It seems like there are probably a lot of good short stories set just after Christmas is something I've said a bunch based on a hunch but I've had for awhile but never really thought out past like two stories.

Nick Cave is the Matthew McConaughey of the left

Merry Christmas

For the many asking: yes, my ancient folk instrument collection does include the lute, the mandolin, banjolin, the autoharp, the dulcimer, the demiharp, the wifepipes, the selfsuck-harp, the hammered kazoo, the Djembe, the baritone djembe, the racist harp, the chewy cloth, and the big greasy string

God but I fuckinf love playing minor-key Christmas carols on my various ancient folk music instruments

On my run after two days of rain

If I ever went on Joe Rogan, I'd just be constantly saying, "huh? what's that?" holding my hand to my ear, and telling him to "quit mumbling" because his "accent" made him difficult to understand.

From the banks of the atmospheric river(s)

first up was this really great one from derrick idk who doesn't like tonal shifts?? there's a great literary tradition of such, and there's probably a fancy term for it, but I always think of it as a "paranoid android/happiness is a warm gun," and I LOVE it!

Being an extroverted straight man? For your job?? Thats forced himbofication

Another Tuesday preschool drop-off Disneybounding as Ethan Hawke

Such a pleasure to be read and curated by the immortal @aaronburch.bsky.social! Thanks for sharin, Aaron!

It's a random sad Monday in Dec.; 3 of my stories were published in 2025. #1 "Promise the Human Being" chosen by Michael C at @ghostcitypress.bsky.social The tonal shift in the second half annoyed most of my friends, a compelling rec. Like Animorphs. CW for SA. ghostcitypress.com/prose2/2025/...

It's a random sad Monday in Dec.; 3 of my stories were published in 2025. #1 "Promise the Human Being" chosen by Michael C at @ghostcitypress.bsky.social The tonal shift in the second half annoyed most of my friends, a compelling rec. Like Animorphs. CW for SA. ghostcitypress.com/prose2/2025/...

If time travel ever gets big, you know that people from different eras are gonna have different accents. Like you’ll be talking to your friend about his date and he’ll be like “…and you know she’s got that THICK 1850s thing…sound like Mr Micawber telling you a secret…”

Loving this and wondering what to tease from it in a post, I was like, "Somehow the prime numbers are menacing enough to be a jump-scare?" but that felt like a spoiler somehow? Anyway. These stories circle each other like dogs. CW/spoilers for "prime numbers."

I still cannot help but read the bride and groom in the ninth iteration as a secret, tenth life. And the oak tree is so perfect. What a lovely story.

Late puddlecultures

Late puddlecultures

Began typing with my fingers on the wrong row of keys. The result was incomprehensible. Utter nonsense.

Dmitry Samarov revived the original Midwest rot. Winesburg, Ohio is back with an intro by Kevin Maloney. Preorder now. 🖤 shop.maudlinhouse.net#winesburg-ohio

The unbearable emotional suspense as the final George-Saunders story beat hits you square in the solar plexus, music rising towards that too-familiar intensity: join me here in the final seconds of this Bluey episode

An Oregon pilot program giving cash to homeless youths sees a staggering reduction in homelessness. The program gave participants $1,000 cash payments each month for two years, and at the end of the project's first phase, 91% of participants reported being in stable housing.

THERAPIST: You're tired. You've been masking all day, doing Image Management. It's hard work. ME: Damn. I am tired. That feels right. THERAPIST: Also, in every argument you've ever had, you were always the one who was right. ME (silently breaking down): Wow (nodding; tearful nodding). Wow.

Read @anmlymag.bsky.social’s Queer Indigenous Poetics! Edited by tanner menard, this folio features works by Travis Hedge Coke, Taté Walker, Romeo Romero, Rapheal Begay, Rain Prud’homme, Noʻu Revilla, and more. #NativeAmericanHeritageMonth anmly.org/ap30-queer-i...

What if Genre is just anytime a writer is writing towards a group of readers they low-key hate?

Getting it out there in advance of the movie that I grew up (and remain?) horny for Miss Piggy, probably in the same way you other pervs were all horny for the Robin Hood fox guy. Which I also get.

9yo was like (mouth full of food, without awe): What if there was no God until Jesus died? And now God is the ghost of Jesus?

Misremembering title of Stranger Things to show my contempt, calling it stuff like "Something's Weird," "The Tall Boys," "Harry Potter," "Bi Gang," etc

A Christmas Story (1983)

Came downstairs to get someone a glass of water last night and dreamt the Canada geese were migrating through the living room.

Henry Flint

"I figured I’d go to Toledo and people would be like, oh, it was awful, it was horrible, but nobody said that and that was when it dawned on me that this is just a mentality, a very midwest mentality." Great bed-in talk w/ Patrick on his great Middle Western CNF Science Romance. Downer endings ftw!

I don't fault us? The "aging contract killer who wants to do ONE GOOD THING and quit" does nicely capture how guilty I (and many men?) feel all the time after 40+ years of doing evil man-shit. Having a ONE GOOD THING to do would be great, especially if it absolved me of all the bad stuff.

Western media was like, "Alright straight men, how would you like us to tell your story? How do you see yourse-" "Hired assassin, please." "...What?" "Killer for hire." "uh...okay. Anything else?" "Hmmm..." "..." "Mafia killer?" "Jesus Christ" "Sniper?" "-" "Vet w/ PTSD. Who kills everyone."

"They are first seen, despite the general darkness, close to the window, from which they draw back prudently..." is a great way to open on the Adam and Eve stuff in Genesis, a reading that (sorry Addison?) the rest of this lovely piece endlessly rewards.

Shout to the heart-wrenching moment in any movie/show/book where the Lone Wolf says to the Cub, as they are in flight from a pursuing, infinitely swelling wave of final evil: “Whatever you hear from me, don’t look back. Keep going.”

Always repost Paul Robeson singing I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night to Scottish coal miners.

Nothing good ever comes of "building" a "world."

Dominant paradigm of "book lover" culture already is "skip the pretentious stuff, Marvel movie, just the PLOT," etc. You guys won, man. Complaining about readers who do snobby close readings and critical analysis (even about books you like!) is...it's like you're bullying us! about books! Triggered?

Nothing makes me more excited to reread Winesburg, OH for the first time in decades than knowing that Kevin will be framing it up in one of his lovely little Pergolas of Context

When my friends and I were alcoholic 25yos, chain-smoking and drinking steel reserve on our band-house porch, giving each other homosocial haircuts, smoking weed and watching Wim Wenders movies all day, there was no one who's approval we valued more than the morally ambiguous forest-witch Baba Yaga.

Want to feel old? The age of the crew of the Nostromo in Alien, in 1979, ranged from 23 (Kane) to 26 (Lambert), in the year 2122. In 1979.

“My kids probably both have ADHD,” [proudly], “just like me…”

One way I have found to mourn someone is to set up a monthly sustaining donation to a mutual aid effort they cared about. If you can join me in honoring Alice Wong, @sfdirewolf.bsky.social with a sustaining donation today, please do. Thank you Alice, and I will not let the bastards grind me down.

Donald Trump probably married Melania because she is an empath helping him heal his psychic damage

9yo arrived independently at the conclusion that "Bugs Bunny seems kind of non-binary" this morning.

The US Department of War has awarded tens of millions to Israeli drone maker XTEND for AI‑enabled attack drones, reportedly tested on Palestinian families in Gaza, fueling urgent ethical and humanitarian concerns. qudsnen.co/us-pays-tens...

Ha and speaking of regional magic realism