Trying to explain to some people that the top schools for me to apply to right now aren't in blue states is like pulling teeth. "WHY CAN'T YOU MOVE TO MASSACHUSETTS AND WORK AT ONE OF OUR PRESTIGIOUS BASTIONS OF LIBERALISM THAT IS KNOW FOR THEIR INCESTUOUS AND NEPOTISTIC HIRING PRACTICES?"

To make up for some lost funding and help me balance a slimmer budget, I brought back my "Still Salty about the Library of Alexandria" shirts that I offered when I ran The Bitchy Historian. Please consider purchasing one and/or sharing. www.customink.com/fundraising/...

The VA has completely FUBAR'd financial aid for military survivors. This is pre-shutdown related. I am out $1500+ a month now for the remainder of my PhD program. Please consider a paid subscription to my Patreon: patreon.com/zostepatrikia

I need to run out to the store and it's already dark at 7:30. The thought of it being dark at 6:30 in a few weeks is heartbreaking to me. Ugh. I hate this time of year.

If your dissertation doesn't make you cry, you're doing it wrong, I think.

Has anybody considered that today is actually celebrating Blondie's "Rapture" wherein Debbie Harry, a hardcore supporter of the NYC Rap/Hip Hop scene, created an avenue for the community to be brought to the mainstream when systemic racism refused to allow it in recording studios?

We really had such a vibrant indigenous society in FL that we know so little about thanks to the conquistadors and colonization. As a kid I hated Narvaez and de Soto, and it wasn't hidden from us what they did. I'm sure since FL went red they don't even mention the Spaniards anymore, too brown.

I don't know who needs to hear this, but I can enjoy college football and support my school's athletes while simultaneously shitting on the NCAA's practices and the BS that is NIL and the transfer portal. This bubble will pop and come at the price of students just trying to afford school. Fix it.

Happy Florida Thanksgiving! On this date in 1565, Pedro Menendez landed on the shores of what would be dedicated to Santo Augustin and immediately called for a mass of Thanksgiving in the Catholic faith to celebrate a safe voyage, as well as the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin. (1)

My dad had a "mild" case of paralytic polio. As a result he has no muscles from his right hip down his leg, but never had to go in the iron lung. His body is covered in massive scars from his operations in the 60s and 70s. A MILD case. People are going to learn fast why we attempted to eradicate it.

Gator fans are not okay this morning. Maybe it would help if USF took another academic ranking off of their hands too.

Floridians: today we call our statehouse reps. All of them. All of us. Not Congress, Statehouse. Get cozy with Tallahassee. No end to vaccine mandates. They cannot remove them by a whim, the legislature has the say.

Coffee while reading @goingmedieval.bsky.social 's latest Patreon release, all I can think of was how "news" was released yesterday that the Justinian Plague was y. Pestis because scientists found the germ, thus ignoring the primary sources that literally described it as such.

The "worst" part about my dissertation is that I am trying to not pigeonhole myself into all this cool stuff about the Ostrogothic Kingdom that is going to be an ADHD trap if I keep surfing. Once a medievalist, always a medievalist. (I mean, Late Antiquity/Early Middle Ages, yeah, I know.)

24th and final year of school. Please clap.

Scammers are gleaning US resumes/CVs from the internet and cold calling/emailing pretending to be recruiters from Canada. Heads up. They know a lot of people want to leave so they're trying to cash in on it.

This is an image that unlocks a visceral core memory as a Floridian. I was 10. The outer bands barely scraped St. Pete, it didn't matter.

I just saw panels of the AIDS Quilt in Austin. All I felt was incredible grief.

I did, in fact, buy a roll of holographic gold star stickers for my 3000 level course that I'm teaching because I guarantee I can motivate students during discussion sessions with them. Who doesn't love gold star stickers? University students need stickers too.

Basically how I feel about the glorification of Gavin Newsom right now. He's no ally, he's just an effective troll.

I debated writing this. It can feel tempting, upon encountering yet another instance of this administration’s racism, to let it be. How many ways can you say the same thing over and over again? And yet we have to write it down, if for nothing else, so those who come after us know we were against it.

I probably would have never gone on a boat again after the first round so I applaud her chutzpah.

Unfortunately this was the last year I competed (2013). Not only did I move away from Providence, it knocked loose my first bad kidney stone, and I was starting to exhibit symptoms of fibromyalgia that my doctor called "being fat". I haven't had the physical ability to return to this kind of work.

I decided to start getting up earlier because it feels like the best way to make good progress on my dissertation is sleep deprivation.

Put the Procopius down, Chad.

Advice from a former street painting artist: If you feel the urge to color in crosswalks, under no circumstances should you use water to make the soft pastel richer in color, and then set it with hairspray like AquaNet or White Rain to make sure it doesn't wash away easily. Pics of my work for tax.

I really wanna know why Walmart was shrimping out in Bikini Atoll.

But I won't be able to get a job in a year after I graduate with a PhD in History, with an MA in Museum Studies, and BA in History with a minor in the Classics. Watch.

"That was when they suspended the Constitution. They said it would be temporary. There wasn't even any rioting in the streets. People stayed home at night, watching television, looking for some direction. There wasn't even an enemy you could put your finger on." Margaret Atwood - The Handmaid's Tale

Same difference.

Have we considered that we can probably take down the entire American right wing by feeding them food with spices?

Every time an Irish or Italian member of my family opens their mouth and hot air comes out I throw this at them.

They mean 1000 trust-funded Mozarts.

I'm turning 43 in 11 days. What a bland and uninspiring number.

My friend and I spent our afternoon discussing the cinematic value of the Gothic War as slapstick comedy. *puts on Benny Hill music* *Goths and Byzantines fight all over Italy* *Franks just run down from the Alps and everybody is confused*

Things I didn't think through when I planned this month for $500:

*blinks in submariner wife*

During my MA Thesis, I survived off of pots of Death Wish for breakfast, tea in the afternoon, protein shakes so I wouldn't have to cook, and then a bottle of wine to sleep at night. It was legendary and I lost zero lbs because I would eat my weight in tacos on the weekend. I'm lucky I'm not dead.

We're finally getting low pressure to break the heat dome, and my head and fibromyalgia have come out of the All-Star break right into midseason form.

Things I find funny that others don't.

RIP: The Prince of Darkness. :(

When prisons are for-profit, everybody in a criminal-in-waiting.

When fashion is 'Y2K vibes' and you're trying to decide if you're excited that you can wear wide legs/flares again without being teased, or if you should just tumble into a midlife crisis by wearing exactly 3 flannels at the same time and crying into your Stabbing Westward liner notes.

I've been asthmatic since I was 3 years old, but i haven't had a major flare/attack in decades. Apparently my 40s comes with a return to puberty in the least fun ways.

I'm sure this will in no way affect force readiness.

Spent the day at Busch Gardens for a passholder preview of Wild Oasis. Crowds broke early because of a storm, and us locals just stick it out and look at the animals rather than go on coasters. Did you know armadillos got the zoomies? You're about to see it.

When I came home from Malta I had to turn my AC up from 74F to 78F. I live in Florida. That's unheard of this time of year.

Every Republican who goes on the Sunday shows tomorrow should be pressed to denounce this illegal and authoritarian proclamation from the president. And none of this "I didn't read the tweet" bullshit.

Oh damn, I'm OLDER than Aaron Rodgers? I thought that dude had like a decade on me and was still trying to stay relevant.

I never actually planned to be a Roman historian but here we are. PhD programs are hilarious.