Hey CoSo! Shall we build a @th3j35t3r appreciation post via music links tonight?

It's nearly month's end on yet another round of J covering most of the site's costs, and yet I feel like there's been a ton of nuisance digs at his work this past week alone.

We've got the tools. We know how to use them.

Everything else (e.g. the "ratio" of good and bad) is on us to get right. 👍

So who's got a tune & good word to share? (& a bit more coin to chuck CoSo's way?)

#CoSoMusic
https://youtu.be/sLm3Khusq_8

Y'know, I ain't even mad that it's been thunderstorming off and on all day. Couldn't record - power outages interspersed the glorious natural performance - but I got caught up on a few other admin tasks instead. Now to tackle general correspondence, then draft tomorrow's newsletter.

Ideally, tomorrow will be *just* quiet enough that I can get my audiobook chapters finished, and with any luck a BookTube before I dive into one last major knowledge-transfer meeting.

So, all good things in time.

I have now sent my nephew the constructive comments necessary to help him rethink this essay.

But my favourite part was when I got to his Works Cited section (reader: he cited no works in the main text) and saw that the *very first piece* contradicted his argument about women as "natural" nurturers. 😅 He didn't read it, clearly.

What I was thinking the entire time?

His mum was *not* a nurturer at first. But do I say that to her sprog? 🤐 Nope! I just talked essay techniques.

🙃 Now to record.

I am so, so thankful that we know life is more important than debate.

The differences in our points of view shape the communities we lean into & where we strive for worldly change, but...

That we can still come together at end-of-day and remember that to be *here*, alive and able to act for change, is the real gift.

So many have left us too soon.

And so much life is otherwise wasted on anger, cruelty, fear, and regret.

How important it is not to waste one second more.

🕊️ Night, CoSo.

TFW your nephew sends you an essay he's excited for you to comment on... and it's filled with a lot of reductive comments about gender.

I know it's a bid for dialogue, and the kid is still learning, so he's relying on me to be a safe place to explore what he's thinking--which I will be, while coaxing growth...

But first, I need to sit with the irony of needing to be calm in the face of sexism so I don't affirm prejudiced views, and throw him deeper into the current cesspit of teen messaging. 🙃

Alternate proposal:

Give this world back to the beetles.

They already outnumber us in biomass!

And they're amazing recyclers, to boot.

#Israel #Politics

"One person who spoke with Biden said the president felt Netanyahu had humiliated both Blinken and Biden with his back-and-forth about a cease-fire proposal with Hezbollah.

Netanyahu at first told U.S. officials he supported a pause in fighting with the ... militant group, then roundly rejected the cease-fire proposal once it was made public."

It's okay to feel frustrated.

The world is run by warmongers & those who keep trying to reason with them. 🫂

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/09/27/israel-targeted-hezbollah-nasrallah-beirut-bombing-00181439

I had to pay cat tax on my way back from the local tienda, in the form of many head scritches and belly rubs to pass.

This local suck always runs ahead of me so that I have to pay cat tax twice or even three times on my return route!

Inflation be wild these days.
Plan accordingly!

#CatsOfCoSo #Caturday

All right. Time to try to finish this story and send it off.

TTFN, you beautiful rotters.

#AmWriting

Not looking forward to next week's Rewind Wednesday.

It's important to write, though, because anyone who knows the value of memorial work has been despairing at how many lies are still repeated a year later.

Just finished putting together notes about more of the debunked stories today, and it makes me cry how the actual victims' memories were dishonoured.

They were brutally slaughtered - and then used as props by their country for more slaughter.

We are the worst species, outside of bedbugs.

I'm having one of those days where it's difficult to care about any of my own work, because, like, what does any of it even matter, maaaan.

So, I am off to do a crossword with a friend, add more Spanish vocab to my ever-growing library (I especially love the turns of phrase I pick up from news articles and the food column every Saturday), and then...

Well, then maybe we'll try to get an SF story in a submission queue by day's end? We'll see if my heart's in it on my return. 🤷‍♀️

#TBLVibes

Everyone doin' okay today?

Lot of vibes seem off this morning.

Most of what we do doesn't really matter to anyone but ourselves and the little spheres of influence we can reach.

So take care of yourselves first, eh?

Especially when there's so little we can do about all the big stuff going wrong. 🫂

😊 I doubt myself in a lot of capacities, but boy howdy.

I run a tight Zoom meeting, even when faced with some fascinating personality types in attendance, if I do say so myself.

You see these ducks?

They didn't start all in a row - but they sure as heck are in one now. 👌

Because of the weird way that women in Hollywood are treated, my first experience of Maggie Smith was in Hook (1991), so I was shocked to see her look much younger in so much of what she did thereafter.

What a gift of a career, and a life. May we all be so fortunate to live to our fullest.

Oh, this hit close to home. 👌🏻 Gotta get those steps in during polycrisis!

Definitely interrupted a private moment this morning. #Flower and #NotFlower #BugFriends #Nature

Off to be in meetings all day. TTFN!

Tomorrow's a long day with more Zoom meetings, so I'm posting the weekend #Ekphrasis challenge early.

This one is a reverse challenge! I have here a very short story ("flash fiction"), and I'm encouraging writers, painters, photographers, etc, to let this person's work inspire a poem, a story, a painting, a photo: whatever you feel inspired to create this weekend, after reading it & sitting with its themes.

Post & boast what you create!

#CoSoWriters #WritingCommunity #CoSoArt #CoSoPhotography