One of my favourite photos.

All our sound and fury fits on that one pale blue dot.

I know the atheist POV can be scary.

I understand why it would be *so* nice to think someone's keeping tabs on us, and that everything we do to one another will have to be answered for, in time.

But there is freedom in remembering that *we* built our stories & cultures this way.

Because even if that means they're flawed...

We can build them up differently instead.

Sleep well, dreamers.

Tomorrow we rise. 🌎

🤦🏻 A friend was excited to see a Colombian food stand at a Canada Day event, so they sent me a photo of the offerings and told me how much they were looking forward to finally trying bandeja paisa.

Reader, not a thing on this table is bandeja paisa. I tried to nudge them to the tamal, which I suspect will be the best of the bunch (even the empanadas seem to have an odd texture), but I just hope the beans were cooked well on the dish promoted as bandeja paisa in this sorry lot.

#AnEffortWasMade

When I was younger, wishing anyone a happy Canada Day was rightfully loaded, especially before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which *began* our work of reckoning with cultural genocide.

But I'd always frame it this way:

I think of the children and migrants who are given an ideal to aspire towards, and I think of the people trying to improve on the social contract that we have, and I see such days as a chance for us all to imagine building better from the rough roots we've been given.

Park time with the family.

Amusingly, even two of these beauties were beefing today. White-and-black kept backing their junk up to push the youngest of the browns away, but then the young'un beefed back, so white-and-black has put herself into a huffy time-out, snorting and grumbling and grazing elsewhere.

Good to know it's not just people who need a moment. 👌🏻

#CoSoNature
#PuppersOnTheHoof

I'm in the "hangover" part of having submitted the project to my client.

It's not the fact that this piece is probably going to get trad-published to great acclaim (for them) that gets me.

It's that I did a lot of client therapy during this project, & the cognitive dissonance of sitting with someone's panic over fancy industry goals considering the state of the world is... well, it ain't nothing.

I feel ashamed that I ever cared about goals of my own, TBH. There's just no point to most of it.

Ugh. Being upright still isn't working. My body has always done this thing where it sneezes profusely if it's vertical when it wants to be horizontal.

(Super awkward on dates. 😉 jk.)

I'm not entirely sure eating was wise, because now I'm sweating buckets, but! We live and learn.

I came, I saw, I people'd, I'm going back to bed. 👌

#Zine

Oh, and I'm also looking at the musically inclined: would anyone be up for writing "Two Jams" - a wee music rec paired with a jam/jelly recipe (this could use the wildlife I mentioned above). What's a perfect musical pairing for dandelion jam?

A nature-oriented dad joke wouldn't be out of place, either, and we're definitely up for a mantra or prayer related to hopepunk, solarpunk, and general communion with the wonder of the world.

Lots of ideas to choose from! Be playful! It's a Zine!

It's honey lemon ginger time!

Zoom meeting in an hour, then I can be dead to the world again. Awful, awful night's "sleep". This flu really likes me, but the feeling ain't mutual.

Funny thought for the day:

Yesterday I learned the expression "to Casper" someone. It means to ghost them, but in a friendly way. 😅 Your texts drift from daily to weekly to monthly, until you're gone.

Immature action? Maybe!

But an inspired phrase, all the same.

Okay: tea time, followed by a one-hour performance of Weekend At Bernie's. 🤞🏻

I feel like I coughed up half a lung (in my mask) on my trip to the store, but look at this rad plant I snapped on my way back. Now *that's* a fighter.

Did you know that more species have separately evolved into tree forms than have converged into crab forms? I'm not saying that humanity's final form is going to be a tree, too, but dang. We should be so lucky!

Look at that drive to survive!

#Nature

I have the maturity of an 11-year-old today, because this made me giggle.

I am not to be trusted with serious news or missile launch codes until I feel better. 🙃

Time to mask up and head out to the nearest tienda for more ibuprofen and soup. Going to try to keep my mind out of the gutter along the way, but no promises.

One of these is me. The other is this cold, which has decided that "sudden walloping" is the best strategy for cage dominance.

And I mean, can't argue with its results!

I will try to be upright again in a few hours.

(Send octagon girls?)

I have a killer headache, but the timing is great - going off to teach for a few hours, so no more screen time today. (Fingers crossed that the magic of modern medicine kicks in en route to class!)

Tomorrow's newsletter is almost ready, too, so after it goes out bright and early, I'll be taking another all-day hiatus from the interwebs for editing work. Pure focus for this next part!

Off for the night!

Be good to yourselves, and remember - what happens in the heat, stays in the heat. 😬🤞

When your bedtime brain is swimming with tomorrow's writing.

#Demotivation #Memes
#WritersOfCoSo #Writers #WritingCommunity 🙃

Newsletter will go out early tomorrow morning, but I am pooped, and Cold Turkey is set to start at 10 p.m. on all devices, across social media platforms, so that my doomscrolling will be limited to news mailouts for the next 60 hours while working. 🤞

Be kind. Rewind. (The universe, if you can. And don't just bring back stock tips if you do!)

See you on Moon's Day!

#Writers #WritersOfCoSo #WritingCommunity

I made some modifications to my Grist Imagine 2200 story draft, then submitted it this afternoon. I don't know who else is still planning to submit to this free contest, but you have 10 days left, so hop to it, folks! 🧐 I look forward to being "beaten" by someone else's better dreams!

https://grist.org/climate-fiction/imagine-2200-contest-submissions/

I'm changing out the ad on my newsletter before posting today, so I can cross-promote this serial novel on my Substack in the coming weeks.

The best part about making promo ads is that they help you figure out how to pitch your story better. *So* many writers get bogged down in the specifics of their tale, and forget to hit the more universal beats.

But when you make an ad, you have to pare your story WAY down to fit the layout.

*That's* when the core themes and tensions best come through. 👌