Words + Projects + Stuff I Like
1. The nation has evolved to its final form: Car dealership
Come on down to the White House Tesla Auto Mall!
— The Daily Show (@thedailyshow.com) March 12, 2025 at 3:02 PM
2. OK, sorry we had to look at that reality TV clown. Speaking of not looking at the devil’s butthole, I just found a newsletter called Trumplessness, “designed to deliver journalism *without* requiring a dive into the horrors du jour.” Sign me up!
3. Found a picture of me on the internet:
This list of 50 Travel Tips by Kevin Kelly (author of lists of advice) kind of broke my brain the first time I read it: “Crash a wedding. You are not a nuisance; you are the celebrity guest!” and “For a truly memorable trip, go without reservations, just winging it along the way”??? Sir? Some of us have anxiety!
But it’s still a fun list to read and imagine being the kind of person who can say confidently, “Sketchy travel plans and travel to sketchy places are ok.” And the links to places like the train travel planning site are really fun to get lost in.
(Speaking of travel, was this guided tour of Renaissance print culture in Venice and Rome made in a lab to appeal to me? I think so. “Beginning in Rome and continuing to the first site of printing in Italy, the Benedictine monastery at Subiaco, the tour introduces the new technology and what this entailed for the way books were made, bought, collected and read. It shows how the transition from manuscript to print took place, and presents the leading personalities involved in the advancement of printing – cardinals, aristocrats, scholars, printers and booksellers.”)
This was written in 2018, which in hindsight seems like a golden dream compared to how things are going in the second administration. There’s something to be said for adverbs being cathartic, though. “Things got ugly suddenly embarrassingly forcefully,” indeed.
American Sonnet For The New Year
by Terrence Hughes
Things got terribly ugly incredibly quickly
Things got ugly embarrassingly quickly
actually Things got ugly unbelievably quickly
honestly Things got ugly seemingly infrequently
initially Things got ugly ironically usually
awfully carefully Things got ugly unsuccessfully
occasionally Things got ugly mostly painstakingly
quietly seemingly Things got ugly beautifully
infrequently Things got ugly sadly especially
frequently unfortunately Things got ugly
increasingly obviously Things got ugly suddenly
embarrassingly forcefully Things got really ugly
regularly truly quickly Things got really incredibly
ugly Things will get less ugly inevitably hopefully
I started my version of the Gap crazy stripe sweater mid-January and I’m just striping along over here.
The beginning wasn’t meeting knitting–I had to pay attention to increases on both sides–but now that we’re in the round and I have the hang of the sleeve increases, I can zoom (Zoom, heh) along.
I’m using the Aros Sweater pattern like I planned and the shaping is just lovely on it. My yarn is a 72% cotton + merino and baby alpaca blend, so hopefully it won’t give me sensory issues to wear when it’s all finished.
We got some midweek snow which had melted but not dried on the lower trails, which led to MUD (and everyone coming down warning us, “It’s muddy!” Yes, we’re aware).
But the sun was out and I took off my shirt again and even if I was tired and crabby from the time change, it was good to be on the trail. 
1. I didn’t realize Joann had been the victim of private equity. Once again, private equity ruins everything.
View this post on Instagram
2. A really useful way of looking at things: The Argument Ladder
“… a system I came up with to keep myself from being overwhelmed or underwater when I try and maintain my footing in discussions or arguments. […] it helps me understand why steps that feel like progress in terminology, visibility, or behavior to the left can be so easily labeled and summarily discarded (as “cancel culture”, “woke”, “politically correct”, and so on) by the right.”
3. Truly amazing: Vintage calling cards of Chicago gangs. 
Take it easy because you were up all night being a menace:
I started needing glasses for screens or sewing a couple years ago and got by with readers. Last year I got real prescription glasses but only wore them at home. But this year’s prescription is stronger and I need them for pretty much anything close now, so I have to carry them with me. Hence: Glasses cases! (I made one for my sunglasses while I was at it.)
I’d been looking at the Baggu puffy cases and trying to find some cool past season prints when I realized that I have everything I need to MAKE some, including fabric with cool prints (fat quarters from Harmony).
I did buy a pattern; I could have engineered this pretty easily but I wanted some mindless instructions to follow instead. I’m pretty sure the seller DID engineer the pattern with Baggu in mind–leave off the pocket and lanyard and it’s pretty much identical.
That seller even has a Kindle case pattern to mimic the Baggu one–maybe I need a matched set of puffy cases?
We had above-average temps over the weekend ahead of a storm and wow, did that sun feel like spring. Of course, the sun also made it sloppy and muddy and all the trees and hillsides will be bare sticks for another couple months, but even false spring is better than no spring.
You know what else was bare? THESE GUNS. I got too hot in my black fleece (!) and told Matt, “Take a picture of my arms!” and he did.
