1. What do you see when you are looking out of the window closest to you?
My backyard! and my garage. and the alley beyond. and the back's of the neighbors' houses

2. Who was the last person coming into your room?
I don't think anyone has come into my room today. yesterday, uh... probably my wife.

3. What is the most predominant colour around you?
blue! that's the wall color in my office, and also the curtains, and various other things.

4. What is right behind you?
well I'm sitting in an office chair... but behind that is my bed.

5. What is on today's calendar sheet?
I don't have a daily calendar.

1. Does where you live have regular doorstep rubbish collections or do you have to take your trash somewhere else?

Yep, where I live now does - we just have to drag everything to the back alley on the right day and the municipal garbage trucks take care of it. Most places I've lived do. Only exception was my grandfather's place, which was in a small town - that we'd have to take ourselves.

2. Do you separate recycling? What sort of stuff gets recycled from your household?

Absolutely. Cardboard, plastic when possible, metal, glass, all together cause we have single-stream. We also have can and bottle deposit, those go to the supermarket and we get our 5 cents per can/bottle back - that's, like, beer and soft drinks.

3. Do you take things you don't need to charity shops, or give them away online, or sell them secondhand, or ...?

A mix. We take a lot of eligible things to a charity shop (usually Goodwill, here, or if it's furniture, the ReStore). For stuff that isn't eligible for those, we'll often post them on a "Buy Nothing" group my wife is on FB. Occasionally, if it's actually something with substantial value, we'll sell it. But that's really rare, we mostly give it away. I'd rather something go to a place where someone can use it.

4. Do you pick up litter in your local area, from streets or trails or play areas or parks? Have you ever found anything interesting discarded or lost in a public space?

Not as often as I feel I should, but I try to do a little, yeah. I'll sometimes clean up other dogs' leavings when I get my own, and any trash that blows into our section of the back alley or front yard, I pick up. Sometimes, if it's easy and a garbage can is convenient, I'll grab other stuff too, especially if it's like - I'm out hiking and there's relatively "clean" garbage on the trail. It doesn't belong there! I pick it up. My dad actually often brings a garbage bag when he goes hiking - he did trail maintenance for a while so he Gets It.

5. Are there "repair cafés" near you to help mend fixable items? Have you ever been helped by a community repair service or volunteered for one? Do you do any other kind of upcycling?

I have never heard of a repair cafe but that sounds glorious. I don't know of anything like that around here. I do occasionally upcycle but not often. I also, though it hasn't been mentioned, fairly regularly dumpster dive for furniture or household goods or toys. Since we all put our garbage out in the back alley, when I walk the dog on garbage night/morning I can see what everyone else has put out, and I'll grab things that look good if I'm able to. I often wish I could do more, people throw out so much furniture that looks fine or like it'd be fine with a little repair, but that's outside what I'm able to do rn.

1. Have you ever been to summer camp?
Yep, I went to day camp many years and sleep away camp four times.

2. Have you ever made a s'more?
Many many many times. Most recently last Saturday.

3. Have you ever slept under the stars (no tent/tarp)?
I don't think I've ever had nothing. I don't want bugs or rain on me. I've had only a tarp tho.

4. Have you ever had a member of the opposite sex sleep over at your house?
Many times? I don't really get this question tbh.

5. What type of bed do you have (queen, twin, bunk, etc.)?
I have a full. In my house there are, uh... two twins, two fulls, a sofa bed (a full or a queen?) and a queen.

1. If you were a crayon, which color would you want to be?
something bright, like sunshine yellow or emerald green

2. Which color do you think you would be regardless of what you wanted?
probably gray or brown but that's okay, really all colors are good colors, I just like bright ones

3. Would you rather be used and get blunt, broken and lose your wrapper, or not be used and stay pristine?
please use me up

4. Would you rather be in a small set of crayons or a large set?
I'm fine with being just one tbh

5. Would you rather be Crayola, or a different brand?
I want to be one of those custom molded ones shaped like a star

1. Ten years ago, what did you think you would be doing now?

I wasn't sure, honestly, but I was definitely hoping I'd be doing exactly what I am. I started planning this indie press during the summer of 2015.

2. Where do you think you will be five years from now?

Hopefully keeping on. But given the cheetoh's election, I'm just going day to day right now.

3. Do you live life one day at a time or look to the future?

Just answered this one lmao.

4. Do you wish you could go back in time and undo something in your life?

No, not because I don't hate some of the dumb choices I made, but because I wouldn't sacrifice the family I have now in order to fix the mistakes that led me to this moment. Like, if I dump my asshole ex a lot earlier, or if I'd pushed through and majored in science instead of history, do I meet my wife? Do I have these children? No mistake I made in the past is big enough and important enough to change that it's worth losing them.

5. If you could send a message back in time and give a younger version of yourself some advice, what would it be?

Web search: asexuality.

1. First time you cooked for someone else?
Heck if I know. Probably college.

2. First time you threw up in someone else's toilet?
I was going to say never, cause that's not really... a thing I do? But I definitely threw up at work when I was pregnant with my second kid, so I guess then.

3. First time you did anything illegal?
Stole from the corner market on 86th and Broadway just to see if I could. It was a bag of chips I think? Or maybe a candy bar. Anyway that store's been gone for 25+ years. Sorry for my contribution to that.

4. First time you saw snow/the ocean (whichever is more exotic)?
Neither is exotic for me, I grew up in New York City. We get snow and we're an island in the ocean. I've grown up with both these things.

5. First thought when I say "crumple-horned snorcack"?
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, isn't it? *googles* oh, no, it's Harry Potter. Why are we blogging about Harry Potter in 2025? Fuck TERFs.

1. What is the oldest object in the room with you?

uh, well, I'm at Panera working? But let's pretend I'm home lmao. The oldest thing in that room is...hmm...well, the office is where our filing cabinet is, and all the family pictures, including a lot from my parents. There are photographs my grandfather took in France during World War 2, for example. My mom took back some of the oldest pictures so she could label them, so I'm not exactly sure what's oldest, but I'd bet there are photos back to at least the 19teens in there still, and possibly as old as the late 19th century.

2. What is the newest?

I just got a new plant a few days ago! There's also always new art and stuff that my kids have made. And bills that came in the mail lmao.

3. What is your favorite object in the room with you?

The original of Man with a Gold Earring by Omar Rayyan - https://www.studiorayyan.com/


All my favorite art is in the office so I can see it every day, and I bought a lot of lovely originals back in a previous life, or, er. Career. When I had more money.

4. What is the most valuable object?

Oh hey. I should have read ahead lmao. Also Man with Gold Earring. I spent $5,000 to bring my beloved. It took me two years to pay it off and I've never regretted it for a moment.

5. What is the ugliest object?

My wife has some really ugly dice she uses for gaming.

1. Do you celebrate or observe Halloween? How?

I do! I'm in the US and my kids are 6 and 8 so it's the Done thing. We trick-or-treat in our neighborhood and we give out candy; we got 150 trick-or-treaters at our house yesterday (we keep count because we're neurodivergent and it's fun lmao).

2. What is your favorite Halloween candy?

Three Musketeers, Nerds, anything sour.

3. Do you get trick-or-treaters on Halloween?

So many. As mentioned above.

4. Do you enjoy dressing up in costumes?

I really do, but it's more effort and expense than I can really put in right now.

5. What is your favorite Halloween memory?

oh hmm. I won a gift certificate in 8th grade for my costume as a hippie. Riding the subway in the "19th century prostitute" costume I wore my senior year of high school. Going to the Greenwich Village parade in NYC with my oldest friend G - he was Spock and I was a Union soldier. My daughter's first Halloween, my son dressed as Ash, my wife and I as Team Rocket, and we made a six-month-old sized Pikachu outfit for my daughter. (She dressed as Pikachu again this year! she's a lot bigger now lmao)

My last month has been so busy that I completely neglected to update my bingo card, even though I've been reading. Currently I'm burying myself in a book for work and manhua on the Bilibili app, and none of those will fit for any of my remaining squares (though I could maybe stretch a couple to fit "Mythology." Like, does a modern manhua about Pixiu and other Chinese mythological characters count as mythology??? idk..).  I definitely think the remaining squares will be hard for me, with what I read, but I'll see what I can do??? I did just realize I can count the Minecraft books I'm always reading to my son as books for my hobby square, so I just gotta pick one and put it in, cause heck knows I've read plenty. Books about building with legos, too. It's not MY hobby, but they're hobby books....

Anyway, I've added Dinghai Fusheng Records as my historical fiction book; it's very deliberately set a few centuries after the Warring States period, and the historical context is important and referenced often.

I read six volumes of the Black or White manga, too, and eh that might as well be my Free Square I guess??? Gotta put something there.

I still expect MDZS Vol. 3 to be my Banned Books square, I'm just reading it stupidly slow cause it's all flashback and I don't like it that much lmao. But I'll get there. Person's Name in the Title is still gonna be my dad's book, I've just been procrastinating. But I'm kinda forbidding myself from starting another danmei book until I finish some of the things I "have" to read, so.

Also I'm neck deep in the Poyun manhua and there's a good chance that, as a result, the book has vaulted from being "somewhere down on my TBR list" to "next," lmao.

So yeah, as long as I'm willing to bend "mythology" until it screams, which...I am...the only one of these remaining that'll really have me stumped is a book from the year I was born. I don't want to read something from 1982. I want to read gay shit. What gay shit were they publishing then???

I'll figure something out. Maybe I'll get lucky and one of the books I read to the kids will fit???

AHA! I just googled Children's Books Published in 1982. I've heard of almost none of these BUT one I have heard of, and own, and have read before, is The BFG. Could give me kids a worse introduction to Dahl...

I might just manage a black-out on this yet...

(Also I really enjoyed Dinghai Fusheng Records, and Black or White is hot af.)