Andy Brokaw

Had to take a break partway through cleaning the driveway for what I hope will not be the last time this week. It's REALLY nice to have enough snow to bothering clearing!

#LetItSnow #WAWX #StillWinter

Today I taught the last lesson of six with a pair of adorable and sweet sisters I feel really lucky to have gotten a chance to work with. I'm going to miss them.

Ski instruction can be exhausting and has its frustrations, but I love that I get to help people grow and have fun.

#SkiInstructor

Nothing frustrates me in quite the save way as being required to click "I'm not a robot" to advance but having the rotting thing time out on a spinning-circle-of-angst rather than acknowledge I clicked it.

👏👏👏
I salute your restraint.

First WA city with protections for polyamorous families | The Olympian One public commenter said he hopes Seattle will take similar steps to protect diverse family structures.

Olympia has become the first city in Washington to expressly protect polyamorous families. Seattle is looking to do likewise, but as a polyamorous person who lives outside of a city, I'd appreciate something like this on a state level.

www.theolympian.com/news/local/a...

#Polyamory #Washington

I'm still alive. I have new referrals from my PCM. I'm seeing my therapist every week. I'm trying not to hate myself on top of suffering through a depressive episode.

I can't handle being online much right now. But I hope you're all doing as well as you can despite all the bad stuff out there.

“Hey boss, are you sure Flamigo is more popular than Charizard, and people aren’t just misspelling ‘Flamingo’ on Google?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Of course Flamigo is more popular than Charizard, Mewtwo, Eevee, and Snorlax. Send the email.”

Sympathies. It frequently doesn't, no.

In this case, the initial push didn't seem to do much, but it clicked in the other person's mind later and they changed course without further prompting.

Am trying to do more of that thing where I communicate my needs, because I'm honestly not doing well emotionally speaking these days. But it's REALLY hard.

Sigh. Probably, yes. But I keep _trying_ to hope people will suck less than they seem to.

Really, lady? That Mexican family has WAY more reason to be concerned about you lurking around than you do of them... Although I suppose that she might have meant she didn't want to freak them out? Is that naive to hope it was the latter or just not cynical?

It's always frustrating when that happens.

Thanks for sharing that. It's easy to fall into thinking corporations are just always going to ignore employee complaints and do whatever they want. It's good to hear that sometimes they work to improve.

Me too... Am rather pessimistic. A lot of it comes down to needing to get corporate incompetents to stop micromanaging the place. And that's hard to change without replacing people with titles like Corporate Vice President.

Thank you! I've been struggling with motivation amongst other things this week and seeing this helped.

So, yeah, PSA on how to care for authors: Say nice things about wanting more stories from us. 💖

I doubt my employer was expecting an 800 word response to the question about how they can improve, but they got at least one.

It snowed through my lesson today! If it keeps up, I might actually ski _recreationally_ some day soon. Fingers crossed and LET IT SNOW!

Today was my beloved J's last day as a full-time employee of our mountain. I feel I may be more emotionally thrown by this than he is.

One of my students asked me how old I am tonight and when I told her asked, "How can you be older than my mom?"

My answer?

"By being born before she was."

#SkiInstructor #TooCoolForMyAge

Took my daughter's partner out for their first attempt at skiing today!

Their surfer instincts served them well and despite the challenging conditions, they made terrific progress. And best of all, they had enough fun they want to do it again!

#SkiInstructor

I need to re-waterproof my gloves. I left today's lesson with wrinkled fingers...

But despite the rain, I had a lot of fun. My Monday students are really sweet and a blast to ski with. Today was all smiles with no tears. And they're losing the pizza in their turns. Huzzah!

#SkiInstructor

My rookie era: on my first ski trip, I felt like a natural – then I was rapidly humbled by the mountain | Skiing holidays | The Guardian I was a ski god. An avalanche. I was starting to think about the Olympics. Darude’s Sandstorm was playing in my head. Then wham, bam, stacked it

A brief and humorous tale of a non-sports lesbian on her first ski trip. Can you spot the moment she makes her biggest mistake?

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

#skiing

Happy! Happy! Happy!

YAY SEAHAWKS!

Someone who churns out hundreds of AI "books" and makes money tricking people into buying them thinking they're getting a novel isn't a writer. They're a scammer.

They're no more an author than a snake oil salesman is a doctor. It's just fundamentally a different thing.

#QueerPrompts
My characters participate in a ton of hockey, a lot of skiing, and some curling.

There are background depictions of and references to a variety of other sports, including some that are played in ::checks notes:: warm weather.

I love sports, so a lot of my characters do too.

If you're trying to get people to boycott the Super Bowl, maybe don't lead with it's a waste of time. Makes you sound like a pretentious snob. Sports people like having something to root for in a world of darkness. Non sports people like getting together with people they love. That's not nothing

Dutch scientists left a hamster wheel outside. Then, all the animals started playing with it It seems that animals simply love to play.

A study has indicated that wild animals like running wheels. Which is pretty neat.

www.zmescience.com/ecology/anim...

Gotta get ready to go teach. I'm not exited about the damp fog, but I an excited to get to see my students and help them get more comfortable on chair-serviced terrain.

#SkiInstructor

Yeah, that's a massive mess up.

Your regular reminder that publishing is a business (and that @victoriastrauss.com is a gem)