After some morning housecare and grocery shopping I tackled a backyard project; something I’ve been meaning to get to since Hurricane Milton took down a large oak tree in the backyard.

The root bulb of the oak is still there. At some point the trunk of the tree grew around some concrete so grinding it was not an option. I thought about getting a truck in here and pulling it out, but once I got the fence back into place I decided I could live with the tilted stump. However, there were gaps where the roots had elevated and so I fenced off the area with a picket garden fence around the partially uprooted tree stump. Today I filled in those gaps with topsoil and removed the garden fencing, allowing easier passage between the fence and some large pinwheel jasmine bushes.

Additionally, I weeded and cut back the space that had been blocked off by the garden fence, the space between the bushes and fence.

A few years ago I created a little meditation spot next to the oak that came down during Milton. Ohmigod! I JUST remembered how much work that was! I wasn’t thinking about that when I started this post.

I need to go back a few years.

When we bought the house the oak tree was on the alley side of the fence. For some reason, the fence was set back about 10 feet from alley-side property line. This was a weird decision because we live less than a block away from a high school. So, for … how many years? … the spot behind our house was a gathering spot for high school students wanting to find somewhere out of sight. And it had also become somewhat of a junk deposit spot. When we moved in there was a complete car bumper in that spot along with mounds of trash. We took a couple of truckloads to the dump just to clear the space down to the ground. An equal amount of old trash lay under the ground.

We moved the fence to the property line and then I began the lengthy project of digging out the trash, one pickle bucket at a time. I know I filled at least 40 buckets of trash, accumulated over at least 20, maybe thirty or forty, years.

Eventually I was able to put down some paving stones and a bench. When I sat on that bench there was the oak to my right, the pinwheel jasmine bushes in front of me, blocking my view of the house, and I planted some African violets to the left. It was a quiet spot, and felt comfortably isolated.

Hurricane Milton took down the oak tree. Fortunately, I moved the bench before the storm so it wasn’t harmed. In the weeks after Milton we had professionals cut up the tree and carry it away, others came in and repaired the fence.

Because of winter weather, travel, other yard care, etc, it was only today I was able to fill in the cracks so certain dogs wouldn’t get their paws caught as they ran back and forth along the fence line.

Once I was done I sat on a plastic deck chair where the bench used to be and drank a beer. It’s still peaceful. Some sparrows perched on the branches of the pinwheel jasmine as I sat there. But it’s not quite the same as it used to be. It’s diminished without the oak. The bushes aren’t as full as they once were.

Today, nearly five months after the hurricane, the repair (though minor in the greater scheme of things) continues. Probably a metaphor there if I wanted to dig it out.

After getting cleaned up I stretched out on the couch and engaged in a happy Sunday afternoon pasttime. I watched a cheesy movie. Today it was Beyond the Time Barrier (1960).

Now it’s dinner time, JB made some pho and the house smells delicious. We’re going to eat and watch some crappy TV (probably Reign (cheesy! soapy!)) and I will have made it through the entire day mostly diverted from doomscrolling.

100 Days of Blogging – Day 004/100

I got these posters in December, took them to the neighborhood framing shop in January, and picked them up today! (He took his time.)

I somehow stumbled across Unlovely Frankenstein and bought the following for JB and since I was there, bought the above for myself.

100 Days of Blogging – Day 003/100

I need something to divert me from doomscrolling and since I have this blog I might as well use it. It seems I’m most productive blogging when I set some parameters — a story a month, 100 days of blogging, weekly roundups, etc. — so I’m going to do 100 days of blogging. The last time I did a stretch like that was 2022 and I remember enjoying it. Coincidentally, 100 days from now I have a birthday, and I’m jetting off to Oslo. Why Oslo? Jennifer has a conference, so I’m flying out at the end of it and we’re going to hang out for a week.

I cycled through a variety of possible themes – autocracy in the USA!, NO POLITICS, re-watch a series and post about it, posts about the fictional city of Abdera, book reviews, podcast reviews, etc. I eventually decided I don’t have the focus to stick with a single theme for the next 3+ months, so it’ll be a whatever-I-get-posted kind of theme.

To start us off, let me introduce Alvin the dog!

Alvin joined us at the beginning of August 2023. I think he was about 4 years old? He lived at the Humane Society for months before coming to live with us. He was adopted twice and returned. The first time because the person decided it wasn’t nice to keep him cooped up inside a small apartment all the time, and the second because they couldn’t break his obsession with the cat. And it’s true that if Alvin has any issues, it’s that he can be a little prey focused. He’s a hunting hound! We haven’t done any tests but I suspect him of being a Plott Hound mix. He has the characteristic brindle patterning on his chest and legs, and he’s definitely a scenthound.

He’s also a very good boy. 14/10.

100 Days of Blogging – Day 001/100

I have a strong sense memory of sitting alongside my father in his beat-up Chevy pick-up truck sometime in the early- to mid-1970s.

Perhaps 1973, and I was eight. There’s a smell I can almost recreate. A smell of dust and warmth. A comforting aroma that feels like a masculine space, a paternal space. My mother never drove this truck (as far as I remember), only my father. And it felt special to be sitting on that bench front seat heading out wherever.

On multiple occasions we would listen to the radio as we drove. Dad’s program of choice was Paul Harvey. As a kid I was charmed by Harvey’s “rest of the story” schtick. It felt like peering behind the scenes. Only as an adult do I realize that Harvey was a deeply conservative commentator.

Paul Harvey was a success. In the year 2000, at the age of 82, he signed a $100 million dollar contract with ABC radio. Imagine that. Someone 82 years old signing such an enormous contract in the age of the internet boom. He was a singular voice and held one of the highest profile radio slots for a half century.

He was also, something I didn’t realize as a child, ultra-right-wing. He palled around with J. Edgar Hoover, Joseph McCarthy, and Billy Graham.

But the reason I’m thinking of him now is because of his signature way of reading advertisements. In his show he’d move seamlessly from telling a story about someone in the news to telling a story about a commercial product, using the same cadence and tone. When he started telling a story it was difficult to determine if it was going to be a news story or a commercial.

As a child I didn’t understand the conservative subtext (supratext?) of his commentary but I did recognize that his method of delivering commercials was…off. I consumed enough television and radio as a child that I understood there to be a fundamental division between commercials and content. Harvey’s method of commercial delivery always bugged me a little. Even as a child it felt wrong somehow.

I write about this today because of my New Year’s resolution to listen more. As I listen to more podcasts I notice that multiple podcasters read the commercials. Some separate the content from the commercial more clearly than others, but some kind of blend the two together. Every time I hear this I flash back to those moments in the truck when I’m thinking – you can’t do that. People might get confused between the story and the commercial and believe (so my childish mind thought) that the hyperbole about the quality of the goods or services for sale are “true” “news”.

Looking back at my childhood and adolescence I’m not sure how I became so adamantly anti-commercial. I know it was solidified in my late adolescent punk-rock years and lingers with me today. One reason I’m so attracted to scholarly journals is because of their resistance to commercials and advertisements. Ditto with Wikipedia. In fact, one of the reasons I haven’t watched news on television for the last 35 years is because I believe commercially supported news is suspect. Unfortunately, there’s no way to escape it. All the major news platforms are dependent on news. Even my local, and ostensibly non-profit Tampa Bay Times*, is overly dependent on advertising.

So, while I’ve learned to accept that advertising is inextricably intertwined with the news ecosystem, and most of the recorded entertainment ecosystem, I still find it jarring when I hear a podcaster (to clarify, these are mostly comedy podcasters) start telling a story that turns out to be a commercial. And every time this happens I flash back to Paul Harvey and sitting in that Chevy pick-up truck and running some errand with my dad.

*The Tampa Bay Times is owned by the non-profit Poynter Institute.

It’s time for New Year’s resolutions. I love New Year’s resolutions!

Around this time last year I resolved to make 2024 my Year of the Gothic. That worked out magnificently.

In 2023 I resolved to give myself permission. Mostly it was about giving myself permission to work on my mental and emotional health. An important resolution that’s still having a positive impact on my life.

And the year before that I resolved to have afternoon tea. I no longer have afternoon tea but I’m now a regular consumer of sleepytime tea as part of my nightly wind-down and sleep hygiene.

Once upon a time I rolled my eyes at New Year’s resolutions but then I had an epiphany. What if, I wondered… what IF I decided to use my resolution for something FUN. Instead of joining a gym I’d never visit, or beating myself up over not losing weight like I promised, what if I did something like promise to…eat more pie!

And so that epiphany changed my life. (That year I ate a lot of pie. It was great!)

This year my resolution is to listen. I am not into podcasts or audiobooks. I also haven’t been listening to music the last few years as much as I once did. This year I’m firing up the podcasts and working audiobooks into my reading lists.

In addition to the actual physical act of listening with my ears, I also want to listen more broadly to voices of those who do not look like me.

A few years ago (maybe 10?) I realized that most of my life I read books and watched movies that were by and/or about white men. Mostly white, cishet, American men. And while these men may have written sympathetically about women, immigrants, Black people, and might be a part of a minority group (perhaps coming from an impoverished background, or identifying as lgbtqia+) I wondered how my view of the world might change if I were diligent about reading works BY black women instead of ABOUT black women; if I read work BY trans people instead of ABOUT trans people. If I watched movies with an all-black cast, even if it wasn’t critically acclaimed by white gatekeepers.

That was one of the best decisions I ever made.

I’m doubling down this year.

So, what else can I do this year?

While I don’t consider the following resolutions, I suppose I will strive to blog more, bike more, get out of the house more often, drink a lot more water, look for ways to get more involved in local community stuff, cut down on screen time, continue working on My Gothic Body (which at this point is less Gothic and more a meditation about masculinity and health), eat right, meditate, be as generous and kind as I know how to be, and seek out ways to push back against the cruelty and dishonesty that saturates our world. And, to that end, also endeavor to keep the doomscrolling to a minimum.

As for today, I’m traveling tomorrow and so at this moment I’m taking a break from scrubbing the bathroom (we have a dog sitter staying here while we’re away) and listening to an episode of The American Vandal about philanthrocapitalism at HBCUs.

In the midst of all the madness I hope we all are able to find some respite, some happiness and joy, some resilience, some courage, and some peace. And, wtf, maybe some love while we’re at it.

Happy New Year, y’all! 2025 is here whether we’re ready or not.

I’m unfamiliar with Yogo Limbo’s work but was reading this interview in The Comics Journal and clicked on the link. I love it!

I’m very happy inside my anti-maga bubble. I have no problematic relatives (that I speak to) and my friends largely share my progressive/liberal outlook. I work in an environment that is congenial to those who share my values. But, I also work on a medium-sized campus and this is Florida, so I’m aware that not everyone I work with, or near, shares my politics.

Last week a friendly acquaintance came out to me as a Trump supporter. This is someone I’m friendly with and that I see relatively often, though we rarely speak more than a quick exchange of pleasantries. I was honestly taken off-guard and we spent some time processing. For him, it was kind of like coming out of the closet. He is surrounded by people who voted for Harris and he is hesitant to share his politics.

Since we had been talking about gender studies at the beginning of our conversation all I could think to ask is how he could support such cruelty to trans populations.

Without recreating the whole conversation, here’s what I gleaned:

• This person is a low-information voter, claiming they don’t follow politics (though they’re clearly familiar with right-wing talking points).
• They think Trump doesn’t lie and that his pompous blowhard bluster is amusing and is funny because it tweaks the libs.
• That he will fix the economy.

It was pretty easy to shoot down the points about lying and the economy. And I pushed back on a few other points until it finally became evident the true reason for his support.

1. He is a forced birth maximalist. It doesn’t really matter what Trump does because his presidency is the best path to ending abortion in the US.

I still see him on campus, we still exchange friendly greetings, and we haven’t spoken of politics since that revelation. (Or anything else, really. Like I mentioned, we only speak at any length a couple of times a year.)

Not really a point to this story other than my own realization (which, of course, I already knew) that they’re everywhere! Hiding in plain sight! And there’s a non-trivial number that will never be persuaded by any kind of evidence, logic, facts, or reason.

I’m grateful for George RR Martin for producing this. And happy that Howard got a chance to see it before he died. Waldrop has been one of my faves for 35+ years.

And there are more Waldrop stories in the pipeline.

“The Ugly Chickens, starring Felicia Day, has been shot alongside adaptations of Waldrop’s short stories Mary-Margaret Road Grader and Night of the Cooters.”

via The Hollywood Reporter