This is how you become a writer: just pick one of the things that is deeply wrong with you. Make it a character. Now send it on a self-help journey or try to kill it. Now call it a book.

📌

Sharing music is a love language

I make Baja Blast Cuba Libres at home. Good, easy, fun. Highly recommend adding to your mixology repertoire.

You can make a zero proof version using Seedlip or Little Saints. To go with the chicken

i know a lot of people are like "live for spite!!!" and i 100% support that if that's what keeps you going but if it doesn't work for you you can live for a variety of reasons, including "read book that isn't out yet", "love", "step on a crunchy leaf", "look at the river", "pat a creature" etc

first image is of a cat screaming at a blank word document "why is it empty" next panel is a cat sitting in a corner with its head against the wall with complex formulas written all over the walls next image is an unimpressed looking cat sitting next to a glass of win next image is a cat screaming at the ceiling while sitting in front of a laptop

when I say "I'm busy writing today" this is what I mean

I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time - when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness. The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30-second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.

Today would have been Carl Sagan's 90th birthday. He wrote this in 1995. Carl was absolutely right. #CarlSaganDay

DID YOU KNOW that you can get a well reviewed stun gun on Amazon (or wherever) for <$30 and/or a high-powered pepper spray device with UV tracking dye for about $10 apiece - and furthermore, did you know that holidays are approaching and that these things fit inside stockings for women of all ages

🌊 waterfall dress 🌊

I love overly kind protagonists in fiction that power through and infecting other characters with kindness because they taught me that it's okay to be nice in an unkind world and that it's not a weakness

I've talked to a few folks this morning who were talking about stopping work on their creative projects. Because it's "not important anymore."

I don't know who needs to hear this, but DON'T DO THAT.

We win by living our lives as loudly and truly as we can. That includes your "silly" art project.

A small watercolor painting of a horrified looking cartoon dumpling.

My phone just auto corrected "trauma dumping" to "trauma dumpling," so I painted this in case anyone would like a visual of my mental state.

How's everyone else doing?

Hello, It’s a special edition of We’re Here. I’m trying to get my head on straight right now, which I’m sure is the case for you. I remember realizing after the assassination attempt that there was a rationality to my scrolling…I felt like my picture of the future was no longer relevant, and I desperately wanted to have my new one put in place. Of course, scrolling in the hours after a big event doesn’t tend to provide that relief, but it makes sense that I wouldn’t know what else to do. Today, I see people scrolling for similar reasons. Those of us who did not want a second Trump term (it’s a very large majority, but if that’s not you, I’m still glad you like the newsletter) are trying to figure out a bunch of things at the same time: How exactly did this happen? Who should we blame? (whether voters or strategy or candidate or party) What do we do now? I am not a political scientist, so I cannot answer those first two questions for you. I’m sure there will be plenty of interesting analysis coming out of all of the people who think about this stuff for a living and we will never know exactly who was right. But I do have a couple of suggestions for the third thing. First, I’d ask that we all accept that it is normal to mourn an imagined future. I have had this feeling many times in my life, and it is never nice. So, grieve. That is human. Second, do things. I don’t know what those things are, but do things. This morning Katherine said to me, “The trees and the sky and the squirrels and the stars just go on, and that’s what we’ll do.” This reminded me of this bit of an essay on living under the shadow of nuclear war written by C.S. Lewis: “If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking abou…

From todays’s extra edition of “We’re Here”:

Keep making art. Keep writing your stories. Even if they must exist in secret for a time, they are important - each of them a little act of rebellion.

Most of all, keep on living. If you can muster no other motivation on some days, then do it out of righteous spite for those who want you gone.

The image showcases the iconic Pillars of Creation in the Eagle Nebula, captured in stunning detail by the James Webb Space Telescope. The towering pillars of gas and dust, sculpted by the intense radiation and winds from nearby stars, appear in a rich tapestry of colors. The image reveals intricate details within the pillars, including newborn stars forming within dense pockets of gas, and jets of material being ejected from these young stars. This image offers a glimpse into the dynamic and awe-inspiring process of star formation, where new stars are born and shape their surroundings.

Pillars of Creation.
Gorgeous as always, this star-forming region lies approximately 7,000 light-years away and spans 4-5 light-years.
Processed by Eric Emmons.
www.astrobin.com/rgzt80/
🔭 🧪

i’m gonna just watch this at least once a day and i recommend everyone do the same

In a world that's built on purpose to wear you down until you're nothing, simply making art and being yourself and even just loving... they're truly acts of rebellion.

My page on Bluesky is a safe space and you will always be welcome and safe here 🏳️‍⚧️

Please, be careful everyone 🙏