Wren Wallis

A few months ago, I had a similar conversation with another attorney. This attorney practices post-conviction law. I had called to talk about another matter, but the conversation inevitably turned to Trump. This attorney mentioned that he’d recently had some work done on his home, and had gotten to know one of the contractors. The contractor was undocumented, and feared he may be deported. In the 20-some years he’d been in the U.S., this contractor had done well for himself — he owned his contracting business, his home, and some property. He asked if the attorney could help him transfer the business and title to his home and property to his son, who is a U.S. citizen. The attorney and his wife — who is also a lawyer — agreed to help. “As my wife and I started filling out the paperwork, we realized that we might be doing this sort of work for other people over the next few years, so she suggested we bring up one of the old desktops from the basement, so whatever immigration work we were doing would be on a separate computer.” The attorney’s college-aged son had taken an interest in all of this. “My son asked if what we were doing was illegal. I told him it was all perfectly legal. Then he asked me a question I really couldn’t answer: Why did we feel like we had to take these steps to hide legal work that was perfectly legal? And all I could think to say was that this is the kind of country we live in now.”

Another lawyer interviewed in the piece:

"elder scrolls" is just me looking at my phone

It is definitely a... pretty high-level summary of what I told her, but at least she got the gist? 😆

My child, gazing at her computer: "The Pope died?"
Me: "Yes."
Child: "Who's the Pope?"

> One hour later...

Child on Discord to friend: "Did you know the Pope died?"
[Friend reply inaudible]
Child: "That's what /I/ said!"
Child: "But he was important. Like a church boss guy."

A child's hands holding up a Starbucks cup of iced juice, upon which the barista has written in black Sharpie, "enjoy?"

I am... /pretty/ sure that's supposed to be an exclamation point?

What if Elon is the first autistic person RFK has ever actually met and that’s why he assumes we don’t pay taxes or go on dates

They did not take the signs off the outside of my door which I know because every time a new person comes in they are freshly masked and gowned. The regular nurses on this end of the floor seem to have stopped, as they are aware I'm not whatever they thought I might be.

Anyway I love having zero infections and being allowed to eat solid food again. My very nice nurse just came in to see whether I am done with breakfast and I went full Smeagol over the tray. Madame, I will be eating this breakfast until someone brings me lunch. I will fight you.

(I am not special, they just weren't sure yet what kind of infection I had. Which turned out to be: None. Zero Patient Zero here.)

"She's contact precaution," and a whole bunch of people started moving at once while the lab person was like "WE WEREN'T TOLD," and then I got put in another room all by myself.

Super exciting! A very weird kind of Special to be!

I did not realize until they took me down for a procedure yesterday morning that this is because I was considered some special variety of Hazardous.

They took me downstairs and one of the lab people said, "You can put her in bay six," and the transport guy in his plastic gown said,

They gave me this very nice single room at the end of the hall, and everyone who came in to see me put on a new mask and a disposable plastic gown at the door, both of which they promptly disposed off on leaving.

They brought me coffee, y'all. It is either surprisingly not bad or I just haven't had coffee in so long that the memory of good coffee is ash in my mouth. I love this coffee. I will name my next-born child Hospital Coffee. (Middle name: Grape Jelly Toast.)

The phlebotomy guy came in to abscond with another several liters of my blood and I did not stop eating my grape jelly toast at any point, just switched it to my other hand and continued to savage it like some sort of bread-predatory wolverine.

The first solid food you are allowed to eat in the hospital after three days of IV fluids and lemon Italian ice is the best food you will eat, even if it is terrible. These home fries are completely unseasoned and taste slightly metallic and I love every one of these little potato angels.

Well, have you? Saved the daylight?

Because I'm here to tell you, if you don't, you'll miss out when I eat the Sun.

Mandatory high school civics class that isn’t just like “how a bill becomes law” or whatever but also “how NOAA powers your phone’s weather app” and “NIH helped make your asthma inhaler”

if you replaced these guys' inboxes with a woman sportswriter's, they'd commit suicide by lunchtime

If adderall were actually fucking addictive then the people for whom it is prescribed wouldn’t constantly forget to take it.

I feel like wikipedia is the only institution that was actually ready for this.

I wish the Senate handled a coup in the US treasury the way Philly handles winning a ball game

Anybody positing that the problem with the games industry is that devs are too expensive is gonna get an instant block. For the cost of one EA CEO you could afford 213 devs making $120k apiece.

Read the room, my dudes; a LOT of very skilled people are out of work right now. Profits are trickling up

Just saw a farmer say, "you don't have to admit you were wrong, you have to admit you were lied to, " and idk that seems like a good framing to call people in

We need to fear the consequences of inaction more than the consequences of action.

My daughter to her friend: "Oh, wow! I've heard of this! It's a really esteemed RPG."
Friend: "What's 'esteemed'?"
Daughter: "It's... like. When something's.... I'm not sure. It's good, though."

This is disgusting harassment of the only trans member of Congress.

If you’d like to let Rep. Miller know you disapprove of her childish bullying:

DC Office: (202) 225-5271
IL Office: (217) 703-6100
Web: marymiller.house.gov/contact

A thing to understand here is that Wired + Teen Vogue is Condé Nast — this is the Newhouse family being basically the only good billionaire publishers. Other than them, it’s the indies of the new alt media and stalwarts like ProPublica and then basically crickets.

One of these days we're gonna have to reckon with the fact that "money that I spend which does not directly benefit me is a waste" is a popular sentiment.

I think we should state plainly that this is selfish on its face.

And stupid when you have awareness which extends beyond your nose.