Really extensive list of resources and advice on this Reddit thread.

reddit.com/r/selfpublish/wiki/index

The snow started when they said it would. It didn’t warm up the way it often does once it starts snowing, so we kept our walk on the brief side.

I’ve mentioned the relentless data scraping going on here and it is alarming but otherwise not yet dangerous to the integrity of the site.

A wonderful side benefit has been that as I scroll through all the posts being visited, I will sometimes tap one and go back. Go back and read.

Some observations hurt. Like: Michelle is gone. Also: I used to have much, much more engagement and from folks I don’t see here anymore.

Some observations run to the trivial: two spaces between sentences? Looks so dated now.

But at times the old posts elevate me. My talk about being messy and losing things gets old, but it also has a way of rendering me very human. Also, it is weirdly helpful sometimes to read about my sister and briefly remember how she almost ruined me for nearly a decade. I’m not sure why this is true since for all intents and purposes I prefer to forget about her.

But the most positive of responses comes when now and again I read something that is really well written. In that moment, I find myself. I mean that: I find myself.

Here I am, a messy and flawed human being who occasionally writes really well.

Here’s one post I actually hunted down because of the bit about silver linings. I wrote it the day after the election in 2024. Much of the musing is sharp and painfully relevant to this moment.

Day Two of Deep Despair: link.

Perhaps here is where I should note that it is the day after the extrajudicial murder of Alex Pretti.

Spied this yesterday. I’ve probably walked past it 1,000’s of times. Looks like a goat or a demon.

Unable to sleep last night, the word I kept hearing in my head is broken. As in, “our country is broken” or “I feel broken.”

At Davos, Canadian PM Carney used the word “rupture” (as distinct from “transition”).

Meanwhile the ruination of this neighborhood continues (“ruination”). The smaller of the two brick structures around the corner is gone.

It is so easy to tear things down.

It’s so easy to kidnap five-year-olds or use them as bait.

Minneapolis has a lot to be proud of. I didn’t know until recently what a hearty lot they were. Today is an across the board work stoppage. They are setting an example.

Ending one sentence with “of” and another with “were,” I guess my grammar is broken too.

The book group I was invited to this weekend has rescheduled because of the storm. I was eager (and a bit nervous?) to hear what ten or 12 Black women think about my book. It’ll have to wait until April now.

I couldn’t watch all of the Jack Smith hearing. So much frothy GOP bullshit. I miss the days when evidence actually served as proof of something.

Three abutting properties.

There will be jack hammering. There will be tasteless structures eventually. But did they have to take down almost ALL of the trees?

Every October, former residents of this soon-to-be-rubble structure hung a huge skeleton from the branches of this tree.

At other times, they hung a bicycle outlined with white lights.

Next door to that place is this place. It’s been empty for over a year.

Further down the street. One of a half dozen places we’ve seen go down. On this street alone.

And this apartment structure used to be a one story mall with a Fortune Panda and terrible sushi place. Right around the corner from us. I mind it less than the “dentist office chic” houses going up but it will add at least fifteen cars coming and going through an intersection that has already become unworkable.

A short post just to say we continue. We keep our eyes open.

The wolf cannot be allowed to disappear. Here, back lit, it fades away.

Meanwhile, we’re cleaning out the garage. My sister’s senior project is on the curb. It’s a big triptych made out of heavy particle board. The hinges are broken. I have nowhere to put it and lack the will to find it another home.

But at least I can share some of her drawings here.

Actually it rained after we put things on the curb and so this is back in the garage. After posting these pictures I think maybe I am not ready to let it go.