Tag: get out ice

feb 27/RUNGETOUTICE

5 miles
river road, north/river road, south/lena smith
50 degrees
50% puddles / 5% mud, dead leaves
wind: 10 mph / 35 mph gusts

Sunny, warmer, windy! Had to tighten my cap so it wouldn’t fly off. It felt like spring, or like spring is coming soon, and I loved it. There was a moment, early on, when I ran past dead leaves on a lawn and the sun hit them just right so that they gave off a smell that I remember from childhood: late fall in Northern Virginia, walking through a small stretch of woods on the edge of suburbia. A good memory, even if I don’t like suburbs.

So many puddles and slow-moving streams on the sidewalk. I wondered how long it would take for at least one of my socks to get soacked. Not even a block! I didn’t see the puddle I stepped in, just suddenly felt cold in my left foot. Oh well. A soaked sock was always going to happen. I think it took a mile for the squish squish squish to begin.

This run was wonderful! I went farther than I thought I would — all the way to the Franklin bridge. And I felt stronger. I even did some strides at the end. I can’t remember what I heard besdie the gorge for the first half, but for the second half I put on my “Bunnies and Rabbits” playlist. The first song that came on, “Young Rabbits,” a jazz song by The Jazz Crusaders, was wonderful to run to. Later, “Mad as Rabbits” came on and I wondered the origins of that expression. Is it from Alice in Wonderland too? Yes and no. Probably the modern use of it comes from the character, the March Hare, who throws a mad tea party in AIW, but its earlier origins are this, according to wikipedia:

To be as “mad as a March hare” is an English idiomatic phrase derived from the observed antics said to occur[1] only in the March breeding season of the European hare (Lepus europaeus). The phrase is an allusion that can be used to refer to any other animal or human who behaves in the excitable and unpredictable manner of a March hare.

Mad as a March Hare

Near the very end of my run, a sudden thought about a rabbit that plays a pivotal role in a dystopia novel I read 2 or more years ago. I can’t remember the name of the novel. Thankfully I can look it up on my library checkout history! Found it: The Memory of Animals / Claire Fuller. I would check it out again, but for some reason, my library no longer makes it available as an e-book. Boo.

rabbit fur coat, part 2

My favorite reader just texted to remind me of a infamous rabbit fur coat reference in a song: Miss Thang’s “Thunder and Lightning”:

You’re walking around like you SO fly in that 37 Dollar Rabbit Coat! Honey, That coat had to be destroyed last week after it bit the neighbors child!

This line is from the album, The Answer: Rap vs. Rap (1987) and is in response to lyrics from Orange Juice Jones in his song (The Rain) about discovering that his girlfriend was cheating on him:

And my first impulse was to run up on you and do a Rambo Whip out the jammy and flat-blast both of you But I ain’t wanna mess up this 3700 dollar lynx coat

So good! A few days ago, at the end of my run, I had remembered Miss Thang’s line (which is superior to Jones’, imho), but then forgot it again before I returned home. I’m so grateful that my best friend reads this blog and remembered us listening to it in high school and texted me from Tokyo about it!

I wish I could add it to my actual playlist, but sadly it’s not on Apple music, so I’ll just have to include it in my written one and imagine Miss Thang singing back to Jones as I listen to “The Rain” on the apple music playlist (because of course, his song is streaming even those hers isn’t).

Miss Thang’s scathing reference to a rabbit, and not a lynx, fur coat, reinforces my sense of Jenny Lewis’ rabbit fur coat; it is low-end luxury and barely status, owned by those who want to appear wealthy but aren’t. In the case of Lewis’ mom, the coat represents a toxic fixation on status and wealth. In the case of Jones, the coat represents the illusion of status.

A bonus: not only did remembering this song give me another example of the rabbit fur coat, it solved a recent mystery. For the past few days, I’ve been trying to remember who references the Trix slogan in a song — silly rabbit, Trix are for kids. Now I know: it’s Orange Juice Jones in “The Rain”!

Here’s a video with the 2 songs mashed-up. Go to YouTube to see all of the lyrics:

that 37 Dollar Rabbit Coat? Honey, That coat had to be destroyed last week after it bit the neighbors child!

rabbit hole

In yesterday’s entry I mentioned that Heather Cox Richardson said, at least twice in her Politics Chat, that she wouldn’t go down the rabbit hole. But today, I will!

1 — Disney Animation

Last night after waking up from my first sleep1, I went downstairs and started watching Disney’s classic animated Alice in Wonderland (1951). I only got as far as the rabbit hole scene, which is delightfully trippy and brings back memories of my many visits to Disney World as a kid in the 80s (my grandparents lived in Deltona — not Daytona, as people used to try and correct — a small town outside of Orlando). Details I remember from my 1 am viewing: 1. she falls down a hole after entering a tunnel, her kitten does not — her POV: far down below, looking up at a small hole of light and kitten — she calls out excitedly, goodbyeeeee!!!; 2. the speed of her fall slows as the bottom of her blue dress billows like a parachute; 3. she passes armchairs and side table on her way down; 4. at one point she lands in a rocking chair and begins rocking, while still floating down; 5. there’s a brief shot of the exterior of this opening/vertical tunnel: it’s a queerly angled tall and narrow brick building; she calls out to the White Rabbit at some point — he’s falling through, too; just before she lands she catches her foot on something — a window frame? — and softly tumbles to the ground.

How much of that is correct? Can I find a clip to watch to check? Yes!

down the rabbit hole

Mostly I was right2, but I missed many delightful details: her bright eyes glowing in the otherwise darkness; she pulls a chain, and turns on a small lamp; she catches a passing book and begins reading it; she sees her reflection in the mirror, which is upside down. Oh, this animation — I love it!

2 — I’m late! I’m late! For a very important date!

In my visions of the white rabbit, I had forgotten his pocket watch and mutterings of being late, which are why Alice follows him. She wonders, what is he late for? It must be something important, like a party! How does time work in this animated film? In the original Lewis Carrol book? In terms of the rabbit hole in the popular imagination, time in the rabbit hole is twisted, slowed down, gets wasted. The rabbit hole is the enemy of time’s efficiency, productivity, precision. When explaining why she couldn’t dig into something, HCR says, I don’t have time for that right now.

3 — rabbit holes / burrows / warrens

In a preliminary search3, I discovered this interesting fact:

Rabbits live underground in warrens. Hares live in aboveground nests. (Cottontail rabbits are the exception: like hares, they live in aboveground nests.)

source

So, because the rabbits that live in my backyard are cottontails, there are no rabbit holes for me to fall through!

Also, here’s the difference between warrens and burrows: a burrow is one rabbit’s home, a warren is the neighborhood/network of tunnels for a colony of rabbits.

Looked on the Minnesota DNR site and found out this about cottontail habitat and range:

Throughout the year, cottontails are found in brushy areas such as woodlots, shelterbelts, and even around shrub and conifer plantings in suburban areas. During summer they feed on grasses and clovers, but in winter they eat twigs and bark, especially of fruit trees. Large tree and brush piles are popular shelters for rabbits. The range of one cottontail is no more than five acres (about the size of four football fields). They run along trails within thick brush to escape predators.

Eastern Cottontail / Minnesota DNR

A thing for “gardener” Sara to note: when winterizing the backyard, DON’T trim back the hydrangeas or hostas anymore! Leave them for the rabbits!

Also found these disturbing “fun facts” — they are listed under the heading, “Fun facts”,” but, are they fun? Not for the rabbits!

Cottontails are nervous animals that may die of shock if handled or caged. Cottontail meat is tasty favored by gourmet chefs who often cook it fried, in stews, or braised with herbs and vegetables.

Back to hole-less cottontails. A new metaphor is needed — not falling down and through to other worlds, but something about edges and shadows and the fringes — the periphery! Dwelling on the edges, in the corners, not traveling to new worlds, but noticing the other worlds that are already there, have always existed in the midst of my world.

  1. First sleep is a reference to historian A. Roger Ekirch’s book, At Days Close and a BBC article that I posted about on 17 jan 2025 about sleeping habits in the 17th and 18th centuries. Instead of 8 straight hours, a sleep, a waking, then another sleep. My sleeping doesn’t quite work that way lately and involves more than 2 sleeps: a sleep, getting out of bed to pace or bounce on an exercise ball, another sleep, watching 20 minutes of something, a sleep, a bounce, a sleep. ↩︎
  2. it’s the exterior of another building; she’s doesn’t get her foot caught but lands upside down hanging from the window ↩︎
  3. My searches are mostly just googling the terms and looking through AI and then, independently, several of the sources in the search results. I have never really used/relied on AI before, so this was a good opportunity to suss it out. It can be helpful, but its conclusions are uneven and information unreliable. AI can make broad claims based on singular sources, and those sources aren’t always primary, but sometimes a rando’s blog entry. In terms of search results, the links are often businesses selling a product; any information posted is ultimately in service of selling that product. Or, the links have information designed for an individual/consumer. For example, the rabbit/bunny information my searches yielded were often for pet owners (how to take care of your rabbit) or homeowners who need to manage/get rid of rabbits-as-pests. ↩︎

a few more rabbit related things

Here’s a list of 20 pop culture rabbits/bunnies. One I had forgotten: the boiled pet rabbit in Fatal Attraction.

Dust bunnies; the Energizer Bunny; Bunny from Season 2 of “Only Murders in the Building”; Watership Down (which I remember my sister reading, but I never have); Liam (here in the twin cities, taken by ICE) and his bunny ears / Louise from Bob’s Burgers and hers; Bugs Bunny and “Kill the Rabbit”; bunny ears as tv antennas; lucky rabbit’s foot; playboy bunnies and staying at the Playbook Hotel in Buffalo because it was the cheapest option when I was 8; calling my daughter honey-bunny

And here’s a wonderful poem that I found the other day. It fits with the theme of rabbit holes and underground dwellings:

[Rabbit] / by Amy Wolstenholme

In Portland we don’t use the word, we dance around it –  furry things, we’d say, the furry things are in backfield again. As a child I only knew I should never look directly at them, the same way I knew not to look at the sun. It was wrong. It would hurt later on. My grandfather called them underground mutton – the first time I heard the phrase I laughed, and he didn’t. I guess that means it’s okay to eat them. That it’s okay to roast and spit them but never see them. As an adult I learnt the fear behind the superstition – my home is always on the brink of slipping, because long ago we built mines where we shouldn’t. And, like always, nature far outshone the humans: the furry things would run before the rockfalls, the men would disappear beneath them. So when they skipped in fields en masse, bobtails flashing, we would know that somewhere below ground people were trapped, were crushed, were suffocating. We would know that when the underground mutton set to dancing, the Earth was eating the miners.

One more rabbit thing: Inspired by my talk of the periphery, I think I will give attention to rabbit vision and rabbit eyes tomorrow. 3 sources to start with: “rabbit vision” google search, Rabbit Eye, and this discussion of a famous painting with a rabbit eye that inspired Diane Seuss.

Get Out Ice

Part of what I’m trying to do in my “get out ice” effort is to document examples of resistance. I’d like to turn it into an archive of practices of care-as-resistance (love) Here’s one I found from Sean Snow, who provides great daily summaries on Facebook:

Dungeons & Dragons Mutual Aid: A Twin Cities gaming group with 2,500 members made headlines for pivoting from tabletop adventures to a sophisticated mutual aid network. They are now coordinating food deliveries, “Know Your Rights” workshops, and legal support for members affected by recent events. What began as a social club has evolved into a logistical hub that leverages existing trust to provide real-world refuge. This grassroots response demonstrates how established community bonds can be repurposed to protect neighbors during times of crisis.

Sean Snow

feb 26/RUNGETOUTICE

4.3 miles
minnehaha falls and back
35 degrees

A much better run today than yesterday. One difference: I had a big snack — yogurt, blue, pumpkin seed granola — before I went out. It was sunny and above freezing. Less layers! 1 pair of tights, shorts, 1 shirt, 1 pull-over, gloves, baseball cap. Listened to the snow melting, wheels whooshing, kids playing, a playground whistle blowing, grit scratching the asphalt as I ran sound, my “Bunnies and Rabbits” playlist on the way back. Listened to Jenny Lewis’ “Rabbit Fur Coat” again and want to look up rabbit fur coats — how do they compare to mink or fox in terms of status? who wears rabbit?

10 Things

  1. looked up — cerulean blue sky, no clouds, no birds, no planes
  2. drip drip drip drip — water falling down the gutter
  3. the strong smell of weed — like a skunk — in the 44th street parking lot, or was it the locks and dam no. 1 lot?
  4. the annual puddles have returned on certain neighbor’s sidewalks
  5. a thin sheet of ice on the river
  6. a few more cars in the falls parking lot, a few more people at the overlook
  7. an older man standing near my favorite spot, reading the old — how old? 1940s or 50s? — plaque about the falls, his partner just ahead, patiently waiting
  8. the cobblestones were clear! no ice, no snow, only 1 or 2 puddles
  9. running south, nearing the double bridge, my eyes fixed on a something shining BRIGHT — sun reflecting off of an object — the top of a trashcan?
  10. standing behind the Rachel Dow Memorial bench, stretching and looking down at the river, out and over to the other side, watching a car travel the east river road

updated in the evening, rabbit-related: I’m watching Heather Cox Richardson’s Politics Chat for today (she is amazing), and she said in her discussion of Hillary Clinton’s closed testimony on the Epstein files today, she was an interesting Secretary of State, I think, but that’s a rabbit hole I won’t go down. This isn’t the first time HCR has used that expression when discussion a topic she doesn’t have time for, it’s often a rabbit hole she won’t go down. Another update, a few minutes later: she referenced a rabbit hole again!

rabbit fur coat

My “research” didn’t yield that much, but enough to guess that the coat symbolizes Lewis’ mom’s obsession with attaining status, obtaining wealth.

Commercial fur trade of rabbit took off in the 20s. Less expensive than other animal furs, easily dyed and plucked to resemble other fur. A more accessible status symbol.

crepuscular

A few days ago, I used the word crepuscular (“Rabbits are crepuscular grazers” — 24 feb 2026) and suggested it would make a good title for a poem. This morning I’m exploring how other poets have used the word in their poems.

crepuscule: twilight (rare: noun)

crepuscular: of or relating/resembling1 twilight;
of an animal active in twilight (adjuective)

1 — from The Possessed / John Berryman

There was a time crepuscular was mild, 
The hour for tea, acquaintances, and fall 
Away of all day’s difficulties, all 
Discouragement. Weep, you are not a child. 

The equine hour rears, no further friend, 
Intolerant, foam-lathered, pregnant with 
Mysterious grave watchers in their wrath
Let into tired Troy. You are near the end. 

Midsummer Common loses its last gold, 
And grey is there. The sun slants down behind 
A certain cinema, and the world is blind
But more dangerous. It is growing cold. 

Light all the lights, heap wood upon the fire
To banish shadow. Draw the curtains tight. 
But sightless eyes will lean through and wide night 
Darken this room of yours. As you desire. 

2 — from Le crépuscule du soir / Charles Baudelaire / trans. Roy Campbell

But insalubrious demons of the airs,
Like business people, wake to their affairs
And, flying, knock, like bats, on walls and shutters.
Now Prostitution lights up in the gutters
Across the glimmering jets the wind torments.
Like a huge ant-hive it unseals its vents.
On every side it weaves its hidden tracks
Like enemies preparing night-attacks.

3 — from Crepuscle with Muriel / Marilyn Hacker

the void of an hour seeps out, infects
the slit of a cut I haven’t the wit to fix
with a surgeon’s needle threaded with fine-gauge silk
as a key would thread the cylinder of a lock.
But no key threads the cylinder of a lock.
Late afternoon light, transitory, licks
the place of the absent cup with its rough tongue, flicks
itself out beneath the wheel’s revolving spoke.
Taut thought’s gone, with a blink of attention, slack,
a vision of “death and distance in the mix”
(she lost her words and how did she get them back
when the corridor of a day was a lurching deck?
The dream-life logic encodes in nervous tics
she translated to a syntax which connects
intense and unfashionable politics
with morning coffee, Hudson sunsets, sex;
then the short-circuit of the final stroke,
the end toward which all lines looped out, then broke).

4 — twilight school / early 20th-century Italy / Britannica entry

crepuscolarismo, (Italian: “twilight school”), a group of early 20th-century Italian poets whose work was characterized by disillusion, nostalgia, a taste for simple things, and a direct, unadorned style. Like Futurism, a contemporaneous movement, crepuscolarismo reflected the influence of European Decadence and was a reaction to the florid ornamental rhetoric of the Italian author Gabriele D’Annunzio. It differed from the militant Futurist movement in its passivity, but both movements expressed the same spirit of desolation, and many crepuscolari later became futuristi.

crepuscular animals / wikipedia

Ten examples of crepuscular animals, active at dawn and dusk, include raccoons, deer, rabbits, skunks, bobcats, foxes, bats, house cats, coyotes, and moose, with many mammals, insects, and some birds fitting this activity pattern to avoid extreme heat and predators. 

Bats! I’ve been gathering poetic lines about bats for several years now! Not because I like bats (although, after all my thinking about them, I’m starting to!), but because the poetic language used to describe them is helpful in my own thinking about how I navigate the world in my less defined light.

  1. I’m interested in this idea of resembling, particularly in relation to light and my perception of it as I lose more cone cells. Does crepuscular describe me? Am I perpetually in the light of dawn and dusk? I’m also interested in it in terms of time, where twilight = that small/brief in-between time before day/light turns to night/darkness, the stage just before a final loss (in my case, all of my central vision) ↩︎

Get Out ICE

I’ve continued to tag my entries with “Get out ICE” because ICE is still here in Minnesota and is still awful. But that is about it; it’s time to return to posting examples of ice out. Here’s one small “ICE OUT” example that I heard about as I listened to a running podcast. As she was recounting her 100k 8-hour trail race, Molly Seidel wore “ICE OUT” on her vest. She said it was important for her to make this statement:

I haven’t been super vocal on social media just because I don’t feel like that’s where I can put my voice to best use sometimes. But I think being able to make a statement on what I wear through what I do and wear that for 62 miles mattered a lot to me.

Molly Seidel / Ali on the Run podcast

I can’t remember if I mentioned it here or just on Facebook, but I have posted about Olympic athletes speaking out against ICE, most notably Jessie Diggins. Local professional sports teams, like the Timberwolves and the Frost are too.

Somewhat related, but also very different, cycling communities in the twin cities have been very vocal in their opposition to ICE. A week after Alex Pretti was murdered, thousands of cyclists did a ride in honor of him. And Recovery Bike Shop on Central in NE Minneapolis has been very active, both in resistance and in caring for immigrant communities. Just today they posted a flyer about training people for bike patrols and wrote this:

This is a game changer for our communities. Patrollers on bikes can cover A LOT more ground and reach active incidents much faster.

And bikes are not trackable like cars.

We’re still walking Central Ave TONIGHT (and every Thursday) at 5:30.

And the Holland Neighborhood Association will be at Recovery Bike Shop at 7:00pm with Council Member Elliott Payne. Find out ways to engage in the community. This is where change happens.

facebook

feb 22/RUNGETOUTICE

3 miles
river road, north/lena smith hill x 3
15 degrees / feels like -2
wind: 24 mph gusts
100% clear path

A late afternoon run. It was cold but I had on (almost) all of the layers — 2 pairs of running tights, 2 base layer shirts, 1 hooded pull-over, a jacket, a buff, a cap with ear flaps, 2 pairs of gloves — so I was very warm. Only now, back inside at my desk, can I feel how the cold burned my face. I saw a few walkers, but I think I was the only runner. The river was open, the paths were clear, the sky was a grayish white.

overheard: 2 men walking a dog, heading north — when can we get out of this wind?!

Yes, the wind was rough. I don’t recall it stirring up anything, just howling, and feeling cold. 3 miles was enough for me today.

thank you past Sara!

Performing my morning ritual — my “On This Day” practice in which I read past entries from this day — I reread 22 feb 2024 and my lengthy discussion of pain. Such a gift today when I seem to be having an almost 2 month long argument with my body. I hesitate to call it pain, although I am in some discomfort. It started with a mild but persistent “cold” (never tested it, so I’m not sure what it was) that lasted more than 2 weeks. Then the discovery of high blood pressure at an annual check-up, which I’m monitoring for the next month (doctor’s orders), and that is sometimes normal, sometimes not, and is leaving me unsettled by its refusal to be one or the other. Combine that with the return of anxiety, a stretch of particularly bad restless legs and insomnia, and the acceleration of fascism in the US. Fascism aside, none of these are that big of a deal, and maybe that’s part of the problem. If they were actually a big deal, I would learn how to accept and accommodate them. Instead they linger as uncertainties, specters of worry, causing a rift between me (who is the me here?) and my body. (This litany of minor complaints is offered as gift to future Sara who most likely won’t read them as complaints, but as the documenting and archiving of what it felt like to be living in this strange and terrible and hopeful time.)

I’m not sure when I created the hashtag, body in pain, but I should do more with it — maybe create a page? And maybe I can do a little more with the 2024 entry and this — 18 august 2017.

Get Out Ice

Fight
Unlawful
Conduct
Keep
Individuals and
Communities
Empowered Act

Democratic lawmakers in New Jersey have sent a blunt message to Immigration and Customs Enforcement with the introduction of a new bill.

The “Fight Unlawful Conduct and Keep Individuals and Communities Empowered Act” – or F*** ICE Act – was introduced Thursday in the State Assembly. It aims to extend residents’ rights under state law to sue federal immigration officials for unconstitutional conduct. 

“There have to be real consequences if ICE breaks the law,” said Katie Brennan, an Assembly Democrat who is co-sponsoring the bill alongside former Hoboken mayor Ravi Bhalla, also a Democrat, according to The New York Times.

The Independent

Many of the articles about this FUCKICE Act described it as vulgar in the headline, which reminds me of a great quote from an article in MPR recently about mocking ICE and the Dildo Distribution Delegation:

“When people come out and say, ‘Well that was really vile or vulgar or distasteful,’ it sets up the question: isn’t it more distasteful and violent and vulgar to shoot people in the back of the head when they’re at a protest or to kill the citizens of Minneapolis?” Winchester said.

misheard

Read a poem last night, or was it early this morning?, by Kelli Russell Agodon that connects with my interest yesterday in sense misperceptions, and reminds me of something I wrote about on a log entry from 26 jan 2025: the 10 muses of poetry, including: Mishearing, Misunderstanding, Mistranslating, Mismanaging, Mislaying, and Misreading. The poem: “Coming Up Next: How Killer Blue Irises Spread —Misheard health report on NPR” And here’s something else from that 26 jan 2025 entry to put with all of this:

A second key might be “eavesdropping.” As it happens I have deficient eyesight and hearing, not enough to impair my regular function but enough that I can, as my colleague Karla Kelsey puts it, “squint,” either with the eye or the ear, without difficulty. Some of my best lines—especially the generative lines, the bits of poetic grist from which poems develop—come from phrases I’ve misheard in conversation or (at least initially) misread as text. I guess you could say I “own” such material—I make a lyric and creative claim to it—by mishearing or misreading it.

An Inheritance Reassembled

I bought a collection by Waldrep after discovering this intervew, and a few of his poems. Maybe it’s time to read it!

feb 21/RUNGETOUTICE

4.25 miles
minnehaha falls and back
18 degrees / feels like 6

After a week of warmth, winter is back and this time the paths are clear! Hooray! It is (almost) never the cold but the uneven trails that bother me in January and February (and March and often April). I felt good as I ran south and even better as I ran back north. As I ran, I thought about how I was wearing my dead mother-in-law’s purple jacket and my dead mother’s teal cap with the tassels. I liked feeling as if they were both there with me. I also thought about #2 (see below) and what it means to be good at something. I imagined it not as something you are, I am good at x or y or z, but as a moment you experience or as a means to a deeper end: to feel free or satisfied or joyful — because I can run well, I am able to float on the trail and devote more attention to this place or to travel farther on this trail or enter the flow state and feel closer to the earth, the air, the water.

10 Things

  1. a flash or a slash or a blur of bright red below me — with a second glance I saw that it was a person with a red coat walking on the winchell trail
  2. a BRIGHT dot and a thought whispered in my head — yellow — an instant later recognition, a crosswalk sign
  3. thump thump thump the deep bass of a song exploding out of a car
  4. another car, more music — a song that I could almost but not quite hear — I strained my ears to identify any lyrics or a melody, but couldn’t
  5. the faint echo of the train bells near the falls
  6. the falls were still gushing from behind the ice columns, the dark water of the creek was rushing
  7. a group of people standing at the wall, looking down at the falls — they were laughing and cheering as they threw something below — I think they were snowballs
  8. the river was completely open and was mostly a deep brownish blueish dark gray — it stretched wide and far and looked more like a wall than water
  9. my feet slid (but didn’t slip) on the grit on the trail
  10. the paths held a range of people — single walkers, walkers with dogs, running pairs, running trios, adults and kids walking single-file — but the benches held nothing — they were empty

some things to remember

1

For almost a year now, I’ve been jumping from project to project. In the spring, it was color, then in the summer it was water and inklings, in the fall my book manuscript on echolocation and the gorge, and this winter it has been love. So many projects! And I have more big ideas that have been simmering for years and waiting for the light of my attention. But, I also like wandering without a clear purpose or goal. I like devoting a month to a random topic, like shadows or windows or wind, making a playlist for it, exploring new things that I haven’t encountered before. It’s difficult to balance a desire to wander and experiment with the need to turn it into something.

And right now, the need to turn it into something is winning. Even as I write this, I’m thinking of another project which would be part of a larger manuscript on how I see. So far, I have written about how I am seeing color (inner and outer color), how I navigate, looking at the world as if through water (inklings), now it’s time for another section/chapbook of this — thoughts? Optical illusions or hallucinations or mistaken identities? I’m imagining this might include examples from my log of seeing something in a very WRONG way — like disembodied legs walking toward me on the trail.

My starting point could be to gather: examples from past entries; lines from poems that speak to/of the beauty and the danger of these illusions; some research on illusions by scientists and psychologists; excerpts from essays by G. Kleege and Naomi Cohn; examples in art — like Monet and Magritte. Along the way, I want to turn this work of gathering into a resource page for others.

2

In my post from 21 feb 2017, I posed the question, what does it mean to be good at running? What does it mean to be good at something? And now I’m wondering, what does it TAKE to be good at something? The word excellence echoes in my head as I think about my studying of Aristotle and the figure skating in the 2026 winter Olympics. Two different models: Ilia Malinin (the quad god) and Alysa Liu. And I’m also thinking about the idea of needing to suffer for your art and where joy fits into your practice. And, another question — is the goal always to be good, to excel, to master?

3

A book to buy, or to check out of the library: Against Breaking — the power of poetry / Ada Limón

4

A mural to find:

a storm drain mural for water quality, designed and painted by local artist Precious, shows a sunset over a cityscape in vibrant colors. You can see it at the Mississippi River Gorge scenic overlook along Mississippi River Boulevard in Highland Park.

FMR

5

a poem to read again and to place beside my restlessness, my desire for movement, and my desire to find new ways to understand stillness:

The Art of Silence / Christine Anderson

a Buddhist monk taught me to sit silently
be the moon floating over my back field
a buttercup cradled in a clump of spring grass
sit hushed
as the broad shoulders of granite mountains
in their shawl of clouds—
sit despite
an unquiet morning
that buzzes and twitters and zips
sit to be a dewdrop
in the garden
a perfect pearl of daybreak—
a Buddha
sitting.

Get Out Ice

Found a substack list of LOTS of anti-ICE stuff happening around the cities. This one seemed particularly fitting:

We want ICE OUT!!! Of our city, our state, our community, and for one night only, out of our margaritas.

Celebrate National Margarita Day this Sunday 2/22 at Hai Hai with NO ICE margaritas to support our restaurant community. ICE doesn’t belong here anymore and we are pulling frozen water out of our favorite cocktail to prove it. A portion of each No Ice Marg sold will be donated to @thesaltcurefund for restaurants in need. If and when ICE leaves, restaurants will have a long way to go to recover from the impact their occupation has had on our community, join us for a drink and some laughter and help us take one step forward towards recovery.

Hai Hai Instagram post

feb 20/BIKEGETOUTICE

32 minutes
basement

Watched the women’s cross-country relay for most of the bike, then Alysa Liu’s amazing Free Skate for the last 10 minutes. Scott and I watched Liu’s performance last night, and I watched it again this morning. Admittedly, I can’t really see that much of it — no details, not her beaming face, none of her lines, only the feel and speed of her movement, the energy of her joy. And I guess as I watch it I am a little sad not to be able to fully witness her artistry. But I still loved it. And I’ll be watching it again and again as an antidote to all the other shit happening right now.

Bunnies

Earlier today, I read in an old log entry about my discovery, last february, of two backyard bunnies. Then I read a post on Facebook from Minneapolis Parks about how some rabbits pee blue. It felt like a nudge, today you should write about bunnies!

Here are some sources for inspiration (or more) about rabbits/bunnies:

1

Have you seen weird blue spots in the snow lately? There’s a good chance it’s rabbit pee. Eastern cottontails (the most common rabbit in Minnesota, you’ve probably seen them running around yards at dusk) sometimes eat buckthorn branches and bark, especially toward the end of winter. Buckthorn contains a phytochemical that turns urine blue after being exposed to sunlight.
So, don’t be alarmed if you come across one of these spots, it probably means a well hydrated rabbit stopped by. (Minneapolis Parks)

2

Looking out the kitchen window, seeing 2 dark forms in the white snow — bare patches or something more? Staring for a few mnutes — am I imagining that slight shift? No, 2 animals, standing still for minutes. What are they doing? Quick movement, then bounding figures. Rabbit-like. But these animals look so dark — is it a trick of the dim light — bunny fir darkened in the lilac light? [there is no indigo in a backyard illuminated by neighbor’s security lights.] Or, could these creatures be raccoons?

update, 20 feb 2026: A definite answer: bunnies! All late fall and winter, 2 or more bunnies have been hanging out under our crab apple tree — at night, in the afternoon, at sunrise and sunset. They’re very bold, these bunnies, not running off when I walk by. When this happens, I’ve started saying, these bunnies are as bold as brass! Why? Not sure. And, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea: I like bunnies or rabbits about as much as I like squirrels, which is not at all.

3

The idiom bold as brass describes someone who exudes extreme confidence, someone who is brazen or very forward. The term bold as brass is ascribed to the Lord Mayor of London in the 1770s, Brass Crosby. Crosby defied the House of Parliament by supporting the printing of a pamphlet regarding the proceedings of Parliament. The phrase bold as brass was first recorded in Life’s Painter of Variegated Characters in Public and Private Life by George Parker published in 1789, some time after the incident involving Brass Crosby. Some say this disproves the link between Crosby and the idiom bold as brass, others say it reinforces the link. In fact, the word brass was used to mean boldness or brazenness for at least forty years before the appearance of Brass Crosby on the political scene. The idiom bold as brass reached the zenith of its popularity in the early 1900s.

4

an illusion: duck or bunny

5

A cup holds
sugar, flour, three large rabbit-breaths of air.
(My Weather / Jane Hirshfield)

6

But then the rabbits tire
And the fire catches up,
Stuck onto them like the needles of the cactus,
Which at first must be what they think they feel on their skins.
They’ve felt this before, every rabbit.
But this time the feeling keeps on.
And of course, they ignite the brush and dried weeds
All over again, making more fire, all around them.
I’m sorry for the rabbits.
And I’m sorry for us
To know this.
(Rabbits and Fire/ Alberto Rios)

7

The rock that is not a rabbit suns itself
in the field, its brown coat that isn’t fur
furred with light. The rock that isn’t a rabbit
would be warm to a palm but wouldn’t
quicken or strain from touch.
(The Rock that isn’t a Rabbit / Corey Marks)

8

it is the
sadness of the unperceived and therefore never felt and
seldom expressed, except on occasion by polka dancers
and little girls who, in imitation of their grandmothers,
decide who shall have their bunny when they die.
(Green Sadness / Mary Ruefle)

9

A white rabbit hopped beside me and for a moment I thought it was a blob of snow that had fallen out of the sky. The rabbit and I studied each other. Rabbits taste like chickens. My My mother and father had taught me how to hit rabbits over the head with wine jugs, then skin them cleanly for fur vests. “It’s a cold night to be an animal,” I said, “so you want some fire too, do you? Let me put on another branch, then.” I would not hit it with the branch. I had learned from rabbits to kick backward. Perhaps this one was sick because normally the animal did not like fire. The rabbit seemed alert enough, however, looking at me acutely, bounding up to the fire. But it did not stop when it got to the edge. It turned its face once towards me then jumped into the fire. The fire went down for a moment as if crouching in surprise, then the flames shot up taller than before. When the fire became calm again I saw that the rabbit had turned into meat, browned just right. I ate it, knowing the rabbit had sacrificed itself for me. It had made me a gift of meat.
(The Woman Warrior / Maxine Hong Kingston)

I ended up doing other things today and didn’t have much time to work on it. I found a title and some opening lines:

There is no Indigo

In a backyard illuminated
by a neighbor’s security lights
there is only lilac.

I think I’m going to also need to include the line about how I like bunnies as much as I like squirrels, which is not at all.

Get Out Ice

The only ice I am into today is the Olympic ice and Alysa Liu’s free skate!

feb 19/SHOVELWALKGETOUTICE

7.6 inches
30 degrees

When I went out for my run yesterday in the early afternoon to “beat the snow” I had no idea it would snow so much. What was completely bare yesterday morning, is now covered in white. Wow. It is very winter wonderland-y. If I didn’t need to take a day off from running, I’d be out there right now with my yaktrax. Instead of running, I settled for an early morning shovel. This winter, I’ve been shoveling my sidewalk and the sidewalk of my neighbors on both sides. The snow hasn’t been too hard to shovel and it feels good to help others, even in this small way. Today as I shoveled the sidewalk of my neighbor to the south, she opened her door and called out, Thank you Sara! Normally I listen to a podcast or a playlist when I shovel, but I didn’t today. I’m glad. I might not have heard her thank you if I had!

10 Things

  1. the snow was so bright that even though the sun wasn’t out, I wore sunglasses
  2. chirping birds
  3. a droning snow blower
  4. the sharp scrape of a shovel
  5. the snow moved easily under my crappy plastic shovel — it was both fluffy and wet
  6. without the snow, the sidewalk was slick
  7. the serviceberry tree/bush at the edge of our deck was loaded down with snow —
  8. once I accidentally brushed against it and snow fell under my jacket and down my back — brrr
  9. later I gently knocked the heavy branches with my shovel; a soft layer of snow fell on my head and covered my sunglasses
  10. my shovel unearthed clumps of dead leaves at the edge of the sidewalk

walk: 60 minutes
Winchell trail to Rachel Dow Memorial Bench
32 degrees

Every winter I try to do at least one winter wonderland walk, when it’s not too cold or too windy and everything is covered in white and winter feels like WINTER — as in the ideal form of winter. Today was the day for this year! Admittedly, the edges of the trail and the curbs were very wet, but I didn’t mind because I had on snow pants and boots.

As I walked to the river, I recited Wordsworth’s “Snow-flakes” — Out of the bosom of the air/Out of the cloudfolds of her garment shaken — and watched small clumps of snow dropping from the branches. I listened to the water falling over the concrete ledge, then the limestone ledge, then into the ravine. I felt the snow compacting through my boot and creak creak creaking with every step.

added on 20 feb 2026: Rereading my entry from 20 feb 2023, a mention of footprints reminded me of something else about my walk on the Winchell Trail: lots of footprints. I liked knowing that other people had taken this walk before me and wondered if they loved it as much as I did. A distinctive thing about these footprints: even though the snow was new, the footprints weren’t pure white. Many of them were tinged with yellow — not from dog pee, but from something else. The over saturated ground? The snow itself, polluted? And, related to footprints, the tracks from cross-country skis! Unfortunately it took me a few minutes to process that they were there and that I should not be walking over them and break the trail that someone had made. So I ruined a block-length stretch of them before realizing and shifting over to the unbroken snow.

The view of the river through the tall, slender trees was amazing. The water was all open and a blueish-greenish-gray — at least to me. I took some pictures but none of them captured the beauty of this moment.

snow-painted trees, a fence, the open river

When I got to the Rachel Dow Memorial Bench, I brushed off the snow and sat for a few minutes. I heard the birds and the faint rumble of a pick-up truck across the river. Then I walked back on the trail closer to the road, and it finally happened — an SUV sped through the puddles on the edge of the road and splashed me. When I run, I often wonder/worry if this will happen, but this was the first time it actually did. I didn’t mind; it was warm, and I dressed for it. Did they do it on purpose? Possibly. No other car splashed up water. Do I care? Not at all.

Get Out Ice

Another sticker in the Arbeiter bathroom. Maybe I should make a sticker to put up in that bathroom? A poetry sticker?

Best Friends Forever / Epstein and Trump

feb 18/RUNGETOUTICE

It is 1:30 pm. It is sometimes raining, sometimes snowing, and is all-the-time windy. It is also 32 degrees. But the pavement is bare and it might not be this clear for a few days because we are supposed to get some more snow. Should I go out for a short run when I have the chance? Or, are the conditions too crappy, my left knee too sore? Future Sara will let us know! Sara from 2:47: I did it! I went out for a run in this blustery weather!

3.3 miles
river road, south/north/neighborhood, south
31 degrees / feels like 17 / snow
wind: 25 mph gusts

Not the best conditions, but I’m glad I went outside. I started by running south on the river road trail, but it was tough. I was running straight into the wind and stabbing snowflakes. I turned around at the Rachel Dow Memorial Bench, then turned off the river road and onto Lena Smith Boulevard at 32nd. I was plannng to do some hills but the road was blocked off. Instead, I meandered through the neighborhood.

I encountered one other runner, at least one fat tire. Any walkers? I can’t remember. It was difficult to see what was ahead of me. Snow was thick in the air and I pulled the visor of my cap down low to block it. If I saw the river, I don’t remember what it looked like. When I turned around to head north again, it was much easier and more fun. The snow was swirling in front of my face, looking like white confetti or bits of styrofoam. It wasn’t as cool, but it reminded me of the scene at the men’s Free Ski Big Air final that Scott and I watched last night. The sky was black, the heavy snow was illuminated by the bright lights of the venue. I remember admiring it and wishing it would snow here again so I could run through it. Well, the snow today wasn’t nearly as heavy as what I saw on the tv, but it was still delightful. It will probably be a slippery nightmare tomorrow, but today it was fun!

Lisel Mueller!

I’ve posted several poems by Lisel Mueller over the years: When I Am Asked/ Lisel Mueller, The Blind Leading The Blind/ Lisel Mueller, Sometimes, When the Light/ Lisel Mueller, Things/ Lisel Mueller, and Monet Refuses the Operation/ Lisel Mueller. But, I’ve never checked out any of her collections until now. Yesterday I picked up Alive Together: New and Selected Poems / Lisel Mueller. I started at the beginning, and stopped when I found this poem:

Losing My Sight / Lisel Mueller

I never knew that by August
the birds are practically silent,
only a twitter here and there.
Now I notice. Last spring
their noisiness taught me the difference
between screamers and whistlers and cooers
and O, the coloraturas.
I have already mastered the subtlest pitches in our cat’s
elegant Chinese. As the river
turns muddier before my eyes,
its sighs and little smacks
grow louder. Like a spy,
I pick up things indiscriminately:
the long approach of a truck,
car doors slammed in the dark,
the night life of animals—shrieks and hisses,
sex and plunder in the garage.
Tonight the crickets spread static
across the air, a continuous rope
of sound extended to me,
the perfect listener.

coloratura = elaborate ornamentation of a vocal melody, especially in operatic singing by a soprano.

I imagined that Mueller knew something about vision loss when I read her, “Monet Refuses the Operation” a few years ago, but I didn’t know that for the last 20 years of her life (she died in 2020), she was losing her vision and couldn’t read. I found out about that while reading this interview, “Slightly Larger Than Life Size“:

Mueller speaks always in a steady, gentle tone—even when describing the death of her beloved husband, Paul Mueller, in 2001 or the partial loss of vision she has suffered over the last 20 years. “I’m blind for reading, really,” she explains plainly, almost as if she were describing someone else. “I use an enlarging machine. And I have two friends who come read to me.” 

Mueller also no longer writes, in part because of her diminishing vision. She treats this circumstance with the same tough realism—compellingly at odds with the ethereal nature of her poetry—as the other hardships in her life. “I do miss writing,” she replies when asked the obvious question. “But I simply don’t have the images coming to me anymore that would start a poem. The language no longer flows. I would have to force it and come up with some artificial things, and that’s not my way. I’m someone who has learned to put up with things as they are. Because of the blindness, because of what happened to my husband, because of leaving the country that I was born in and coming here—I accommodate myself.”

Slightly Larger Than Life Size

I accommodate myself. Love that line! A title for a poem, I think. I wouldn’t say I put up with things; rather, I adapt and find new ways to be, to see. I like the line about not forcing it and coming up with artificial things. I agree.

In my imagined poem titled, “I accommodate myself,” I might start it with a line from Mueller’s “Losing My Sight”: I never knew . . . . / Now I notice. Maybe I should make a list of all of things I’ve noticed since my vision began declining?

The perfect listener. Reading this line, I immediately thought of Ed Bok Lee’s line in “Halos“:

That visual impairment improves hearing,
taste, smell, touch is mostly myth.

I do notice things much more than I did before my vision loss; I’ve made it a big part of writing/attention practice. I’ve devoted many runs to listening or smelling or feeling the various textures. So, being a good listener didn’t just happen because my vision declined; I worked for it. Yet, even as I’m noticing more with my ears, I do also seem to struggle to hear what people are saying to me. So much so that I asked for my hearing to be checked at my last appointment. It was fine. So, what’s happening? Why do I need more time to process what people are saying, or need to ask them to repeat it? FWA thinks I might have an audio processing disorder — something one of his favorite Youtubers has. Possibly. I think it has more to do with how people use visual cues — gestures, their surroundings — to convey the meaning of their speech. People with normal sight don’t realize how much they are relying on vision when they speak and they don’t recognize how that impacts people who cannot see the things that they are referencing. I find this frustrating and also fascinating to think about how we our senses work together.

One more thing about Mueller’s poem. I’d like to memorize it. There are too many wonderful lines that I don’t want to forget.

Sharing the Love

I have not given much any attention to building an audience here or on social media and, as a result, no one is seeing/responding/sharing my love poems. It is probably also because of the algorithm. Scott suggested that I put the link in the first comment and post a picture of a dog. It’s time for me to think again about if I want a bigger audience. Actually, the better question is: how can I reach people with my work? For me, it’s less about a big audience, more about finding ways to share what I’m doing and connect with others. Experiment time! The goal for me is not a bigger audience, but finding ways to contribute and connect. Hmm . . . I’ll have to think about it some more.

a few minutes later: As a first step, I’ve decided to try sharing my love poems again on Facebook. I put the link in the first comment and posted a photo, not of a dog, but of this Valentine that Scott noticed in the bathroom at Arbeiter Brewing:

Valentine, I’m falling for you & hoping the system does, too.

Also, I posted the STOP ICE photo that I posted here yesterday on my Instagram.

Maybe one of the biggest reasons I’m not sharing on social media is because it’s hard for me to do it with my bad vision. Everything takes so much longer and I can’t always see when I’ve made a mistake. And, I’ve been self-conscious about posting photos that I imagine are poorly cropped or framed strangely. Time to get over that.

Get Out Ice

Seen on a bathroom door at Arbeiter Brewing:

sickers on a bathroom door at Arbeiter

feb 17/RUNGETOUTICE

4.3 miles
minnehaha park and back
47 degrees
wind: 13 mph / 32 mph gusts

Warm, but windy, which made it feel colder, but only sometimes. The rest of the time it felt warm. Warm enough for bare arms. My left knee was a bit stiff and sore. Maybe I should take a break from running tomorrow.

overheard as I ran near Minnehaha Academy: a whistle blowing, then an adult voice — Okay fourth graders! I guess recess is over.

10 Things

  1. at least 2 runners were wearing shorts
  2. all of the walkers were bundled up in coats and hats and long pants
  3. open water!? I think the ice has fully cracked on the surface of the river, but it could just be much thinner in parts. Looking down at it, there were blobs of white, with larger stretches of pale grayish, blueish, greenish
  4. the falls were gushing behind thick ice columns
  5. voices below — an adult with several kids — were they hiking behind the falls?
  6. a police vehicle parked sideways in the parking lot at 44th
  7. the cobblestones near the falls overlook were all ice-free, but not puddle-free! squish squish squish
  8. more of the walking path is clear and open — a few clumps of snow, wet and shiny pavement, grit
  9. an old pick-up truck was parked under the ford bridge, up on the sidewalk across the road from the trail — was it hiding — if so, why and from whom?
  10. the walking half of the double bridge was covered in slushy snow, the bike half was mostly clear with a deep puddle in the middle

I decided that I would listen to music for the second half of my run. Because it was windy, I put on my “It’s Windy” playlist. The first song: Sailing / Christopher Cross The last song was the sound of birds chirping. Huh? Oh — checked the title of the track: “Breeze (forest)”

Get Out Ice

When FWA got home from his errand this morning, he told me that all of the Stop signs in the neighborhood have a stenciled “ICE” under the “STOP” in a matching font. Of course I had to check and take a picture!

STOP ICE

I’m not sure how long these signs have been this way. I hadn’t noticed, but I don’t drive, so I rarely see the stop signs. I wondered how long it took someone/someones to do this? I hope the city leaves them alone.

added, 18 feb 2026: Three notes from Scott. First, as we drove to the library, Scott and I noticed more stop signs with “ICE” and some without. Scott guessed that this stop ice action was probably not that systematic. Second, he also pointed out that it is not a stencil, but a sticker. Would I be able to notice that if I got close enough? I’ll have to take a walk today and check. And third, Scott informed me that these stickers have been on stop signs for several weeks.

Love

I finished my love poems. I decided to call it, We Love, We Love, We Love, We Love. I posted it on instagram, facebook, and as the home page of my author site: sarapuotinen.com

feb 16/RUNGETOUTICE

4.05 miles
river road, north/south
51 degrees
50% sloppy

51 degrees! Another run with bare arms. Lots of puddles, but also lots of dry path. I was able to run on the walking path for long stretches. The surface of the river has cracked — no open water yet, but patches of thinner ice in light gray were scattered all over. A bike passed by blasting music: “Losing my Religion” by REM. I heard some kids’ voices at a playground before I reached the river. Saw/heard an ambulance rumble by on the river road, its LOUD siren freaking out all the nearby dogs. Near the end, recited Alice Oswald’s “A Story of Falling” as I ran — in my head, not out loud. Also near the end, heard the bells of St. Thomas chime twice — it’s 2:00 already? Wow.

I stopped to walk several times, often because I had become trapped on a part of the path that was suddenly blocked by a short wall of snow or a deep puddle. One of the stops was at a bench nearing Franklin that I have delighted in noticing before. It is dedicated to “Margaret Carlson, Dog Lover.” Today I remembered to take a picture of it!

“She cherished her girls; Schnapps, Candy, Maggie, Mitzi and Suzi*”

*yes, it should be a colon, not a semi-colon, but who cares; I’d rather give my attention to the fact that one of her “girls” is named Schnapps, and another, Candy!

I’m not sure if I’ve written this yet, but I’d like to remember: when I go out running now, I carry a whistle and my passport ID card. And I don’t listen to any music, so I can be better aware of what’s happening around me.

Get Out Ice

I am almost finished with my collection of love poems. Here’s the final poem, which is an erasure of a Facebook statement by Carbone’s Pizzeria on Cedar near Lake Nokomis:

This New Normal / 15 February 2026

This New Normal

We are with you. We love you.
love Always.
We Love
We Love
We Love
We Love
this new normal together,
love

feb 15/RUNGETOUTICE

3.5 miles
locks and dam #1
45 degrees
100% sloppy

It felt warmer than 45, warm enough to take off my pull-over and run the second half in short sleeves. I know winter is coming back next week and that I will enjoy running in the snow some more, but today I liked spring. I ran south on the river road trail, which had more people and more puddles than 2 days ago. Everything was bright — the sky, the silvery reflection on the water’s surface. In fact, writing this 10 minutes later, I’m having trouble seeing the screen because my eyes are still adjusting from how bright it was outside.

I heard the torpedoed call of a cardinal, the dripping of melting snow down the eaves, the whoosh of car wheels on the road. I felt the grit on the path, the warm air on my face, the cold, damp sponge of my sock. Squish squish squish!

Turkeys! As I ran south, I noticed a group of women gathered at the edge of the path, near an entrance to the Winchell Trail. I looked below and saw — or did I hear them first?! — 3 wild turkeys grazing in the grass and making some noise. Excellent!

The water under the ford bridge was still a thick white. Sometimes geese gather down here, but not today. Above, voices drifted down. Was it a bridge brigade: neighbors gathering together with signs and horns to protest ICE?

Get Out Ice

Here’s the beginning section of something Robert Reich posted that’s spreading around Facebook:

This, from one cabinet secretary to another. I could not say this any better:

”The New York Times reports that Department of Homeland Security has sent Google (owner of YouTube), Meta (Facebook and Instagram), and other media corporations subpoenas for the names on accounts that criticize ICE enforcement. The Department wants to identify Americans who oppose what it’s doing.

I’ll save them time.

***

Hello? Kristi Noem?

I hear you’re trying to find the names of people who are making negative comments on social media about ICE enforcement.

Look no further. I’ve done it frequently. I’m still doing it. This note to you, which I’m posting on Substack, is another example… You will find what I’ve said, and you’ll find it’s very critical. I’ve done some videos that are very critical of you and ICE, too.

Let me not mince words: I really truly believe you’re doing a sh*tty job.

Robert Reich