It’s like you tell your therapist one story about how your family forgot about you on vacation as a child and left you behind when going to the beach in a strange house and unfamiliar town so you had to figure out how to get there on your own and it just becomes your trauma origin story.

Travel Photography: Livraria Lello & Chapel of Souls in Porto No trip to Porto is complete without visiting two of the most famous places in the city. In one day we visited Livraria Lello which is known as "the world's most… https://emilyophoto.com/2025/12/19/livraria-lello-chapel-of-souls/

Travel Photography: Porto Art & Photo Museums On my last full day in Porto, I visited the two museums that were at the top of my list: Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art and the Portuguese Center for Photography. There were some… https://emilyophoto.com/2025/12/18/porto-art-photo-museums/

Travel Photography: Bolsa Palace in Porto Of all the historical buildings in Porto, one of the most impressive is Bolsa Palace. Despite the name, this has never been the residence of any nobility. It is actually the home… https://emilyophoto.com/2025/12/17/travel-photography-bolsa-palace-in-porto/

🎄#GothicAdvent

Shrooms 2 just dropped

Nothing makes me feel more justified in playing Clair Obscur on story mode than watching my husband struggle through redoing fights that interrupt the flow of an essential cutscene and pivotal story moment. Having to stop and leave to level up and come back at that moment ruins the flow.

Today is a feast day for me (spoiler alert: all pagan holidays are feast days that’s why we are the best) and I’ve spend the past 36 hours cooking which is not the same without the people who taught me how to cook like Alaina and Taylor. But I persist and try to make what I can from what they did.

This year I’m grateful for the first time to the lengthy essay before a recipe on a baking blog because it proves to me that a human wrote this and it’s not AI slop. This was a real problem finding new recipes this year.

Taking my first trip to California for my 40th in February for two whole ass weeks like I’m traveling to another country. Give me all of your hot spots, hidden gems, must see places. The loop is gonna be Sonoma -> Yosemite -> LA -> Big Sur -> San Francisco.

Happy 60th birthday to the iconic Björk.

I don’t doomscroll. I roomscroll. That’s when you endlessly scroll Airbnb/VRBO for the perfect trip accommodations.

This was basically my exact review of this movie (which I did like a lot to be fair).

Hey so “underage girls” are…children. The word you’re looking for is children. They’re not like, women-in-waiting or women-lite or whatever. They’re children. I think some of you are very uncomfortable with what that means for you but it is still true.

what if the vast, complex conspiracy of powerful men to ensure they evade consequences for violence and exploitation is just the US criminal legal system

Went to the ER at 5am because of an intense pain in my side that spread to my back and ribs that made it difficult to breathe. Spent 5 hours getting poked, prodded, scanned, and bloodlet only for them to predictably tell me I’m totally fine and who knows why I’m in so much pain. Cool cool cool.

This was inadvertently a great day for me to plan a trip to NYC in the spring for a concert.

I gotta give it up to the writers tho. If NYC elects a Muslim mayor on the day Dick Cheney died, that is one hell of a slow played story arc. Every time you want to fire 2025's writers room they give you a little narrative resolution as a treat.

We did a good thing for a change this Election Day.

I love how old books warning one away from witchcraft can't help but make it look cool as fuck

Thank you Florence Welch for the witchy album we all needed this Samhain. - “It’s the old religion humming in your veins Some animal instinct starting up again And I am wound so tightly, I hardly even breathe You wonder why we're hungry for some kind of release”

I watched an episode of The X-Files tonight intentionally. I haven’t done that in years despite it being my formative fandom. I correlate it so closely with my dad and my sister Alaina. Her birthday was last week. His would be today. What else can I do but watch one of our favorite episodes?

Today I repotted a bunch of houseplants before winter sets in, watered, fertilized, untangled, and planted some I had propagated. I’m relying on this greenery to keep me from spiraling into a deep depression once the light disappears. Also procrastinating on actually prepping the garden for winter.

The only truly ethical response that a self-described artist can make. Anything else is a betrayal of one's colleagues.

this headline hums with ancient autumnal dread

What do we do with the birthdays of those we have lost? Do we erase them from the calendar? Try not to think about it when it’s impossible to forget a date engraved in your memory from birth? - Today is my sister’s birthday. She would have been 43.

Travel Photography: Portugal / Chaves Traveling within the Douro Valley of Portugal took us to some exceptional towns that are not often thought of by tourists. One of these was the colorful city of Chaves, an ancient town that once served as an… https://emilyophoto.com/2025/10/21/chaves-portugal/

please. the ai slop. it is too strong today. stop reposting it stop it stop it stop it

This is what democracy looks like. #NoKings

Travel Photography: Portugal / Lamego Continuing my travels in Portugal took me to Lamego, a beautiful city in the Douro Valley. Towering over the city is the Lamego Cathedral, with its stunning Baroque architecture. From the city below, you can… https://emilyophoto.com/2025/10/18/lamego-portugal/

Travel Photography: Portugal / Bragança Castle Over the summer I had the opportunity to travel to mainland Europe for the first time and visit Portugal. My sister had already been there for some time, and did some excellent location scouting for places… https://emilyophoto.com/2025/10/17/braganca/

I no longer wish to discourse. It’s all too much and it makes me feel insane.

Can’t decide what to buy on Prime Day? Try: absolutely nothing, and then go support indie bookstores instead 📚

Okay what’s up I’m listening to Taylor Swift at midnight with no one to talk to about it so I’m here on Bluesky to react to my second listen. My overall first impressions are that this is a great pop album with some surprisingly subversive lyrics. It’s weird and also weirdly hilarious? #ts12

Congrats to Stephen Colbert for never bending the knee.

WAIT WHAT DO YOU MEAN THEY CANCELLED THE LATE SHOW WITH STEPHEN COLBERT???

I know this is a privileged problem to have but I was supposed to be on a flight to Portugal yesterday and now I’m not leaving until tomorrow because the delays getting to Newark have been insane.

Ten writers by whom I’ve read more than five books. 1. Anne Rice 2. Robert Jordan 3. Brandon Sanderson 4. NK Jemisin 5. L. Frank Baum 6. Terry Pratchett 7. VE Schwab 8. Robin Hobb 9. Lemony Snicket 10. Carolyn Keene

What do you do when a hostile family member kicks you out of the house illegally and withholds your possessions? Asking for my nephew (a minor) whose paternal aunt is a verified sociopath. (I’m the maternal aunt).

Someone tell me why I own a home and yet I still have to deal with Pittsburgh slumlords.

A Muslim son of immigrants might become mayor of NYC in part because he cross endorsed and supported a Jewish candidate and Black candidate, and vice versa. It's a beautiful American story for the rest of us. A nightmare for all the right people ;) It's so New York.

All you had to do was elect two brilliant, diligent, overqualified Women.

Millennials just screaming into the void - “what if we didn’t repeat the same mistakes over and over again”????

The thing about being an elder millennial is that this has literally been my entire goddamn life

Out at karaoke tonight I witnessed a very straight group of women - clearly a bachelorette party - sing Pink Pony Club and I loved it but is this appropriation of lesbian culture? I sang backup vocals and I guess added some queer legitimacy. Disregard the fact that I’m here with my husband plz.

Closed eyes, deep breaths, and playing this song while I imagine a world where fascism is toppled, the wars are ended, and a global revolution propels humanity towards a peaceful and equitable future. And of course, #TheWheelofTime is renewed. A girl can dream. #SaveWoT #WeepforManetheren

I just want 'ai' to go away. The simultaneous widespread poisoning of knowledge; attempt to end-run professions that cultivate critical thinking; and sucking the joy out of everything while ramming unwanted technology down our throats is so exhausting. I just can't anymore.

One thing to know about me is that I came of age during the mailing list and live journal era. And that’s kind of how I treat Bluesky. More like short journal entries that can be deeply personal because I don’t assume anyone is reading. But I hope to resonate.

I would like to say that the first protest I ever attended and photographed was here in Pittsburgh 20 years ago during Dubya. I thought he was the worst in my lifetime. And then there I was marching again today with more people I could have ever imagined across the nation and the globe.

i'm at the pride parade, i'm at the protest, i'm at the combination pride parade and protest