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The bright light at the end of your blue day is a poorly maintained, rarely used basketball court in the sticks. I am scared of pick up and am also deeply not competitive, but shooting hoops ALONE for hours on end is pure untouchable joy. The abandoned court in a small park in my hometown is perfect for this but there must be thousands of courts exactly like it. Bonus if you go on days in the 50s or light rain when absolutely no sane person is at the park. You do not need to be even remotely talented at basketball to indulge in this ritual.
Requires:
Playlist, speaker, ball.
Feb 12, 2025
Related Recs
I just walked past an elementary school and had flashbacks after seeing the tetherball poles. I genuinely miss playing that game. It was so simple and fun. Beginner boxing for a little child who needed to get out their frustration and practice dodging and smacking things back. I wonder if I'm as good as I used to be. Someone find me public tetherball courts, why are they always only inside schools.
Mar 1, 2025
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I know, it’s obnoxious to be part of this trendy bandwagon. For all I know, you’re someone who has called to complain about the sound of people playing the game, which I’ve heard happens in certain neighborhoods. I get it. It’s essentially very loud and very big ping pong. If I can make one argument for taking up the sport, I’d say it’s that the age range of people with whom you hang out will expand greatly. The other day, I played with a 10-year old, a 30-year old, and a 70-year old. Plus, it’s a real-life interaction, and it’s easy to come up short on those sometimes.
Jan 16, 2024
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playing volleyball in my basement and listening to the neighborhood 🙃
Jan 5, 2025
Top Recs from @bumbythefool
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I’m sick of feeling powerless so my new coping strategy is to not let a stupid system bully me into quiet despair. I’m learning how to use my state’s General Assembly’s online bill tracker and I’m subscribing to email updates for the agendas and the public hearings of the legislative committees I’m most concerned about. I’m memorizing all my legislators‘ names and emailing and calling regularly.
Also: Check to see if your state’s Legislative Library has Libguides that explain in layman’s terms what bills are passing in your state and other educational/legislative resources you have freely available to you!!!
Nov 20, 2024
Apr 16, 2025
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You will make about 60k if you're lucky unless you become a manager, and you will have 35k of debt or more from grad school (online grad school is cheaper sometimes and no one cares where you get the degree anyways). And sometimes you work for a university (which is essentially a corporation) or the government. But in general everyone in your field will believe in a code of ethics that raises the dignity of humanity above the mire of misinformation and censorship. And you help empower people with the information literacy to move through the world as confident capable individuals/professionals/scholars. Community college libraries are my favorite environment I've worked in so far because the students are cool, driven, and diverse in age and background. Public libraries also do amazing social work in 2025 to provide services to their communities like harm reduction, networks of resources for unhoused people, language teaching, professional development, basic technology training, literally just being a third space, I could go on forever. It definitely is a career that exists because of neoliberalism I'm not going to lie, like American public libraries only exist because robber barons in the 1900s donated a mind boggling amount of grants to towns across the country to build them (not sure about other countries' history with this to be fair). All that being said I decided I wanted to be a librarian when I was 16 and I've been committed to that path for 11 years with no regret.
To add a personal note to this rec and emphasize how meaningful this work really is, I'm going to indulge in a story because I could genuinely cry thinking about all the kind, interesting people I've met who have chosen to be vulnerable with me about their needs and goals. A couple years ago I helped an older man for multiple hours to remember his email login so he could get a copy of his birth certificate from his son-in-law who had emailed a scan of the physical copy which was in another country. The stakes were incredibly high and the task seemed virtually impossible because we didn't even have an email address to start. He was having trouble reaching his son-in-law to ask for help because of the time difference, and he needed the scan ASAP. We were together for so long I learned a lot about him. He talked to me about Islam and Christianity and angels. And then we got it! It's probably one of the defining moments of my career and to me is one of the most impactful things I've ever done.
So there's my job rec lol!
Mar 13, 2025