I'm tired of hurting. I would like to bury my heart under some floorboards. Just give it a little vacation amidst the dust and creaking wood. Or maybe in a tree hollow, it couldn't feel too much worse if a woodland critter had a few bites.

I was reading a book the other day and the author threw in a passing mention to a bridge in Cork, Ireland which I’m pretty sure was a gift to me personally because what do you mean the locals have called it The Shakey Bridge for so long that recent conservation works were forced to retain the wobble

DOGE was created for data theft and infrastructure dismantling and it wildly succeeded on both counts within the first few weeks of its existence. It will take a generation to rebuild what it destroyed and the breach of data is unprecedented.

Sometimes you change your expression in the mirror to a smooth and sultry smile, just to remind yourself of what you could maybe someday be.

Now that they have actually litigated the legality of throwing sandwiches, we need someone to take one for the team and chuck a burger at someone so we can finally answer the question that has divided Western society for generations

I want to have a Gothic horror pajama party. Flowing nightgowns and house robes, candelabras, wandering the hallways and grounds of a rented old house in the countryside, gathering together by firelight and watching a film or reading aloud a thrilling classic ghost story.

icymi: the city commission meeting is tomorrow night, i’d like to get to 500 signatures today. even if you’re not local, please sign! help me save my town’s little free libraries and little free pantries! www.change.org/p/amend-city...

Chatbots — LLMs — do not know facts and are not designed to be able to accurately answer factual questions. They are designed to find and mimic patterns of words, probabilistically. When they’re “right” it’s because correct things are often written down, so those patterns are frequent. That’s all.

I have adulted (panickedly fixed up a resume and submitted it) while tired, nauseous, and futilely trying to ease a massive tension headache. No reward snack (nauseous) so I would like a reward *something that doesn't involve more effort on my part like being unconscious inside a soundproof coffin*

Whenever people complain about the number of folks relying on food stamps, it is worth reminding them that SNAP is, by too large of a degree, a subsidy for corporations that refuse to pay a living wage and their political allies who reject public policy prescriptions to reduce income inequality.

I don't need a mere massage. I need someone to rip out my spine and bludgeon my back with it until the muscles are tenderized.

Folklore and history focused account by an incredible, knowledgeable individual!

This video from Portland is a metaphor for what is going on in America. ICE trying so hard to get Americans to cross a line and if they don't, dragging them across the line and violently attacking.

"And what do we say to the god of Death?" Me: "Take me now!" Death: "Is that a come on?" Me: "No, you spawn of a desperate herder and the slowest goat, let me on the damn boat!"

The view out the living room window here is one of my favorites. Currently there's a rainstorm but enough soft, ambient light that the trees look glowing with gold, orange, and scarlet foliage against the grey sky, and the wind carried a parade of dark golden and orange leaves swirling by.

Queen

Indulging in a Massachusetts autumn morning: grey, rainy day, vibrant foliage, clam chowder, and looking for horror books to read in between chores, studying, and doom scrolling. Gothic horror is appealing as I too wish to be without physical form, drifting through an old manor and wild moors.

Really tired of the days of nausea, abdominal pain, and my body feeling like a house of horrors. This is October, the horrors are supposed to be on the outside, not inside. *looks at news* Not outside like that! I need a creepy manor by the seaside to recover while slowly uncovering a mystery.

A weekly (soon to be daily!) reminder that I need a new job! My Narrative Design contract at InXile ends 10/17 and I would love to have something resembling gainful employment before then if at all possible. www.linkedin.com/in/stephen-b...

With science falling under increasing attack, this medical historian is here to remind people of the power of #vaccines. THREAD🧵 Hard-hitting polio advert from 1958. In the first half of the 20th century, polio was the leading cause of death in children and young adults. 1/7

I finally cleaned up my messy cablework

If anyone is interested in attending an officially licensed Hobbit Festival this October 7th-12th, please let me know. I am unable to attend due to elderly dog health problems and schedule conflicts and am trying to sell my ticket to someone who would like to go. burgschneider.com/pages/middle...

Therapist suggested I carry a small notebook to write things down during the time between sessions that I might want to discuss. So I am getting a booklet with Field Notes written on the front to write down my observations while studying myself in my natural habitat.

Approaching the time of year when mosquitoes finally go back to Hell and I can start thinking of hosting outdoor feasts looking out on the forest behind the house and drinking something spiced while sitting next to a bonfire.

So apparently the younger dog picked up giardia and passed it to the elderly dog, and from the looks of things also to my spouse and I. Additionally, it's the monthly my body hates me time, which includes my digestive tract. So many to-do's this week and next, so little will.

My mom asked for a bag of cat litter delivered as a birthday present and this the commercial my brain spat out: New litter with glitter! So you can see everywhere your little shite gremlins have tracked it over the house!

My hope for you is that you always feel safe and warm, and that you will someday inherit a haunted mansion on the moors filled with restless ghosts, grumpy cats, and at least 2 cozy libraries hidden behind secret doors.

probably a good time to bring this back

Yesterday I got to walk around Yale campus and later a hiking spot doing photography things with a group of lovely, kind, and creative people. Today I get to meet up with and spend time with two friends I haven't seen in person since before the pandemic.

The DOE has quietly put forth a proposition to eliminate accessibility requirements from public buildings. It violates the ADA and is another example of the rampant disregard for disabled lives in this regime. One day left to have your say! Demand accessibility for all!

Pretty wild to make your entire case about how immigrants are lawless freeloaders, but having to go to their workplaces and court hearings to arrest them.

You have three days, starting today, to leave a public comment with the FDA about, say, why COVID-19 boosters should remain available to everyone and also free. "Individual consumer" is the category you most likely want (unless you are one of the other categories; if so, choose that).

So this time they cut the lesson 1/4th short for another sales pitch, with not well formatted template flyer and still no price information like we asked to be emailed (they emailed the semi personalized flyer instead). Really have liked all of the instructors, just not loving the pressure

applying for jobs again

😮‍💨

If watching library workers resist leads you to expect us to save you, you're taking away the wrong message. You should be viewing this as a clear indicator that YOU can and should stand up and push back, too. We need help, not acclaim.

The discomfort when there's a sales push, but it's having the opposite effect and you can't just tell them (for incomprehensible reasons) so you're just stuck in a real life unskippable cut scene desperately trying to find the socially appropriate dialogue option to end or at least divert it.

There are late tickets available until they run out or the end of May, in case anyone has a (frankly, completely rational given current stress levels) desire to spend a large sum of money to camp in a recreation of the Shire for almost a week.

So I may have spent an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out how to make a portable icebox capable of keeping food safely refrigerated while also looking like it could have come out of the Shire (which Tolkien based mostly on Warwickshire around the Diamond Jubilee)

I'm likely going to go full Bilbo Baggins: start out excited, realize I've forgotten something important, start bemoaning a lack of home comforts, get home & crash, promising never to leave again, and then excitedly tell everyone about it for years to come. www.kickstarter.com/projects/bur...

The windows are open and I am listening to rain and smelling petrichor and forest. This has been a rough month... year, but moments like these are soothing.

Slow down. Don't race through life or you might outrun the forest ghosts, dark fairies, and ancient witches in floating cottages that are trying to catch and carry you away to another realm.

Good art makes you feel. Great art makes you inflict it on all of your friends so you don't suffer alone.

When you want to submit a job and rent application to the same place.

This framing of "dependence" is fucking propaganda. The whole point of the federal government is to build and maintain national institutions that promote public health, education, scientific advancement, etc. The implication here is that those functions are a matter of private not public concern.

One thing I've learned from trans people is that the only thing stopping Rowling from becoming Elon is a prime minister that isn't for sale. And that's very dangerous. Because eventually people like her find someone in power who IS for sale.

Approaching the cut off point for having a child and while part of me wants to, these factors all terrify me. Outside of spouse, I have no local support network. Already having trouble getting a job (and not rushing because caring for aging pets and housework already have me overwhelmed).

idk who needs to see this but here is the photo that appears on the american pika's wikipedia page

Be suspicious of anyone who fixates on IQ as a measure of intelligence. Real intelligence isn’t a number, it’s a burning curiosity, a delight in the world, a voracious hunger “to follow knowledge like a sinking star / beyond the utmost bound of human thought.”