I've not been here lately, because I've been experimenting with not being much of anywhere online. It's doing good things for me. I'm going to return here though, and see if I can curate my time here around my writing concerns and stay out of the news cycle part. (It's tough.)

My latest from Write It Out, where I'm plotting new platforms for new purposes. writeitout.substack.com/p/new-year-n...

James Merril’s poem “Christmas Tree,” written while he was dying of AIDS. 1995.

An imagined Boston Pavilion post-sea-level-rise: "Years of unheard-of blizzards irreparably tore its stretched roof; the increasingly forceful Nor’Easters spiraled rainwater and sea spray into the ancient wiring, finally electrocuting the Dropkick Murphys into a permanent hiatus." #amwriting

Haven't shared here in a while. Here's the Patreon version of last month's post about #attachment, and how I learned about it. www.patreon.com/posts/feelin...

Sandwich artist’s kiss

I might be crazy but I literally will not write down the most critically important piece of information if I don't like the kind of pen that's available

This is just killing me in the best way. Sound on (but not too loud)

ey.

I know it’s absolutely the least of our problems but something I really want to throttle people for Im These Times is liberals who insist on using the phrase “we the people” ungrammatically

Over three years after I published [another article], I’m getting to the followup posts I said I’d make at the bottom of it, where I promised “more about PTSD, #C-PTSD, #attachment styles and disorders… and more about untangling one’s own traumatic patterns.” writeitout.substack.com/p/attachment...

Slightly diminish a band: Duke and the Minor Skirmish

A couple weeks ago, I accidentally bought a big bag of idly rice, thinking it was a brand. Tonight, I’m learning firsthand (first…mouth?) the wonders of South Indian food, thanks to a place I didn’t previously know existed. Hoo this stuff is good. And hey, maybe I’ll learn to make idli.

This is going to be a potentially triggering 35 part thread. If you wish to share it, for the sake of your audience, please do not repost every section of it. Share the start of the thread and allow your readers to decide whether to read the whole thing.

I won’t go quite so far as to say that Nova Scotia berries are happiness in fruit form, but they come close

Truly, there is nothing quite so buoying as a beautiful gay man telling you "you're so pretty!"

I admit I am now mad at Guy Gavriel Kay.

#Booksky, tell me about Guy Cavriel Kay? I feel like I've seen his name all over the place but never read him until starting A Brightness Long Ago a couple weeks ago, which I'm enjoying greatly.

I did something ill-advised in the past few days, encouraged by a library message suggesting that I would not be able to renew the second of two books I'd borrowed. I'd started the longer one first, like a fool. Thus it was that I ended up reading Future Home of the Living God in about 48 hours

Just got home from seeing the Decemberists, who had never been in Halifax until tonight. It’s like they followed me here, as I had never seen them live until tonight, either. They closed with Mariner’s Revenge Song and it couldn’t have been more perfect

I personally don’t feel yelling at or insulting people who make a moral error helps: not them, but more importantly not you. it is coarsening. & I know that if you went through my replies you could find instances of me being rude or angry. but I just hope to do better the next time. we all can.

And then just...Shirley MacLaine guesting, Martin Short and Nathan Lane trying to kill each other in an elevator, it's just - what a goddamn delight #onlymurdersinthebuilding

Only Murders continues to be my current guilty pleasure. Tonight's little delightful detail: A search result for the boxing gym the crooked cop runs. It's called "Excessive Force" and has 1.2 stars on Google maps

I got invited to watch the fireworks from an indoor space with a great view where I wouldn't have to hear all the noise, but they postponed the fireworks due to fog. This has not stopped Some Dipshit from setting off fireworks anyway, presumably *for* the noise. I will never understand people

My judgy ass in a public place: But whyyyy do so many people have to say everything that comes into their heads out loud…? *sends post* …oh.

I think I just watched this for the first time. I was born in 1974, and by the air date I would have just turned 11. I remember how upset I used to get about nobody believing in Snuffy. I fear I was pretty well shaped by it by the time I felt I was “too old” for Sesame Street.

Hooooo boy. This is a lot of what I've been thinking about, and struggling with, lately.

since younger people are asking how shockingly stupid things were in 2003, may I present to you this circa-03 sign that I bought from a local restaurant and their (unrelated) going out of business sale a few years later

I have Covid, and in an attempt to not have my partner get it, I've been spending a lot of my time in my room. I'm mega-tired and mega-bored, but right now I'm enjoying the dappled sunlight that's flickering over me and my bed from the northwest-facing window.

Well but this is just rude

Lessons in Belgian cuisine part 2: 1. unlike in Lyon, you absolutely should try the specialties of the region. 2. Everything in #Belgium is served with frites and a salad. Everything. 3. For some reason they don't salt the frites?? They're still great though. #Belgium,man

This is what makes that show so brilliant.

🌈 Happy Wednesday, Scooby Gang 🌈 ⛧💖💜💙⛧

Writing up my travelogue from my first trip to #Belgium. Thought I'd share a few observations here. #belgium,man Lessons in Belgian cuisine: 1. Waffles are sort of only a thing for tourists. They're famous and ubiquitous and delicious of course, but one gets the sense they're kind of hokey. 1/

I do think there is an issue with social media in that I can log on and almost immediately see a reply from someone who is too noxious for the vast majority of society. maybe not great that we’re all getting drive-by psychic damage from people who 20 years ago would have had almost no platform

We've been here and fighting all along. For all the good it's done.

I just rewatched Shanghai Noon for the first time in idk how long and was delighted to find it just as wholesome and hilarious as I remember. Simpler times.

Thank you for calling the "guess you're 50 now" hotline. Your call is important to us. While you wait helplessly for your menopause install to complete, please enjoy your new internal hold music 🎶what a fool belieeeeeeeeeeeves🎵

I can’t think of one of my own at the moment, but this thread (and its parent) had me laughing long and loud today. Please go check it out.

In the 90s, I genuinely thought the Internet would cure loneliness. But it turns out that for me anyway the Internet addresses loneliness the way alcohol addresses anxiety.

Movie you’ve watched more than six times using gifs.

This entire thread goes straight to the center of my previously irony-poisoned, now mostly purified heart. It hurts to live that way, and makes life small and sad.

You know, sometimes I really wish Steve Winwoodn’t

Important thread, about an aspect of our collective experience that I haven’t heard anyone else talking about yet. (Yes, I just said “nobody is talking about this, but this time it’s true)

On top of everything else, one of my mentors died last week. Here's my remembrance. writeitout.substack.com/p/april-wins...

Nobody told me (okay, to be fair, everybody told me) how fucking delightful Only Murders In The Building is. It's like watching a Benoit Blanc mystery except also two of my favorite actors from my childhood are in it and it makes me feel 12 and very happy

…this is uncomfortably real

This is…this is really it I think

Back on the 'stack. It's been a crazy, upsetting month, but I finally spat out Part 3 of my series. It'll be mirrored on Patreon soon. writeitout.substack.com/p/how-to-hel...