JNL

just over here being joyful, though I have considered all the facts

practicing ephemeral arts

probably failing your purity test

Public Key

npub16hg5hrgwctxmswr3f070egpcp5zyuureljxvqzwxdukhmzg7cg8qssv2sp

NIP-05 Address

jnl_at_hcommons.social@momostr.pink

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsdt52t358v9ndc8pc5hl8u5quq6pzwwpulerxqp8rx7tta3y0vyrsprpmhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumt0d4hhxarj9ecxjmntqy8hwumn8ghj7mn0wd68ytnddaksdqen04

Publishing to

relay.momostr.pink

nostr.mom

nos.lol

Author Public Key

npub16hg5hrgwctxmswr3f070egpcp5zyuureljxvqzwxdukhmzg7cg8qssv2sp

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Last Notes

2026-10-30 22:10:43 UTC

I wish so much that there were a way on Masto to do "public follow", along with a deeper "connect" option for mutuals ... I think that would better suit a lot of my own followers- you could just see the public stuff, which is what people follow for in the first place ... and it would also make it less of a thing to hit "follow" on other accounts.
We don't necessarily have to be *pals*; just show me the stuff.

2026-10-30 20:31:14 UTC

parent friends: vibes wise, NYC seemed much more dangerous when we were kids
me: oh, it was statistically more dangerous
parent friends:
me: we have data
--
this is not, as it turns out, how to have a normal conversation

2026-10-30 00:09:50 UTC

a poem by Caitlin Conlon
https://spaces.hcommons.social/media_attachments/files/117/526/944/131/915/809/original/91144e7d498ac2ae.png

2026-10-29 22:42:55 UTC

RE: https://tomkahe.com/@GiftArticles/117526593546108731
Chat, what's your mirror speech to yourself in the mornings
#note1ulm…h4we

2026-10-17 20:25:23 UTC

we are spending most of yet another weekend day driving through rural Vermont but we did see a chicken standing on a goat so

2026-10-12 23:29:01 UTC

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I'm not into "pretend poor" but the affordability crisis is pretty intense for anyone who pays monthly bills. We are definitely paying attention; like yours, our margin is getting sucked toward serving someone else's. (This morning I held in my hands a small jar of mayo PRICED AT TEN US DOLLARS. AND THEN I PUT IT BACK. LMAO.)
Anyway, I'd love to hear your tips, tricks, and magical know how. I think we are in for quite a winter, northern hemisphere side.

2026-10-12 23:25:14 UTC

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And finally, there are some specific recipes that are amazing value for work involved/$ spent
This is why I posted my hilarious costo fries frittata 2 months ago and why I tell you I make amazing chicken broth with our saved vegetable scraps (big ziploc bag in the fridge, everywhere and always) every time I buy a rotisserie chicken or bone-in anything--because IT'S EASY, GOOD FOOD THAT IS ~ FREE
One hack: buy "split top chicken breasts"- your grocer/butcher can point them out to you. They are huge, bone-in, and you probably don't know what to do with them.
Here's what (trust me): Oven @ 350, Peel 4 carrots and 3 medium potatoes. Cut in thick slices (yes, THICK, the carrots, too). Put oil on a baking sheet- we like to use foil too, for easy clean up- put the carrots and potatoes on the sheet, flip once to coat, salt and pepper, put chicken on top of the veggies, salt, spice, oil on chix to taste, bake for like 50 min; BOOM. Amazing dinner for ten bucks. Leftovers. Bones for broth. 🙌

2026-10-12 23:14:36 UTC

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Do you have any idea how much food you are wasting? Did you know that is money into the trash?
It's easy to think you solve this by pledging not to ever waste food but in reality YOU SOLVE IT BY HAVING A FOOD BUDGET THAT FORCES YOU TO PLAN.
You will, I promise, waste SO MUCH LESS FOOD when doing so is what's coming between you and Friday night dinner and drinks at the place you love. You will HATE food waste. And you will pivot your thinking and buying to have less of it. This saves money. Real money. Possibly serious money, depending on your household.

2026-10-12 23:10:59 UTC

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We put ourselves on a food budget, with an eye toward both weekly and monthly, and then game the shit out of it. This takes some margin, but if you can set your goal where it's actually doable without suffering ... you want PLANNING and following through, not pain ... then you can make it flexible enough to reward yourselves if you stick to it.
I see people do this in ways that assume they are either super human or get off on being punished and I mean, whatever floats your boat, but I like to set it up so that we LIKE the thing, and I think we get just as good of results. So
*ANYTHING YOU ALREADY OWN IS FREE AND FAIR. Eat out of your pantry. Eat your freezer stores. Eat your leftovers. So much winning.
*Anything you can stretch farther, so long as people want to eat it, is also winning. (Do not push any limits as far as food safety and quality; jeez I hope I do not even have to say this ack. YOUR HOME EC TEACHER IS WATCHING YOU.)
*Extra money at the end= eating out AND TREATS

2026-10-12 23:05:32 UTC

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Some of ours ... I can't tell if these are manifestly obvious or things that are very habitual for me but maybe not so much for those raised differently or during different eras, so here goes
*think 'filler'- we serve things with meat IN them rather than, like, a cut of meat. Tons of ways to do this deliciously and healthily, from "hot dish" casseroles to one-pot stove top cooking to omelettes/frittatas to burritos and enchiladas
*We let the instant pot or crock pot do what it does best, buying cheaper, less tender cuts that need to be slow simmered for a long time, put them in with liquid and spices, and then enjoy barbecue sandwiches, chicken tinga, etc.
*We wait to plan meals for the week until we've gone to the store and seen what is fresh and cheap for both meat and produce, and then we build around that. This prevents disappointment if you can't get there in time to grab an advertised special, but does take some background cooking knowledge and self-restraint. We have those.

2026-10-12 22:58:23 UTC

grocery store prices are absolutely off the hook bonkers and I'd love to hear how you're managing as well as you can
what are your best tips and tricks when things start to take this much bite out of your budget
to use a covid-era metaphor, we are not all in the same boat, but we are all in the same storm, and most of us are feeling it in one way or another
what adaptive hacks are you using?

2026-10-05 22:48:10 UTC

does it seem to anyone else like we are receiving less and less news follow up about even HUGE natural disasters
like thousands or more missing; we go now to the families
and then just nothing
Venezuela
Nepal
numerous fires across Europe
etc

2026-09-11 13:47:14 UTC

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holy shit put a cw on that bro

2026-09-11 13:38:05 UTC

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all I can say is that *I* have altered nothing, and I don't think my colleague did either. 🤷🏼‍♀️
Your line is pretty much how I feel about this entire year.

2026-09-11 13:24:43 UTC

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this morning he woke up to this
https://spaces.hcommons.social/media_attachments/files/117/252/602/616/840/028/original/003c5dae8ad50eb4.jpeg

2026-09-11 13:18:32 UTC

one of my ministry colleagues on FB (as in, *he* is on FB, not that we are 'colleagues on FB') remarked yesterday that some algorithm has decided he's a funeral home director.
That sounded weird enough ...

2026-09-07 13:28:47 UTC

"lunch debt" in the context of compulsory public schooling is a completely made up thing

2026-07-09 00:27:04 UTC

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we watched this for family movie night last year. Our teens were weirded out by the coach-player romance, which feels like a valid point, but I thought it held up fairly well (I saw it in the theater when I was 21, so it's been awhile!)

2026-07-02 03:54:17 UTC

continually in search of more foods to use as vehicles for sesame dressing

2026-06-24 21:30:07 UTC

We Are In Japan Right Now: a small town drama in three parts
as relayed to us just before 6 am
I. Neighbor: Do you know that the town is digging up your front lawn
II. Neighbor: We are all under a boil order and there are ten men and two excavators in your yard
III. Steve the Bathroom Contractor: Call me when you have a minute

2026-06-12 15:12:42 UTC

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I think that is likely to be in your future, then. 😅

2026-06-12 14:57:03 UTC

One of my most unpopular takes, basically universally (ie, it matters not what your religion is: you will hate this), is that your religious tenets, practices, and identity are in large part evolved to justify and protect the economy that your group depends on

2026-06-07 03:09:12 UTC

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but did it always have villainy vibes, or did The Incredibles and then Glass Onion (to say nothing, I guess, of Bond and then Austin Powers) just feel like midcentury modern + island would be a cool place to fight crime

2026-06-03 20:15:45 UTC

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THANK YOU. If you are up to loop in here as well, I am extremely here for it. Entire thread is hilarious.

2026-06-02 21:29:42 UTC

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Werner Herzog: "Een theez small mountain town, ve see the elements coming together to form once again the SPATIAL. CONFLICT, perhaps een eets most American form"

2026-06-02 21:20:14 UTC

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my favorite quote of the afternoon was the guy who seemed to be approximately my father in law's age, present in shorts and a golf shirt, and who boldly declared "I will not be PUNISHED because I am the only one in this TOWN who knows how to keep a LAWN"
I, grievance letter in hand, had been waved to the gallery seating on the far side of the room; I felt no compulsion to speak, but I did mentally object with "Hey now; we are WINNING at no-mow May"
Exciting times in the 'hood.

2026-06-02 21:02:22 UTC

oh man.
Our town was told by our state that it's invalidly maintaining property values at unrealistically low levels (probably true) and must reassess EVERYONE. It did so. Some people have had property here for 30, 40, 50 years and are really not happy that their appraisal suddenly jumped to 2025 numbers. Others of us bought property at 2021 et seq prices and are really not happy that we are being appraised as though some sort of magical value-add fairy has added a third more to what we could sell for, against recent professional appraisal or reason.
We were all directed to "grieve, in writing, delivered in person" TODAY, and because our town is tiny and extremely ridiculous (company town of very wealthy marble mine benefactor/extractor), this took place in an unrealistically ornate and slightly crumbly drawing room.
I have now spent an hour of my life I will never get back witnessing our across-the-river riche neighbors HAVING A FIT.
This is as New Englandy as it gets up here. 😅

2026-06-01 13:42:39 UTC

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People want to make unbigoted behavior a matter of personal, individual morality. I study (mostly institutional, but also community-tied, including 'organic') larger-scale structures and processes of creating good outcomes, and I'm much less convinced that any of this is truly individual.
We get the outputs that the 'machines' that we construct incentivize.
I want, everywhere and always, to incentivize respect, humility, care, and awe for the bodies and souls of others.

2026-06-01 13:36:25 UTC

As we enter Pride month, I offer my own recognition, more humble (and I suspect, more realistic) than most: I don't know if I would have known that all one needs to do when one has a queer kid is celebrate them, give thanks unto God for the gift that they are, and ensure they have what they need to thrive in family, in community, and as their own unique and never-before-seen self if my belonging were rooted in communities powered by hate.
We are part of communities, most specifically including our faith community, that would never demand that our kids change who they are. We are part of communities that, in fact, demand that those holding bigoted views change as part of their own growth. Our queer kid is a delight beyond measure ... WE HAVE LOST **NOTHING** in simply recognizing and celebrating this.
Supportive community structures save lives, and they also save families. We were never tempted to not accept our kids; we were never told we needed to reject them.
I want that for all.

2026-05-29 01:30:07 UTC

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are you sure you want to stand by that math? This feels like a pretty intense (and weird) comment. We are doing a 5kw project here, and while it's subsidized, it's not THAT subsidized. The 2020-24 census numbers indicate that there are 129.227 million households in the US. 300 trillion dollars has fourteen zeroes. Here is how that works out in your offered calculation PER HOUSEHOLD. Literally $2.32 million dollars per installation.
I am not sure why you said this.
https://spaces.hcommons.social/media_attachments/files/116/655/269/032/990/317/original/569fca3218152206.png

2026-05-29 01:06:21 UTC

Dreaming of a world where our tax dollars are used to provide every househould with a whole-house battery and 5kw of solar, option to increase scale at cost.

2026-05-22 02:10:14 UTC

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Wowwww. It was a good run, y'all- thanks for being an awesome community where it's possible to leave a post like this mostly unsupervised and not be totally horrified returning to it.
I am muting now so it doesn't keep burying my notifications.
Also, because we seem to have reached the point beyond which nothing good happens, and there isn't a way to turn off replies: being an asshole gets you a blockity block block as soon as I see it, so you could just go ahead and do that now if that's how it's gonna be
Alternatively, and for bonus points: consider just not 😅
G'night

2026-05-21 13:03:29 UTC

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Teen2 woke this morning at the fucking crack of dawn because HS schedules are sadistic and he's in an honors music cohort, and came to find me TO SHARE HOW HIS WRITING WENT, and to plot the paragraph that he hasn't written yet but wants to
HE WENT TO SLEEP THINKING ABOUT WRITING
HE WOKE UP THINKING ABOUT WRITING
HE WOKE UP AND WANTED TO CONNECT WITH ME ABOUT HIS WRITING
Y'all if your teen wants to share writing with you in the first place, they are already bought in on this project
And they are secretly desperate to hear the same thing that we all, all the days of our lives, always are: that they are enough
that their words are enough
that what THEY can do toward this project is enough
TELL THEM THE HUMAN TRUTH
Tell them that their words, while they will be imperfect, are all we have
the striving toward them is sacred
the writing them is enough
the friction and limitation and frustration are how we learn
This witness WILL NOT ALIENATE your fumbling, hopeful, beautiful kid

2026-05-21 12:51:44 UTC

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I am less certain about, but willing to put my bets on, even the fig leaf of AI as "education" completely collapsing ten years from now
But your kid is learning NOW
don't let them be made bycatch
you've gotta give them the watch words and teach them the code if systems have bought in to keeping those things from this group of kids

2026-05-21 12:48:57 UTC

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accompanying your adolescents and teens on their journey of development as writers with their own voice and capacity to wield language on the page for their own purposes is as punk as it gets in 2026
it's fucking seditious
it is a rebellious act that requires both you and your kid to turn against the flow
and I am absolutely certain that it is essential if "thought" is to continue to be one of our shared projects

2026-05-21 12:38:57 UTC

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Because I'm me and this is how we do parenting and family, Teen2 and I then had a much fuller conversation about deskilling and how "wages" are the actual problem AI investment is trying to "solve," along with my passionate witness toward what learning to write at this age gets you. Kid is fortunately already pretty committed as a writer- he has discovered this magic and loves the power he feels with it- so this is more of a "don't lose the path" moment.
But friends, NO ONE is gonna have this talk with your kids if you don't.
They are just being relentlessly pressured and their role models are themselves pressured and have all of the ambivalent moral commitments and institutional confusion that the last two decades have sown

2026-05-21 12:34:41 UTC

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Parents, if your teen learning to write matters to you; if you believe that your teen learning to write is absolutely essential to their learning to think and to their finding and guarding the essence of who they are, intellectually ... you've gotta have this conversation.
It's the new Make Good Choices; We Are Here for You

2026-05-21 12:32:58 UTC

Teen2: Can I read you the opening paragraph of my essay?
Me: Of course
Teen: [reads thing indicating he has no idea how much time I have spent 'grading' AI generated essay content over the past couple of years]
Me: I ... do not want to hear what ChatGPT says about this
Teen: I swear, I didn't use Chat!
Me: I don't want to hear what ANY AI has to say. I only want to hear what YOU write. In your words. Your writing.
Teen: I ...
Me: [stare]
Teen: Ok I put it into Google. I can read you the original. But it's not as good.
Me: YES PLEASE
Teen: [reads good, human, high school essay intro paragraph]
Me: That, bro, is all I want. That is all anyone wants. Just bring me your writing. Just you. Nothing else.
Teen: But it has comma splices and stuff. And repeated words.
Me: YES. Please just bring that. I really do not want or need to hear what the predictive text machine says 1000 other people have said. I just want to hear YOU.
Teen: Ok. [Returns to read me paragraphs all evening]

2026-04-24 01:29:38 UTC

teen2: [playing Bartok in extremely high register while we beg him to stop]
teen1: [narrating the history of nuclear proliferation while we beg him to stop]
this is, for real, our last 30 minutes if you wonder what the un-fun parts are

2026-04-07 20:33:19 UTC

I spent the last hour sitting with my friend who I'll call Farah.
We are both PhD students who came to the department from complete adult lives elsewhere. Our spouses both work in tech. Both our spouses stayed at home, both due to stuff with their work, not with their visas.
We are both here alone.
I am from the US. Farah is from Tehran.

2026-03-23 22:08:43 UTC

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Wow, I did not know this. Alright, I will tolerate slightly more tree-hate. While nevertheless pointing out that I actually don't know ANYONE who has planted one in the last decade- they are literally banned in multiple states.
I will also say that while almost certainly ecologically destabilizing and probably not to be encouraged or cheered, the trees' means of reproductive escape is also kind of cool- they original cultivars are, as I thought I remembered, not able to reproduce with one another. The new, abundant offspring are found in wild places and not next to the original trees because the cultivated trees had to find wild species with which to interbreed ... and eventually, they did! The "invasive" offspring are actually self-created hybrids that can only exist because of extant local trees to breed with. ie, Life Finds a Way.
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/714b/1639404e7ef9d2477189c4ea279ed6344155.pdf

2026-03-23 12:30:21 UTC

Nearly every fruit tree you can plant in the US is "invasive." It really is not necessary to hate bradford pear trees quite as loudly as people do. We had an absolutely magical one in our front yard in Kansas- it was excellent in every way.
I don't go from place to place planting them, and I don't widely lament that they're on their way out, but you are subscribing to socially sanctioned hatred-as-sport in ranting and it's honestly fairly unreasonable. There are fewer and fewer of these trees every year; they are absolutely not coming to get you.

2026-03-15 22:24:39 UTC

Speaking of smell stuff ... are there smells considered to be objectively bad that you actually kinda like or have good associations with?
(Don't make me regret asking this, y'all 😬)

2026-03-14 14:09:39 UTC

I am seeing this for the first time--I was kinda busy in 2020- and I am struck anew by 1. how much we have always known and 2. how much press coverage and depth critique have suffered across the years of this decade
https://archive.vanityfair.com/article/share/20a9885c-67ee-4f99-8751-db4940e2fb41

2026-03-12 03:04:33 UTC

What is Ranch Mart, you ask?
Is it like Tractor Supply, but focused on the open range?
Is it a western apparel shop in the spirit of Wrangler?
Is it a boutique real estate concern where people peruse ranch land for sale?
COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS
WHAT IF I TELL YOU IT'S IN LEAWOOD KANSAS, OFF ROE
ahhh of course say no more; frou frou strip mall with absolutely zero context for chosen name; nine dollar cupcakes are available from more than one on-site establishment 👍🏻👍🏻
https://spaces.hcommons.social/media_attachments/files/116/213/950/634/279/995/original/f82a800b4910d6f3.jpeg
https://spaces.hcommons.social/media_attachments/files/116/213/952/285/568/009/original/6e6b776c44bb12a3.jpeg
https://spaces.hcommons.social/media_attachments/files/116/213/954/637/943/927/original/508cf9ded3d4a0c1.jpeg

2026-03-06 20:16:20 UTC

Readers, I cried 😂
https://spaces.hcommons.social/media_attachments/files/116/184/056/797/177/051/original/8d7e576c5c6c1975.png

2026-02-25 00:39:57 UTC

I am about to set up a database. The goal is to get to multifactor viz quickly; I will eventually need viewer interactivity and pop up info display for virtually every piece. Thoughts about how you'd begin as you mean to go on?
As a non-coder (though I'm not hell bent on continuing as such) I am tempted to just throw things in Tableau and figure out a step up later, as needed.
That said, I am very open to musings.

2026-02-17 03:07:44 UTC

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why did my committee make me do a Leninist comps analysis instead of a feminist one ☠️
i am not even appealing on feminist grounds except insofar as the feminine is what it has always been which is to say unrecognizedly USEFUL

2026-02-17 03:04:51 UTC

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shouldn't I know the answers to this already; I don't

2026-02-17 03:04:17 UTC

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how do I frame all of this as economy; can I just use Gibson-Graham or do we have to get into fucking fetish

2026-02-17 03:02:53 UTC

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how will we make an account of the hands of the institution when institutional action both is and is not simply a group of individual humans using their bodies in sync

2026-02-17 03:00:19 UTC

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what the fuck is 'care,' really

2026-02-17 02:59:30 UTC

May the spirit of Susan Leigh Star descend and help me figure out this categorization tangle

2026-02-16 17:32:02 UTC

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and elite institutions actually get coopted FIRST where the main driver of change is the shifting desires of global capital

2026-02-16 17:29:57 UTC

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it is really, really, really hard to keep traction with ethics and reality when 'more money than God' wants erasure of norms and unreality

2026-02-16 17:28:04 UTC

I'm participating in this year's "Map the System" challenge, which is based at and administered by Oxford, and wow is AI capture of elite institutions and their thinking evident in the modules they have offered

2026-02-13 03:57:33 UTC

this is the coolest thing I've read in awhile. grab some tea and settle in.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2026/feb/12/apocalypse-no-how-almost-everything-we-thought-we-knew-about-the-maya-is-wrong

2026-01-17 14:13:38 UTC

If you have a strong background in GIS and an interest in climate resilient cities and have been wondering about a PhD, I know someone who likely has funding for next year. You, too, could experience the wonder and curse the difficulty that is the island of Newfoundland. ✨

2026-01-08 21:08:52 UTC

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I will tell you also that the ACTUAL, IN PERSON neighborhood gathering in Minneapolis looks like salty old lesbian couples stoking the big outdoor fire and neighbor upon neighbor upon neighbor showing up and feeding people and getting fed and then people singing songs together. There is hugging. There are tears. There are dogs.
I am a person who believes that online community is real community, and sometimes tending to those structures has been my actual paying job.
But truly, if *this* is gonna matter as movement space there has to be a place where people can get warm and be fed, and raising our voices together in song wouldn't hurt any either.
Stop shitting on the movement gathering speed.
Build the fire. Offer song.

2026-01-08 21:00:23 UTC

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This truly isn't good enough for what has to happen, y'all. And it's not good enough for us, now, either. And I don't mean 'not good enough' in the shame way.
Fuck shame.
I mean not good enough in the beloved community way.
In the we need all of us to make it way.
In the way that means you are a beloved child of god and so is everyone here and what does it look like to practice muscles together that believe it?
Our movement has gotten so SMALL across the last century that it is able to tolerate small behavior, small vision, small welcoming.
But we cannot afford to be small in any of those ways right now.
What does muscle toward expansive, welcoming love look like, right now?
I mean ACTIONS.
What does deep care as ACTION look like while people are freezing their fucking asses off taking to the streets in a dictatorship they were not born to, look like?
We gotta figure it out fast and the old way won't cut it.
How will you practice WELCOME

2026-01-08 20:50:06 UTC

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Now project this shame onto every new potential member of this movement
Gossip. Gatekeep. Use side eye.

2026-01-08 20:47:22 UTC

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You will be part of us for real when every action you are part of feels shitty, you loudly bewail any sign of incremental progress and berate those working on it, you never feel like you fully belong at any table, and you carry moderate hatred for everyone you're working with and especially for yourself
Especially, ESPECIALLY your earlier self
Goddamn your earlier self

2026-01-08 20:41:25 UTC

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Hey, I see that you've found our movement, given that you are now out in the streets by your own choice, in the January winter in Minnesota
We're not sure that you mean it enough tho; would you like to be punched in the face or stabbed in the back as a sign of your allegiance to the cause

2026-01-08 20:27:45 UTC

Hello and welcome to Social Skills 101: we on the left can use them, too 💫

2026-01-04 12:23:15 UTC

New Brunswick, Canada
August, 2025
#silentsunday
https://spaces.hcommons.social/media_attachments/files/115/836/786/487/341/057/original/c6d498af10b51f5d.jpeg

2026-01-01 20:03:25 UTC

I have felt annoyed and aggrieved by the 'let's be honest: we had no idea how bad this was gonna be- it's SHOCKING' year in review posts.
Motherfuckers, this is because you live in willful denial. Many of us told you and we aren't fucking Nostradamus- we knew because we simply **listened to what they said they planned to do** **knew and cared about people and communities who had been horrifically impacted last time** and **maintained a basic awareness of the last 100 years of Western history and noticed the places it rhymed**
This is not rocket science and I'm fucking pissed that amnesia and stupidity get to meme 'reality.'
I have been holding that in for weeks; whew.

2025-12-29 01:42:09 UTC

Yesterday we went to an art exhibit that was literally roombas driving through glitter and I somehow had glitter INSIDE MY PANTS later that day 🤷‍♀️
https://spaces.hcommons.social/media_attachments/files/115/800/307/318/577/143/original/a008f1cca464165b.jpeg

2025-12-28 16:22:51 UTC

San Francisco
December, 2025
#silentsunday
https://spaces.hcommons.social/media_attachments/files/115/798/099/780/346/891/original/5e07701449beb50d.jpeg

2025-12-26 16:22:31 UTC

I love these days between Christmas and New Years. As a teacher, as a religious professional, and now as a scholar, this week has always been sacred "time off," and it coincides with a break for my spouse and kids as well.
I have now witnessed the annual reanimation of the post that suggests that we all do nothing, think nothing, be nothing and "become a couch" ... good advice for some, I'm sure, but a miss for me.
I use this time for dreaming and noticing, usually amid different landscapes from those where I live. Part of my practice during this week is "Year End Review," which just means finding ways to surface and reflect on what has been and what is in the process of becoming.
If YOU do some sort of year end review ... what pictures you took, what recipes you relied on, what you read or watched or wrote ...I'd love to hear about it.
Are you trying something new this year?
What feels toothy and important as you surface what you've learned and who you've been?
#YearEndReview

2025-12-18 14:52:48 UTC

That feeling when you see a person deploy a fantastic metaphor in service of a very questionable argument

2025-12-14 18:50:48 UTC

Rutland, Vermont
Dec 2025
#silentsunday
https://spaces.hcommons.social/media_attachments/files/115/719/401/866/081/322/original/edf9d601e4db552c.jpeg

2025-11-22 23:07:16 UTC

-I'd like a gentle hike through a grassy field
HikeFinder: Great; tons of those
-with dramatic, emotive skies
HikeFinder: Can do
-I want there to be sea urchins in the grass
HikeFinder: What
-And I want to be able to fall from the grassy field
HikeFinder:
-to my death
HikeFinder: Ah. You mean you want to hike in Newfoundland
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2025-11-21 02:50:01 UTC

I really appreciated this one
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/history-professor-ai-cheating-students_n_69178150e4b0781acfd62540

2025-11-18 23:33:04 UTC

If you know the words to Nine Inch Nails' "Closer" such that by reading this post, you could finish Reznor's line "I want to __" but also you know why in polite company you ought not:

2025-11-16 16:45:14 UTC

Mizzen Pond, Newfoundland
November 2025
#silentsunday
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2025-11-12 18:11:00 UTC

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I was recently thinking about a similar line of reality in confronting the argument that bean counters at my university are making about grad student education. Grad students are, in this view, merely a drain on resources, and faculty are better supported where resources simply go to teach undergrads.
Leaving aside the oversights, even just fiscally speaking, of this mental model (and they are myriad), WHERE, PRECISELY, DO YOU IMAGINE THAT FACULTY TO TEACH GRAD STUDENTS COME FROM
Like AI mints them? Able teachers of college students emerge, fully formed, from the depths of LinkedIn?

2025-10-31 21:51:06 UTC

I am (perhaps unappealingly) going to point out that Andrew is being put forward again and again as the object of your ire in hopes that you'll be satisfied and thus distracted from the superstructure of the thing
**Any time** something becomes this exclusively individualized, pause to ask yourself who and what benefits from that perspective

2025-10-24 13:44:16 UTC

I'm sorry; this is hilarious
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/oct/23/german-firm-campaign-lift-louvre-heist-bocker

2025-10-07 22:31:55 UTC

Having contemplated war, I now want nothing but pet photos and seascapes and lake shots and mosses various
send them

2025-09-26 02:06:33 UTC

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THEN WHAT HAPPENED, BOT

2025-09-24 23:35:26 UTC

One of the things I learned during today's ethics discussion is that I have to use the university letterhead for anything I hand to anyone as part of this research.
So, I just downloaded their template, and let me tell you, it exceeds my wildest expectations. Hardest I've laughed in awhile.
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2025-09-18 15:12:19 UTC

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Collective care has been made very nearly impossible even to speak of. The lines are laid such that being asked to take personal responsibility for risks to others is a valid source of personal outrage rather than a point of thought and (ideally shared) reflection.
I observe that it's hard for many or most people to understand how these abdications of care are a strong throughline to where we are, socially and politically, deeply in danger in this moment
Once you see the connections, though- what parts of truth, what norms of care we are willing to erase or deny or punish to avoid inconveniencing or angering a) power and b) mob energy, it's hard to unsee

2025-09-18 15:04:58 UTC

In a discussion with a ministry colleague who has active covid and feels like she probably shouldn't be in the pulpit this weekend because coughing "is a bad look," but that being present and preaching with active covid is itself fine.
This is a dear, dear friend, and yes, I did call her in as gently and honestly as I could. About which she is now pissed (though she is also not feeling well, so that's hard.)
A thing she said: "The people in chemo are wearing masks, and we have air filtration."

2025-09-14 01:30:47 UTC

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For myself, personally, I am feeling the pain of this in my body, more than I would even have imagined. A breath-stealing gut punch to start, and since then, like I'm being flayed.
I know this feeling won't last.
I know we are coming through and moving with hard things all the time.
No one asked me to bleed for this place, or to suffer for its people.
I'm trying to keep it in context.
But y'all what I study is literally institutional loss due to austerity
So this pretty much IS my context
And it's real, real bad

2025-09-14 01:28:16 UTC

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I am out of the country on fieldwork; I know this did not go over well with faculty but I'm not sure how much people are hurting ... which I guess is one way of saying I don't know who realizes how "over" it is and who imagines this is just a thing to be waited out

2025-09-14 01:26:46 UTC

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In two years, whatever is left standing may or may not be part of a grand revised budget plan, revamping the university (to be smaller and less comprehensive--again, it is literally the only university in the entire province) based on what is then valued out of what has survived
Again, not embellishing this at all

2025-09-14 01:25:26 UTC

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Institution-provided funding for grad students is also ending, forever, for anyone not currently in a program and covered by contractual funding

2025-09-14 01:24:42 UTC

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This is, of course, all being "guided" by a "financial consultant," who is herself receiving dollars that could meaningfully be used by students, faculty, capital maintenance, recruitment, the list goes on

2025-09-14 01:23:44 UTC

Rather than taking its fight to have its funding restored to the province, which really does have plenty of money to meet its people's needs, my university has decided to convene the Hunger Games, targeted at humanities and social sciences. Departments are now locked out of their own classrooms and--I swear I am not making this up--required to PAY RENT for every hour of access to the classrooms in their own departmental hallways.

2025-09-08 15:55:20 UTC

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bad things: my basement apartment is giving "think of the shittiest place you ever lived as an undergrad" vibes and lacks a desk or even a chair; the Central Missouri landscape causes me low-grade panic in a way that is surprising but also immediately understandable (I am a prairie kid- I need huge sky and clear vantage points or I basically fight through a low key embodied panic attack until I get those things); I have the sort of pressing academic task list with immediate and urgent deadlines that makes it seem like literally everyone around me has made better life choices

2025-09-08 15:50:16 UTC

Good things: I think I slept fairly well last night. I am ensconced amid the stacks in an academic library and feel sensorily grounded in a way that I need at the moment. I have wifi at Mizzou through eduroam, bless the collectivity I sometimes make fun of known as the academy.

2025-07-31 14:33:31 UTC

I have this song stuck in my head, which is annoying and also kind of prickly poignant.
I was finishing elementary school when all of this went down, and I remember the hope for a world made new--the hopeful energy that imbued most of the 90s, in fact, at least in the Western world.
I realize that we are just in one particular chapter right now, and another one will come ... but it's hard not to regard past hope as a lost world
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4RjJKxsamQ

2025-07-28 12:14:08 UTC

Y'all, I have several times failed at learning to use chopsticks to eat and have to figure it out before we head to Japan next summer.
I would especially love to hear from anyone who struggled mightily and then "got it"-
WHAT HELPED YOU

2025-07-27 22:37:51 UTC

Fogo Island
#SilentSunday
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2025-07-14 12:51:18 UTC

I am not agreeing that "Canadian wildfires are bad, actually, and because of air flow circulation patterns their smoke harms midwestern US cities terribly" gets to be a Trumpist talking point or a problem we aren't going to discuss.
Canadians, this is the clearest example of "your shit does actually stink, too" I have ever seen- feel free to develop some capacity to be rightly criticized. It will help you to protect what you care about far more than self-righteous defensiveness.

2025-07-06 00:34:47 UTC

911 person: what's your emergency
me: I can't seem to get off the floor. or move my leg. or use my spine
911: can you tell me what happened
me: I *almost* stepped on the cat

2025-06-23 03:30:11 UTC

Rejected packing suggestion
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2025-06-17 20:17:55 UTC

Has such a protest sign ever before existed, across all of human history
#EventuallyTheyCamefortheAccountants
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2025-06-06 12:47:58 UTC

My takeaway from the last week is that you have to live in Vancouver or St. John's to breathe in Canada during the summer
https://firesmoke.ca/forecasts/current/

2025-06-02 02:43:27 UTC

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hilariously, I hated both home ec and shop my 7th grade year (and our school district did just as you wish yours had- we did a survey of both), but I ended up taking two more full years of home ec for schedule reasons and I tell you what, three decades later I am still using that shit. Honestly I still use the semester of shop, too. We should probably stop acting like vocational ed is something only some humans need.
And I say that as one of the most nerdy, bookish, grad-school-of-words people you will ever meet 😂