Took my daughter to “noon year’s eve around the world” at our local library and Canada’s display was really something.

Maybe Harvard should focus solely on the opportunities it afforded to Larry Summers for “exploration and risk taking”? www.nytimes.com/2025/12/17/u...

glanced at myself in the mirror and pleased to announce that my undereye circles have achieved “we fear she won’t survive the winter” levels. And it isn’t even January!

someone decided to market the Ann Lee / Shakers movie by lauding their invention of…potato peelers, when @ashleyrattner.bsky.social and I are available to write copy

zero regrets, but I think my bloodstream is primarily composed of spinach dip at the moment

Dec 26th accomplishments: showered, ate a hoagie, put on clean sweats, took a nap, hiding from my family in dark quiet room

Halls decked, bows tied

I love olives, pickles, & this tray from my sister

do you even celebrate with “funeral potatoes,” though

took melatonin again last night, dreamt that the ceiling was oozing blood. Very restful stuff.

The Library Company of Philadelphia will become part of Temple Libraries now.temple.edu/news/2025-12...

I want a realistic goal for this holiday season, so I’m just going to spend all the money in my checking account. I can do this; I am very close.

winterish

I don’t even like the movie, but Carol Kane’s abusive fairy in “Scrooged” is a total delight

gift idea for people you hate:

I wrote a paragraph today, bc I don’t know what this chapter is about. But I also participated in an extensive potato chip analysis in the group chat. That feels like enough for the Friday before Christmas.

The Ralph Waldo Emerson Society has an open call for applications! Deadline is Jan 16, 2026: emersonsociety.org/2026-call-fo...

The developers of a browser tool that changes AI-centric LinkedIn posts to Allen Iverson facts want to help “take back control of your experience of the internet.” www.wired.com/story/chrome...

saw Hamnet — cried, liked Paul Mescal’s little earring, distracted by Hamlet’s yellow pasted-down stage hairdo

I bet Francis Fukuyama's wife loves this post. I bet it's her fave. I bet she read it and thought: "what a good job." I bet she's like, "i'm glad francis spends hours online interacting with an search engine he's gendered as a woman who never expresses negative or critical emotions towards him."

grateful that Sarah Mesle articulated this, in this precise way. Beef & fucking prunes. (from Reasons & Feelings, 2025)

a combo of winter doldrums and cute haircuts has me wondering if I also need to get a c*nty little bob rn? much to think about.

the work that did not make it into print, or wasn't allowed time to grow and develop, or never got the feedback and peer-review it needed to hone itself. the university and students have suffered and also we have lost so so so many ideas.

I've been teaching for over 20 years. Most of my students have been good or downright great. I've also seen some weird shit. When I see faculty rhapsodizing about teaching and idealizing students, I'm like "okay, but surely you've seen a lot of weird shit too, right?"

I’ll also be wrapping gifts using scented, lead-based paste next week

Also all the problems caused by Ed tech can be solved by smaller class sizes and well-paid teachers given real academic freedom.

I bought this sticker bc it looks like my sweet but vacant-eyed (brained?) cat

Four classes of grades submitted & my immune system is celebrating by breaking out in stress hives all over my neck for second day in a row! Today’s going to be good though, gonna fuck off & do whatever I want

snow is a pain in the ass & the most beautiful

I’m going to Bridget Everett’s cabaret soon & very happy with my emoji choice when paying my friend for the ticket

'tis the season of sweater cuffs always being vaguely damp, even if you roll them up to wash dishes

If there’s a good job out there for someone with lots of experience grading robots let me know bc I have lots of experience grading robots

first snow & a little quiet

For the practical gifter. It comes for us all.

RHOBH highlight for me so far is Erika Jayne looking like a freshly embalmed corpse, talking about how her 86yr old con-artist ex will die in prison

women’s pants are getting too weird and it has to stop

I’m a day late, but happy belated to Emily Dickinson — a certain slant of light and all that

who wrote this? not Herman Melville.

one thing about me is that I’m always going to have to look up the difference between “synchronic” & “diachronic”

This looks exactly like the skeleton bride in the Vincent Price House of the Seven Gables movie that I of course no longer have a picture of somehow

this is always happening during my christmas hide & seek. frustrating.

It’s cool when academics periodically post about their accomplishments on here, bc we should celebrate and acknowledge our work! But the way a few of you relentlessly talk about yourselves on here is truly deranged. As always with bsky this boils down to: where are the shitposters

tonight in big plans: gonna finish that James Garfield Got Shot show that I keep falling asleep during

The special issue I co-edited on "Melville's Queer Afterlives" is here and it's queer. This issue has EVERYTHING: gay pirates, dirty pictures, racist internet fanfic, Gilbert Gottfried, original poetry, and just so many French people. Available at your library, but LMK if you're paywalled...

Newsletter out today! - Ways to get involved - Organizing kit - New swag on "All Rights for All" - Schedule for Feb 13 and later events douglassday.substack.com/p/douglass-d... Help us spread the word?

please enjoy the ornament my then-5 year old picked for me a few years ago, bc she thinks I “look better when you wear makeup”

people out there are actually making yogurt in their pressure cookers? enough of you that it needs a "yogurt" button?

there’s pierogi on the elementary school cafeteria menu this week, and I’m actively jealous

nailed it! the front of the house was so cute though — love her still

how was my work inbox this final week of the semester?