Marie

Thank you for going all the way through!

A request to remind us how you knew each other at the start of the project.

Was there a take or opinion by one of the others that surprised you? Made you think of them in a different light?

I miss Kim Reed's Little House pod. Maybe a guest option?

I get that the news cycle is packed right now, but I just heard from a colleague at the Smithsonian that this is fully a GIANT SQUID BEING EATEN BY A SPERM WHALE and it’s possibly the first ever confirmed video according to a friend at NOAA

10 YEAR OLD ME IS LOSING HER MIND (a thread 🧵)

It didn't occur to me that one of the problems with getting older is witnessing the culture debate and process the same things over and over. Like, as a historian it's fascinating and useful to analyze these continuities. As a human it's exhausting.

How an Enron Parody Turned Into a Financial Mess of Its Own Some performance artists bought the name for peanuts and concocted an elaborate caricature of corporate excess. It didn’t go as they planned.

Went into this story thinking it was a profile of two brilliant pranksters—Connor Gaydos and Peter McIndoe of Birds Aren’t Real fame. They started Enron as a satire of greed and corporate buffoonery. But those things aren’t as easy to defeat as you might imagine. 🎁 www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

i wrote this post in july two years ago when blue sky had around 200,000 total users and i thought i would ask again

tell me what u are doing
be proud of what u do and share it here

A small white fluffy dog with a pencil behind their floppy ear is looking down at a messy sketchbook. They're in a messy painting studio. In the background is a blank white canvas on a brown easel. There's a drawing horse stand being used as a bench in front of it. There's brushes and water in jars nearby. Many sketches of sticks on newsprint are taped to the wall behind it. Everything in the studio is covered in colorful pawprints including a cup of coffee and jar of sticks. The dog has big splotches of paint staining their pristine white fur as well. Their studio window is open, safety first!

Doggust 30: Coton de Tulear. New painting. 🪵
#doggust #doggust2025

Where do you go for the plants? That's a great deal.

I for one.

Love Roman numerals.

We do a mix of the virtual maps with zoom. I supposed a screen share over zoom may actually be enough.

A large black bug with black-spotted brown wings held in my fingers

Closeup of the underside of the bug showing its legs and mouthparts

Closeup of the underside of the bug showing its black legs and mouthparts, a full ventral shot

The squashed bug showing beautiful brown forewings with intricate patterns, and striking red inner hindwings.

Shocked and sad and amazed to see my first live spotted lanternfly in our own backyard (Chicago). Gorgeous animal—I wasn’t prepared for how beautiful it was. 🥲 Squashed and reported on @inaturalist.bsky.social

Light bulb moment that I can try talking about vaccines as practicing before game day. Going straight into a game without reviewing tape, scrimmaging, drilling plays is just bad prep and a fast way to lose. We play how we practice.

Right #UglyDogs, this is a call to arms for your joy. I know I usually post the weird animal joy, but today I need what you've got. Dogs, pets, zoos, trail cams, flowers - please can I have some joy and distraction.

Thank you 💚

Pro-tip. If you print your book all the way to the edges of the page, you will never make money. There's no margin.

One bison, corner of Lowden and Stone #Nachusa

Not only is this an almost impossible time to be an historian, structurally, it’s also a hugely morally distressing one. Our work is manipulated, defunded, and then ignored, and we sit here watching humanity do the same dumb shit over and over again. Thanks, I hate it.

I don't know if my ~1000 square foot pollinator garden actually helps native pollinators or if it just makes me feel good, but my neighbor told me that he's seen more bees in his yard this year & he attributes it to my garden attracting them to the area.

And that makes me feel good. #bloomscrolling

Happy early Festivus to those who celebrate

Webcam: Sled Dog Puppies - Denali National Park & Preserve (U.S. National Park Service)

Denali puppy cam is LIVE!!! #uglydogs

www.nps.gov/dena/learn/p... Webcam: Sled Dog Puppies - Denali National Park & Preserve (U.S. National Park Service)

Photograph taken with a long lens at a distance, showing layers of wildflowers interspersed with bluestem grass. Mostly yellow coneflowers at the top, bee balm in the middle, and purple coneflowers at the bottom.

And now, to soothe your timeline, a patch of Illinois tallgrass prairie.

Even if they take up over half the page, footnotes > endnotes

I texted my child an image of an empty lot. They reacted with confusion

I the apologized for having texted them "a lot" the past few days. They reacted how you might expect.

Being my kid is probably a lot like you imagine it is...

A little growing area marked by some reclaimed wood boards, a paver walkway that also has a metal frog stepper, and a concrete walkway in the back. Three mounds of wild germaniums are on the left with little light purple flowers sticking out around the light green leaves. Two reddish-purple heuchera are alongside with one green and white hosta in the corner. The plants have not grown big enough to cover the wood chipped bed yet.

A rounded patch of Golden Alexander ground out of a wood chipped bed. A couple flower bunches are turning yellow. Most of them are still developing, muted greens and yellows against the darker green leaves. The back of the photo shows a concrete walkway and a residential structure. A sliver of bright sun is around the corner but the plant area is in shade.

Two part-shade #NativePlants flowering up in NE Illinois. Wild geranium (Geranium maculatum) and Golden alexander (Zizia aurea). 🌱

As it says, this is the true calling of the Internet.

Adventures in watching TV with a husky:
- bears, kind of cool

- frogs, not cool

- sharks, sometimes

- antelope, great, v exciting

- Pallas cat, sort of interesting

- Pallas kittens, literally the best thing that has ever happened to the dog. Had to catch her before she tackled the screen

The dissertation! 150 pages of prairie, history, & more pawpaws than you'd expect.

I've sold over 850 copies of this baby, and the world being what it is, it's far too expensive to print another edition right now.

Check it out in pdf form:
drive.google.com/file/d/104cf...

Photo in side view of an aging yellow aster, with slighty droopy petals, against a very smooth, unfocused yellow and green meadow background. The lighting is soft and even. A small ant walks up the stem. One of the petals is... weird. Wait! It's an orange, petal-colored moth, with slightly darker wing veins, facing downward. We'll pretend we don't see it.

Just a flower. A flower with an ant. And definitely no moths or anything.

I went back and re-listened to the Heart of Glass episode after the mention. 🙂

Podcast content crossover: I listen to Strong Songs. I listen to @muppeturgy.com. Both were great for getting the garage cleaning done.

Appreciate the background! I've started playing and have been thinking about how to share it.

Thanks! If you don't mind questions- How long do you run the sessions? And do you hand out ready-made characters to get through the time?