I have been sick with a bad cold & migraines the last few days. Much help received: Dad has walked Gus; Mum has sent me soup; husband (working in US) had soup delivered to my house. 💙 Gus has barked at me anytime I sneezed to tell me it's wrong.

This is a really moving, challenging story about a couple who invited an acquaintance to stay with them over Christmas when he was without another home, & then ended up having him stay on for the remaining 45 years of his life: www.bbc.com/news/article...

Husband valiantly trying to steer the family group chat from college football to Anglo-Saxon word origin trivia

What a horrifying weekend of news. Too much.

Nursery rhyme recounting the traditional way to lure a bat into your hat

Voicememo from John today described a joyful "Gaudete, Christus est natus ex Maria Virginae (etc.)" at Mass (verses single voice, choir for chorus) of which he did not know the composer but which made him want to do a jig. Such a jiggable, jubilant carol.🩷 www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KSx...

My favorite ludicrous New Yorker style is that they print initialisms in full caps but acronyms (initialisms pronounced as words) in small caps, so in the days of CD-ROMs, they'd write the word like this:

🙏🙏 Ah he was so good at what he did. Requiescat in pace.

Boots Quest, my humorous adventure game, is on deep discount this weekend! collect boots, throw away swords, meddle in the lives of hapless npcs, all for the price of a cup of coffee (not even the super fancy kind). please check it out! discountrealms.itch.io/boots-quest-dx

If there happens to be a bag of clementines at the store that includes one huge clementine, that's the bag you have to buy

Happy Thanksgiving, dear US pals! I am up north where it's just another November Thursday, but thankfully my husband got to go visit his fam. I'm eagerly awaiting photos of the big pickle.

Looking at Medusa only via mirror to be confident she's not a vampire

As the end of 2025 approaches, I can already state confidently that this has been my biggest year ever for giving jumpstarts to other drivers' cars

Coleslaw mix included cabbage bones 🦴

Hoar frost morning ❄️

A couple of my pals (men who work in the trades) were explaining the work ethos among their colleagues, & said, "The deal is that you can't get emotional at work, & also that anger is not an emotion." Something fundamental here.

A problem that currently exists in Canadian politics is a lack of consensus around how you distinguish between the faces of the PM & the Leader of the Opposition in editorial cartoons. Current editorial cartoon landscape fraught with ambiguity.

Tonight's listening, thanks to the algorithm 🎶👺🌈 www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzYD...

Happy Feast of the Dedication of St. John Lateran! When John & I went to Rome, we went looking for it (Holy Door, baby) but had no idea what it looked like. I was directing us past it & John was like, "How about we just check out that huge church first." T.y. J. 🙏

Accidentally let my dog eat a Hawkins Cheesie; real risk that he will sell me to obtain more

Perplexing my grandchildren by having "Tha'll do, Pig" inscribed on my gravestone

gaahjjjbjjb dndbrbrnnrnfjcicbabbajJsnd

I hate sports. Why do we do this 😰🤢😰

- Rice in the freezer & eggs in the fridge, so fried rice for breakfast - Decided to add purple cabbage because I had some handy - Some kind of pigment chemistry transpires - Truly psychadelic breakfast

They're always saying, "When Coleridge wrote 'Kubla Khan,' he was tripping on opium," but never, "When Coleridge wrote 'Kubla Khan,' he was tripping on opium that he'd taken because he had terrible diarrhea"

I was walking with a woman in the dog park who had vivid childhood memories of watching the 1993 Blue Jays World Series at a family friend's cottage. Unfortunately, they involved the family's golden retriever trying to hump her the entire time.

Everywhere I go, people are wearing Jays gear. People I know who have never watched baseball (me included) are staying up past midnight to for an 18th inning. The coffee shop has baseball donuts. And, I cannot emphasize this enough, I am in a city *3000 km from Toronto* Canada is behind this team

Need this image for sundry contexts

12 seconds from 8 stop-motion films (1968–present) across the career of animator Yuri Norstein

Baseball enjoyers 🤝 guests at Hill House

Today’s poem is selected by Maya C. Popa (@mayacpopa.bsky.social) as part of the 20th anniversary of Read A Little Poetry. “Miss you. Would like to take a walk with you.” appeared in The New Economy by Gabrielle Calvocoressi, published by Copper Canyon Press, 2025.

"A Pickle for the Knowing Ones" (1848) is a marvellously bizarre piece of writing. (No punctuation!) Thank you to @PublicDomainRev for sharing it: publicdomainreview.org/collection/d...

New post! Encouraging you to experiment (in writing). open.substack.com/pub/nataliem...

💙💙💙

Richard Scarry: Fury Road

I love Alan Bennett, & I love Patricia Routledge, & I love this monologue specifically, but I also admit to being baffled as to how she ended up in prison for sending too many letters youtu.be/iOqgDmaYdqA?...

Three Cicadas - 1889 https://botfrens.com/collections/46/contents/14687

Had a little frog on my front door (spring peeper) when I went out for a run this evening. He briefly hopped inside but I shoo'd him out again. No frogs in the house, please.

Every time I do this to Gus, this Onion headline rebukes me

I don't think the cabbage gets enough respect.

The concept of this image came up in a conversation awhile ago, so I made it during my flight

Imagining how sticky her desk must have been after she painted this

A student of mine was worried that a potential publisher might not like the fact that they, as a former marketing student, had come up with a marketing plan for their book—"Would they insist on handling that themselves?" & this was one time where I got to go, "Buddy, I have great news for you."

Truly... shall we say... eclectic set of interests here

Events in Ottawa to mark National Day for Truth and Reconciliation #Ottawa #TruthandReconciliation #Canada #September30 www.ctvnews.ca/ottawa/artic...

So lovely to join Liisa Kovala on her podcast! (Ed: I mention in this conversation that my agent has sent a manuscript to my publisher... False alarm! She is holding it off till November.) Listen here: open.substack.com/pub/liisakov...

"... paint the portrait or the porch. Try again after the miscarriage; love the children whose hands you wash and the children whose hands you never got to. Get the puppy. Live. Live. Live." Very beautiful short essay: www.plough.com/en/topics/li...

🙏🙏 www.welcometohellworld.com/life-is-a-pr...

Philosophy friends, can you please help me figure out who are the main thinkers I should be looking at for [maybe mid-]19th-century ideas of what can be known 🙏