For the past two years, I put my career on hold, because my family needed so much help. I only took on projects that I could do quickly and without hassle, like selling book, advocating for vulnerable kids, and writing opinion pieces. Ian still needs a lot of help until we can get him to a better place, but I’m slowly making some changes. I have a long-form journalism piece that’s been on the back burner, and it’s calling to me.

Taking a week off from Twitter helped me gain a little perspective and peace. While I want to keep advocating for kids like mine, I’m not sure that I have to the stomach to do it full time. It’s massively stressful. Thank god for the “mute” feature on twitter.

But at the same time, I am not quite sure what the chatterers are talking about right now. Just a handful of links this morning:

The mask mandate ends in March in New Jersey. Shows you the power of angry moms. BTW, they are organized and moving onto the next issue. This is going to really annoy all the woman-haters out there.

Housing for the mentally ill (and all sorts of vulnerable people) is horrific. A profile of Martial Simon, the homeless man who pushed a woman in front of a moving subway in January. Are we going to see a return of institutions? I’ve been doing all sorts of training to become a paperpusher for the state. Will tell you about it on Friday.

Sometimes I write something, click “publish,” and then sort of hate what I wrote. Here’s Friday’s newsletter, which isn’t fabulous.

I did a lot of book stuff this weekend. In fact, I couldn’t sleep until 2am, because I couldn’t put my phone down. I kept searching for information about books that I found. Yes, I can even turn a fun hobby into a neurotic adventure. That’s my special talent. Here’s some pics of a cool handmade book from the Arts and Crafts era.

PICTURE: I had three Cosmos on Friday night. My friends said, “It’s Friday, so we drink pink!.” Three was too many. That’s all I will say about that.