1. Poetry: Let the World Have Its Way With You and Please from Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, The rage you are feeling by Nikita Gill shared by Patti Digh, Solo Roadtrip by Julia Fehrenbacher, “He showed me where my heart is” (and other ways to praise a dog) from Pádraig Ó Tuama, Turning the Day Around and Which Way and No Kings Day from Julie Barton, and We are the species that writes lullabies and builds bombs from Sophia Saïra (Instagram reel).

2. Growing up, comic Atsuko Okatsuka felt like ‘a freak’ — now she’s owning it.

3. Ryo Minemizu Illuminates the Incredible Diversity of Plankton Off the Coast of Japan.

4. Stanford Research Finds That “Therapist” Chatbots Are Encouraging Users’ Schizophrenic Delusions and Suicidal Thoughts. In related news on The New York Times, They Asked an A.I. Chatbot Questions. The Answers Sent Them Spiraling. (gift link) “Generative A.I. chatbots are going down conspiratorial rabbit holes and endorsing wild, mystical belief systems. For some people, conversations with the technology can deeply distort reality.”

5. Ecologist encourages people with yards to create little ‘national parks.’

6. The secret psychology of dogs and cats: do we ever really know what they are thinking? “Pets have long been a source of comfort and companionship for humans. But are they really trying to console us when we’re distressed or do they just want their dinner?”

7. I’d Lost A Few Things. ‘No Kings Day’ Helped Me Find Them Again on
The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz.

8. The power of a pause from Seth Godin.

9. Sit here if you can sing from Fulton Lee featuring Kyaria. (Facebook reel)

10. Hand-cut paper chandelier (Facebook reel) by Clare Celeste Börsch.

11. How creativity kept me alive that week. “An invitation to embrace creativity as a way of engaging whatever life brings” from Sara Saltee.

12. Sarah Silverman’s Brief But Spectacular take on saying goodbye. (video) P.S. I don’t agree with the fact that you’ll be “grateful” if you ever get to the point where you have to change your parent’s diaper.

13. 15 Years. I love what Kari has to say about how her perspective about blogging has changed over the years:

but here’s what i’m beginning to realize: wanting to be seen isn’t the same as showing off. wanting to connect, to speak the truth out loud, to say “this hurt” or “this matters” — that’s not ego. that’s being human.

maybe ego nudges me to hit “publish.” but soul is what’s really sitting at the keyboard.

and maybe writing publicly is part of the soul’s work, too. it’s one thing to reflect privately. it’s another to risk being seen, to leave the door cracked open and trust that someone kind might read their way in — someone who might need to hear it.

14. Democracy is a Verb from Patti Digh. Also from Patti, You do not need to explain yourself to those who are committed to misunderstanding you.

15. Michelle Cassandra Johnson and Amy Burtaine: The Wisdom of the Hive. (podcast) “More and more people are waking up to the very real dangers that humanity is facing as a result of a declining honeybee population. Yet as we join the refrain, ‘Save the bees!’ Michelle Cassandra Johnson and Amy Burtaine pose a profound and extraordinary question: What if it’s the bees who are trying to save us?” 

16. Two Live with Shannon Watts chats: this one with Susan Piver and this one with Karon Walrond. (videos)

17. We Watched Dozens of Graduation Speeches. Here’s What We Found. on The New York Times, who “studied videos of addresses posted online, including those by President Trump, Kermit the Frog and a slew of celebrity speakers. Here is a look at key themes that emerged.” (gift link)

18. Why I Write from Laurie Wagner. 

19. If This Is All I Get by Elizabeth Kleinfeld. Y’all, this post BROKE me. I’ve known Liz (irl) for a really long time, like probably close to 20 years. We met while I was still working at CSU, trying and failing to situate myself as an academic. She was always one of my favorite people to run into at a conference or some other work thing, but I have to say, I like her even more now. The things she’s experienced and shares through her blog are the big, important things, and she is full of so much love and kindness and wisdom and through it all she has never lost her sense of humor, her curiosity. When this post was published, I was still awaiting word about her surgery. There hadn’t been any news yet and the idea that this may be her final public statement, that it was so beautiful, the notion that she wasn’t done yet but if this was it she was so grateful… Thankfully, not too long after her daughter posted a positive update on her Facebook.

20. Terrible things happen in life – but it is possible to recover from them. “We go to all sorts of lengths, often unconsciously, to hide from what has hurt us. But only by attuning to pain can we hope to heal.”

21. Write Things Down, with Naomi Shihab Nye: Hope Portal, Session 3.

22. I Changed These Settings to Turn My iPhone Into a ‘Dumbphone’ and I’m Loving Using It Less.

23. Start the Book Before It’s Ready by Alix Klingenberg.

24. Juneteenth and the Promise We Make: A Call to Action from Frederick Joseph.

25. And finally, this collection of random things I saved to my phone this week:

1. Poetry: How Do You Know it’s Time? from Julia Fehrenbacher, Ode to a Boring Day and Half in the Sky and Muddy Water by Julie Barton, The Opening from Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, and what will you carry to the sun? and what is a poet? from Christopher Sexton.

2. We are All Los Angeles from The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz. In related news, If you need guns, tanks and propaganda to keep us from caring for our neighbors, you’ve already lost, “On love and fear” from Garrett Bucks on The White Pages, and Stop bending the knee to Trump: it’s time for anticipatory noncompliance from David Kirp on The Guardian, “US institutions have been doing Trump’s bidding before he even comes after them. Here’s the counterstrategy.”

3. Write about the Small Things, “sometimes it’s the best way forward” from Laura Lentz on Writing at Red Lights.

4. To Keep or Not to Keep, “& Barbara Becker on simplifying” on The Isolation Journals with Suleika Jaouad.

5. Put Your Hands on the Future, with adrienne maree brown, Hope Portal, Session 2.

6. Getting by with a little help from my friends. “Life feels really weird right now, but also really normal, which is part of why it feels really weird” from Rita Ott Ramstad on Rootsie.

7. I have decided to be water, “It’s all I can do right now” from Patti Digh.

8. The Time I Didn’t Spend from Danny Gregory. “Start late, I tell myself. Start again. Start over. Just start.”

9. My Friends Have So Many Issues, “The healing power of being needed” from Andrea Gibson.

10. Tim Weed: Five Things I Learned Writing The Afterlife Project from Chuck Wendig on Terrible Minds.

11. A vignette in a minor key from Amy Marie Turner, who recently got her cabin in Alaska where she’d lived for nearly two decades ready to sell. 

12. Artifact on ShortReads.

13. Reconciling with family and friends, “may be important to the arc of your story” by Laura Lentz on Writing at Red Lights.

14. The Gift of Distance, “Why I don’t regret the twelve-year break I took from my father” from Elizabeth Kleinfeld.

15. Stay with the trouble, “Not solve it. Not fix it. Just stay” from Patti Digh.

16. Secrets of a Great Life (as learned by visiting schools across America this year), “a partial list” from Brad Montague.

17. Owl in Towels. “Wildlife rehabilitators often wrap owls in fabric so they can be weighed, treated, and fed. If not, the owls get in a flap. The result? Loads of pictures.”

18. Jaws at 50: Spielberg’s marine masterpiece transformed the movies – and us. 

19. When they chose to die together, my grandparents wrote the final chapter of a love story spanning 70 years. The longer I live, the more suffering and death I see, the more I understand why someone might choose this way to go.

20. Social media star “The Dogist” talks new book, online fame. (video) “The U.S. is dog-obsessed, and social media star The Dogist has tapped into that love, garnering millions of followers for his candid photos of pups around the world. Elias Weiss Friedman, the photographer behind the account, sat down with Dana Jacobson to talk about his new book and how he was catapulted to online fame.”

21. And finally, a collection of random things I saved to my phone this week.