The 5th National #Climate Assessment just dropped, and I've given it a cursory review, but I'm going to read it properly tonight before writing on it for OnlySky tomorrow in more depth. (As you all know, we hates the clickbait rush to press, we does!)

I do want to say, though, that it is the most proactive data I've seen in a while. Hard work ahead, but lots of discussion of what's working, what's coming, and what needs to be done.

GREAT science literacy in the guide, too!

And even a #poem! 🎉

I also wrote & submitted a poem last night.

Good grief, am I all over the place these days. As is the world, I suppose!

In university I had a friend from Uganda who told me that in her village, it was appropriate to laugh when hearing terrible news, because the news was already going to break your heart - so laughter was a defense against the rest of you breaking too. She was probably embellishing a bit, but the concept has stuck with me ever since.

Life takes enough.
Don't give it more. 🕊️

Aim today: one public and one (overdue) paid newsletter, between classes.

I switched the topic on my paid newsletter to another 19th C SF, which I think you'll agree is more relevant to events today.

You might even have read it, especially if you're a nut who reads old scifi touted in certain political communities! :)

(But more importantly, my head's in a better place for it now. Going to hold on to the feeling as long for as it lasts!)

Morning starshines! 💫

I actually had two mood boosts, today: one was lunch, and one was two nephews calling me up because they wanted to play Minecraft.

I freaking love still being cool enough for them to want to hang out with. I have no idea how long it will last, but I cherish every second.

The yo-yo is going to be with me for a while - precarious living and general isolation make it hard to get out of my head - but days like today remind me to lean in even and especially amid despair.

I hope you can as well. ❤️

I had a lovely lunch with my friend, who knows full well how hard it is to do work while feeling helpless.

Crisis cases come to her *long* past the point where intervention is needed, so we talked about the failures of public policy, the persistence of self-destructive human behaviours through times & contexts, & why current governance structures make change so hard.

...all while we ate a homecooked meal, admired her garden, & listened to vallenato in the distance, on a beautiful afternoon. 🙂

There is no autumn in Medellín. But every now and then I spy a tree going through its own personal fall. 🍂 #NotCanada

And flutterbies! 🙂

I am such a sucker for the little things.

Okay, okay - on to lunch.

Have a good one, all!

#Nature #Colombia

On holiday Mondays, Medellín has another "ciclovia" - a halfday of highways and major throughways closed for cycling and walking routes. Health and wellness is big here, and well-supported by free public programs.

Also - bonus giant "house" plants! This is a richer part of the city and there are *so* many homes and public areas filled with well-maintained flora.

I do really need to be out in the world more. My head is a ridiculously silly place in which to reside most of the time. 🙃

Hello other side of the city! I am in you! 💛

On my way to lunch with a friend, who inspires me all the time with her advocacy work as a lawyer, assisting families in precarity - documented and otherwise - here in Medellín.

So many of you have done and continue to do so much for your communities, too - each with your own fields of expertise and talents to share.

For all that we may differ in perspectives (on pancakes vs. waffles, etc.), you all inspire the hell out of me by living out your truths to the fullest. Thank you for that gift.

We all just want to belong somewhere, eh?

Sometimes it's hard, though.

Sometimes all your efforts just keep getting undone time after time after time.

And there are no easy answers, except the annoyingly easiest one of all:

You've just got to keep putting one foot in front of the other, until something, somewhere, eventually goes right.

(Or until you're no longer in any state to complain when it goes wrong! 😂 Either/or!)

Sneaky Past Me prepared for my current low by signing me up for three stepped-up volunteer gigs.

Last month, it was really difficult to keep up with them all while struggling.

This month, I'm thankful for the entrenchment in community even though my brain wanted to crawl in a hole.

Being present and being useful are *such* good curatives for thinking one's run out of reasons to keep going.

...Even if Past Brain needs to drag Current Brain kicking and screaming into the practice sometimes. 🙃

Vonnegut's Bluebeard was just what I needed.

Usually in a down-cycle or mixed state, I go offline. As of late, "mixed state" has felt accurate: vivid dreams on little sleep, energy for days without eating, but all the while, a bell inside with no clapper; a quiet conviction that it's all over for me soon.

Vonnegut imagines Sisyphus happy. Hey, the bell's still *here* even if it can't clap, y'know?

I'll write more on Bluebeard for this week's Substack, but--find what keeps you going, eh? 💙

I will know I have finally found my chill the day I don't rush home at the sight of a typo.

Perfectionism has been a really big challenge to overcome. I used to get panic attacks over this nonsense - because it was ingrained in me as a kid and young adult* that I wasn't allowed to make mistakes. They'd be used against me even years later. They were why I failed.

Now I know the world won't end if there's an apostrophe where it shouldn't be.

In theory. When stress levels are lower all around. 🙃

I wish I could think of a correlate for another decade's media, but...

I guess it's a little like imagining how each of the characters on Friends would respond to the latest war news? Then hashing out all the schisms it would create in the group, and swapping links and sources to prove one's fandom argument, instead of just talking about the news directly?

See, it feels weird even to type that.

What a roundabout way of staying informed and fostering discourse.

Was the internet a bad idea? 🙃

But also, from a behavioural standpoint? Fascinating. Though these fans are capable of discussing the war directly, to talk about how A is good and B is bad, they more often channel their commentary through how their stars are talking about the war, & what flak they're getting amongst themselves for saying something.

This feels like a natural extension of a culture that often watches others game more than game itself. But is it constructive? Or does it just add to the gamification of politics?

Also in generational humour today:

I monitor forums across the political spectrum to see what's being shared about the war, & to note the similarities in rhetoric & human behaviour from every side.

One weird quirk that's come out of this practice?

I've become "hip to the jive" of a Gen Z fandom, because a group of popular streamers has become massively invested in talking about the war.

Weirdest, most roundabout way of learning the lingo and star drama of another generation, I tell you what!

Aha! I knew it. :)

This is going to be fun hour of nostalgia.

#AmReading