There’s one thing stupider than spending 1.5 trillion to lose a war to a middle power in the Middle East, and that is spending 1.7 trillion to do so.

Gillian Anderson

I Photoshop Paddington into a movie, TV show, or pop culture until I forget: Day 1829

The Buffy reboot was cancelled.

The thing about the Buffy reboot is that I don’t even know if I was cautiously optimistic about it, but you tell me some dude bro ruined two women’s shiny weekends by canceling something he bragged about not having ever engaged with and I’m ready to fight the forces of darkness over it.

Reading Jason Stanley this week, and he’s shared several passages written by that one Infamous German Leader on women’s “work” and I am struck by how I could take them authorless and verbatim into most White Christian Evangelical spaces and no one would blink. Anyway. Good times.

No Kings Day is two weeks away and we’ve already surpassed the total number of events from October’s historic protests. Join us in the streets again on March 28 for the largest protest in American history: www.nokings.org?SQF_SOURCE=i...

This is Koyuki. Please do not disturb her. She's in ice cream scoop mode right now. Needs to focus. 12/10 (IG: fuji_bull)

Harry Jaffa in 2010 told Sam Tanenhaus that "the origins of American conservatism is the ideology of the Old South in the 1860s. It never changed.” (Quoted in Buckley: The Life and The Revolution That Changed America, 376.)

The story of the Bible is the story of choosing the marginalized over Empire. Again and again.

One of the evils of wealthy men is their incurious nature. I suspect it has something to do with the fact that they grow jaded by having everything at their fingertips. I feel sorry for these men, but more sorry for those of us who must live in their world. www.newyorker.com/books/page-t...

so much of our present misery is just a giant, prolonged backlash to integration

there's so much disrespect of romance writers and romance readers baked into the idea that AI-driven production of novels is 'better'. as if writing romance isn't skillful, hard and joyous work. as if romance readers aren't discerning, loyal and savvy.

I Photoshop Paddington into a movie, TV show, or pop culture until I forget: Day 1784

The republicans I hold the most responsible for this whole mess? McConnell. Collins. And Murkowski. One went all in whatever and chuckled gleefully about it. The other two protested without conviction every step of the way, but often held the lever to stop the worst.

Somehow… I continue to revise my gothic and parent and cook food and do work and call my reps so gold star me.

If it is fascism now it was fascism then but if you were wrong no need to pause to make a special effort to admit your error -- we don't have that much time now, please act right away, get organized, and then tell your followers what you are doing to stop fascism and what they too can do.

Second amendment advocate Stephen Gutowski reposted by conservative Christian radio guy Erick Erickson.

There are people whom I distinctly do not want to know how they’re seeing things because I am exhausted of realizing they are going to excuse it… again.

This is Alex Pretti.

This month is the worst but: - My classes yesterday and today went well - I helped a student with reference today and it was great - I found glasses that are working - Florence + the machine exists - I didn’t have to cook tonight We take the small wins.

So glad we didn’t vote an incompetent old man into office. 🙃

I guarantee you every woman who has ever been called a 'fucking bitch' when she had the audacity to exist felt those words in their bones.

Looking back, everyone will one day realize that all that woke stuff was right. Unfortunately, being right won’t erase the suffering.

Always a good day when you literally wake up and have to call your congress person with gravel frog wake up voice prior to drinking coffee. 🙃

The last Fridays of the year are going to be counting down my fave books over on my Substack, Typing in a Bungalow. open.substack.com/pub/typingin...

When you could have it for 50% off at Amazon and within a week, while you know the Indie will be full price and it is backordered for two… but you are choosing to invest in your community rather than billionaires this year. 🤷🏼‍♀️

Currently doing a read through to prep for final revisions on my novel, and yesterday every single chapter I read made me unbearably grumpy until I just said 'you need a nap', and I stopped.

I started a book this morning and was nearly 20% in when I realized I really should get to work, and I did not want to.

I took October as a Writing play month intentionally and on purpose, but I am now two weeks into November and feel really paralysed with moving forward. I’m not really sure what to do with myself or how to approach this. I feel so close and impossibly far away from having something I could query.

I Photoshop Paddington into a movie, TV show, or pop culture until I forget: Day 1705

If you told me in the 90s that I would spend a significant portion of my adult life thinking about the evangelical, conservative, straight ticket Republicans that taught me “sexual immorality disqualifies for public office” I would have thought you were crazy. But here we are.

Unsurprising. The lack of accountability illustrated by agents allows for this type of misuse. But also:

Reading through this weeks preamble helped me clarify something around my thoughts on AI: AI just hasn’t convinced me it has anything to offer that I want or need. I see a lot of humans trying to sell it to me, but a good product sells itself — and AI doesn’t.

My least favorite thing about modern “legacy media” is the rise of the blogs that aren’t published in their print sources and therefore are inaccessible to anyone without income. I run into this as a librarian all the time.

The Buffy episode “the Gift” still hits hard. Cried twice tonight. The hardest thing in this world IS to live in it.

“Can we read the witness marks of our country? To do so you have to be able to look deeper, ask questions, maintain curiosity, and accept information without prejudice or prejudgment. If we cannot read those marks, then the horrors will catch up with us.” open.substack.com/pub/typingin...

30-40% of these books I’ve read and loved. Another 30-40% I’ve got in my TBR list and brb now I need to make my TBR larger.

“My father’s exact words to describe what was going on over there (Claremont Institute): ‘They put a top hat on Jefferson Davis and call him Abraham Lincoln. They put the dust cover of Nicomachean Ethics on Atlas Shrugged and call it Aristotle.’” Philip Jaffa, quoted in Money, Lies, and God.

There are way more important things that involve real harm to real people. But as a lover of history and old houses, the East Wing situation has really depressed me this week.

Love this lady!!!

“The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government…” ~Patrick Henry

Haunting of Hill House rewatch time.

It’s Hamas It’s antifa It’s Soros It’s terrorism It’s… It’s… It’s Americans who will be peacefully marching with signs and supporting democracy—and don’t want a King. #WeAreTheMajority And they know it.

Yesterday and today I wrote for thirty minutes in a side project. I don’t know if it’s a short story, a novella, or something else. It’s not my typical genre, but I’m enjoying the layers and playing with it. So I’m glad I’m working with it.

Shoutout to everyone who reminded us this week how much the world hates happy successful women. Keep whining: we happy successful women will be out here living joyful and spending energy in spaces where we receive fabulous return.

My most recent writing Substack open.substack.com/pub/typingin...

I just threw a bunch of vegetables in with broth and lentils and made magic. Without a recipe? Am I a witch now?