1300 easily, 1200 with effort. About the same as in Japanese, oddly enough!

there are millions of people in the world who do not understand how to step onto and off of escalators, and they all take turns visiting London

"Mommy, I want to go home. Soft play is too dark and"—a child dressed as Spiderman brushes past—"Spiderman keeps touching me."

nhs: hey 😊 there's a light at the end of the tunnel 😊 the tunnel in question:

thought I'd been on a 3+ month waiting list for mental healthcare only to find out my GP didn't refer me until yesterday. this has crushed my spirit more than I can describe. I hate it here AND it never stops fucking raining

嫌ね、世の中って

there really is a particular type of misogynistic abuse I only get when I'm with my toddler. men fucking hate their mothers, I guess

RT if you're tired

Running into people you like is honestly an underrated part of what makes life feel worth living

I've had enough of these streets that sweat a cold, yellow slime, of hostile people, of crying myself to sleep every night.

got on what I thought was the 55 bus. eventually noticed it was going a different way. asked the man across the aisle: "is this the 55?" "no, it's the 20 to Debden," scathingly. "oh? it said 55 on the back..." "no, it didn't." "sorry?" "no, it didn't." (it did.)

nobody else is brave enough to tell you that the best part of Marty Supreme is when they ghostride the whip

reading Pynchon at soft play

the horror was dully lodged in my brain until I said it out loud and it ripped through me

cosmic misery

A moment that changed me: in the bombed-out ruins of an apartment block, I saw a book I’d translated

i miss when this guy was the only LLM

I put the final couple of essays I wrote about translating The End of August up on my website. Happy new year!

thanks, wasn't sure

new year's day in my neighborhood means a working men's club with a dj playing the fall with a projection of despicable me 2 behind him

I know I don't succeed, but look how hard I try.

today's the day. I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna go to the pharmacy and ask for pseudoephedrine

started cooking my black-eyed peas and greens today. I'm really trying not to cook anything but cornbread on New Year's Day

Now about this dull Christmas.

pretty sure the purpose of this new building regulation is to give toddlers an easier way to throw themselves out the window

>be me >visiting England from London >tempted to order lasagne in a cafe >ask if it's good lasagne or British lasagne >"it's a good lasagne, madam" >look at the plate >chilli con carne layered with shredded cheddar >it's fucking British

damn near had a heart attack when my mother in law, showing us around her new house, said, "and this is my glory hole." old British people have to knock that shit off

shout out to anyone sobbing on the way to pick up their child from daycare

merry crisis and a happy new fear

(increasingly desperate tone) "mommy, go away... go to an island... go to the moon... go to WORK"

This is not a place of honor Fa la la la la, la la la la

Mount Fuji is everywhere for those with eyes to see

I have like 15 minutes to find a good poem

My child is really into weaponizing the phrases "sharing is caring" and "keep your hands to yourself"

When the NEA asked us to promise not to publish trans, nonbinary, or gender fluid authors, we told them to kick rocks. (Actually, formally, with a unanimous vote by the Board of Directors, we told them to kick rocks.) So the NEA rescinded our funding.

Kentucky nonprofit publisher @sarabandebooks.bsky.social forfeits federal grant rather than bow to Trump orders on diversity, gender. kentuckylantern.com/2025/12/02/k...

great things are happening in the provinces. I got a black and white large format family portrait made with a man dressed as Krampus in exchange for a donation to the local food bank. I simply do not believe that's happening in the metropoles.

"Troubling," says my three year old. "Troubling? What is troubling?" "It means you lost your button." Their influence is tremendous.

If small forces of bears can keep the perverts pinned down around Gifu City and Minokoma, the bears’ main mobile units can launch a flanking attack from the southwest and take control of the regional industrial and transport hub of Nagoya, leaving the perverts stranded with their supply lines cut.

I did my part! Have you?

realistically, if I'm not regularly listening to new music at age 38 I'm not likely to ever again. that said, it is comet gain season

We're excited to announce the winner of the 2025 ALTA First Translation Prize: TAIWAN TRAVELOGUE by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ, translated from Mandarin Chinese by Lin King @linkinglionking.bsky.social, ed. Yuka Igarashi, pub. Graywolf Press @graywolfpress.bsky.social! literarytranslators.org/winner-of-20...

I don't think the person in my neighborhood understands how ominous it is to see a car coming at you that has, on every surface, the phrase GET READY TO MEET JESUS

Doing this later this month! www.eventbrite.ie/e/getting-to...

sometimes I feel like the only parent in the world who wants their child to play with other children

made an ass of myself for literature today and I'd do it again

dublin is great except for the number of locals who, with great pity in their voices, tell me I must move here. I know the UK is fucked! I know my beautiful innocent child will be English if I take no action! my god

So excited to be in Dublin next week and sleep when I want to and be my own person for a few days, for the low low price of delivering a translation workshop and talking about myself for like 45 minutes. Four days' accommodation for three hours of work! The dream!

there are far more what I would term "emperor novels" in Japan (those dealing with the role in political/historical/symbolic terms) than in Britain... by comparison the monarchy hardly seems a matter of interest to modern British writers. what's up with that, man