“They are not going to let us have it” is rape coded language. It’s the electoral equivalent of “I paid for your drinks and dinner, what do you mean you’re not going to go home with me?”

Sorry to be cringe or whatever, but I did in fact tear up at my hometown July 4th parade. I love this imperfect, impossible country. I love the opportunities it has given me to learn and lead. I won’t give up on it, nor will I cede patriotism to those who so greatly misunderstand what America is.

Best part of the hometown parade is that they only use the southbound lanes of the street, and the northbound lanes are pedestrianized.

I’d been sitting on this book from @isaacfitzgerald.bsky.social for a few months. It turns out that actually the perfect time for it is this America’s 250th weekend, and the perfect place is in my childhood home in Massachusetts.

Almost heaven, Western Mass.

I have condiments in my refrigerator that are older than JD Vance’s Catholicism, I don’t need him to lecture me on the Nicene Creed, or frankly on any of the teachings of the Church or Christ.

My parents lived in Boston during the bicentennial, and growing up they told us all about the tall ships and other festivities. I’m living in DC for the 250th, and finding the incessant military flyovers a lot less charming.

I need some kind of premium HBO subscription that includes pop-up video style reminders (maybe from @jowrotethis.bsky.social ?) about dragons and sigils if I’m ever going to be able to follow House of the Dragon. I suppose this could also be solved by finding a nerdy man to date.

Thinking about rebranding Lock 4 as “the other reflecting pool”

It has recently come to my attention that Horace Mann elementary school’s mascot is the centaur (horseman) and I need to know the back story here. Surely I’m connected to enough local DC folks that someone knows?! Did the kids come up with this? The parents?

I know the other cities who elected democratic socialist mayors got major sports championships, but I’d just like to make a formal request that we get Statehood for DC

You know what’s great? Eating a ton of ice cold watermelon while sitting on my porch after biking home past lots of busy voting locations.

At some point we need to talk about the sheer amount of waste created by campaigns. At least the mailers are recyclable, but when I think of how many plastic lawn signs are gonna end up in a landfill after today it makes me nauseous.

Go vote, DC! It took me about 15 minutes at the Columbia Heights Education Campus, not a long line but a few technical snags with the check-in system. And LOTS of screens to get through on the electronic ballot.

Jesus, did they just do the flyover at 11:30 pm??

When you host an event in a National Park, you have to show them your signs in advance as part of the permit process. Sponsor logos are required to be no more than one-third the size of the event logo. But this is fine, obviously.

I’ve been feeling decidedly meh about the 250th, but this week has been full of reminders of what I love about this stupid broken country. Scots singing Country Roads in a Boston bar, all of New York taking to the streets to celebrate the Knicks, reclaiming the Kennedy Center name.

Having endured 18 DC summers now, I am delighted to finally have these horrors inflicted on folks who deserve it.

They better announce exactly when the exterior signage is coming down so we can all meet up down there and cheer as it happens.

This week really had it in for me, but it’s Friday, I’ve had two glasses of wine and one gummy and it’s the most perfect temperature (no humidity) and I’m reading a romance novel on the porch.

Caught a glimpse of the cage fighting match looming over the White House this morning and it’s all just so stupid and on the nose.

Well, the good news is there are new valves on the radiators. The bad news is, I woke up at 2 am to a stream of water that had been dripping directly on my couch for several hours.

Revisiting this post from 6 months ago because now that it’s summer (this weekend’s weather excepted) my landlord is putting new valves on all the radiators in the house (5 in my one bedroom apartment alone). I simply cannot wait to only be sweaty for perimenopause reasons next winter.

Someone please remind me to either go out of town or not leave my house during police week next year.

I need to know who was in charge of decorating this bar set for last night’s SNL cold open

I am involved with/in charge of like 4 big outdoor events every year, and today is the first time ever that I have had absolutely perfect weather. I would like to know which weather gods I have pleased, and how to stay in their good graces in June, September, and October.

Walked past the Hilton on my way home from the farmers market this morning, I could’ve ended up in the background of at least three news stories from what I could tell.

Listen, RFK Jr is a ghoul who is actively endangering American lives with his nonsense at HHS. And, because two things can be true, he’s also still the son and nephew of two of the most famous assassinated men in our country’s history.

Much helicopters, many sirens.

Because I’m insufferable I immediately went looking for evidence of the height of the car involved. Both cars shown in this image are so tall it is easy to imagine not seeing one of these small children. There is simply no good reason not to regulate these vehicles out of existence.

#caturday and he’s considering forgiving me for leaving for a week, mostly because me being home means he gets to be out on the porch again.

London and Glasgow, in a nutshell.

Hello from a Dulles Mobile Lounge.

Doing some international travel tomorrow and I’m not nervous but I am practicing my “sorry about America” face for when I have present my passport.

Just to be in the record here: I think if you show up in America, you get to be an American. I think if you show up later in life to Catholicism, nope, sorry, you gotta be born into this one. There’s simply no good reason for it, and it only leads to people like JD Vance taking themselves seriously.

Being the Most Online person in the office was so fun yesterday when I made everyone come sit in the conference room and watch the Artemis live stream. Less fun today when I’m the one saying “maybe” as everyone says “see you tomorrow” 🫠

Spent St Patrick’s Day staying in and having a Guinness with my cousin and talking about grief and family trauma, which sounds like a short story Raymond Carver would’ve written, but is also true.

Oh cool, it would appear the latest iOS update reset all alarm volumes to FULL BLAST, so my 5:30 wake up was now the whole building’s 5:30 wake up.

Sorry, I know there are more important things happening, but Connor Storrie is hosting SNL and Hudson Williams showed up AND Mumford and Sons is on SNL and Hozier showed up, so I’m actually having a really good night.

Love to wake up and find out we’re waging a pointless war in the Middle East. Did I travel back in time to 2003?

I am, in general, a fall and winter girly. But the first warm day after such a deep freeze is hitting extra hard today. I am smiling at everyone on the street, spending recklessly at local businesses, signing every single candidate’s petition.

Your regular reminder that the citizens who serve on these DC grand juries lack the basic right to representation in the very government they are asked to participate in. Statehood for DC must be at the top of the agenda when we get through this crisis.

(In a pro-figure skating, anti-ICE way) USA! USA! USA!

Have had the Olympics on for approximately 20 minutes and yes, obviously I’ve googled “DC Curling Club”

Not enough of you are saying Brett Goldstein. Also: Pedro Pascal, Tom Holland, Nick Offerman.

I’m a proud paying subscriber to The 51st, and if you’re upset about the news about the Post today, you should be too. Democracy dies when the free press dies, and there is no freedom under billionaire ownership. 51st.news/signup

If this actually happens, I can’t begin to explain the lengths I will go to never cross Memorial Bridge ever again. I will travel deep into Virginia and Maryland to find alternate routes so as to never be subjected to this. I’ll fly into BWI.

Nearly 2 hours later and it’s still there.

Not sure why @wmata.com thought sending out buses to operate on routes that haven’t been cleared was a good idea.

It brings me no joy to say this, but the sidewalk situation in Bethesda last night was leaps and bounds better than the situation in DC. As in, you did not have to leap or bound over mounds of snow and ice to safely cross the street.