When I was younger, birthdays seemed to be a second Christmas. With food, gifts, guests, and a day of fun and play. But as I grew older, birthdays became less of a celebration than an evaluation. And it's not that I am against birthdays. Salads are very much welcome. Yet somewhere between the greetings, food, and polite inquiries sharpened into social measurement, I feel less like a celebrant than a person pending review. I say this because birthdays sometimes require you to

There are evenings which arrange themselves so neatly around one’s work that it becomes difficult not to suspect the weather has a mind of its own. I had been editing a collection of light academic, Austen-adjacent short stories: domestic, observant, faintly severe in its manners, and much concerned with tea, weather, illness, and characters who express affection through correction. One of the stories was set in a small English coastal town, and involved the particular betray

I recently added floating shelves to my room. Three of them. I do not know if “floating shelves” is the right term, but they are shelves, and they function without a whole architecture of wood. I saved a little more for my hobbies, had extra money specifically for myself, and decided that the wall needed more drama. This, I think, is the danger of having a dark academia room. You add one small thing, and suddenly the room begins developing plot. A minimalist aesthetic