had a really handy info session about MFAs today in which I asked if the profs knew of many past students currently studying in the states and they were like "it's going ok for some" and then to me, after, were like, "do not go there" :')

I finished a fanfiction I first published in 2020 yesterday. 70-something thousand words. I forget sometimes I've written like 300k+ of just zelda fanfic. Anywayyy I'm glad it's done and it's cool to see how much better my writing is since that first chapter came out!

forever thinking of the elif batuman n+1 essay where she digs into two best american short stories collections and literally has to say, in the essay, that the purpose of the short story form is to tell a short story—"this sounds trivial, but isn’t"

too many people read first person as if the “I” is them thinking to themselves, and not the voice of a character telling a story (like how a friend would tell you about their day). if you find yourself “disagreeing” with a 1st person narrator, you are the one self-inserting, not the author.

I made my first-ever pie yesterday, crust and all, with apples from the garden. and it was good!! I overworked the crust a bit but have notes for next time. like this friday for harvest party. 🍏

our incredibly stinky memory foam mattress is being picked up for return today and, allowed back in the office finally, Greta promptly carried out a toy mouse that been unjustly trapped in there for months

some pics from recently. if you look carefully you can see the ghost of a man my friend used an app to delete in the background of our selfie I hadn’t seen Vanja in like 3 years so it was nice to catch up with a friend I’ve had since grade 5!!

chatted w a friend this morning who has written a paper on robotics ethics and she had a great point on the bluesky mods AI approach in that AI usage and development is colonial in nature, and they really can’t say it’s bigotry to hate AI when they don’t treat AI as a person in any other way.

really enjoying hades 2!! Beat Chronos last night for the first time using the flames surprisingly?? the aspect of eos is very Cardcaptor Sakura aesthetic and I love it also really enjoying the axe though which I didn’t expect since I usually love zoomy weapons, but it’s just so satisfying

This FBI Special Agent wants you to sacrifice yourself so that your brutal treatment will engender sympathy and melt the hearts of those who brutalise you. This FBI Special Agent does not want you to understand that this is not what worked in India and instead wants you to watch a Hollywood movie

pics from the last few days of garden visits

the bluesky mods are perfect foils apparently how can one of them be saying “if you swapped these words you’d be saying something bigoted” while the other references the waffles/pancakes tweet do you see yourselves @hailey.at @jay.bsky.team ? genuinely wondering

one of the Anticipations causing me background stress finally resolved today. i got another poetry scholarship. this one wasn’t just “good job at being good at school” (grateful as i am for that too) but based on a submission of work. i don’t have to empty my savings for next semester anymore!!

climbed a chain link fence today for the first time in forever, and the bounty was worth it. (there was no stealing involved - just a branch of the garden’s apple tree that sits over a fence) seeing apple pie as something to add to this weekend’s plans :)

exercising extreme willpower to not join the two cats on the bed and Go To Class instead

if i put this in a rice cooker for thirty days will it ferment and become black garlic aioli scented instead

i went hunting for that David Whyte poem because he showed up on my instagram feed in a very timely reel explaining: “how do you know you’re on the right path? because the path disappears.” and it’s exactly the sort of cold comfort i need for the remainder of this last uni year.

"Now is the path of leaving the path." • David Whyte •

Wallace Stevens was born on this day in 1879. This uncollected poem by David Ignatow was written to commemorate his centenary.

the number of quote posts of this by people who have clearly not watched the video is astounding Im still halfway through my coffee but something something media literacy and the prevalence of AI going hand-in-hand follow through for fuck’s sake! it’s a dictionary!

started Hades 2 last night and i’m already really enjoying it! got to the second boss and promptly died but it’s a good time

@amalelmohtar.com got me into Clues by Sam and I passed it on to a couple friends; one of those, "I cannot suffer alone/let me, on occasion, feel smarter than someone else" situations and we're having fun, but at what cost!!

yesterday we popped into a mattress shop cause the one we ordered is STILL off-gassing after 3 wks. I asked for no foam the clerk assured me their mattress are all Certi-Pur certified well so is the one we first ordered, and it gives me a sore throat every time I run into the room it’s stored in.

And in later years he strove long to learn what can be learned, in silence, from the eyes of animals, the flight of birds, the great slow gestures of trees.

If you've just tested out life without the Disney+ subscription, there's some good reasons to consider keeping things that way. Bringing Kimmel back doesn't atone for what they've done. Read more in my column for @lgbtqnation.com.

checked out "island farm stands" today to discover that 2 blocks over, a house runs an adorable IRL stardew valley lil farm stand so we got farm fresh eggs ($9 is a steal for happy backyard chickens + closer than the grocer!!) and strawberry rhubarb jam 🍓 also learned that snails love the azalea

Wikipedia editors trying to fend off the onslaught of AI crap have crowdsourced some telltale signs of LLM-generated writing; it might be handy for editors and proofreaders generally. Thanks to @ellenrykers.com for pointing me to it. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiped...

new website/blog post is up! for a while there it was just existing as a class project but i have in fact posted THREE updates in the last month so, you know... subscribe to another writer's newsletter at julsmac.ca

Going for a bike ride today to volunteer at an orchard to cut up apples for people to taste 🍎 🍏 and then a lil writing workshop w friends after should make for a solid saturday!

the post office is a public service. it doesn’t need to make money. public transit doesn’t need to make money. the library doesn’t need to make money. some things exist for the public good and we desperately need lawmakers to stop thinking about them in terms of capitalism. these are not businesses.

The cosmos and bergamot are a little late but here nonetheless!

update: my eyes hurt from reading policy i don't doubt that it's very much by design that this stuff is dense as hell and refers to itself and other policies in never-ending spirals so here's Big Al and Greta as they are on the couch w/ me right now for for better vibes

0 days since the uvic student union wasn’t corrupt and mismanaged

Every Letter carrier in the Maritimes walked off the job as soon as they heard the news. News travelled gradually west until the order came. Canadians voted for the guy who said he was going to protect jobs. I’m not sure destroying a service that was on the ground before confederation is the way.

terry and i are back home from our 14 year celebration on pender island, which was only 2 nights but still plenty of time to catch a couple sunsets, listen to the birds, and shut our brains off for a bit!

sharing from my readings tonight for the Islamic Gardens class. this chapter on geometry and materials was fascinating, and this section in particular, a good reminder. (from The Art of the Islamic Garden by Emma Clark)

I wasn’t on bluesky for a big chunk of the summer and then thought, I should come back for some community and yet the enshittification of social media continues

Please get off of substack so I and many others can subscribe to your writing, boost your links, etc. I don’t get on mailing lists run by white supremacist platforms & I don’t post/repost/boost them either.

🎶It's the most wonderful time of the year🎶 www.npr.org/2025/09/19/n... (The photo accompanying this news story shows an Alaska brown bear wading in a river)

the great horned owl won the staring contest (again) the poor thing keeps coming around just 120% surrounded by crows that can caw for hours before getting tired!

because of course

Ironically, the documents specifically (and correctly) name climate change as a major factor in worsening wildfires. The wildfire charter signed by the leaders at the summit, however, did not.

been feeling literally sick to my stomach for a week now about the precipice i’m at in my life and with my work. hanging out w/ luka the garden cat, taking the scenic route to the bus, and watching birds w/ terry have been vital in letting my mind be at peace for a few sweet moments.

today's vibe is trying not to be depressed abt the cute raccoon terry saw climbing a tree on his way to work, in the foreground of a smokey sky, on a day when there's a layer of ash on the car

cannot understate how completely feral trying to figure out MFA applications makes me. it's not just "oh it's like applying to jobs haha" it's looking at my body of work and wondering what the "best" is going to be for which schools and interrogating why i even write spec fic to begin with

today i helped another friend move out this summer. between the two of them they left me pillows and throws, an oregano plant, jars of lentils. classes start wednesday for the last year of my degree. it feels like yesterday i was applying, and now i'm figuring out MFA stuff. feeling existential!!

more recent update: on monday i was like, wow, i finally feel like writing again! and my laptop screen had died. the baby is at the Shop and i really hope they can fix it without it costing a ton of money or at least recover my files cause damn. :( technology breaking in this economy is rough.