Okay, so I've decided. America does not deserve a birthday this year. You know who deserves an extra birthday this year? Cats. So I hereby declare that every cat in your house is having a birthday today, and expect us all to spoil them accordingly. Happy birthday, cats everywhere.

It's July 4 and America doesn't deserve a birthday. My stupid-ass town still had fireworks last night despite a wildfire advisory and wind gusts. White supremacists marched around the Capitol with fascism flags, and there will be multiple climate-related heat injuries today. Happy 250th, I guess.

If you're on lots of meds like me (especially mental health meds) you may be really susceptible to heat stroke and dehydration, which is important to know this summer! I'm on two of these. How about you?

This is a great thread. Also: as soon as my wife checks to make sure we still have them, I will be giving away some cooling rags that the postal service uses to deliver in this goddamned heat. They stay damp for quite awhile and help control body temp.

Watching The Thing with my wife. *first shot* Her: "That's inaccurate. If it's winter in Antarctica, there's no daylight." Me: "Shut up, you know they didn't have science in 1982."

A true Hero

There's so much in the world right now, and it's sapping the life out of me, y'all. I can get through the day, but my creativity and verve is just... drained. It's like every bad thing has been just sinking its teeth into me until I have no blood left for actual living. Be gentle with yourselves.

1) He clearly does not know and 2) I don't suppose "welcome, but be good" is just Donald attempting to wade into the kink community? (I know, they def don't want him either)

Peanut butter M&Ms Minis are a real thing that exists. You're welcome.

You notice that the criminal-in-charge who sues everyone for everything is drop dead quiet about this. Says a lot.

Some Democrats think the party has gone too far left and needs to readjust towards the “center.” Rubbish. Where’s the center between democracy and oligarchy, and why would Democrats want to be there?

I remember the days (like, eight years ago) when I warned my college students that Wikipedia wasn't a reliable source to use as the basis for a research paper. Now I'd give anything for them to just fucking use Wikipedia.

Dear Doctors: if you see a fat patient, WE ARE HUMAN. We don't deserve panicked lectures about how they could have X, Y, and Z and die if we don't shape up. We don't deserve your shame and judgment and condescension. All you're doing is acting as a barrier to fat people seeing the doctor.

Feeling pretty bummed about some really ugly fatphobic content in a recent @paizo.com Adventure Path I'm playing with my wife. Anyone know how I can talk to someone that would hear my concerns?

Oh, man, this looks good. This is the case that I got all annoyed at Love Lies Bleeding kinda ripping off.

Seriously gang, you want this one. You want a magical realism police procedural with EVEN MORE DECAPITATIONS than in one of my romance novels? Hell yeah!

Yooooo, grab this book!

@jenngivhan.bsky.social's THE SLEEPING SISTERS has a shit-ton of blurbs that I can't even fit on this post. But it's struggling, despite being a novel of deep and endless magic. Pre-order today to keep this entrancing folkloric horror alive. (PS: of course I'm sharing the blurbs in the comments!)

Not enough sage in the western hemisphere

Note to self: if you have to separate your cats into different rooms to feed them because they steal each other's food, do NOT feed them and then sit down to a Zoom appointment and only remember to let them out when you hear the calico howl.

*political meme appears* Person: "I'd like to post this. Can I get sources please to confirm?" Assholes: "DO IT YOURSELF NO ONE OWES YOU ANYTHING" The world is full of bad info, loves. If you don't have the spoons to help someone stem the tide, move on. They're not shooting your dog, my god.

1) I love when things like this come to life. I wasn't able to finish Whalefall, but it was specifically because of trauma triggers, not because I wasn't deeply enjoying it. 2) Apropos of nothing, but does anyone else think the lead actor looks like James Sunderland from Silent Hill 2?

I love days when books come in the mail. It can be a large haul, or a single pre-order, but I just dance in delight every time. My wife laughs at me when I say "is it time for presents?!" They're presents I give myself, because I do NOT remember that I ordered them by the time they get here.

Hats off to Ursula Vernon for successfully predicting flesh-eating screw worms in Texas.

Talked to my psychiatrist (finally) about the med that's been causing me to be so aggressive. Her: "Yeah, it's not common, but Wellbutrin turns some people into Angry Rage Monsters." Me: "It me, how you know? 😥

I'm having a rare side effect of a new med: severe "agitation." By which I mean I have no chill and have been behaving truly unhinged for two weeks, thinking it was a personality flaw instead of the Wellbutrin.

Finished Craig DiLouie's EPISODE THIRTEEN, and apropos of nothing, the book describes a pentacle as "a depiction of the four elements and Soul." Now, all I can hear is "Earth! Fire! Wind! Water! Heart!" "By your powers combined..." I didn't realize Captain Planet was Pagan-coded. 🤷‍♀️

I knew the first time I heard the name of Markwayne Mullin that he would be a corrupt asshole. One, because Trump appointed him. Two: never trust a person with two names, unless her name is Mary Jane.

Got up with spoons this morning! I went to take a shower (a very tiring activity) and my dad called. I wasted 40 minutes naked on the toilet talking to a man who sucks all the oxygen out of every room he's in. He wouldn't stop talking to let me speak. He whined about wanting to move to Idaho. 1/

UGH you guys, my therapist wants me to try leaving the house again. Something something "it will be good for you" and blah blah "you need to find a way to recover your spoons" and like, babe, it takes 30 steps, each of which take spoons, to GET ME OUT THE DOOR. Ugh. Fine, but I'm not gonna like it.

I finished @amalelmohtar.com 's SEASONS OF IRON AND GLASS. Every piece made me see the world slightly anew; every word rebuilt palaces in my mind that I'd long forgotten. Her art is a gift, but so is the love that she reflects so fiercely in her writing. I am changed. Magic is real.

Be like Mary.

My slang oscillates wildly between current slang, 90s/2000s slang, and slang from before I was born. Someday I'll use rizz, gnarly, lit, let her cook, as if, and cool beans in the same sentence and my head will explode. Or gen z will assassinate me for blasphemy. One of the two.

Loving my trans friends is as easy as breathing, which is good, because being born into a body that doesn't feel like yours is the hardest thing I can imagine. Trans rights are human rights, and I will always help to make sure we have them. I only wish I could wave a wand and fix your pain.

Sometimes new technology is a good thing. I'm not one to stand in the way of progress. But AI isn't progress. It's designed to steal our intellect, our creative works, and burn up precious water to do it. The data centers alone are making people in my hometown sick. So they can go fuck themselves.

@haileypiperfights.bsky.social my friend was looking through my book collection to see what she wanted to borrow for her trip to Sweden. She came upon Cranberry Cove, and upon realizing it was signed, was like "I don't want to destroy it." But I'll lure her into my trap eventually.

While I have a macabre sense of humor on occasion, the human race contains great multitudes. We are capable of being appalled and horrified, and also having great whimsy and joy. In fact, we absolutely need that balance if we're going to survive.

It's kind of wild that our whole democracy has been based on the honor system this whole time.

If you're witchy and/or into occultism and ALSO love horror, might I recommend Craig DiLouie's EPISODE THIRTEEN? It's a great book on its merits, but it will hit different for an occultist, I promise. I've been spiraling for 24 hours, and I'm only 60% done.

Today my wife taught me what scomiting is, and I will never be the same. Screaming vomiting. I will never be able to stop subconsciously saying "Wallace and Scomit" intead of "Wallace and Gromit" for the rest of my life now.

This is what happened to me. I was a gig worker classified as an "independent contractor," so no one had to give me benefits or protections of any kind. Working 3 jobs, no insurance, able to be fired without reason, treated like garbage on all three fronts. Is it any wonder I had a breakdown?

Most days, I have to fight for my hope with dogged determination, because I believe that despair is just capitulation in a trenchcoat. But I want to believe in this sentiment, so badly.

We find so many amazing things when we look beyond what we can immediately see. This is spectacular. I love listening to @celestialblue.bsky.social geek out over it. She was an astronomy major once upon a time, and sharing this with her is so special to me.

Me today: "Musk has an obsession with the letter X because it's the coolest, edgiest thing he can think of. I hate that every time he names something X, we have to take it seriously because he has a lot of money. We collectively need to give this man a serious wedgie."

I know that I'm supposed to be angry about the Iran War, and I am. I know I'm supposed to be angry about ICE, and trans rights, and I am. Believe me, I am raging angry about it all. But I contain multitudes, and right now I saw that soda 12-packs are $14 in my local grocery store and HOLY SHIT

It should be said that some of the members bring their kids, so warn me so I can denote spicy material, please. (I want the parents to make their own judgments with their kids if they take an interest, instead of just reccing something and then the 12-year-old asks them what fisting is afterwards.)

My wife has lived long enough to play this song in a rural Walmart parking lot with the windows down, on Easter Sunday. (Shortly followed by Tears by Sabrina Carpenter.) We might be going to hell, y'all. www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtqj...

Now, I know I have indie authors in the house. I’m putting together a list of indie book suggestions for my book club, and every "indie book list" I find is just books sold at indie bookstores. Not indie published books. Now is a GREAT time to rec yourself or someone you love down below!

The one April Fools' Day joke I will accept is Dropout's announcement of the return of Dimension 20 On a Bus. That's it. That's all.