This is. And thou art. There is no safety. There is no end. The word must be heard in silence. There must be darkness to see the stars. The dance is always danced above the hollow place, above the terrible abyss.

The longer a man stays in a form not his own, the greater this peril.

If you need permission to skip it, consider it given. Or maybe just read the Riddles in the Dark chapter for context about the ring—and also because imho it’s more strongly written than the chapters around it.

Finally reading (listening) to the Hobbit. It’s slow going, with characters who stumble from adventure to adventure and coincidence to coincidence. I can see why I never made it through before. The leap Tolkien made to get from this to the Lord of the Rings is really quite remarkable.

But we, insofar as we have power over the world and over one another, we must learn to do what the leaf and the whale and the wind do of their own nature. We must learn to keep the balance.

I’ll take you to Havnor and say to the princes of Earthsea, “Look! In the place of darkness I found the light, her spirit. By her an old evil was brought to nothing. By her I was brought out of the grave. By her the broken was made whole, and where there was hatred there will be peace.”

Xyzzy.

The belief that Mamdani’s politics are limited to New York is giving the same energy as “there’s no way a Black man from Chicago, raised in ‘exotic’ Hawaii, with the middle name ‘Hussein’ can become a national figure, let alone win the presidency”

Touch magic. Pass it on. Thanks for everything, Jane.

This is a strange headline, right? Making the war sound like some distant thing happening on its own very far away, having nothing at all to do with the game’s host country or anything like that?

Oh my goodness that’s gorgeous.

This week my feed is full of animated reels mocking people who think they deserve comfortable airline seats or to sit with their families on planes even though they haven’t paid for the privilege and can we just stop capitalism a sec I want to get off.

OCEANIA HAS ALWAYS BEEN VERY CLOSE TO A DEAL WITH EURASIA

Jane was one of the first to encourage me to write for kids. She was a presence in our field and in our world that cannot be replaced. 😞 😞 😞

most video games can be boiled down to playing dolls and, as a rule, the more a video game lets you play dolls, the better it is

There are currently more bills attacking trans youth’s right to play sports across the U.S. than there are trans youth in school sports.

Gender essentialism is so strange.

"Private equity claims they have to be as ruthless as possible with pension fund investments to fund the pensions of nurses and firefighters. But it's only the billionaires who benefit from a zero-sum game pitting working people against working people." @greenwell.bsky.social #nn26

There are reasons so many of us are opposed to data centers here in the west.

This is one of the best descriptions of face blindness I’ve seen.

Happy Caturday 🐾🤍

Saying “This is not good timing for me” in response to your kid’s wedding invitation is kind of the ultimate narcissistic statement.

The problem with deciding not to kill off a character is that you then have to decide what to do with them for the rest of the story.

And you maye aske yourselfe "Why ys thys bow made of burninge golde?" And you maye aske yourselfe "Wher are my arrowes of desyre?" And you maye telle yourselfe "These are not my spear and unfoldinge cloudes" And you maye telle yourselfe "Thys ys not my chariot of fyre"

Drink your water. It’s hot out there.

unfortunately, many waymo are often led astray from their annual migration path by the stars, which they confuse for streetlights

I still think of this book in odd moments as I navigate life in the Now. Had to import my copy from a UK bookseller as it hasn’t been published in the US. Worth it.

6th grade.

Researchers Find Crows Smart Enough Not To Let On How Smart They Really Are https://theonion.com/researchers-find-crows-smart-enough-not-to-let-on-how-s-1844081510/

The older I get, the more I realize that none of us really know what we're doing and we're all out here, trying our best.

My 8yo asked if I would post something to Bluesky for her, then grabbed a piece of paper and made this So here is your advice for the day:

"I’m sure I’m not the first person to have to choose between saving the world and finishing my dissertation." #wip

before wading into any discussion about publishing, ask yourself: How Would Ursula K. Le Guin Shred This?

A few words on legacy media. Conference on World Affairs University of Colorado Boulder April 15th, 2026

Racehorse Receives Carrot Every Time He Wins $2 Million For Owner

It's official!

Related: I remember going on a hike at camp, and the only ones of us who made it to the top were the one counselor and two of us kids who didn’t smoke. Never forgot that.

Heck, there was even a smoking area at Girl Scout Camp, and not just for counselors.

I wonder just how many hours have been lost to organizations relying on voice menus, hold software, and huge centralized call centers instead of paying for local humans at local locations who know what’s going on and are connected to other local humans who can do the things that need doing.

The first rule of fight club … I mean dealing with the fey … is …

Finally visited this place after years and years and years of driving by.

Middle schoolers being awesome.

For a word to be spoken, there must be silence. Before, and after.

Trivia question: Which is older, @theonion.com or the world wide web?

"He inched away from me as we continued to climb. _Bro, I’m not going to eat you,_ I thought, then realized he didn’t actually know that." #wip

My edgy Covid take is that not seeing people in person was hard, but not as hard as realizing how many people were willing to sacrifice those weaker than them so that they could get back to seeing people in person. I’m still not over that realization. I still don’t know what to do with it.

Research on COVID is being hampered by a lack of interest by publishers and funding, imo. Considering we are only about 7 years into a brand-new disease, we lost interest pretty quickly.