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I am not a positive person, but even I didn’t expect the week that just happened. I can’t even. I don’t even know what to say about it. It was completely and entirely fucked, and I find myself on edge, constantly checking and waiting for something else to happen because we all know it is going to.
New Year’s resolutions are not my thing, but every year I do like to try to gain a new skill, take a course/class, study up on a certain subject. Something to make me more educated, skilful, or even more aware.
It usually depends on where my interests are at that moment, like my fascination with Hildegarde von Bingen around 15 years ago. My YouTube playlist, which I made back then, still exists as proof.
This year, given the current state of the world, I thought practical skills or studies would be a better choice. Because when the world is going to shit, it is a good idea to arm yourself with knowledge.
So I decided that I want to learn lock picking and study poisons/toxicology, So yeah, that is my goal for this year.
My girls are interested too. It’s like my own little messed-up version of Hogwarts classes.
I have started researching and gathering resources with any digital sources saved on a hard drive and not the cloud, because fuck the cloud.
Oh yeah, and I have also added Japanese to my language roster, because why not?
Weekly Reads and Some Videos:
Renee Nicole Good, murdered by ICE, was a prize-winning poet. Here’s that poem.
What You’re Watching Isn’t What You’re Really Watching
MTV Rewind is an interface through which you can watch music videos from the 70s to the 20s, organized by decade.
How Did We Map the World Before Satellites?
You’re Not Lazy or Broken. You’re Numbing Out
How to Read More (and Better) in 2026 – Book Riot’s Zero to Well-Read podcast
300,000 Wondrous Nature Illustrations Put Online by The Biodiversity Heritage Library
Libation: Liberate your Library. A free, open-source application for downloading and managing your Audible audiobooks if you want to break from under Jeff Bezos.
The Detectorists — A Short Film About Otters and Detection Dogs.
Dictionary of the Oldest Written Language–It Took 90 Years to Complete, and It’s Now Free Online. Clicking download opens the book.
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Thank you for the Weekly Reads this week. I’m literally in tears after reading Renee Nicole Good’s poem and What You Are Watching Is Not What You Are Watching, but I think tears are the appropriate response this week. What a 🤬 New Year!