Telling You Today, February 24, 2026

Yesterday I crashed my bike while riding to work. I'm unhurt – I didn't even really go down, but I bent the fork on my 1984 Ross Mt. Hood which is a bike that I really love. The whole thing was kind of silly and just made me feel sheepish. I was near downtown when a tour bus, the driver of which I saw was on his phone, started to pass me and then slide into the bike lane. I moved forward so the driver could see me, shaking my head at him. He seemed indignant, with no clue he'd made a mistake, and in the moment I had that familiar delusion that I could somehow "win" by silently convincing him that he was in the wrong. I pointed at the bike lane markings. I gestured at my eyes, "you need to look where you're going." Then I looked forward and instantly rear ended a stopped car.

It could have been worse. A bit faster and I would have been up on the trunk or rear window. Instead I kept upright and just stood there for a second to assess. I immediately felt embarrassed. The bus rolled past, the driver certain I was an idiot. The car I'd hit stayed and asked if I was ok. I said yes, and their car was fine, and they nodded and drove away. I stewed for moment, straightened my stem. I could tell the fork was bent from how it handled, but I rode a few more blocks to work. I'll need to source a fork, but everything else is fine–even the front wheel is perfectly true. It really could have been worse.

On my way home (on the bus), Clare texted. "Bit of a situation at the house; Long story short the feral fluffy black cat is loose in the office." The black fluffy is a new arrival among the feral community around our house, and Clare had been trying to trap him for TNR for a few weeks. When I got home she explained: he'd been trapped, but the trap's door had shifted enough for him to squeeze out while she moved it inside. He'd rampaged through the house but she closed him into the office, where he remained, perched on a window unit, panting.

With two people, Clare thought we could manage to get him back in the trap. I donned long sleeves, work gloves and safety glasses. While Clare held the trap, I tried using a blanket to grab him. He slipped my grasp several times, pissing and swatting furiously at me. I had him at several points, gripping his midsection firmly while he bit me through the blanket and gloves. It didn't puncture the leather but I was stunned by the strength of his bite. I added a work jacket to my PPE. Eventually I managed to hold on to him long enough to stuff him into the trap with the piss-soaked blanket, pulling it back out through the cracked door. Clare zip tied the trap closed. Within minutes the TNR volunteer was double parked to pick him up, and we loaded the trap into her jeep. I went inside to have a tequila and do the crossword.

Recs

• I loved Sirāt and recommend seeing it in a theater with zero foreknowledge.
• I struggle to explain Meghan O'Gieblyn's God, Human, Animal, Machine, but it was a fascinating and thought-provoking book. O'Gieblyn grew up in a fundamentalist family and went to bible college, and while she's not religious now, her nuanced understanding of theology is fascinating when applied to discussions of existence, intelligence, and agency. Gonna check out her essay collection sometime soon.
• I love sharing under-emphasized, positive climate developments, but also, An El Niño is Brewing. As I frequently misquote 'Smooth,' it's gonna be a hot one.
• Luckily we're seeing coverage of the rush to build a concentration camp system, but for perspective I'd recommend reading Andrea Pritzer, who literally wrote the book on concentration camps. Her point that such regimes are established through a progressive series of predictable events is really useful for understanding why it's important to forcefully oppose them while we still can. Abolish ICE.
• Every year (since 2011!) Clare makes these lovely Valentine's playlists which you can  download from Dropbox or stream on Spotify.

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