Painted my nails a shiny green, got sushi (on my DRAGON SUSHI PLATE) for dinner, and loading up Lord of the Rings for our New Year's Rockin Long Weekend LOTR Rewatch! Lyra's excited! Who else is?

I couldn't wait! Decided to start filling out my 2026 Techo today while bopping around downtown. I stopped at the Hive Public Market (where I got a a cute sticker), Boarding House Park, Tasty Dumplings, and Cafe Eclipse!

Just a reminder, my next novel, Radiant Star, is available for pre-order wherever fine books are, uh, pre-ordered!

I don't love the fact that every datapoint that can be measured now gets gamified and compiled into an arbitrary score... but I will totally brag that my Apple Watch says I got a perfect 100 sleep score last night by being The Most Lazy. I was the eepiest. Cozymaxxed achievement unlocked.

I finished my 2025 Year in Review! Turns out the last few months were pretty busy (or just at the top of my mind), so this one was a bit longer. I'm glad I went through the exercise, and I hope someone reads them! skulryk.pika.page/posts/2025-y...

There's a club nearby advertising a daytime dance party with the banner text 'HOME BEFORE BEDTIME!' and I'm not usually a dance party person but damn... they got my millennial ass

Part 3 of my '2025 Year in Review' - this was a busy one! I did a ton of stuff, came out as bi, felt cute and hot but got really vain and had a lot of emotional highs and lows, had a great time in Scotland, and had my 'autistic epiphany' skulryk.pika.page/posts/2025-y...

Happy Liminal Week, everyone. That time between Christmas and New Years when half of everyone is out of the office, all the end of year tasks were wrapped up, and you don't want to burn your vacation time. Take time to plan your next year and ruminate on the false concept of 'productivity'

Wrote my year in review Part 2! Spring was a time of slowly thawing out, laying groundwork, getting ready to burst into bloom... but I hadn't gotten there yet. Neat to look back on! skulryk.pika.page/posts/year-i...

Started writing a year in review. Hope I can finish it before new years! Here's part 1: skulryk.pika.page/posts/year-in-review-part-1-jan-mar

Watching THE GREEN KNIGHT again

I wrote a sci fi story about Christmas away from home. Tapped it out on my phone so it isn't formatted or edited, but I like where it went! Merry Christmas! skulryk.pika.page/posts/the-si...

I wrote a sci fi story about Christmas away from home. Tapped it out on my phone so it isn't formatted or edited, but I like where it went! Merry Christmas! skulryk.pika.page/posts/the-si...

still my favorite christmas post

Anyways Terry Pratchett figured out the right ending to the story decades ago. So here you go, thanks tumblr user captainofalltheships for typing it out www.tumblr.com/captainofall...

It did give me an idea for the sequel no one asked for, THE RETURN OF THE LITTLE MATCH GIRL. She's fired up and ready to get her revenge. Hans Christian Anderson: "No! I thought you were dead!" Little Match Girl (lighting flamethrower): "That's what I wanted you think..."

I went to Midwinter Revels last night. It was nice, and the Sanders theater at Harvard University is beautiful inside and out. Tho, since it was based on stories from Hans Christian Anderson, it featured the worst Christmas story of all time, the LITTLE MATCH GIRL

I cannot believe we're doing Lysenkoism run by a fucking Kennedy. This is the dumbest fucking country in the history of the world

Thank you to @senatormikebarrett.bsky.social, Senator Mike Brady, @juliancyr.bsky.social, and @sendylan.bsky.social for voting to advance critical legislation to put gas in the past and accelerate a a just transition to a clean energy future! #mapoli

"all girls know these days is pick guitar, fill fruit jar, and be gay-oh..." youtu.be/RR1EQXwQqNA?...

😭

Since yesterday, many people have DM’d to say that they were strongly affected by my essay & wished they could share it. So I've revised, expanded, & posted it for free on both Substack & Patreon. Please feel free to share. www.patreon.com/posts/this-i... catvalente.substack.com/p/this-is-wh...

I literally yelled 'Oh the humanity!' when the snow plow showed up

Got tickets to see the Midwinter Revels in Cambridge, MA this Saturday. I've heard about this for a little while now, it's always looked interesting and I'm excited to check it out this year! revels.org/event/midwin...

I wrote a post about my annual Existential Gift Crisis and my plan to find joy where I can during stressful holiday times. Today I put together a holiday music playlist of songs I vibe to, got a small Christmas tree with my wife, and honestly had a good time! skulryk.pika.page/posts/existe...

I would like to bring over my theory for solving America’s deadly roads. I call it the “Gay Truck Rule” and it would save thousands of lives every year.

DAVID BOWIE: I created a beautiful rendition of a classic Christmas song with a Christmas music legend, and added the message PEACE ON EARTH JOHN LENNON: That's great, I made a new Christmas classic saying "WAR IS OVER (if you want it) PAUL MCCARTNEY: I wrote a Christmas Song too, guys!

Love the threads on r/FPGA where software engineers get a peek behind the curtain and have to go 'damn girl, you live like this?' and all the comments are just... 'yup...' www.reddit.com/r/FPGA/comme...

Who invented non-reflective glass? American physicist & chemist Katharine Burr Blodgett in 1938. It revolutionized optics--& led to the coatings used today in everything from eyeglasses to phone screens. She was the first woman to earn a PhD in #physics from Cambridge, 1926. #WomenInSTEM #inventor

*looks around in stunned horror* This is not my beautiful circus! These are not my beautiful monkeys! *...and the days go by...*

As someone who is an obsessive rule follower and e-biked about 1000 miles around greater Lowell last year, the 'ebike panic' has driven me crazy In an area full of hills and no real bike lanes, my level 2 ebike lets me bike safer by maintaining 20mph speed & being able to start after stopping

for too long, the left wing in this nation has put forward only candidates who represent the "young and cool" or "curmudgeonly" identity groups finally, lame middle-aged left-wing parents have a candidate we can see ourselves in

In this letter, Tiffany Cogell of @bikeboston.bsky.social writes, "As a society, we have normalized traffic violence caused by cars ... Yet unlike with e-bikes, we don’t see the same fervor for built-in speed limiters or road diets."

This letter from @brendanjkearney.bsky.social of @walkmass.bsky.social notes that while more regulation is needed for things like e-motos, our state has not made progress on other measures that would have an even larger impact on the safety of pedestrians and micro-mobility users.

Something I often talk about is the need for media outlets to put conversations about e-bike safety and regulations in the context of the larger danger on our streets: cars. The Boston Globe published two letters to the editors that do this well. I'll thread them below.

IT'S A GOOOOOOD MORNING, CREW! 🤩

I decided to turn a former Bluesky rant about 'the death of third spaces' into a ranty post about what really makes a third space work for me, which is authenticity and a focus on making a good space and not making profit (which will never be the case at Starbucks) skulryk.pika.page/posts/third-...

Aside from archery, other fun things today included: - UU church again (I think this is 8 weeks in a row!) - Hive public market, shopping and bopping around - Fix it clinic at the library -- got my cashmere sweater darned properly! All while looking cute and cozy with sparkly purple nails

Had archery tonight! Shot my best round EVER trying out a new potential bow. I think I'm gonna buy it, I got enough not just for the next pin but the pin after that too!

Kinda how I felt when South Park went woke a few months ago. A little too late for a show that perpetuated and promoted total nihilism for entire generations of young Americans.

My dad abhors any negative comments about immigrants. Asked him recently why he’s so strong on it: ‘Because we’re always happy to take the rich and clever ones. Which means it’s not about disliking immigrants. It’s about disliking the poor and vulnerable. And that’s a bad human instinct.’

The Aimee Mann / Ted Leo Christmas show was a lot of fun! Glad I made the last minute decision to go, and I hope they do it again next year! It was silly, fun, and also heartfelt... 😁😁😁

Resistance libs welcomed South Park into the anti-Trump fold with open arms. Our founder Evan Urquhart was a bit less joyous to see the anti-woke edgelords of South Park recognize, at last, the dreadful pandora's box that widespread anti-wokeness opened up. www.assignedmedia.org/breaking-new...

Today's look. Did a morning walk to the diner, going to the movies later, and an indie Christmas show with @tedleo.bsky.social and @aimeemann.bsky.social in Medford tonight! Hell yeah!

Also, this quote from Terry Pratchett’s “Moving Pictures”: Why is it all Mr Dibbler’s films are set against the background of a world gone mad?’ said the dwarf. Soll’s eyes narrowed. ‘Because Mr Dibbler,’ he growled, ‘is a very observant man.’

RIP Frank Gehry, thanks for keeping Cambridge and MIT weird

i refuse to believe that "increasingly isolate yourself from society" is the real answer to this. that's not a sustainable way forward. the answer to "how to keep yourself safe" can't be "severely restrict your access to a large swath of human activity & just tough it out for the rest of your life"

With ICE and govt soldiers going to a city where leaders, citizens, and businesses clearly doesn't want them there in the middle of a polar vortex, I gotta wonder... Are we gonna have a third amendment crisis on our hands? theonion.com/third-amendm...