Jen Borkowski @jenmaicha.bsky.social · 15/09/2026Hanging out with the deer in the back yard. Only one of us is drunk. (Not gonna say who.) 101
Jen Borkowski @jenmaicha.bsky.social · 12/08/2026Thinking of doing the most luxurious thing imaginable: spending the rest of the month wrapping things up with all of my literal and metaphorical open tabs. Then I could celebrate with a Clean Slate September. 000
Reposted by Jen BorkowskiStephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 11/08/2026My broken record issue: Serving as a poll worker is one of the best ways to make sure voters in your area are treated lawfully and professionally. This js a graphic from my BOE, but you can find info on how to sign up almost anywhere in the US here: www.eac.gov/help-america... 15437
Reposted by Jen BorkowskiAlexander Chee @alexanderchee.bsky.social · 10/08/2026Mary Ruefle on The Odyssey. 13771149
Reposted by Jen BorkowskiG. Willow Wilson @gwillow.me · 03/08/2026There is no version of yourself you could become that would satisfy the people who hate you. So you might as well be who you are. 8188832760
Jen Borkowski @jenmaicha.bsky.social · 16/07/2026All day it's felt like there's a bad storm about to roll in, but it's just Canadian wildfire smoke hanging low in the air, and the house shaking when the neighbors bring down a tree. A dislodged bird's nest. Small broken eggs on the patio table. Vaguely ominous day that's so far amounted to nothing. 000
Reposted by Jen Borkowskihenry ✷ @strange.website · 19/06/2026when i said 'let’s circle back to that' i more meant, like, in a different era, a different city, another life. let's circle back to it when we're old, or maybe when we're young again...we'll circle back in vienna, or in cairo, or in those slender black cat streets of paris, streetlamps and gossip 47417
Jen Borkowski @jenmaicha.bsky.social · 01/07/2026Holy July, where did the time go? I need to make some changes. Right now I'm just running out the clock on my life. 000
Reposted by Jen BorkowskiGretchen McCulloch @gretchenmcculloch.com · 14/06/2026I really wanted this to mean "it is solved by going for a little walk to think about it" because that's so often true for me Solvitur ambulando - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solvitu... 1224847
Reposted by Jen BorkowskiNE Ohio Regional Sewer District @neorsd.org · 09/06/2026our pasts, the present, a future to be realized, all brewing in bubbles that ebb and flow under the watchful eye of unseen servants. the past is not forgotten. it is processed. the future is not unknown for we are treating it today. we have the present. and it is all we we will ever have. 711613
Jen Borkowski @jenmaicha.bsky.social · 03/06/2026Had a genuinely good experience being a poll worker in NJ's primary election yesterday. Definitely recommend doing it at least once if you have the ability and inclination. 020
Reposted by Jen BorkowskiRahawa Haile @rahawahaile.bsky.social · 06/05/2026“…[at] the zine fest, I am perhaps looking for something that I think I may have recently lost track of, a couple decades into a peripatetic but also arguably successful career in publishing: the drive, freedom, and confidence to just make something. No promise of audience or sales… no regrets.”talkscratch.comI Don't Miss Twitter, I Miss ZinesManjula goes to the Santa Rosa Zine Fest and finds more future than nostalgia. 14519
Jen Borkowski @jenmaicha.bsky.social · 10/05/2026I startle a little bit every time I walk past the pile of rubber snakes in our den. Even though I'm the one who put them there. 000
Jen Borkowski @jenmaicha.bsky.social · 06/05/2026Days later, I'm still thinking about "bodymind." What a great word. 000
Reposted by Jen BorkowskiAna Marie Cox @anamariecox.com · 28/04/2026If your friends on Substack don't want to read any of the long essays and articles about The Substack Problem, send them this @anildash.com explainer video. (From his @pastduepodcast.com interview.) It's not just Nazis, it really isn't. www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWdS...youtube.comAnil Dash: Get Off Substack Before Someone Buys You | Past Due PodcastYouTube video by Past Due with Ana Marie Cox and Open Mike Eagle 5283126
Jen Borkowski @jenmaicha.bsky.social · 23/04/2026I was having a grumpy morning, but then I got to watch a fox sunbathe in our back yard for a few minutes. It brought me out of myself just enough. 000
Reposted by Jen BorkowskiKatie Mack @astrokatie.com · 03/04/2026More context on this #Artemis II image: * This is the night side, lit by moonlight. You can see city lights in Spain & Portugal, & a sliver of day at lower right * The Sun is entirely behind Earth, which makes it a kind of solar eclipse, but w/ Earth doing the eclipsing instead of the Moon: ☀️🌍🚀🌕 231130443679
Reposted by Jen BorkowskiSurprised Eel Historian, PhD @greenleejw.bsky.social · 28/03/2026Several years ago, on a whim, I started drawing a map of an eel's life travels as seen by the eel. I figured an eel thinks about its life as a linear journey, rather than a there-and-back again adventure. So I wanted to do a map to reflect this. This morning, on another whim, I finished the map! 341016280
Jen Borkowski @jenmaicha.bsky.social · 27/03/2026Two good, sad songs today. Two skillful essays. Two contrasting sadnesses. Oof. 293
Jen Borkowski @jenmaicha.bsky.social · 26/03/2026In the erratic manner of a New Jersey spring it is, briefly, 4pm bitters and soda weather. 020
Jen Borkowski @jenmaicha.bsky.social · 25/03/2026"I won't find my stakes if I'm keeping secrets." 🖤 010
Jen Borkowski @jenmaicha.bsky.social · 25/03/2026Also decided to start my month of joy and courage early. (Why wait?) Brought some essay drafts out to a microbrewery to enjoy a French pilsner while I read and make notes. The TV behind the bar is playing the eagle cam livestream from Duke Farms. Nest of weird little hatchings. This is perfect. 000
Jen Borkowski @jenmaicha.bsky.social · 25/03/2026After taking a walk and conferring with myself, I've decided to make April a month of joy and courage. Those are the things I need right now. 010
Reposted by Jen BorkowskiGretchen McCulloch @gretchenmcculloch.com · 22/03/2026I don't normally subscribe to the "German has a word for it" thing because all languages can invent and borrow new words! That said, I can't stop thinking about "hobbyless" as an insult since I saw it a few days ago, so here you go It promotes a growth mindset!! www.tumblr.com/abbiistabbii... 11398133383
Jen Borkowski @jenmaicha.bsky.social · 25/03/2026The past 14 months have been a string of one "there but for the grace" moment after another, with no end in sight. It's a particular kind of exhausting. And heartbreaking. 000
Jen Borkowski @jenmaicha.bsky.social · 24/03/2026"The World I Know" vs "You Had Time": a wrenching decision, having to choose between these two sadnesses. 252
Jen Borkowski @jenmaicha.bsky.social · 24/03/2026"Glycerine" vs "Brick": Two sad, pretty songs up against each other today. I've got to go with my gut on this one. And by "gut" I mean my autonomic nervous system. 273
Jen Borkowski @jenmaicha.bsky.social · 20/03/2026Oof. Today the tournament asks us to make some fine distinctions between depression and sadness. 182
Jen Borkowski @jenmaicha.bsky.social · 18/03/2026Starting to worry that I'm putting some kind of curse on the songs I vote for... 041
Reposted by Jen BorkowskiPuff the Magic Hater @mskellymhayes.bsky.social · 18/03/2026I read the NYT piece, and I am holding onto the words of a woman who fended off inappropriate advances from a 60-year-old Cesar Chavez at the age of 19. “It makes you rethink in history all those heroes,” Esmeralda Lopez said. “The movement — that’s the hero.” 514419951
Reposted by Jen BorkowskiKylie Eleison @gonebabygone.bsky.social · 18/03/2026Democratic consultants: To replicate Mamdani’s success with the young people we must appeal to their short attention spans with memes and TikTok Mamdani (actual quote): In the fifth century in what we now know as Ireland, a British warlord named Coroticus had laid waste to the countryside 280181835
Jen Borkowski @jenmaicha.bsky.social · 18/03/2026Oh no! Totally forgot that National Poetry Month is coming up... just after March Sadness @marchxness.bsky.social wraps up. Not sure I have the stamina for this. I'm gonna be all reading-ed out. 130
Reposted by Jen BorkowskiMarch Xmas 2026 @marchxness.bsky.social · 16/03/2026ROUND 2! Have Guns N' Roses and Neutral Milk Hotel ever gone head to head like this in any other context? Probably not! 🌧️🥕 Listen, read, VOTE! marchxness.com#/2ndround-gn... 0135
Jen Borkowski @jenmaicha.bsky.social · 13/03/2026Vote Mazzy!marchxness.comMarch Sadness 90s EditionA yearly March Madness-style tournament of essays about songs we love (and occasionally loathe) 053
Jen Borkowski @jenmaicha.bsky.social · 12/03/2026Being middle aged is great actually. The deeper I get into dgaf territory, the more I don't mind being alive. 100
Jen Borkowski @jenmaicha.bsky.social · 12/03/2026Oof. Three of my four picks lost. (This, too, is March Sadness?) 391
Jen Borkowski @jenmaicha.bsky.social · 12/03/2026Cleaning up my office and I just found a draft of an essay tracing my poetry habit back to its roots in Sylvia Plath and Young MC. Digging through emails to try to put a date on it (July 2019), I see that I described it as "basically an unfinished ode to 1990." I forgot I even wrote this. Wow. 000
Reposted by Jen BorkowskiMartin Seay @martinseay.bsky.social · 12/03/2026During my @marchxness.bsky.social Wikipedia trawl I learned that Gill is married to Amy Grant (!) who recently reemerged from the mists to channel righteous Boomer contempt for the current administration. See below! Also sad! & catchy! Giving "End of the Innocence," "Stones in the Road," etc.!youtube.comAmy Grant - The 6th Of January (Yasgur's Farm)YouTube video by AmyGrantVEVO 272
Reposted by Jen BorkowskiKatie Mack @astrokatie.com · 11/03/2026I'm using Google Translate a lot to work out how to say certain things in French and sometimes when a sentence involves the second person it chooses the wrong form for what I need (tu vs vous) but it turns out I can get it to use the desired form by ending the sentence with either "buddy" or "sir" 🙃 731761124
Jen Borkowski @jenmaicha.bsky.social · 11/03/2026Oof. PMS and day 11 of a sad songs competition and the very start of what's supposed to be a 50-degree drop in temperature has me feeling some kind of way. 000
Jen Borkowski @jenmaicha.bsky.social · 11/03/2026Was delighted that this song and essay held up so well on my second reading 🖤 110
Jen Borkowski @jenmaicha.bsky.social · 11/03/2026I'm pulling for REM here. Great essay from @jvbennett.bsky.social weaves the lyrics into his narrative and projects the song's sadness onto his own strained relationship with his father—and ends with one of the song lyrics unitalicized, not set apart, incorporated directly into his own language 🖤 110
Jen Borkowski @jenmaicha.bsky.social · 11/03/2026I am my household's designated spotter. We save the ice cream for after we're done with the ladder 🪜🍨 020
Jen Borkowski @jenmaicha.bsky.social · 10/03/2026+1 to all of this: reading, writing, community (!!!), and this godforsaken internet (Except I only managed to read 62 of these essays. I didn't get to Bonnie Raitt v Portishead in time.) 120
Jen Borkowski @jenmaicha.bsky.social · 10/03/2026But then here's @lateration.bsky.social with a curveball of an essay that might just get me past my personal deep annoyance with all things Nick Cave. Like some kind of enzyme slowly breaking down a stain. Oh no. 161
Jen Borkowski @jenmaicha.bsky.social · 10/03/2026Oh, this essay from @emryal91.bsky.social: "If I’m too messy to die, then I have to clean, and if I’ve got it in me to clean, I don’t want to die anymore. If I think about it for too long I start to feel like a Roomba who sometimes sits at the charging deck for an inappropriate amount of time." 062
Reposted by Jen BorkowskiKathleen Rooney @kathleenmrooney.bsky.social · 10/03/2026Patty Loveless’s country ballad “You Don’t Even Know Who I Am” is one of the saddest songs in human history & today, it needs your vote in the @marchxness.bsky.social tournament to determine the saddest song of the 90s. Please read my essay, then vote for Patty & me! marchxness.com/1stround-sou...marchxness.com3/10, 1st Round: (2) Soul Asylum vs (15) Patty Loveless — March Sadness 90s Edition 183
Jen Borkowski @jenmaicha.bsky.social · 10/03/2026I've always loved "Runaway Train," but for me it was more comforting than sad. It was a song that took the edge off. Then there's this Patty Loveless song, which @kathleenmrooney.bsky.social rightly argues is "just sad sad sad, a rock-bottom bummer that ends with no redemption, none whatsoever." 162
Reposted by Jen BorkowskiNiko Stratis @nikostratis.com · 10/03/2026I sometimes worry that too many people think being a good critic means being a self-righteous dick about every little thing and I think far too many miss the point that you can't critique anything if you don't know how to love something. 44099728
![Solvitur ambulando on Wikipedia
Solvitur ambulando (Latin: [ˈsolwitur ambuˈlandoː]) is a Latin phrase which means "it is solved by walking", referring to an anecdotal, practical solution to a seemingly complex philosophical problem. It is often attributed to Saint Augustine in a refutation of Zeno's paradoxes of motion.[1]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:sxttw4f3ket2uyrrtc5ou4n2/bafkreigztsaughyxvkkng6jhopbjtoqbhdgjm3w4l3k3r6vebdmpeufywy)
