It really is - especially when love and romance are in such woefully short supply in our actual lives. Thank goodness for books!

I just finished A Widow's Charm by Caitlyn Paxson, which was absolutely delightful - a fantasy romance with just the right blend of humor and yearning and self-discovery. It made me feel all warm and happy inside and I highly recommend it.

Day 15 - oops, missed a couple days but I called @magaziner.house.gov & @reed.senate.gov & @whitehouse.senate.gov yesterday and today because the president must go. He will only get worse from this point on.

I’m from Shreveport. I wrote about the tragic murders of these kiddos.

www.thecut.com/_pages/cmo7c...

Actually, I’ve explained this MANY TIMES

This generation of Black ppl vote MORE than any generation since we got the right to vote

But after the 1st Black was elected, WHITE PPL began turning out in historic numbers to vote for Trump. As this graph CLEARLY shows…

The “crisis” is white people.

The reason to do repentance work is not because you are BAD BAD BAD until you DO THESE THINGS but because we should care about each other, about taking care of each other, about making sure we’re all OK. Taking seriously that I might have hurt you – even inadvertently! even because I wasn’t at my best! – is an act of love and care. It is an opportunity to open my heart wider than it has been, to let in more empathy, more curiosity about how my choices or knee-jerk reactions have impacted you, have impacted others. To care about others’ perspectives. To let your experience matter, deeply, to me. To look at another person – or a community, or a team of people – and say: Where are you? What are you feeling and experiencing now, and how might I have (even unwittingly) brought you pain or difficulty? And to care about making that as right as I can. It’s an act of concern. And facing the harm that I caused is an act of profound optimism. It is a choice to grow, to learn, to become someone who is more open and empathetic.

Thinking a lot about this passage in @theradr.bsky.social’s brilliant, essential ON REPENTANCE AND REPAIR: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World.

I wish more people realized/cared that true repentance benefits the person doing the work, and society as a whole.

Democracy will not come Today, this year Nor ever Through compromise and fear. I have as much right As the other fellow has To stand On my two feet And own the land. I tire so of hearing people say, Let things take their course. Tomorrow is another day. I do not need my freedom when I'm dead. I cannot live on tomorrow's bread. Freedom Is a strong seed Planted In a great need. I live here, too. I want freedom Just as you. Langston Hughes

Day 12 - left voicemails for @magaziner.house.gov & @reed.senate.gov & @whitehouse.senate.gov because even on the weekend, the president must go.

Sitting here crying while after getting WhatsApped the photo on the right, so let me tell you a little story about how we got here from the photo on the left and why repatriation research matters!

Immigrants are dying in ICE custody every week.

Just because mass deportation agents stopped executing Americans in the streets doesn’t mean the brutality is over.

Cute blue passports with a map of Rhode Island on the back.

Who's up for a bibliophillic adventure?
1. Pick up a passport at Charter Books in Newport or Books on the Square and Providence
2. Visit all 20 RI indie bookstores and get stamped
3. Turn it in for 20% off at all participating stores! One lucky winner will get a $25 gift certificate for EACH STORE!

Day 11 - called @magaziner.house.gov & @reed.senate.gov & @whitehouse.senate.gov during a brief but intense thunderstorm. Feels like what we're living through with this presidency is more like a drought and we have no idea when the rain will come.

This is appalling. (The headline, not your post.) I am a HS teacher and in just a few years, gambling has become one of my biggest concerns. No one more confident than a newly-minted 18yo who thinks that he's going to be the one to beat the house.

Best Star Trek Captain. Wrong answers only.

Some people call me Space Cowboy, some call the the Gangster of Love, some people call me Maurice, ‘cause I speak of the pompatus of love.

Day 10 - called @magaziner.house.gov & @reed.senate.gov & @whitehouse.senate.gov to remind them that the president must go.

I’m reading her book right now! (I’m in Rhode Island, so I can’t make it to the talk. But I’m loving the book!)

And the r-word?!?!?! I don’t live in Maine so it’s not my decision but he better not bring that horseshit down to RI.

I think this is like me reminding myself that teaching is planning & direct instruction & being a “guide on the side” & grading & meetings & paperwork & seeing a former student at the gas station & the silly conversations I have with my colleagues in the hallway. It’s all part of it.

Whatever form it takes, they will find a way to monetize it. Maybe in the midst of redoing the Protestant Reformation, they'll find a way to redo indulgences too. When you abandon theological/doctrinal consistency, anything is possible!

Day 9 - called @magaziner.house.gov & @reed.senate.gov & @whitehouse.senate.gov and told them that the president's lying and refusing to take accountability is negatively impacting local gov't. So many wannabe Trumps out there harming people in their communities. The president must go.

Yes. I called my 3 in DC to urge them to make removing the president their top priority & today I talked about the negative impact his "leadership style" of lying & refusing accountability has had on local government. Wanna-be Trumps are all over this country & it is harming people in so many ways

I am a HS teacher and I teach AP Euro and for months I have been like "Hmmm...JD, it seems like you're really mad at the pope. Does it make you want to protest? Do you feel like the Church needs re-forming?" He's so close to redoing the Protestant Reformation and I will cackle so loudly when he does

What are the top 5 movies that you love to introduce people to?

MST3K: Devil Fish
Sound of Music
Singing in the Rain
Moonstruck
The proshot of the original Broadway cast of Into the Woods

That’s amazing! We did not have anything like that in my predominantly Roman Catholic town in the 1990s. Probably wouldn’t have taken me so many years to come out if we had!

We had pretty good sex ed in my RI school but actually accessing birth control? Not so easy. And when you factor in the AIDS crisis, the overall message became “Just don’t.” And we all know how well that works…

There are probably some schools in the US with those configurations. The virulently misogynistic culture of the 1990s was also a major factor in why our teen pregnancy rate was so high, along with birth control methods not being sufficiently available.

I remember that and I remember going to a high school that was 8-12 instead of 9-12 and our teen pregnancy rate was so high. An extra grade of young girls for the junior and senior boys to exploit - ah, the (NOT) good old days...

I am ready to speak from the floor in support of the motion.