His copper bonsai is better than yours. || Serbian ensemble. || Like a stubborn jar of pickles. || I was previously unfamiliar with the erotic practice of stumping. || More joys of public transport. || Portraits rendered in charcoal. || Clouds over Lake Michigan. (h/t, DRB) || Twitching meat. || Lockdown scenes. (h/t, Dicentra) || Those prone to fainting should look away now. || Name the counties of the United States. You have 12 minutes. || Virtual tours of gardens and grand houses. || George’s besties. || It helps to have a back-up plan. || Hey, kids. Come play. || Old-school cloaking technology. || Simple but effective. || Filth removal of note. || And finally, topically, when the guy in front of you is doing this.

Sometimes, it can feel surprising that any beauty still exists in the world. It can feel wrong to keep cultivating our gardens while the world shatters outside our windows.

Yes, it’s time to once again gawp at the mindset of the Salon-reader demographic. Or at least the Salon-writer demographic, with which it presumably overlaps. Specifically, a piece by Ms Alex Dew, “a recent graduate of Eastern Washington University’s Master of Fine Arts programme in Creative Nonfiction,” and whose urgent bulletin to the world is titled My Houseplant Garden Is A Tiny National Park Donald Trump Can Never Destroy.

If that sounds a tad overwrought and not entirely even-keeled, do read on.

I begin each day by taking a mental inventory of whatever horrors Trump has committed since I have been asleep,

As one does.

scrolling through news outlets and social media on my iPhone, even though I know that this probably bad for my mental health.

I suspect this may be a matter of putting the cart before the horse. And perhaps tellingly, mental health is mentioned more than once in Ms Dew’s article.

There is evidence that Trump’s presidency has had a negative effect on the mental health of many Democrats, with 72% of those surveyed in one study reporting an increase in anxiety since he has taken office. Sometimes, it’s enough to make me not want to get out of bed.

A phenomenon at which we’ve previously marvelled. More than once.

After reading the news, it is time to attend to my indoor garden, to do the work of keeping my plants alive: the trimming and the watering and the fertilising. This work is meditation, a way of going on.

Yes, going on. Bravely, heroically, and despite the realisation that your preferred candidate lost an election, four years ago.

Time, I think, for an open thread, in which to share links and bicker. Feel free to recount your adventures during The Old Testament Event of 2020, aka, The Toilet-Paper Apocalypse.

For those in need of diversion, the Reheated series is there to be poked at. 

From the pages of The Atlantic, a new torment for woke sophisticates:

The hidden bigotry of crosswords.

That sound you hear is barrel-bottom-scraping.

The popular puzzles are largely written and edited by older white men, who dictate what makes it into the grid—and what is kept out.

The world of woke crossword-puzzlers – because that’s a thing that exists – is one in which enthusiasts, via social media, grumble about white men, bemoan the insufficient prominence of “queer or POC colloquialisms,” share “off-colour jokes about hypothetical titles for a Melania Trump memoir,” and fret about the exact ratio of male and female names used as clues. Because a lack of “gender parity” in crossword puzzle clues constitutes one of “the systemic forces that threaten women.”

Crossword puzzles can do that, apparently.

The list of possible crossword-puzzle wrongdoings is, of course, extensive, ever-growing and not entirely straightforward.

Transgressions include clues for ILLEGAL (“One caught by border patrol”); MEN (“Exasperated comment from a feminist”); and HOOD (“Place with homies”). 

I’ll give you a moment to steady yourselves, to recover from all that gasping.

Half-speed Frakes has apparently been on a bender. (h/t, Damian) || Strange beings detected. || I think I heard something moving in the basement. || Penguins descending. || A brief history of pandemics. (h/t, Dicentra) || Sounds from the toilet-paper apocalypse. || Yes, Picard is still bad. || Actual prancing. || “Post-capitalist” streaming service: “Live weekly shows covering news, the working class, gaming and sports.” || Leggy redhead. || Ladies got moves. || Only 377. || Bosch bingeing imminent. || The simple pleasures of baking. || These things happen. || Also, these things. || A lady with unusual drawers. || Daughter happy, wife displeased. || And finally, nature’s pecking order, a brief illustration.