My dad's family was so poor that once, when they were kids, one of my uncles beat up another uncle for a yogurt, bc it was the only food in the fridge. My dad and his brother bought a house when he was 19 and working as a bouncer, bc even poor boomers had opportunities that are unimaginable now.

It turns out I'm more patriotic than I thought, bc those pictures of the East Wing being demolished fill me with horror and visceral dread. I want the East Wing reconstructed, the rose garden replanted, and every Trump Tower burned to the ground Sherman-style.

Just once, I'd like to see a white man admit that he fucked up and he's ashamed, and then do things to demonstrate he's changed without expecting instant forgiveness and forgetting. Yes, you can change. We want you to change. But it takes acknowledgment + time + action before you get a group hug.

Sea cucumbers defend themselves by projectile vomiting their own guts at predators. #Metal There are few things more science fictional than the natural world.

I've got some neurodiverse Faulknerian recall and regularly put myself through hell remembering dumb things I said or did decades ago. I don't know how people who've done truly awful things walk around blithely--or run for fucking Congress--like the past is in the past.

Palate cleanser from today's bullshit:

Pretty cool, a global pandemic that killed millions didn't teach liberals that basic political intersectionality includes ability and disability.

It's frankly exhausting to live in a world built around dicks.

I've always been critical of the professoriate's tendency to dismiss entire states as unlivable. But holy hell, I'd rather work at Costco than take a faculty job in Texas or Florida right now. Reminder: one of the easiest things you can do to support faculty in these states is JOIN A FUCKING UNION.

Y'all, stop handing things to shitty people.

It's hard to emphasize enough how cheap overseas manufacture has masked the massive wage stagnation that we've seen since the 80s.

You should've heard the women in my local yarn shop in Kentucky after Luigi Mangione killed Brian Thompson. Middle-class Karens saying "murder is never okay, but also...." and telling stories about people they know who've been abused by insurance companies. People are ready for leftist politics.

We're living in the seventeenth year of the ongoing 2008 economic collapse.

Something about this reminds me of how excited I was to start classes as a first-gen student at the University of Central Florida. My whole family was excited. My grandfather had a fourth-grade education, and I was going to Learn Big Things and Think Deep Thoughts. There was pride in that.

In the early 1990s, scientists began developing genetic tests for hereditary diseases. Huntington's was one of the first, but no one wanted to take it. Carriers have a 100% chance of developing the disease. People didn't want to know, bc it's horrific and untreatable. So this is a big big deal.

MAGA is so far in the throes of full-blown hysteria over autism that they're boycotting Tylenol. Meanwhile, American children are getting systemic organ damage from repeated COVID infections.

Today I woke up to the news that, thanks to rising property taxes and home insurance rates, my mortgage is going up $300 a month in 2026. Don't mind me. I'm just going to play "Everybody Hurts" and this video on repeat for the next 12 hours.

I graduated in 4 yrs with 2 BAs, a minor, and honors, without financial support from family. I had an op-ed column, served as pres of a NOW chapter and on the board of the women's center, and organized benefit concerts for rape crisis. I was wicked stoned the whole time. AI is for the weak.

My school changed our options for medical insurance plans. I spent the day reading through them, wading through the fine print to see the coverage exceptions, and trying to weigh which one will provide the most safety. The takeaway is that there is no safety. This is no way to run a society.

Jesse Watters is in the news again for being a terrible person, so it's worth remembering this Fox News journalistic high point.

I saw this SNL skit with Paul Mescal being Irish and charming, so I watched one of his movies, Aftersun. If you are, say, a hyper-analytical woman who's spent most of your adult life grieving an absentee father who died too young? Er, maybe proceed with caution. It is beautiful and quietly brutal.

Me, in my 40s: I don't drink much these days. I just don't feel the urge. Me, still in my 40s, after three Modelos with lime: I invented sex, drugs, and rock and roll.

Never forget

I was talking to a friend yesterday who is also a southern studies scholar, and this was the gist of the conversation on the state of the field: we don't care if something is "southern" because everything is southern. American is Alabama. Alabama is America. Australia may be Alabama too.

Look at the fit of the top and the placement of the underwire. Yikes and ouch. Dita would never. If you really love Taylor Swift, send her a link to r/ABraThatFits.

I had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad doctor's appointment today. She spent 60 seconds squinting at tests/scans that took months to complete. She shrugged. Then she wrote a prescription with crazy side effects without even making a speculative diagnosis and noped out. #longCOVID

This seems like an excellent time to join AAUP.

It seems like everywhere I look, people are knitting the Clematis cardigan or PetiteKnit's version of it. I really, really, really hate it. It's not my style at all. Except that the more I see it, the more I want to make it, because reasons ????? I think it's contagious. #knitting #knitsky

I see professors posting about how their students hate AI and how the kids are going to be alright. Okay, let's assume that your students aren't just telling you what they know you want to hear. Even if they really hate AI, that doesn't mean they aren't using it regularly to cheat.

Sick today and in need of some gentle TV--no serial killers, violence, dramas, or whizzy sitcoms. Something chill, slow, but not stupid. Usually when I'm in this zone, I go for Taskmaster, particularly the early series or the New Zealand version, but I've overplayed them. Any recommendations?

Just in case you've been waiting for a Lovecraftian omen.

No, they're thinking: "Oh, right, that's where he kept his cigars."

What subscription service do we have to cancel to protest the prosecution of James Comey?

I didn't get invited to my cousins' Rosh Hashana celebration for the first time ever because I write stuff like this, so I guess I'll keep posting it.

It is not "cancel culture." This is straight-up government censorship. Cancel culture is when a critical mass of the public decides to boycott a celebrity's work because that person's behavior is unacceptable. That's not what happened here.

Lydia Deetz wore it better.

I've lived through enough recessions and financial catastrophes to have a sense of what's "normal" in an economic downturn. I've never seen the cost of food increase so much so quickly. Housing, utilities, gas, tuition, sure, but not food. There's something that's frankly scary about that.

If you're an academic, the very least you can do right now is join a union.

Many traditional forms of U.S. democracy, including the debate, have been emptied of their deliberative character & transformed into reactionary performances, as @thegurglingcod.bsky.social so powerfully shows.

"Kids these days don't read books!" I say as I binge 10 episodes of Supernatural in a row.

Petition to stop comparing white people to Martin Luther King Jr under any circumstances.

If there's one thing you can count on, it's that fascists stop fascist-ing if you give them 40 years to get it out of their systems, so let's all chill okay?

Simply the best slide I have ever seen in a powerpoint presentation care of @premeemohamed.com’s talk at @banffcentre.bsky.social re: Putting the Science in Science Fiction

The professor at the center of this fascist nightmare is an early-career scholar who is not tenure-track. I am so sorry that she is being targeted. I hope that she has local support to help her get through this.

Waiting for the vet to come to my house and euthanize my cat. He's curled up by the back door, napping as usual. I'm wondering if I should tidy up before she gets here. Like "please don't judge how messy my living room is when you kill my cat, Dr. Vet." How fucked up is that?

A lot of people have been disabled by COVID and don't even know it yet. They may be ignoring or downplaying symptoms, or they may be asymptomatic atm, but COVID causes permanent damage to every organ system. After enduring 5 years of gaslighting, I'm watching and standing by with "I told you so."

Milk is really, really gross.

If you want to feel really good about yourself, punch your credit card number into a website that sends someone to your house to euthanize your elderly cat.

I don't want the social media I engage with to be massive. That's how Facebook and Twitter became unusable.