✨Ben Hamill✨ @benhamill@witches.town

I'm moving my account over to @benhamill. I don't wanna get into the details, but if you're really interested, I guess DM me over there. I'll import my follows momentarily. A bit sad to go because I love a lot of people on this instance.

#introductions

Uh. I like to kindpost, I guess. It's a new skill I'm learning, anyway. Also real bad joaks.

I try to learn about intersectional social justice and am trying to develop the habit of taking concrete, real world action about it more often.

I've got a linguistics degree that I don't use professionally (I'm in software), but I love to talk about words and things.

I think play and playfulness are super important. I enjoy roleplaying, board and video games.

I'm a mod on #WitchesTown. Ask me if you have questions (though I only speak English, do I'm not much help to our large population of French speakers).

My family afforded me a brief nap today. I dreamed I was playing a game a bit like Journey, but there was voice chat and more people playing together than 2. I fell in with a gang of unbearably cool French anarchist kids who all mostly knew each other IRL. We got to a part where you skate/boarded downhill in twilight and they were doing all sorts of awesome tricks while making up raps about the black block and shit in a mix of English and French. I was amazed they tolerated my presence, but they were so nice.

I'm pretty sure this was a dream about #WitchesTown.

Mornin', witches and wicks.

I've been putting one more wrapped present under the tree each day. The kids just now (right before dinner) that there was a new one (the second) today. Glad it wasn't a snake. I'm going to have do do a bunch all at once at the end, here, but whatever.

This is mostly about not lying to our kids, for us. We don't do the tooth fairy (though the eldest has gotten lost-a-tooth-money) or easter bunny (though we still hunt eggs) or any of that shit. We just, like, wanna be super straight with our kids all the time and not undermine their trust by perpetrating a multi-year hoax on them.

Not that finding out Santa isn't real broke my relationship with my parents or anything. IDK. It's just a hardline principle thing we decided.

And no shade on you if you do Santa with your kids. You gotta do you. This is just us doin' us.

We don't do Santa with our kiddos. They get gifts from, like, real people only. They understand their gifts mostly come from stores (modulo, you know, hand-made things).

When the last year when then then-5yo started asking about it, we just said that, no, Santa wasn't real. He's just in books and stories and stuff like Mikey Mouse or Rosie Revere. We also said not to talk about that fact with friends because some parents pretend that Santa is real as a sort of game with their kids. But that we didn't really like that game, so we don't play it. The response was basically, "Oh. OK."

Wrapped some presents today. I am super demanding and judgemental about gift wrapping, y'all. E.g. If I have a basic rectangular box and I use more than 3 pieces of tape, I am disappointed in myself. The ends have to look just so. The corners have to be crisp. The front has to be flat.

I end up wrapping all the gifts anyone in my household gives because I can't keep it to myself. "What are you--Just fold the--give it to me and go get a glass of tea or something."

(jort holly)

(jolly and festive)

The book I finished last night has this sentence I really liked near the end: "We're spending the rest of our lives together, so we have to be really gentle." Like, here we are with just the one life and we're spending it with all the people around us. Be kind, be gentle, be compassionate. Don't waste it on hate or violence or destruction.

It's a really beautiful sentiment. If we could somehow just see all of each other as, you know, people and love each other, there wouldn't be so much awfulness to undo. The book was clear this isn't about loving someone who wants to destroy you. It's about how you engage in the peace treaty.

Good morning, y'all. 🌇

Shit. I forgot to hashtag that #books #nowreading

OK. Up next is Among Others by Jo Walton. I don't remember anything about it since I bought it. So no idea what I'm in for.
https://witches.town/media/bmUZmnQRXXmGv58tfqo

Haven't decided what's next. Will try to remember to post about it when I pick it.

Just finished Babylon's Ashes by James S.A. Corey. It's book 6 in the Expanse series. I sort of forgot since I read the last one, but I fuckin' love the characters in these books. Some of them, I even like as people. This one is so steeped in the personal and the political, which I feel is the strength of the series. It's basically everything I like about the series and keeps the alien shit at arm's length, which is where I like it. In particular, I really like Naimo's and Clarissa's arcs. And I always like Bobbie and Amos (though they don't arc as much). It's a good entry in the series. Looking forward to the next. #TootReview #books

Has anyone else ever thought about the MASSIVE security problem represented by the fact that both Incom and Sienar allow the schematics of two of their most popular starfighters to be printed on bed sheets and sold to civilians at Target?

Good ✨mooooooooorning✨, mastonauts!