Neon fire streaks down from the heavens

Let's all have a happy Streets of Victorian Whitechapel Christmas!

I know you're broken. So are we all. The world that made us takes what it gave Tears bodies apart with toil and age Cracks hearts with sorrow, twists minds, feeds rage Then leaves the remains to fade and fall. 1/2

Walkin' in a winter wonderland

If you’re not white make sure you carry your fucking freedom papers with you bsky.app/profile/radl...

As a sculptor brings out beauty From a simple block of wood By stripping off the layers That hid it from our sight, So living grinds away from me All those constructs of the mind That mute expression of the soul Leaves me shattered. Leaves me light. 1/2

My daughter passed her aero engineering prelim exams. She's a doctoral candidate. So proud of her! This has been a hard week. Harder than any of my own grad exams/defenses. I'm glad for all of us

As usual, i got to tomorrow only to discover that Tomorrow Me had evaporated like shimmering water on the road ahead; there's only Today Me, who's never fun. Looking back, i can't quite make out what Today Me thought was so promising a few days ago. But Tomorrow Me still might show up! Tomorrow.

On the road last week

If you see thiss, repost with your model of positive masculinity.

Important to bear in mind the constitution only matters so long as (and in the way that) powerful people think it should. Any of your rights will vaporize in an instant if somebody powerful decides they want it to. Our democracy can only exist as an ongoing, collaborative project.

I'm sure Tomorrow Me will be appreciative of the stuff Today Me is getting done, but Today Me is the only Me i currently have to be and Today Me isn't having a great deal of fun. The problem is, i'm not totally convinced Tomorrow Me is the same Me as Today. I guess i hope he's happy, whoever he is.

In one of those ruts where everything i try to write ends up just being, "Wow, i'm tired." I mean, my poetry excels most in just, you know, existing; i'm not that worried about artistic merit. I do, though, want to have *something* to say.

What's being done to the TA at OU appears to be a planned attack on a trans person, but it's using a method—going to the administration to hurt teachers you don't like—popularized since schools started to consider students to be "customers," to be served at the expense of mere employees—the faculty.

I aspire to this, of course, but it's hard sometimes to believe i'll ever get there

Let's start an over 30 selfie thread. 55

Introduce yourself with 5 animals you've seen in the wild: Red Tailed Hawk Possum Chipmunk Ummm . . . . . . Bald Eagle. Possibly. It was a long way off. Hm. Does Detroit count as "the wild"? Rat

When i was 16 i went to England with my parents. The highlight was seeing the musical Chess in the West End. I loved the music, listened to it all my life; shared it with my kids, who loved it too. Tonight they went together to see the revival of Chess on Broadway. So glad they got this experience!

Positives: cut off my shaggy hair & enjoyed a soothing shower by candlelight. Negatives: i am "tweaked my back putting on my socks" years old. (I cut my hair down to stubble; my wife is making the adjustment, but she's not quite there yet)

MY WIFE: "Sweet dreams!" ME: [falls asleep, is transported directly to hell]

I came hither through fire and flood, only to find that those had been my good old days

A lot of people, and in particular the media, have entirely lost their grip on the idea that there is a way things *should* work, that there are supposed to be rules. Coverage of Trump & MAGA is always this tacit might-makes-right garbage

A good point! At the same time, we have to go further and reject MAHA framing entirely. The debate mustn't be about who is & who is not deserving of healthcare; that road leads to some real bad places

MY WIFE: "Sweet dreams!" ME: [falls asleep, is transported directly to hell]

Worth remembering that Leo has a more than passing familiarity with liberation theology

CW: Thread contains the term "Holy Dipstick."

Winter wonderland. Columbus, Ohio. November 10

Just watched Frankenstein. Beautiful! Intense. It moves you in every sense; you're somewhere, at the end, that you weren't at the beginning.

If you're feeling heartbroken, try remembering that the German word, or a German word, for "heartbreak" is "Herzschmerz." You'll still be heartbroken, but some of the tears will be from laughter because that is a ridiculous word.

" . . . and other things people say because they can't admit to themselves they're Republicans."

Every time i start to fear that we are at the end of days, i remind myself there's no way we're getting off that easy.

Don't know if anyone cares, but since we're castigating people for not wanting to vote blue no matter who, my 2 cents: In the real world, political parties have to sell themselves to voters. Don't sell them? You don't get their vote. Y'all tried berating them for being fools in '24: didn't work.

Did a lot of my grad research on ancient Greek tyranny. Uncomfortable to find that research so relevant now.

Change one letter, ruin a candy Spittles

My little maple has gotten big enough to be turning red(ish) for Fall 🥹

Not sure i've got it in me to keep tabs on The Horrors today. You all go ahead, i'll catch up.

The hues, the scents, the rustling, everything Autumn was offered today. 📷 🍂 …

The barriers are down on the newly consolidated SW corner of Vindolanda fort which formed part of the 2019-2023 excavations #archaeology #HadriansWall

I relax a little, cheer up a little, then i remember that republicans have effectively ended congress and thus terminated services, which will kill real, actual people, and i or my kids could easily fall victim to that or the revived illnesses they've fostered or just to their thugs' weapons.

My favourite stretch of the Antonine Wall, the Roman frontier in Scotland, can be found at Dullatur. Here the Wall's enormous ditch is remarkably well preserved, tangible evidence of the impressive scale of this 38-mile-long monument. #RomanSiteSaturday

It's always nice to get up early, make a cup of tea, and watch the day's Discourse gradually take shape in the dawn sky

Watching society burn, and tonight i am selfish. I am crying tonight for my daughters, all in their 20s, all taking the first exciting steps in creating lives they will not actually get to live. They grew up in one world, but they will live as adults in another.

www.mutualaidhub.org if anyone needs food immediately this site lists all orgs in the US like community fridges and networks

What's it like inside your head?

We're awfully close to having no congress, no real courts, just a small heirarchy of strongmen using gov't to siphon your $ for themselves & a few other rich people and a huge army of thugs empowered to imprison or kill anybody they want. To the "you can still criticize" folks: it'll go all at once.

Going to have a frost tonight, first of the year. My cluster of little pencil pines would not have tolerated that, so—time for them to come in for the winter. I've sprayed them & treated the soil for bugs, but to make sure, i have saran-wrapped a plant. A first for me. Unwrapping in a week or so.

Add Cincinnati to the rapidly expanding list of cities where homeless students sleep in parking lots because their families can't afford a place to live. www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2...

Organizing into mutual aid groups is going to be crucial over the next 6-12 months. If everybody is an island we're mostly going to drown.

You know what i'm getting tired of? Every few years, reading, "You know that set of advanced skills you spent years learning? Well, you're an idiot for having wasted your time. Now, learn this radically different set of skills immediately or you will deservedly be ground into cat food."

Apparently, it's National A Man Was Wrong on the Internet And Will Never Admit It Day. (I, like you, would've said that was every day, but today appears to be special)