Dang. I keep forgetting to make workplace disagreement acceptable by prefacing it with "I just want to push back on that."

if you were accidentally fired while transporting a nuclear warhead and currently need a place to stay with said warhead please know that i have a sizable backyard and an abiding desire to be a nuclear power

morning commute

Musk is working on replacing contract workers in the Department of Education with AI chatbots, aiming to use generative AI to handle student and parent inquiries.

From WHAT IF THE INVADER IS BEAUTIFUL by Louise Mathias

The first-year writing class is a house haunted by the five paragraph essay, and I grow weary of its shenanigans, but I still get a little uncanny thrill every time a student starts talking about their "three bodies."

This interview with Kaveh Akbar was good company this morning: slate.com/podcasts/dea...

lawyers: your bat signal has been activated

for pity’s sake, I am BEGGING university leaders to stop framing this issue in terms of what this will cost the university. people dont care! EXPLAIN WHAT THIS WILL COST THE PUBLIC: closed hospitals and clinics, skipped treatments, loss of access to experimental drugs, unemployment, recession

Oops 😬

Fixing my heart this morning www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6-z...

Harvard Divinity School punished students for having a PRAYER-IN last semester. I absolutely understand why students have decided to change tactics. When you tell people to stop protesting genocide, it absolutely impacts how they respond to your shouts about fascism. Everything is connected.

My staff is hearing reports from Head Start programs in Oregon that they're still locked out of federal funds. My office is doing everything it can to get more info and get funds flowing before providers have to start closing their doors.

fy writing students are researching important problems in their communities while largely not following current events; timeliness is always a thing we have to work on, but it's so demoralizing to have to keep telling them "actually that thing is even more fucked and complicated right now..."

problem-solving and self-care strategies I am engaging with this winter = strong pu-erh tea.

Hearts of Space's tribute to David Lynch is a very good soundtrack for catching up on the essay grading that you are very, very behind on because everything is currently terrifying and insane: www.hos.com/this-week/pr...

Really developing an appreciation for that part of the evening when it's too late to expect any more work will happen but still early enough to feel really optimistic about the work that'll get done in the morning. I'm waking up early, y'all.

Cloud report

Amicus podcast’s emergency episode this afternoon helped me get my brain around this current funding freeze fuckery; on Molly of Denali right now, children are making necklaces with glass beads and fish skin.

The four year old and I took the bus to the grocery store today. The past few months, college students regularly offer me their seats on crowded buses. We had to wait for eggs because a woman blocked them, telling an employee about the wise president and “Mr. Musk.” It is winter, I am 45, the end.

Major personal accomplishment of 2025 so far: cooking the foods in the freezer before they become ancient & ice-bearded-

cloud report

From SIDEWALK NATURALIST by Sue Landers (above/ground press)

The four year old has discovered Molly of Denali, and watching it with her turns out to be very good for the soul, especially when I need to step away from the news.

It was 35 degrees so we went outside & glowed some

I'm glad I got to read this by @jayjayrowan.bsky.social today: open.substack.com/pub/jayjayro...

the above/ground press postal increase sale, abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/2025/01/the-...

“Why in the hell do you want to come to Big Tuna, Sail?”

Director-writer David Lynch, who radicalized American film with with a dark, surrealistic artistic vision in films like “Blue Velvet” and “Mulholland Drive” and network television with “Twin Peaks,” has died. He was 78. bit.ly/40is3yQ

“There are just two basic stories in horror, two simple ones—evil is outside and evil is in here.” Happy birthday, the master himself, John Carpenter …

"The horribleness isn't the baddest thing" is something the four-year-old just said that seems pretty broadly applicable.

Feeling cranky and tired while washing dishes, and this light outside the window kept shining right in my eye. What is that stupid light, I even said out loud, going to investigate. Reader, it was the giant, beautiful moon.

Rereading CD Wright’s ONE WITH OTHERS.

From Marcella Durand's To husband is to tender:

This cabinet would be very funny if each idiot wasn’t going to harm lots of people in different but equally terrible ways.