke up knowing I needed a fresh-air run. I didn’t *want* to go running when it was still -4, but I did it, and it made me feel much better, and it’s annoying how that works.

In the alternate universe of my dreams, there is a Christopher Guest curling comedy where it gets funnier every time the excitable announcer (Fred Willard, of course) says hog

Gonna need people to support middle grade and YA titles bc where do we think adult readers come from!! If kids don’t have good books to read from like 8 - 12 they are going to stop reading 😭😭😭😭

It was fun to see Thanks A Lot, Universe get a recommendation in this Today’s Parent article on sweet and sporty romances for young teens. (The sequel, You Owe Me One, Universe, has even more sport and romance!)

God the people mad about music like this must live such sad miserable little lives

the magic of the Muppets is that there are two fourth walls. they constantly break the one that reminds the audience they are performers. they NEVER break the one that reminds the audience they are puppets. this dynamic is the key to their entire comedy style

A Long Game by @elizmccrack.bsky.social is instantly one of my favourite books on writing because it’s so delightfully honest. And this is the truth: not only are there no absolutes in writing, but any decent writer who’s been at it long enough has changed their mind on some of their own opinions.

I’m on a bus home and just watched FOUR cars try to run a left-turning signal after it had turned red. Last one nearly hit us. Some drivers will really try anything.

I started my bus ride with Alex G's album Headlights, which is excellent, but eventually I figured out what I really wanted to listen to was Tom Petty. Sometimes the answer is Tom Petty.

Even Netflix is bad at this sometimes. I’ve watched almost all their basketball documentaries, but just a few weeks ago I found out the show Running Point exists, nearly a year after it came out. It should have been the easiest “hey you might like this” algorithm suggestion ever.

❤️

I’m in the dreamy (literally) stage of a new book project where a funny scene popped into my head at 2 am. A more ambitious writer might have hopped out of bed right then, but I trusted it would still be there for me in the morning. (It was.)

The snowplow driver saw me at the end of my driveway this morning and lifted the plow blade as they passed my house, to avoid filling in everything I’d just shovelled. Bless them for this small kindness.

My cozy(ish) comedic fantasy is now up on Patreon and Royal Road for free!! Yes, 100% free!! If you like shenanigans and tough granny vampires and a heartfelt story about two unlikely friends, this is the book for you 💖 Patreon: www.patreon.com/cw/JessicaLe... RR: www.royalroad.com/fiction/1502...

This is extremely good.

My least radical opinion about trucks and SUVs is that anyone who wants to own one should have to ace a driving test that includes navigating a roundabout and parking entirely inside one space at the grocery store.

Never has a bad performance. No one is ever disappointed when Delroy Lindo pops up on screen. Long overdue. Baller time

This is an excellent analogy, because my recollection from grade school is that the pen on the right looks fun and exciting, and then you play with it for a few minutes and realize it's not actually useful for anything and in fact makes some tasks more cumbersome, and never think about it again.

I legitimately laughed out loud.

Canadians you are not prepared for the temperature he tells you he is experiencing here.

After Monday’s snowstorm I saw a group of college-aged guys rolling giant snow boulders down Citadel Hill, and today I made it back to see their finished work of art. Maybe they’re marine biology students.

I’m generally pretty chill, but today someone opened ChatGPT on their phone while we were doing a group planning exercise and I said “put that away, we are capable of doing this with our own brains” forcefully enough that people were like “whoa, tell us how you really feel”

Happy MLK Day!

These games have been incredible, and Ant vs Wemby is cinema. I’m torn between “give me seven more of these” and “I want no part of Anthony Edwards in the playoffs.”

Top of the charts at my house today

A queer story (Heated Rivalry) and an unapologetically Black story (Sinners) were the two biggest cultural sensations of the past year. It would be amazing if large companies not only showed some courage but paid attention to what people genuinely like instead of bowing to the loudest losers.

Translation: we’re winning the fight against gen AI built on the stolen labor of creators of every kind, and his money fountain is starting to dry up.

On my way to the office on Thursdays I regularly encounter a group of families — all dressed up, posing for photos, usually corralling a kid or two — who are on their way to their Canadian citizenship ceremony, and it’s always such a nice way to start the day.

Be careful on the sidewalks this morning, #Halisky. It’s just cold and misty enough that everything is slippery.

The Good Place and Friday Night Lights both ended really well. But FWIW, I thought the Stranger Things finale was fine! It had the usual Stranger Things issues (length, excessive talking), but the final scene in the basement was perfect.

If you’re a real human being trying to get in touch with an author these days, introduce yourself, add a social media link immediately after the intro, don’t shower the author with compliments, mention money if you’re offering a paid gig, and include as many contact details as possible.

I’ve received three emails this week that are variations on “I love your books and want them to reach more readers,” and it’s increasingly hard to tell what’s sincere and what’s an AI-assisted attempt to rope authors into a marketing scheme. It’s so frustrating that this is where we’re at.

Ever relevant, this poem by Mary Oliver, especially today.

billy woods dropped a great solo album and a great Armand Hammer album in 2025. On Mercy he said “I’m old and slow but I can still get you 14 and 6 / a couple assists” and on Golliwog he rapped “money comes slow like publishing” and those are my 2 most relatable rap lyrics in this stage of my life

I don’t think that polarization is a “both sides are equally as bad” problem as it is sometimes framed, but I do think that Carney supporters who react to even the mildest criticism with this level of unhinged fury are absolutely a problem.

The Chris Rock political satire Head of State (2003) was not great, but I regularly think about how the president’s over-the-top racist slogan in that movie — “God bless America, and no place else” — is now the standard public position of multiple US politicians and media outlets.

A lot of people should make it their New Year's Resolution to stop posting like "Did you know Twitter is bad? Here's a screencap of the worst tweet I saw today. Isn't this bad? Here's one more. No one should use that site. I'll post another screencap tomorrow so you how bad it is."

Thursday is the perfect day for Christmas (Boxing Day is Friday, natural four-day weekend) and the worst day for New Year’s Day, at least for those of us who didn’t book a vacation day tomorrow.

This entire story is wildly funny but this is where I lost it. I have been to churches with white people who tambourine on the 1s and 3s and it is an experience

Our holiday traditions have evolved as the kids get older, and one of our more recent additions is doing a murder mystery game together. We solved the case!

I would love to see us lend considerably less oxygen to rage bait in 2026. Like just say no.

FACT

I will never hear a loon the same way again after the season finale of Heated Rivalry. That scene made me laugh so hard

Boxing Day is for waffles (and bacon)

“I know we’re facing mortal peril but I want to air all my grievances about our relationship right now.” “Yes, even though any sensible person with a functional survival instinct would try to be quiet in this situation, let’s scream at each other.” -Literally every couple on Stranger Things

I’ve been haphazardly assembling a gym in the basement laundry room, and my 16-year-old (with some help from S) built me a weight rack for Christmas

I watched last night's Spurs-Thunder game on the exercise bike this morning, and as a San Antonio fan I have fully progressed this season from "not going to overreact to this hot start" to "hmm, maybe this team is actually legit already" to "WE ARE SO BACK"

This might become my personal motto for 2026.