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Brenda

@mytruantpen.com
442 followers 184 following 1.7K posts

I just talk about my life, and offer respite from well deserved anger.

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Brenda @mytruantpen.com · 4h
Someone still has a key. The fine bust is draped in a green scarf. The floor has pumpkins and flowers. There are four candles, and one still flickers with an LED light under the shattered and bricked in stained glass window. And somehow my phone camera could not capture it. #melrosema #spiritualism
A lattice of metal grating over a glass window. Dimly seen through it are a green scarf, a statue, a flickering candle, and white decorative pumkins.
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Brenda @mytruantpen.com · 4h
The most intriguing part is peeking through the locked door. How do I know it was locked? Well. Come now. You would check too.
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Brenda @mytruantpen.com · 4h
The amazing spiritualist mausoleum holds the mortal remains of Anna Eva Fay Pingree - a noted spiritualist and medium of the late 19th century. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Ev... The sign on the door of her tomb is for a performance by her descendents nearly 100 years after her death.
A marble edifice with verdigris on showing wreaths and fountains. A modern yellow sign is slid behind the bars of the door.
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Brenda @mytruantpen.com · 4h
In my ongoing quest to find the burying place of Sophronia Butler Spear, I spent a pleasant morning at Pine Banks cemetery in Melrose. It was built 3 years after she was buried, but I'm really not sure where else they would have interred her. ANWAY I found an amazing spiritualist tomb while there
A vibrantly orange and yellow maple shedding leaves on gravestones
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Brenda @mytruantpen.com · 03/10/2026
+1 would grab my attention in a meeting
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Brenda @mytruantpen.com · 03/10/2026
I still have this feeling every time.
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Brenda @mytruantpen.com · 03/10/2026
Book 50: I haven't played all the way through Baldurs Gate 3, and probably won't, but while I suspect this book is more fun if you constantly recognize people, it's not required. It's a lot of fun. #bookaweek @tkingfisher.com
The book "Astarion: Baldur's Gate" by T Kingfisher against a red cushion. Unintended in the background are pale legs and black socks
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Brenda @mytruantpen.com · 02/10/2026
❤️❤️❤️ Septimus Severus
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Brenda @mytruantpen.com · 02/10/2026
My son's nursery was 100% decorated in Ursula frogs. Of course, he is turning 18 this month so....
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Brenda @mytruantpen.com · 02/10/2026
Spooky cats
Two cats in the dark in front of a candle with the portico of a mansion behind
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Brenda @mytruantpen.com · 01/10/2026
You're missing the Ebenezer verse. "Here I raise my Ebenezer, Hither by the grace I'm come."
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Brenda @mytruantpen.com · 01/10/2026
Also far less problematic than "He Touched Me"
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Brenda @mytruantpen.com · 01/10/2026
Of course that was all Betty
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Brenda @mytruantpen.com · 01/10/2026
Just to point out that this was the hymn in my wedding
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Brenda @mytruantpen.com · 01/10/2026
I am shocked. SHOCKED. That those hymnals are younger than I am.
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Brenda @mytruantpen.com · 01/10/2026
@wiredferret.bsky.social back me up here.
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Brenda @mytruantpen.com · 01/10/2026
How did that make it into our hymnals? I swear they dated to the 1920s. I would have testified under oath that it was written by Fanny Crosby.
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Brenda @mytruantpen.com · 01/10/2026
"He touched me, Oh He touched me, And oh the joy that floods my soul! Something happened and now I know, He touched me and made me whole." This was in our hymnal.
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Brenda @mytruantpen.com · 01/10/2026
"He Touched Me" called and wants to make sure it still is #1 in the inappropriate hymnal lyrics department. For those without this particular ear worm:
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Brenda @mytruantpen.com · 30/09/2026
You totally did. In the Shillinger house. I remember. I only got Grandma Johnstone's errr unambitious recipes. Maybe Aunt Nay has it? Mom might too.
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Brenda @mytruantpen.com · 30/09/2026
You made this when you were like 10, right?
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Brenda @mytruantpen.com · 30/09/2026
Throwback to Patagonia - the wide and deep Futaleafu. Waterfalls and glaciers on either side. I was so busy battling the wind, it was hard to appreciate in the moment. (Despite being headed downstream, if I stopped paddling I moved backwards.) We did pretty much every possible kind of kayak.
A huge river with two kayaks ahead. A steep mountain wall is to the left, and a glimpse between two mountains ahead shows glaciers. The sky is dark and moody.
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Reposted by Brenda
Emily Gorcenski @emily.gorcen.ski · 28/09/2026
Here’s the most incredible story you’ll read today. A small plane with four people aboard crashes in a field. Another pilot witnesses it. That pilot happens to be flying a bunch of skydivers. They offer to jump to assist, are given permission. The skydivers happen to be EMTs. Everyone survives.
wisn.com
Skydivers alert emergency crews, assist after plane crashes near East Troy airport
Four people were aboard the single-engine plane when it went down in a cornfield near Carvers School Road in East Troy at about 1:30 p.m.
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Brenda @mytruantpen.com · 29/09/2026
I believe that avocado oil is the "it" replacement.
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Brenda @mytruantpen.com · 29/09/2026
The OG internet is SO COOL. This post to you brought by the fact the entire 100+ years of my hometown newspaper is available for free online. It's even searchable. So far what I've learned is, well, we've always been like this. #stonehamma stoneham.advantage-preservation.com
stoneham.advantage-preservation.com
Digital Archives of the Stoneham Public Library
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Brenda @mytruantpen.com · 28/09/2026
Book 49: this doesn't actually help my TBR pile problem, but I couldn't leave things in the unrequited state of the first book. Both great world building and great romance scenes and some interesting plot stuff. app.thestorygraph.com/books/5e8cb7... #bookaweek
app.thestorygraph.com
The Exquisite Torment of Loving Your Enemy by Brigitte Knightley
In this swoony, witty and heart-stoppingly romantic sequel to instant Sunday Times and New York T...
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Reposted by Brenda
Frankie de la Cretaz @thefrankiedlc.news · 28/09/2026
SOURCE REQUEST: looking to talk to Native or Indigenous fans of the WNBA about the loss of the Connecticut Sun. DM here or email frankie at britnidlc dot com
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Brenda @mytruantpen.com · 27/09/2026
Despite reading a lot, my to be read pile is out of control. It's about to metastasize from its current insufficient space to the rest of the house. This is good justification for going part time, right?
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Brenda @mytruantpen.com · 27/09/2026
The ground was spongy and littered with leaves and branches. A big one from one of the great oaks narrowly missed the marker for Daniel Green. And a vast wave of fungi swept in front of the grave whose name was hidden behind lichen and rain and centuries. #stonehamma #oldburyingground
Piles of mushrooms in front of an illegible grave, with rain falling A huge branch hovering above a copper capped tombstone for Daniel Green who died in 1725
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Brenda @mytruantpen.com · 27/09/2026
Friends: after months of needing to appreciate the good weather while it's here, and before the holidays... This is the time. Right now. To rot your brain on a video game.
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Brenda @mytruantpen.com · 27/09/2026
The basil did well this year. But basil season is fast fading.
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Brenda @mytruantpen.com · 27/09/2026
I just did pesto today and thought I was doing well
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Brenda @mytruantpen.com · 26/09/2026
Be careful how you phrase your invitations lest there be vampires around....
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Brenda @mytruantpen.com · 26/09/2026
How do I still have to be waiting for my copy? I have a parasocial relationship with Ursula's D&D game.
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Brenda @mytruantpen.com · 26/09/2026
Around here if you agree they appear in your lawn and then are picked up for reuse about 3 days after the election. No money changes hands
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Brenda @mytruantpen.com · 26/09/2026
Book 48: this is not a book of traditional tales. This is a book of the reservation, and man's inhumanity to man. It's rich with history, but uncomfortable in how it's set in now instead of a comfortably distant then. #bookaweek "Never Whistle at Night: an Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology"
A colorful book against a dark window
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Brenda @mytruantpen.com · 26/09/2026
"He never meant to be an ancestor, but it's the only thing more unavoidable than taxes." Uncle Robert Rides the Lightning from "Never Whistle at Night"
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Reposted by Brenda
Boston French Toast Alert System @bostonfrenchtoast.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
The gales of November coming early www.universalhub.com/2026/gales-n... #Boston #noreaster #rain #wind
Approaching nor'easter swirls over the Atlantic (Lake Ontario in upper left), photo by GOES-East satellite at 12:11 ET
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Brenda @mytruantpen.com · 25/09/2026
Book 47: a delightful romantasy with rather more world building and plot than comes standard with the genre. Definitely a slow burn. Gotta go get the next book... #bookaweek
The book "The Irresistible Urge to Fall for your Enemy"
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Brenda @mytruantpen.com · 23/09/2026
Quoth Krampus: “This stuff is right up my alley: people associating with the wrong crowds, being subversive, thinking naughty thoughts. With Flock, we can find that, and we can punish it before people have had the chance to actually do anything illegal.” www.boston.com/news/off-bea...
boston.com
Krampus crashed Billerica’s Select Board meeting to 'support' Flock license plate cameras
“I’ve been keeping a list of who’s naughty and who’s nice for centuries. Frankly, it’s about time you people started automating it.”
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Reposted by Brenda
Orkney Library & Archive @orkneylibrary.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Today is #HobbitDay because Bilbo and Frodo Baggins were both born on September 22nd. Normally we'd shire a hobbit pun or two but it might just feel like a tolkien gesture and we don't want to embarrass our elves. Anyway it's a good day to come and boromir #Tolkien books. 📚
A shelf of books by JRR Tolkien
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Brenda @mytruantpen.com · 22/09/2026
They have very pretty printings of "What Moves the Dead" these days
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Brenda @mytruantpen.com · 21/09/2026
It occurs to me that of all the genres of town commission that should be able to decode the mailing list signups, we historians ought to be up to the challenge. I guess I should be grateful none of them are in cursive. But also, a 2nd grade teacher might have better luck.
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Brenda @mytruantpen.com · 21/09/2026
I want an account that is just, like, Bluesky context that does nothing but post explanations and links of what everyone is talking about.
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Brenda @mytruantpen.com · 21/09/2026
I don't even know where to go to get the Bluesky references. I ain't going to X, I can tell you that.
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Brenda @mytruantpen.com · 21/09/2026
And this is why I don't think the AI can escape containment.
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Brenda @mytruantpen.com · 21/09/2026
I hear Wormtongue will give you a better deal if you show up in person
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Brenda @mytruantpen.com · 21/09/2026
Book 46: short stories help average this whole thing out. This was "The October Devotion" by @cheriepriest.com which somehow isn't on Storygraph? Can recommend for your creepy needs. #bookaweek
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Brenda @mytruantpen.com · 21/09/2026
Book 45: assuming I'm not missing one. This 900 page tome is easier to hold in ebook format and took me more than 2 weeks, which is crazy for me. I don't know how @mattdinniman.bsky.social keeps track of all the characters because I sure can't! #bookaweek app.thestorygraph.com/books/47b7f5...
app.thestorygraph.com
This Inevitable Ruin by Matt Dinniman
Carl and Princess Donut are ready to battle it out in the epic seventh book in the New York Times...
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Brenda @mytruantpen.com · 20/09/2026
May a friend pick up the phone. May there be gossip and laughter. May there be unexpected invitations from people you haven't talked to in far too long. May you go with them into a too quiet Sunday night, quiet no more.
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