I’m traveling! Here’s a bee-laden flower from a few weeks ago in lieu of a longer post.
Last minute nectar, 10/22/26
Category Archives: Stories
MA Question 3, 2026
If you’re upset with the status quo of Massachusetts politics, voting yes on Question 3 might feel good. It offers what seems like a simple fix for a system that feels unresponsive and unhelpful. I agree with much of what Question 3’s proponents say is wrong with the MA state government and electoral system.
Despite that, I strongly urge you to vote against it. Their solution is even worse than what we already have.
The problem is rooted in a few things: our current voting system, the cost of running a political campaign (and the advantage of having lots of cash), and our campaign finance laws.
Running a political campaign is expensive. Voter outreach and the advertising necessary to get name recognition for your race is expensive. Wealthy people, or people who curry favor with wealthy donors and super PACs (or better yet, wealthy people who curry favor with wealthy donors and super PACs) are in a much better position to get the word out about their candidacy, and thereby get votes. But no matter how big a problem the money is, and how much it skews our current political environment—which is a lot, by the way—our voting system remains a large enough problem that Question 3 will fix nothing. Actually, Question 3 will only make things worse.
I’ll give you some examples.
Continue readingNo sleep ’til tooth eruption, 9/3/26
This post is brought to you by teething, and by the letter Z.
Teething is the process by which hard, calcified structures slowly erupt from your tender flesh over a prolonged period of time. Many who’ve gone through this process swear that it has some eventual helpful end, and that the resulting shards of calcified material protruding from one’s gums are useful. Most of these people have, mercifully, forgotten the experience of the process.
The letter Z is a symbol commonly used in triplicate to communicate what I have recently missed. I mean sleep, not snoring. I’m probably snoring enough. Why am I missing sleep? Well. In case it wasn’t obvious…
Continue readingMusic for thinking & writing to, 8/27/26
I do listen to a wider variety of music, but when it comes time for me to focus…
Continue readingProgress & the bad old days, 8/20/26
I was catching up with a friend recently and learned that she had, in the years since we’d last spoken, nearly died from an ectopic pregnancy. Hearing that felt sad and spooky.
Ectopic pregnancies, for those of you who don’t know, occur when the fertilized egg implants outside of the main chamber of the uterus. Generally this means the fertilized egg is stuck in the fallopian tube, but they can be in more exciting places. This fertilized egg cannot be brought to term—the fetus can’t develop and survive anywhere but the uterus, because the rest of the abdomen (including the fallopian tube) lacks the blood flow and nutrients and the ability to stretch and encompass a growing fetus. If the fetus grows enough while not in the uterus, it will kill the parent.
My friend didn’t recognize her condition before she was already in trouble. She spent a good while close to death in the hospital as a result. All I could think as she shared this was, “the bad old days are closer than they appear.”
Continue readingMoon in the crook of a tree, 7/30/26
The tree is quite large, and my phone doesn’t want to focus on the moon. C’est la vie. It was a gorgeous and wonderful evening.
I’m on the road visiting with family, hence today’s brief post. A note to my future self, though: I want to talk more about the perils of not sharing health stories, and of not embracing health education. That’ll be for another time.
Lyme disease, & humor in Dungeon Crawler Carl
This is a week for arthritic pain, fatigue, and wondering what makes “funny” things funny in Dungeon Crawler Carl (which I wrote about last week).
I’m pretty sure I’ve got Lyme disease. I’m already on doxycycline. I don’t yet have a positive test for Lyme disease, but I’m not waiting for one either.
I have enough circumstantial evidence. I walked through scrub forest and near tall grass in a high risk area—Cape Cod—while on my way to the beach. Two days later Ley noticed I had a weird bruise. About a week after that, stiffness and pain started spreading through my left leg and up my left side. I also got even more sleepy.
Weirdly, some part of me is relieved.
Continue readingFatherhood & masculinity, cont. 7/9/26
I wrote last week about how fatherhood has changed my experience of masculinity. That post focused on what my prior experience had been, and how my own relationship with that experience had changed. To sum up, I’ve got more skin in the game now. I don’t want to retreat from cultural ideas of masculinity, I want to confront and change them. I’m carrying the banner for my son, trying to give him healthier ways to be a boy and a man than I had. I want him to have more room, to not be squashed by our society’s limited ideas about masculinity.
But there’s more to the ways that fatherhood has changed my own experience. Having my baby with me changes how others experience me. He’s like a magical secret handshake that opens the doors of social contact, that makes strangers suddenly say “oh he’s got a baby, he must be alright.” Somehow being with an infant or toddler makes me safe and acceptable in a way that I can never be without one.
I say all this like these ideas leapt fully formed from my brow like Athena’s critique of gender ideology, but that would be a lie. These thoughts took time. Besides, what really drove all of this home for me was walking through public spaces with an empty baby stroller.
Continue readingFatherhood and masculinity, 7/2/26
Becoming a father has changed my experience of my gender.
I think it’s a good change, but it (like most parts of parenthood) also feels like more work.
Continue readingSquirrel Moon, 4/16/26
Today is a day for being behind.
Rotavirus, congested sinuses with modestly colorful snot, yet more interrupted sleep, being on sick-baby duty: not a few of my favorite things, but certainly a list of things I’m experiencing this week. The pictures on my phone are ever-more full of baby, and less and less full of flowers. Perhaps spring will change that balance a little bit. Maybe I’ll have pictures with both baby AND flowers.
There are no extended analyses for you today. Instead, I’ve got a few random thoughts.
First, I’ve crammed in a few episodes of Harley Quinn and I’m loving the show. It’s been a good thing to watch while slightly addled. I admire the ways in which the writers are layering on additional depth as the episodes progress and I’m excited to see where (and how far) they take it.
Second, I can’t help but continue to see the parallels (and diachronic threads) between the genres of classical questing fiction, portal fantasy, middle grade adventure, isekai, and now LitRPG. They’re not all the same thing, but… they kind of are all the same thing. At the very least, they’re playing Mad Libs with each other.
Third, I’m tired. I’m going to call it here and go rest my eyes or something until nap time is over.
