People advocating against peace without strategy or tactics do not want you to *win*. They want you to be delegitimized.

Be sure to read the thread.

@kjcharleswriter.com has a new book out today! I was lucky enough to read the ARC. www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

🎶Turn the AI off TURN THE AI OFF🎶

This looks like a fun thing to do on my birthday.

From someone else’s psych report recommendations. Emphasis mine: “in previewing literature, [child] should read the chapter headings, the jacket cover, the prologue AND EPILOGUE, then state a working hypothesis of what she will read.” WTF HAVE YOU EVER READ A NOVEL. #therapistsky

Love that Baltimore has a series in which academics present their research subjects to the general public at bars.

You guys, so many Romance girlies are reading "On Tyranny" that they've broken the Goodreads recommendations algorithm. 10/10; no notes. #romancelandia

"To say that there are these people and they have names and they are doing and saying awful things would be, for me, unpleasant," is really the most perfect summation of how we got here.

Imagine having such a Teflon coating of self-assurance that you let Isaac Chotiner interview you. …About *anything,* really, but particularly about a book in which you claim that Ronald Reagan was a liberal.

Personally, I don’t give a fuck why my autistic young adult is autistic. I am enjoying watching her grow fully into her own best version of herself. I don’t wish I had different kids. I like them.

I swear this cup of tea will fix me.

When I was more disabled, my peers would say “I could never do that.” But I can’t overstate how much “I can’t do this” doesn’t create an exit route where you don’t have to. “I can’t parent a child with that vulnerability in this political climate.” You can, though, because there’s no other option.

Going about my regular life - seeing therapy clients, seeking consultation on a tricky case, planning for my supervisees, driving the kids to school, going to game night, making dinner, doing my volunteer work, reviewing ARCs on NetGalley- - all over this drumbeat of increasing dread.

Sitting at my kitchen table drinking tea as my 16yo daughter and I sing our way through the entirety of the Indigo Girls’ 1989 self-titled album. The kids are all right. #HopeCore

On the one hand, it’s revolting to handle raw chicken and fish sauce at an hour of the morning that my stomach can barely tolerate buttered toast. On the other hand, eleven-hours-from-now me is going to LOVE current me when these babies come off the grill.

Not saying I’ve completely given up on society but this looks VERY appealing.

The view outside my kitchen window.

A little kid and I spent a whole session this week exploring the imaginary OCD fear “maybe I licked the Mona Lisa.” In great detail, we constructed the rationale behind the fear, the imagined consequences, attempts to test the hypothesis, the whole OCD story. It was really fun. #therapistsky

I can

Okay, I need a bit of a timeline cleanse plus I also need some calibration for bona fide professional purposes. If you have or know a minor child: (1) What’s their favorite joke? (2) How old are they? (3) Neurodivergent Y/N/Maybe?

In NC after Helene a guy from a work crew who spoke no English showed me his Guatemalan Red Cross card. “Que necesita usted?” I asked. “Agua, comida? Tenemos sacas para dormir, hace mucho frío por la noche.” No. He wanted to volunteer for the Red Cross here in his free time. This policy is a sin.

With great fanfare, Baltimore City public schools rolled out a “no cell phones during the school day” policy. They distributed locking security bags for phones. Zero tolerance!! By lunchtime on Day 1, my 16yo and her friends had set up a shared Google doc to host the group chat.

Text from my 20-year-old: “It appears I will be the only woman in my statics class. I'll have to start wearing pink to assert my dominance.”

I didn’t try ringing the bell, but I was definitely intrigued.

Emailed an unfamiliar psychiatrist about a mutual client. Identified myself as a psychologist. My degree is listed. She wrote back “Hi Rivka!” AND SIGNED IT “Best, Dr. LastName.” Do I write back “Hi FirstName” and sign “Dr. Otter”? That’s the proper procedure, right? #therapistsky

Ah, the true cause of the male loneliness epidemic, *checks notes* women being insufficiently well-versed in Schopenhauer.

Lot of white pundits very confident that cops and federal agents can tell the “good blacks” from the “bad blacks” and thus militarizing black neighborhoods will make them safer.

If you believe that Dems need to sacrifice on some issues to get elected, ask yourself how the sacrifices you propose will affect you, personally, by making your own life more difficult. If your honest answer is “they won’t,” well. That’s a funny coincidence, isn’t it?

Local man stunned to discover that laws apply to him. (Also, curse whoever filmed this for making me like a cop.)

THIS is how I find out that I don’t have a vagina? On BLUESKY?!

I really love explaining to kids that they’re autistic. I love being able to make sure that the first time they hear about it, they’re hearing things that promote self-acceptance and give them context for their experiences. #therapistsky

Dear Adobe: I will never, ever want your AI assistant to “create a quick summary” of dense assessment results that I am being paid quite a bit of money to interpret and explain. Please stop asking me EVERY SINGLE TIME. #therapistsky

It’s been ages since I made a Sidecar! Fun fact: this was one of the very first cocktails I ever learned to make, and I chose it solely because @kjcharleswriter.com ‘s characters drink them.

Current mood.

Post a Kick Ass Woman: Clara Barton, my childhood hero. I didn’t realize how much her story shaped my life choices until I was in my 40s. I could have done a whole lot worse. Also? She would gut Kristi Norm like a fish using only the power of moral example.

I’m a disaster responder. This makes me want to throw up.

…and all the good people will be released and the ones that are bad will be sent back.” Article says Masihi was previously sentenced to two years in prison for burglary and grand theft. But they still have an unshakable belief that she will be deemed “good people.”

Is the harm done by calling for a Final Solution really “reputational damage” to tech companies? I know we’re supposed to be detached and post-moral and everything, but this seems weak-sauce to the point of parody.

Do you ever wonder why you make the effort?

In the 1980s, National Review founder William F. Buckley waved a copy of the #ReedCollege student handbook on national TV and frothed about excesses of drugs and sex in liberal academia. But now NatReview has hit a new high point.

A useful chart from WaPo showing that less than half of the “Big Beautiful Bill” will be paid for (and horrifically, I might add). $3,300,000,000,000 will be new debt.

If all the people they want to kick off Medicaid are young and healthy, why is it supposedly so expensive to provide them with health care? All these able-bodied young men are out there getting discretionary surgeries?

I was in anxiety free fall for much of the afternoon. Now I have Made Things (marinated shrimp for my husband to grill, some remoulade, some salad dressing, a bottle of honey syrup for cocktails) and I’m feeling more grounded. Did you make anything today?

“On the con side, AI is destroying the environment and also our ability to reason. But on the pro side, it inoculates us against the desire to experience things.”

Waiting for someone to come out of the woodwork to explain that IDF soldiers and Haaretz are antisemitic and needn’t be listened to.

nyt op-ed: we cannot normalize the left’s brazen attempt to win voters by talking to them