Good morning, PF Mutuals, I’ve been active again over there for a few weeks, if anyone else is feeling slightly more long-form these days. Shoutout to @lindzfrommn.bsky.social , she always checks in. ❤️

IT WAS A THRILL I’m now low-key trying to decide if I have the chops for a set list and if I need to trade in one of my ukes for one you can plug in 👀 (the answer to both questions is: “not right now, but do keep practicing”)

I’m strummin’ and croonin’ on the back deck, and a northern house wren has been fully singing along to my Tom Petty. Right up until a hawk landed in the maple. He’s an attentive audience, but I’ve lost my backup singer. Sometimes, Backing Down is the smart choice.

#bloomscroll #nativeplants

You ever get so sick of having every interaction scraped for data that you flatly REFUSE to register for an account with Ultimate Guitar just so you can fucking print, then paste screenshots into a PDF so you can look at the chords to that Glen Hansard song that's stuck in your head? Yeah, me too.

I finally invested 5 whole minutes last week to figure out how scrape the AI out of my daily internet use. My search engine is now DuckDuckGo, with every summary turned off and images denied, and my work browser is Firefox with AI "enhancements" blocked to hell. It is the most exquisite relief.

Guys, I get to strum and sing on a stage this Friday, and I'm low-key excited. I haven't done this in years. I'm a tiny guest appearance in someone else's set, but I get to HARMONIZE, and man, I love to harmonize. I... I might even riff. Just a little. As a treat.

I just finished listening to the audio of @catswrites.bsky.social 's After Hours at Dooryard Books, and the final paragraph made me cry -- in the nicest way. Like, in a Becky Chambers kind of way. Gentle, revolutionary hope-core seems to be my jam these days.

Flowers: planted Veggies: planted Back yard: mowed Pond: mucked out Deck: swept Appreciation for spouse: eternal View from the hammock:

Shoutout to the aging divas applying mascara by touch/memory because we can’t see jack shit without our glasses anymore.

“We are GOING to have a chill, RELAXED family outing. I have WORKED HARD to make everything EASY, quit trying to make it HARD.” *hears myself* “I’m going to take a 30-minute break in my room. Consider restaurants.” *halfway up the stairs* “If you fight where I can hear you, I’ll kill ya.”

Sing it, sister

When you spot a bird you’ve never seen before in your yard and think, “by Jove, are the native plants working?!” American Redstarts. Who knew?

This is the future that liberals want.

Practing for this afternoon’s concert, and the solution to every mushy-sounding passage is “PUT SOME GODDAMN AIR IN THE HORN.” You cannot play brass with timid deference. The embochure needs something to brace against from the back as well as the front. Fear of a missed note causes missed notes.

I could sneak a kitten into my office and no one would know

Oh, hey, that tea* that I brewed yesterday is probably ready to drink now. *herbal tisane, so not ruined by tannins and my short attention span

Strumming my pain with his fingers…

Sitting in a restaurant waiting for carry-out to be ready, and the young women at the next table are loudly discussing queer fantasy romance novels and fanfic and fanart and favorite tropes, and what a time to be alive for a Gen Xer who came of age in a more repressed era.

And suddenly, Spring is here. Man, I love violets.

I just realized that my Bachelor’s degree is probably older than our Assistant Professors, and I’m going to go sit in the corner and quietly decompose for a few minutes.

Everyone knows the last 2 lines of that T. S. Eliot poem. The FIRST 2 lines are, “We are the hollow men, We are the stuffed men…” QUIT WHIMPERING, you dried-out homunculi

Fuck Chuck Schumer, too. Christ, what a criminally negligent lump of goo.

I deeply appreciate this thread.

I have a ukulele in my office that I plunk a bit here and there between tasks. I’ve been practicing a picking pattern and realized halfway through just now that Dust in the Wind is a LITTLE on the nose. But practice I must. I understand why musicians played on the deck of the Titanic. One must. 🎵❤️‍🩹

I'm in a dark place this morning, thinking about the soulless ghouls in power and staring down the barrel of humanity's destruction. Then I'm reminded that there are humans like Mychal, too. I am unutterably grateful for his light.

Oops, UPS informs me that another baritone ukulele seems to be on its way to my house, how very strange. 👀

Slept in my Barenaked Ladies shirt and woke up one week later.

Favorite sign I saw today said ANGRY AMERICAN WOLF-BIRD on one side and “FUCK THIS SHIT!” - ILYA ROZANOV on the other. Coalition is beautiful.

Between the carbon impact of the Iran war and the insanely unprecedented early heatwaves in North America so far this year, it's easy to despair. This thread helps.

The Scholomance Trilogy is a BANGER

I was texting G my dinner order. I wanted a bison burger. I got as far as B-I-S, and then predictive text popped up the suggestions “bisexual” and “biscuits.” Bisexual Biscuits is my new George Michael cover band.

There's a Gentleman Jack BALLET?! youtu.be/tSUdalypey4?...

The grabby hands are gonna do me in. Also, wtf, they can communicate in sign language?! That's so cool!

This is amazing and beautiful and I had no idea about any of it. I'm, like, spiritually nourished or something right now. Don't look at me.

Is it physically possible for DudeBros to react to a Rian Johnson movie without first bitching about The Last Jedi? Gawd, it's exhausting. I came to commune in the discovery of Benoit Blanc, but once more, the love gets soured before it's even begun. Also, they're wrong.

Our May concert is going to include medleys from Les Mis AND Pirates of the Caribbean, yes please, give me alllll the cheesy nostalgia to combat The Horrors! There’s also a whimsical piece about a space-walking basset hound that I’m less sure of, but hey, why not.

1. Bonfire singalongs 2. Puppy breath 3. Colorful river stones

Go home, March, you are DRUNK

unfair to vaginal discharge, which actually communicates authentic information from the system that employs it

As were were walking into campus, I sang to G “carry on my wayward theybie / I will see you later maybe” and they full-on LAUGHED, so I win, I get all the dorky mom points, I won and it’s not even 8am #winning

Not to be a cranky prescriptivist on main, but when did “comfortability” and “uncomfortability” *shudder* become acceptable terms? The words you’re fumbling around for are COMFORT and DISCOMFORT, please and thank you. *shakes cane at the well-meaning kids on her leaf-strewn lawn*

I thought about this again midway through a sip of water, and now my glasses are all wet

If this is making you want to scream this morning, vent some rage by donating to the TCP: www.zeffy.com/en-US/donati...

It’s like this man WANTS to be strangled

Ooo, I wonder if I could plant a trans pride flag with native plants. Mistflower and bluebells, maybe? Monarda? I need to look up bloom schedules.

I wish I could bottle Theater Kid Energy and keep it in the fridge. They’re so cute 😂

Not the invocation of the union steward, I’m howling (those magnets are on the file cabinets of all my favorite faculty)

Someone is trying to bait me on the internet, and I’M NOT ENGAGING, where is my gold star