Sebastian

My cat is almost 3 but apparently I have never whistled in her presence before, because I got 3 bars into ‘the Hole in the Hedge” and she rolled over and gave me the stare she usually reserves for the birds outside.

An image of a curly spider plant with a shoot bearing five baby plants resting on the hand of a middle aged man.

Everything is objectively awful, but my spider plant is blissfully ignorant and has decided to bring 5 more spider plants into this dumpster fire of a world, so I guess I can wallow a little less and try to be hopeful.

Maureen N. McLane · Poem: ‘The Historians’

It is time
to remember the ones
who never abandoned
the way to care
for the dead the ones
who said not only my dead
and not only the official dead
matter amidst all the matter.

‘The Historians’, a poem by Maureen N. McLane: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

A screenshot of the screen to cancel Amazon Prime

Bye bye, Bezos. The latest WaPo dictate was the last straw. Luckily I still remember life before Amazon and can wait an extra few days for anything I can’t find locally. Harder will be breaking up with Whole Foods, which is walkable from my office and is where I did most food shopping, but no more.

A handmade clay pot with a stylized face and impressed chevron designs

A Neolithic clay pot with a stylized face and chevron designs made with a sharp tool.

Neolithic time! This pot is based on a Funnel Beaker Culture vessel (c.3000 BCE) found at Månehøj, near Svinø (collection of National Museum in Copenhagen, see pic 2). I hand built the pot and decorated it with a bone tool—it reminded me of doing stick-and-poke tattoos in my misspent youth.

My coworker just discreetly paged me to derail the bottled water delivery guy, who was aggressively hitting on her. There are dudes out there who think what they are doing is deploying “charisma,” but that is like a child claiming to have “cooked” after dumping flour, oil, and juice into a bowl.

Well, I hope we all enjoyed Weimar Republic 2.0 while it lasted.

Apparently I work extremely productively in a sunny, quiet, dedicated office space with no people, no phones ringing, no meetings, doorbells, or other interruptions and a 9:45 start time. Tragically that is incompatible with my actual work environment unless I come in on a Sunday, so here we are.

The void is full, so I will just scream into this pot and put the lid on. Inspired by a couple of Pomeranian Culture face urns (5th/6th c. BCE), this one isn’t a direct copy of anything but the decoration is based on an example from Igrzyczna, now in the archaeological museum in Gdansk. #pottery

My mother has knit me a jumper based on an Anglo-Saxon urn (Spong Hill #1564). I feel like I have ascended to a new plane of weirdness and I’m pretty stoked.

After years of this near-daily occurrence, I have just realized that when my partner first heads downstairs each morning while addressing our three cats with “squeet!” it is not a term of endearment, a portmanteau, or an onomatopoeia—it is literally him just saying “let’s go eat!” in Minnesotan.

A closeup of a Zamifolia zamioculcas plant in a chartreuse mid-century-modern pot; a sprig of fresh growth is visible in the center of the frame.

Four days ago I was able to move my workspace to a different corner of my office building and for the first time in my life, I have an actual office window. My ZZ plant has already sent up a new spike as if to remind me that capitalism is hell and we all deserve to see the sun.

Octavia Butler being a time traveler or seer, will forever be a hill I'm willing to die on, because there's just no way. Parable of The Sower was published in 1993. Look at this date. #BlackBookSky #BookSky

Three fucking adorable brown tabby cats sleeping on a sage-green bedspread.

My goblin army has a clean bill of health and the lowest resting heart rates the doc had ever seen for cats in a vet clinic. I can’t protect my nervous system from ::waves hands at Stuff:: but I can apparently raise three kittens in a low-trauma environment and end up with happy, fearless cats.

An ancient handmade urn with a wide belly, hat-like lid, and stylized human face with wire earrings.

My goal this winter is to pursue another rabbit hole and make some Pomeranian Culture face urns. These are Iron Age ceramics produced mainly in what is now mostly Poland, and this guy’s face is an absolute mood right now.

Image is public domain, from the National Digital Archives in Poland.

A long-haired brown cat lounging on an old-fashioned radiator.

I don’t always have much wit or wisdom to offer to the social media machine, but I do have three exceptionally beautiful cats who like to do Accidental Renaissance poses when I’m trying to get out the door to go to work. Bluesky, meet Rhoda:

Driving to work this morning, I had a moment of panic that my dashboard was on fire. It was, in fact, steam rising from my open travel mug in the console. Apparently autumnal weather has finally arrived, but also my limbic system needs a vacation.

I suppose it’s about time I gave this a try. Here’s hoping I can meet my needs for microfiction, well-informed discussion of current events, and non-AI art beyond the reach of the dead bird site.