Megs 🤘🏻🖤

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Headline: Akron Zoo planning expansion that includes giraffe habitats, ride

Due to an editor who’s not great at their job, I’m on my way to Akron with my heart set on riding a giraffe.

Gray and white cat licking her front paw in a way that looks like she’s holding and licking an ice cream cone

Anyway, here is my cat enjoying an invisible ice cream cone.

I stitched all of these from patterns that are available on Etsy. If you’d like to know who the creators/sellers are, message me and I’ll send you links.

Cross-stitched dumpster fire with the words “THIS LITTLE LIGHT OF MINE I’M GONNA LET IT SHINE”

Cross-stitched bookmark with a pigeon looking at a book. The words “I can’t facking read” appear above it.

Cross-stitched pink flowers with the words “well, well, well, if it isn’t the consequences of my own actions” at the top.

Cross-stitched cassette tape surrounded by the words “please be patient with me I’m from the 1900s.”

I’ve been spending a lot of time away from social media. NGL I miss most of you who are seeing this & I hop on every now & then to see what everybody’s up to. Here’s photographic evidence of some of what else I’ve been up to:

This makes me happy for two reasons:

(1) Gen Z/Alpha kids are still spending enough time together IRL for this to happen, and

(2) The way words function fluidly in new ways to describe human experience never ceases to be brilliant.

Add this to the list of things I’ve learned from overhearing snippets of my students’ conversations:

Nowadays when their periods sync up because they spend so much time together, they call it BLUETOOTHING.

Thank you!

Large new monstera deliciosa leaf with holes between the splits and center.

My monstera not only produced a new leaf in the dead of winter, but now that it’s unfurling it appears to have achieved DOUBLE FENESTRATION! 💚💚💚

Same.

Haha, so very true! The sweet sweet misery helps build camaraderie with fellow sufferers. 🩵 ❄️

He’s been amazed since he moved up here how with a good coat, good boots, cold-weather accessories, & proper home insulation & road care life goes on (mostly) just fine when it snows. He had been used to everything screeching to a halt!

Let the record show that as of February 1, my Texas-born husband has declared that he is officially sick of this Cleveland winter.

Samesies. Good luck!

Imagine.

Jesus Christ. That was an execution.

Not much, just sipping coffee & watching pretty much everything I’ve ever been called alarmist for coming true…

Studies keep finding that students learn less when they use technology (especially AI) & also that AI has no real benefit for any industry that’s been using it. Why, then, do school administrators keep insisting that we push it on our students?

Halfway there: Getting Poetry and Getting Better at it With presenters Brandon Abdon & Meg Neville Wednesday, Jan 28 at 7 PM EST PERFECTION LEARNING Registration link: https://hubs.la/Q03-S-Cb0

Join me for this webinar on January 28! We’ll talk about ways to help AP Lit students level up their confidence & competence with poetry analysis. Register here: hubs.la/Q03-S-Cb0

The thing about working in education is that you will be surrounded by grown men who automatically address each other as “Coach” regardless of whether or not they are actually the coaches of anything.

In my early 20s, I went on a single date with a man who worked as a prison guard (forgive me; I was young & insecure).

I am still haunted by the smug look on his face as he bragged “They told us we can do anything we want to the inmates as long as we yell ‘stop resisting’ while doing it.”

I made the greatest typo today:

To-Do Lost

100% accurate!

80% of owning a cat is touching your cat to wake it up because it’s sleeping so hard you think it’s dead.

A scholarship has been established in Dr. Howard’s memory. Just in case anybody out there has the financial means to contribute, I’m posting a link to it here. www.kent.edu/english/dona...

I took Dr. Elizabeth Howard’s History of the English Language course at Kent State 25 years ago, & to this day the content & her delivery influence me personally & professionally.

I looked her up this morning w/the intent to reach out & thank her, only to learn she passed away in 2021.

Sigh.

I don’t know what to say. I’m just listening to PJ Harvey & cooking dinner & feeling like the contents of my skull are a combination of angry static & a constant yowling.

I would prefer that my tax dollars not be spent on mad kings flagrantly bypassing our own policies & breaking international laws to enact imperialism.

Your 2026 word (from Merriam Webster’s Instagram): based

I mean, I’ll take it.

Gray and white cat sitting in a half-packed suitcase

No hoomin, you no goez anneywarez