Friendly reminder for anyone who might be doubting themself--their goodness, their sufficiency, their talents, their care: One need only look at the world we live in to remember that the point isn't perfection; it's continuing to show up & do what we can for one another in such unconscionable times.

There's a special joy in sharing one's loves with others. Harder when your teen ward doesn't speak English, but there are so many other languages of the heart. Maya Angelou was such a guiding light in life: the kind of person who makes you want to be a light in turn. May we always use our time well.

#ArtBreak, anyone? Sitting today with Chris Dunn's lovely illustrations of animal life in English towns of yesteryear. This style of art asks us to remember the extraordinary wonder of our own "soft animals" residing where we do at all. Are we not all strangely situated in our performances, too?

Last night I was able to invite some families with no Christmas of their own into my home for a lovely Venezuelan-Colombian-Canadian meal, plus gifts for all the kids. Even a year ago, I didn't have the means to do this. I am so deeply thankful for the opprtunity to lengthen the table this year.

Such a painfully beautiful reminder in El Colombiano today. If you have a roof over your head, food to eat, health and wellness, and a little to share with others as well... You have the world. 💛 May we always extend the platform where we can. Happy holidays, all. #Navidad #Humanism

Boy howdy, I hope there is time to read this end of year. I have a ton of deliverables to go, but here's hoping. I desperately need the rest and recharge of a good book, and to be inspired again by someone's moving prose. What have you read and loved in 2025?

What is one good, restorative thing you did today for the soft animal of your body?

And if anyone else needs to hear this today: You are doing the very best you can with what you have, where you are, in the mental moment you occupy. Maybe tomorrow you'll have new skills and better resources. But for now? You are doing the very best you can, and it will have to be enough.

This week is going to be rough, but when I look at the world I'm reminded why. Inundated by news reminding us that rapists, warmongers, & grifters guide our political discourse & societal outcomes... To be gentle with everyone else suffering right now is the hardest, most important thing we can do.

Absolutely right. AI might be able to summarize (poorly) what we currently know, but a major goal of historical research is to find the hidden surprises out there. Let me illustrate …

OTOH, in the middle of my hard morning I had to stop to make food for the kid, who works on the highway - long hours, lots of pollution - because she's still stuck out of school until we can find a workaround for the damage USAID closures did to her migrant journey here. So. Everything in context.

The hardest part of being overworked is that when you DO take a tiny break, it's hard not to regret it. Even yesterday in Centro, I was working while walking because we have pressing matters that needed my input. And today started with a reminder of others I'm failing. Still waiting on that clone!

My personal inbox has messages up to four or five months overdue for response. And I owe at least six people in my personal life voice messages. Boy howdy, when the last critical deliverable is launched for my job, I cannot WAIT to get back to the rest of my life. What a year, eh? #AmWorking

Happiness is a day in Centro. There's something about losing oneself to sonder that does the weary heart good. I'm having Navidad for the first time at my place. Half Venezuelan, half Colombian, with one nutty Canadian. Almost ready for it now! Time to head home and face the long work-night. 👍🏻💪🏻🤞🏻

It's been so packed in Centro, I couldn't get good signal for a while. But I wandered through so many richly different lives this afternoon while getting some last-minute parcels for Navidad, so... I am content. (Work calls when I get back, but work always calls. Man, I miss being a full person!)

I am finally in my happy place. 😌 The happy chaos of the market district. :)

Got a bit of AI slop scam in my inbox this morning. Clearly the creator didn't look too closely at the junk AI produced for the testimonial section for these hoodies. 😬 Yikes on bikes. What an era.

Today I am taking a few hours in Centro, Medellín's market district and one of my favourite places. The body is tired. The mind is tired. But there is going to be music and good street food and people dancing because they can, and I'm going to have lovely conversations with strangers for a while.

Zen and the Art of Making Sandwiches When You're Ready to Flip a Table out of Frustration (Sorry for the animal product in the photo; the foster teen's diet differs from mine. She's also going to inhale these in a split second, so there's a beautiful folly to bothering with presentation at all.)

#MusicBreak, anyone? "Wish someone told me Livin' this life would be lonely Tryna get away from the old me Still stuck singin' these blues All I really need is a little good news" Solid anthem for a ton of folks trying their best in hard times right now, methinks.

If you need an #ArtBreak, might I suggest this fear-inducing number by Canadian Albert Dumouchel? You have to admire his courage in 1969, for so bravely approaching his terrifying subject! "The Horrible Snow Cat" has been haunting viewers for generations. Now you too can experience the terror! 😬

Worked 'til four this morning, and there's still tons more to do today--but I get my tech troubleshooting done best after the main workday is over, so it is what it is. One tiny bright light? I highly suspect I have a story publishing in January. Good gravy, do I ever look forward to writing again.

I am going to sleep for days when this last round of work tasks is finally, finally over. Then maybe return to the rest of my life and various creative and personal pursuits! But sleep first. Definitely sleep.

The pen is mightier than the phaser. 💛 #StarTrek #Spoof ( @jonathanmenon.bsky.social, you might enjoy this!)

Thinking today about Hydeia Broadbent, a lovely human around my age, born HIV+, who died last year after a life of advocacy and love. Her wise words in the '90s live rent free in my head sometimes. Will you get up with the birds tomorrow? Will you try to do something or make something positive?

An artifact from another era that also had many terrible struggles - but also a lot of love and wit and science fiction. :) Happy 100th Birthday, Dick Van Dyke - lover of The Twilight Zone!

I'm just out for a walk before my next stint of work tasks, and there's a Navidad concert in the mall with that most traditional of navideño animal, the capybara. 😂 How many furry beasties did YOU hug in the wild today? #Colombia #Navidad

If you know the music of Fela Kuti, you probably already know of Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, but this This American Life episode does a wonderful job contextualizing her struggle for Western audiences. Just a warm reminder that resistance movements of today have strong elder siblings. Learn from them!

#ArtBreak, anyone? I'm itching to get back to writing sci-fi, if my choice of artist today doesn't give that away. Karel Thole was a Dutch-Italian master of sci-fi surrealism, and his work sparked young imaginations long before we tasted the classic words behind the cover art. #SFF #ScienceFiction

I really look forward to having a moment to myself / for my own work again soon. This Sunday I'm teaching neighbourhood kids how to bake cookies and paint Christmas decorations. I cannot fully describe how "unavailable by text or email" I will be when baking and painting with the barrio kids then.

The kid in my care is Latin-American-Catholic, which is perfectly fine in this freethinking household. Today is a feast day in Venezuelan culture, and she's currently whipping up a big ol' meal to pack up and share with street folk. Couldn't be prouder or happier to see her form of humanism shine.

This is a cartoon from the Great Depression. Hard sometimes to think about how we overcame so much utter misery, only to squander the abundance that emerged from social investment. We could have kept building toward better. Instead, we'll be lucky if we can halt the backslide now picking up steam.

#PoetryBreak, anyone? This is from Paul Hostovsky's poetry collection of the same great name, LATE FOR THE GRATITUDE MEETING (2019). However this day and weekend find you (lookin' atchu, estadounidense friends!), may there be kindness abounding. www.amazon.com/Late-Gratitu...

This is a very good episode of Planet Money. It follows a group trying to fill part of the gap created by the gutting of USAID, which affects my teen ward among many others. We have lost so much in the way of human decency to nationalist derangement these past few years. This was all preventable.

First time out for a predawn run in many, many weeks. My body has been so tired, and so full of pain, these last few months from overwork. The despair has pretty darned real. But the end is in sight! Now to slowly rebuild stamina and strength training. Poco a poco. Día a día. 💪🏻

#ArtBreak with Max Ernst. A German surrealist tied to Dadaism, Ernst used techniques that pulled from surfaces under the canvas. He also had a bird character, Loplop, to represent himself in his work. As with many surrealists, what "sells" the work is that he could also do realism--but why would he?

This is the first morning in a long time that I've woken with a sense of rest. I still have plenty to do this week, but a deep anxiety I've been working with since September, when hopping on a project in need of urgent help, has finally passed. I look forward to enjoying the Outside again soon. :)

It's been ages since an #ArtBreak. Kay Nielsen (1886-1957) was a Danish illustrator who haunted our dreams in Fantasia. His Art Deco style graced fairy tale collections, where he highlighted the strangeness of fantasy realms, and sat with their grimmest edges: realms to be approached with caution.

It's been a tough few weeks, but I see now why people lean into holidays. Having a kid in my care means we'll have Xmas this year, & she's super excited as we budget out gifts for low-income people in her circles. Her excitement at being able to share care in turn is my one bright note on hard days.

#ArtBreak Victorians get a misguided rap. They were as dramatic as any other generation. Queen has a song about one of these, painted during Richard Dadd's institutionalization after murdering his father. Real prudishness is allowing ourselves to believe any culture is anything less than complex.

I feel hopelessly behind, and today is another such day with Too Much to Do, but here's a #PoetryBreak first. The world is so awful. The lies we tell ourselves about ourselves, about our kindness and courage and pursuit of real justice, so often heartbreakingly wrong. But sometimes... #Poetry

Long overdue for an #ArtBreak. These are by the Belgian artist Eddy Stevens (eddy.stevens65 on Instagram). He has a long-running series that blends classic symbolic portraiture (e.g. objects beside royalty) with surrealist animal and object fusions, invoking the many complex sides of our lives.

Just found out that Robert R. Chase died on Oct 20. I'd read & loved his last story, "Lost Recall", in the Asimov's Sept/Oct 2024 issue. Thank you to @asimovssfmag.bsky.social's for connecting so many bright voices with readers. We live on in the way our work makes others feel. Chase's gave me hope.

#ArtBreak I saw this the other day and instantly recognized it as Toronto. Many of Lauren Mercer-Smail's paintings capture back-alley views that instantly invoke my childhood. It's not nostalgia so much as remembering other ways I used to move through the world. What art has that effect for you?

It has been my great honour and privilege to work with @ourmankoto.bsky.social in an editorial capacity at SFWA. This series is his solo project: an anthology that never fails to revel in the full spectrum of Canadian SFF. We *do* have distinct voices--and you can treat yourself to their work here!

I didn't quite get the "rest" I needed these last five days - lots of sadness, lots of crisis management outside my working life - but I'm out before dawn and got to say hi to the horses, so that's something. Will catch up when I get back. And try to remember what I'm fighting for through it all. 🤞🏻

This is the last day of my “vacation” (Thurs-Mon), so I can’t guarantee that I’ll be able to write much again for a while, but there was an opportunity to reflect on The Long Walk and the fables we build for our times, so I took it. May your Thanksgivings and Indigenous Peoples’ Days be bright.

#ArtBreak before a writing day. Richard Sargent illustrated covers for The Saturday Evening Post, Fortune, & Photoplay, among others. His distinction came from his ability to capture the persistence of quirks even in life at its most idyllic: the "American dream" never without its eccentricities.

Guys! Guys! New* writers' prayer just dropped! 😅 (*Well, "new" when it emerged in the 1940 epigraph for Robert Service's "Collected Poems" 😉)

#ArtBreak! #Poetry This is C. T. Salazar's "Noah's Nameless Wife Takes Inventory", first published in Ruminate Magazine (2019). "the red-tailed hawk with jewels for eyes swallows the field mouse and the mouse was the only proof the field existed"