A *lil* bit of park time. No running, but I have three voice messages to send, which I can do while walking. (Newsletter ready, will post on my return. Then finish a public Patreon before starting today's editing.)

For now - flowers after rain. #Nature

ANYWAY, I think getting existentially bleak around atrocity poetry is my cue to go to bed. 🙃 Be well, CoSo. Do good crimes.

I've been thinking about this poem all week.

I think what strikes me about it is how it speaks to the struggle to talk about atrocity with any integrity, and how every form we reach for to do such work--"non"-fiction, "fiction", poetry that reports--is tainted by the audacity of trying to put transgression to words at all.

We're such a strange, fragile species.

*Just* sentient enough to understand how much hurt exists in our world.

Not wise or powerful enough to do enough about it.

#Poetry

Being a lit nerd and a Canadian, I'm listening to the latest NYFP, with André Alexis reading Alice Munro, on my walk in the rainy night, while my neighbours have their musical love-in next door. You can take the Canuck out of Canuckistan, but... 🙃

#Literature #CanLit #Podcasts
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/andr%C3%A9-alexis-reads-alice-munro/id256945396

(Someone just brought out a guitar. 🙃 This'll be a while!)

There are many happy people singing vallenato together in my corridor, just because it's a lovely Sunday evening and tomorrow's a holiday.

Not great for concentrating on the draft-work I'm doing right now, but it's warming the cockles of my rotten ol' heart, so that ain't nothing.

Time for a walk while they finish this phase of their celebrations.

May there be good things happening where you are, and may they not drive you up the wall. 💛

🤔 Also, what do you think are my chances of a late afternoon walk today?

I think @cmskiera will appreciate this, if no one else.

I got asked today about my availability for a novel-length editing job in a few weeks. The author was trying to sell it as a simple job, just some clean-up really. But when I looked through a sample... whoo-eee. The developmental issues on this beast! 😬

(With thanks to CM for turning in a piece that was JUST FINE, REGULAR BOAT-SIZED, NO COMPLAINTS! 👌🏻😅)

Forgot to share this beauty of a new #BugFriend on Friday.

"Polilla Cola de Golondrina Verde" (urania swallowtail / green page moth)

#Colombia #Nature

Oh, but here's a lovely, generous reflection from Beau of the Fifth Column on stereotypes and anxieties about gender roles, specifically addressed to the fellows whose sense of self relies on a strong delineation of activities by orientation.

I wish we lived in a world with fewer hangups. But folks like me, Beau, and probably tons of you cross paths with folks who carry such gender-role hangups every day.

What a world we might have, if not for all the hate and the fear.
https://youtu.be/FN8o-6bFfZg

Time to get recordin'.

Hope everyone's got some good silly moments planned for themselves today. 🤗

(The world must be loved this much, etc.)

ANYWAY, I was offline most of yesterday, but a big ol' happy month of human'ing well together to us all.

💜 🌈

I'll be writing more about Pride tomorrow for the newsletter, precisely because as someone who "passes" in many ways, I get to hear things from "the straights" that many would never say the same way in the presence of people they see as "overtly" queer...

And as much as it's taxing at times, it also reminds me of our richly muddled humanity. How many of us go our whole lives without figuring out how to live well together. How we struggle to get past abstracted fears to see the human in us all.

Funny first email of the morning. I have folks across the spectrum in my life, including some Canadian conservatives who like to think they're centrists.

One is undergoing a friend break-up. The ex-friend has come out of her egg, is undergoing transition, and no longer wants to be associated with someone who views women the way she feels that this person does.

I'm happy for her. It's also really fascinating to study how this in-denial-about-how-conservative-he-is fellow is processing the news.

I have missed MANY NAMES due to character count, but my point is that the range of phenomenally curated talents here is a gift. We have *so* much to share with each other, & to learn from each other in the process.

So much of the world trades on division, and so much social media is simply about signalboosting on autopilot.

The fact that we really sit with each others' talents here is a gift.

So please add everyone I missed in reply, eh? We have *so* many talents who deserve collective cheer.

This might the euphoria of having left my home for the first time in days, but...

There is *so much* talent here.

@LiberalLibrarian has a blog style I deeply admire. @BosmangBeratna brings it to his YT shorts and woodworking. I can't wait to boast of @cmskiera's fiction & @WordsmithFL's nonfiction. @phase2 knows her worth on all things music production, @thewebrecluse *brings it* with media posts... and I'm running out of characters but I think @th3j35t3r offers a je ne sais quoi here, too? 🤔

Although most of the rest of the world is VERY RELIEVED for the US, this is a moment for US reactions to be centred above all else...

And hot dog, does our own @LiberalLibrarian have a phenomenal reflection on how the relief flowing from yesterday's verdict fits into a project of US dreaming that doesn't shy from past brutality in the slightest.

Even if you're sick of a certain name, please sit with this moving portrait of what yesterday's verdict means to so many.

https://establishmentbar.blogspot.com/2024/05/the-beginning-of-end.html

😂 Colombia is very proud and interested in this whole verdict because the judge is a rolo (born in Bogotá). But some here also cynically suggest that because he's Colombian he'll go easy in sentencing. (Psh! That's just local political cynicism talking.)