A few days ago, out on a walk, I noticed a man behaving erratically. Yelling, agitated, etc. Whatever, I minded my own business. I saw a cute Little Free Library, so I took out my phone to take a picture. The guy flipped out, thought I was calling the cops. "I don't have any drugs!" He shouted.

Younger Kid was fussy and couldn't settle down at bedtime so I put on Alice's Restaurant Massacree and we both fell asleep.

Gerard Book

My son is adapting the lyrics of songs to suit his own interests, which is great, but he's stuck right now, because he's on "Twinkle Twinkle Little Cookie," and he can't think of any rhymes. 🍪

Assuming it suddenly became legal to practice law without a license, I would be so bad at my sister's job that it would be made illegal again.

This was my favorite book when I was 8 years old. I read it many times around that age. Then I tried to re-read it again as a teenager, and I felt that I had grown out of it. Still a good book, but definitely for CHILDREN.

Is it Joe's Deli? Their Reubens, while delicious, were enough food for four meals for me back when I was an athletic teenager. The idea of "wolfing down" one of those is absolutely nauseating.

Dunning-Kruger Effect

five living writers that you've read five books by each Anne Rollins K.D. Richards Salman Rushdie R. L. Stine Katherine Applegate

I get bored reading AI-generated five-sentence-long Reddit comments, there's no way I would sit through a feature-length AI film.

Our family income is less than half this much and we are middle class Minneapolitans. I wouldn't say no if I were offered 289k a year, but I also don't quite know what I would do with it.

Yeah, you got me. Being a responsible adult who refrigerates non-perishable food items makes me a serial killer. It's definitely not that I abhor food waste, and also don't want to get myself or my family sick. I'm just a serial killer.

I'll be the first to admit that no system designed by humans will be perfect, but if in order to make your preferred system sound better than the others you need to tell a pack of lies, then you're really saying that it actually sucks.

I just finished reviewing the page proofs for my book. It's not terrible! In fact, it's good! I don't hate it! This is a rare feeling for me.

I just watched my son use his foot to scratch his ear. He did this while standing up, too.

Oh wow, and it wasn't even an accident. They give Dr. Cleves a tiny acknowledgement in the notes. I would be so mad if I were her.

The Ugly Political Discourse of the Day reminds me of the couple of years in childhood when I was often mistaken for a boy. Not a single person questioned my right to play on the girls' softball and basketball teams. It didn't occur to me at the time to be grateful for that. Today I'm grateful.

@blindeke.bsky.social Are you doing another You're Not From Here show at Black Hart tonight?

Conversation with my son yesterday: Me: How is summer school going? Kid: ... Me: Well, what did you do in class today? Kid: ... Me: Did you draw? Kid: ... Me: What color did you use? Kid: Red. I guess I just had to ask the right question.

From the article: "Positive relationships keep us happier, healthier, and help us live longer." I haven't seen the data, but instinct would lead me to invert that cause & effect: If you're a cheerful, healthy person, isn't it easier to maintain friendships? Being sick is exhausting and isolating.

I read Wuthering Heights for the first time this year. I liked it. Will I like the movie?

Does a house count? My house is more than a hundred years old. Other than that, everything I own is probably less than 20 years old.

I wish I could participate in the shrimp discourse but alas I have a shellfish allergy.

I feel like I should say something, because I wrote a whole biography on a Jewish bootlegger: The majority of Prohibition-era liquor-smugglers and moonshiners were ✨gentiles.✨

Imagine having a family history so pathetic that all you can hold onto for pride in your ancestors is that they committed genocide. Annie, I'm sorry your bloodline sucks. 🥺

There should be a tip jar for librarians.

My kid writes intentionally horrible bedtime stories with grotesque illustrations and then badgers their dad into reading them out loud. My favorite so far: The three bears came home and caught Goldilocks. They tore her into small, medium, and large pieces and ate her. The end.

Noooo they're removing my favorite M&M color! Such a pretty shade of blue. :( www.kare11.com/article/news...

The song my adorable, baby-faced little Younger Kid sang to himself at bedtime: www.youtube.com/watch?v=251B...

Some day, I will be able to read David M. Perry's writing about his children without crying from the sweetness overload, but today is not that day.

I have the cilantro tastes like soap gene, but also I like cilantro. And when I was a kid I used to lick the soap bar. I stopped doing it because I realized it was socially unacceptable, not because I disliked soap.

I used to do this during class! So I had actual notes that I needed to refer to later, mixed in with...whatever this is.

Last night at @blackhartstp.com, I talked to someone (I think named Lily or similar?) headed to Lakewood for a wedding. I recommended a butcher and a book: TJ's (no longer sells pierogis. :( Their sandwiches were good, though) www.tjsbutcherblock.com www.boldstrokesbooks.com/books/somewh...

Hate it when I have trouble falling asleep and then as soon as I'm drifting off, my alarm rings.

Melanie. I never cared for her music, but she brought so much energy onstage.

Mrs. di Biasio, middle school. She used to give me uselessly-inflated-but-good-for-morale grades on my papers, like, "115%." She also predicted that I would have a writing career. There were only 3 teachers at my K-8 school whom I did not hate, and she was one of them.

The ones that remain will be for the privileged few who can afford years and years of grad school tuition. And because they will finish their degrees with zero teaching experience, they're gonna really struggle as professors, so...What are we even doing here?

Saw a post last night calling a common trope in fiction "unrealistic," but it's something that happened to me AND my sister (I can't say what it is because it's too personal). I didn't respond, just shook my head and closed BlueSky. This is probably my least-favorite genre of book-posting.

For a birthday this year, one of my kids got a gift card to Pumphouse Creamery. And that was my introduction to it! Kiddo highly recommends their fruit flavors.

While I was working on revisions for my book that came out last year, someone asked, "Do you feed your research notes into AI and it generates the manuscript?" Naw. I wouldn't trust my precious, carefully-crafted work to a plagiarism app. Not seductive. At all. This is MY book, not an algorithm's.

I agree with Dan on the first point, however the Miracle of Birth center brings me so much joy.

*Cringing so hard in second-hand embarrassment that I pull a muscle*

The battery in my alarm clock died during the night before I was supposed to take the LSAT, so it didn't go off and I missed the test. For my entire life up to that point, it had been my life goal to practice law. But I decided that the battery dying was a sign that I shouldn't go to law school.

One of the first things I did on Bluesky. It's not worth engaging with him. He will not learn. He will not grow as a person. And worse, he is annoying.

Went to a new (to me) bookstore today, Tropes & Trifles at 2709 E 38th St. 10/10 book-buying experience, highly recommend.

Sounds fun, but nobody, NOBODY, wants to hear about my childhood in Lakewood, OH. (We tried to merge with Cleveland once. They said no.)

I'm reading one of the books in the series that the Midsomer Murders TV show is based on. I'm ~25% way through the book and DCI Barnaby has already assaulted Sgt. Troy twice. I don't remember that happening in the TV show...

A lady in my social circle kept raving about this one series that she loves. So I read the first book. It eroticized domestic violence. I can't look at that lady the same way anymore.

Younger Kid, whose biggest source of meltdowns is not receiving the (infinite?) amount of cookies that he desires, has adapted "I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream" to "I scream 'COOKIE!!!'"

Fun fact: it is currently hotter in Minneapolis than it is in Bangkok. (This is because it is ~3:45 a.m. in Bangkok).