Colleen Barry
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copycurmudgeon.bsky.social
Colleen Barry
@copycurmudgeon.bsky.social
15K followers 270 following 1.6K posts
Copy editor (ProPublica, FiveThirtyEight, ESPN), baker, cross stitcher, cat furniture. she/her
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copycurmudgeon.bsky.social
Poor guy can’t find the B button
October 27, 2025 at 10:35 PM
copycurmudgeon.bsky.social
@kenlowery.bsky.social Oh hey it’s ya boy

(I hadn’t seen this one before!)
Sam Neill, alone in a movie theater, throws his head back and laughs. His shirt is covered in hand-drawn crosses and he’s holding a big bucket of popcorn.
October 27, 2025 at 2:27 AM
copycurmudgeon.bsky.social
This guy sensed that I was looking at another black cat.
A large black cat sitting on a rug and staring up at the camera with an air of mild disapproval.
October 17, 2025 at 1:45 AM
copycurmudgeon.bsky.social
Behold the majestic fluffpotato
A large and very fluffy cat sitting on a table. He has a dark brown face and lower legs, with a tan back and white chest and belly. He’s like a bowling ball you want to hug. The same cat now on the floor and jumping into a chair. His back feet are on the ground and in focus and everything else is a blur as he jumps.
October 9, 2025 at 2:58 AM
copycurmudgeon.bsky.social
Turning my niece into a reader by hook or by crook.
Text conversation: My mom: “You did a good job. Maeve got off the bus reading one of the books you gave her. Well, she was reading it as she crossed the street so maybe not such a good job.” Me: “Hahahaha. Which one?” Mom: “Not sure, but you told her it was one of your favorite series.” Me: “Sideways stories from wayside school!” Mom: “Yes!”
October 8, 2025 at 7:31 PM
copycurmudgeon.bsky.social
Anyway this was Dottie. She was definitely a girl, she was not a chimera and she was not a doofus. She was the softest cat in the world and I miss her very much.
Head and shoulders of an orange-and-white cat with deep golden eyes. An orange-and-white cat sits on a low shelf of a bookcase. Her face is mostly a muted orange with a white patch covering her mouth, climbing her left cheek and stopping under her eye. She has a white dot in the middle of her forehead. Her sides and stomach are mostly white, with big muted-orange patches down her back. Her haunches and tail are totally orange with faint evidence of stripes at the tip of her tail.
September 20, 2025 at 8:02 PM
copycurmudgeon.bsky.social
Decided to go touch some grass.
An open book, out of focus, in the foreground. Beyond it are some small trees and a wide expanse of river with a bunch of sailboats scudding around. The book is in the dappled shade of the trees the river is bathed in bright sunlight.
September 12, 2025 at 9:34 PM
copycurmudgeon.bsky.social
I mostly don’t mind working in Google Docs — a minority position among editors — but one thing I do hate with a passion is its craptacular spellcheck, which failed to flag “cornplex” for “complex,” leaving my myopic ass to spot the telltale wisp of white space on my own.
A screenshot of a document, zoomed in on just a couple words, one of which is “cornplex,” which is not freaking underlined.
September 9, 2025 at 12:40 AM
copycurmudgeon.bsky.social
One thing that copy editors can do for you is flag when your promo code is an extremely poor choice for a marketing blast in the second week of September.
Screenshot of an email inviting me to sign up for a subscribe-and-save service with the promo code “Never forget.”
September 9, 2025 at 12:06 AM
copycurmudgeon.bsky.social
Found my Bannerless Games order in my mailbox at the moment when the friend I ordered a spare sticker for dropped by. It’s like he was drawn inexorably to the sticker by powers beyond mortal understanding. A+ service, would defy villagers’ warnings to meet again. @kenlowery.bsky.social
A round, black sticker that says “Here for a long time, not for a good time” around a black-and-white image of Count Orlok.
August 31, 2025 at 9:07 PM
copycurmudgeon.bsky.social
The smug face of a guy who has proven he’s more important than chores.
A large black cat stares at the camera with eyes narrowed, looking self-satisfied. He is draped across the photographer’s lap with his front paws hanging down and just touching a purple throw pillow.
August 31, 2025 at 6:47 PM
copycurmudgeon.bsky.social
Au contraire, he does not have a single brain cell, he just really loves snuggling.
A silver-and-black tabby looking up and to the left of the camera with eyes pointing in slightly different directions. He looks how you would draw a cat as a goober if you were a cartoonist.
August 22, 2025 at 4:17 PM
copycurmudgeon.bsky.social
There are a LOT of candidates.
August 15, 2025 at 3:59 PM
copycurmudgeon.bsky.social
Throwing my cat into the ring for my city’s extremely fake “bike path mayor” race.
A lawn sign that says, “Vote Sterling for bike path mayor. He’d vote for you!” The sign is mostly blue with a white triangle cutting diagonally through it, and coming out of the triangle is a picture of a silver-and-black tabby looking eagerly and pleadingly at you.
August 15, 2025 at 3:57 PM
copycurmudgeon.bsky.social
My boss is such a micromanager
A large black cat with green eyes lounges on a blanket that’s on top of a bookcase. Under him is a nameplate that says “B.W. Katz: Predator-in-Chief” with the In/Out slider set to show “In.”
August 7, 2025 at 8:40 PM
copycurmudgeon.bsky.social
One of the rare days when there is no unframed art in my house. Now I just need more walls.

Artists, left to right: Edward Gorey, @vilain.bsky.social, @nathannunn.bsky.social.
Three pieces of framed art on a table. On the left, a line drawing of a group of people. In the middle, a linocut print of a deep-sea creature eating a submarine. On the right, a poster of two cats in the style of an old Soviet propaganda poster. Closeup of the cat poster. A cat labeled “farmer” is joining paws with a cat labeled “baker” under a label that says “International Brotherhood of Biscuitmakers and Allied Trades.” Both cats are wearing overalls, and in the background are two converter belts carrying biscuits with a paw print in each one. Underneath it says, “From field to tummy — building better biscuits.” Closeup of the sea creature image. Most of the image is black and the shape of the creature is picked out mainly in white highlights. Its huge toothy jaws are agape, and over its head dangles a glowing bulb like the lure used by the anglerfish. We can see hints that the creature is many many feet long, with coils snaking by in the background. A deep-sea rover is about to get chomped. A print of an Edward Gorey line drawing of a group of people in 1920s-ish clothing gathered in two rows (one seated, one standing) under a lowering sky. In the foreground, a man faces the group with his back to the viewer, wearing an enormous fur coat with a striped scarf over one shoulder. A small dog is beside him.
July 27, 2025 at 11:08 PM
copycurmudgeon.bsky.social
Sleepy boy brigade
A large black cat asleep on his back with his front paws over his head. His belly looks soft and his chin is pointed at the ceiling. A gray-and-black tabby asleep on his side curled into a C. His front paws are tucked under his chin and one fang is poking out of his mouth.
July 26, 2025 at 6:45 PM
copycurmudgeon.bsky.social
Winter Hill got a little cloudburst and then a surprisingly bright and long-lasting double rainbow.
The left half of a rainbow arcs over a city street. A few bright blue patches of sky peek out between gray clouds. A wider view of the full rainbow, which comes down somewhere behind a brick building with a mural on the side. A view of just the brick building, where the rainbow has gotten brighter and second, fainter rainbow has appeared above it. The order of the colors appears reversed in the upper rainbow.
July 25, 2025 at 11:45 PM
copycurmudgeon.bsky.social
I just noticed the slogan on the robbers’ painter van in “Inside Man” and I must confess I am tickled.
A van with a paintbrush logo that says “Perfectly Planned Painting: We never leave until the job is DONE.”
July 22, 2025 at 1:16 AM
copycurmudgeon.bsky.social
Sometimes an ice cream cone is medicinal.
A white hand holds a waffle cone with two scoops of white ice cream that has brown and black bits in it. In the background is the storefront of Gracie’s ice cream.
July 21, 2025 at 9:04 PM
copycurmudgeon.bsky.social
Setting is under “gameplay,” and when you toggle it off the screen just goes red when you die.
Settings menu for “Stray.” The “gameplay” tab is active and the “show cat death” option is highlighted. The box next to that setting is unchecked.
July 12, 2025 at 12:31 AM
copycurmudgeon.bsky.social
Genuinely lol

He’s not named Landlord but he is officially my supervisor, according to the sign on his office.
A black cat lies on a blanket on top of a bookcase. Attached to top edge of the bookcase is a nameplate that says “B.W. Katz, Predator-in-Chief.” The nameplate slides to show whether the office resident is in or out and it’s set to show “in.”
July 6, 2025 at 5:18 PM
copycurmudgeon.bsky.social
There’s a new sunbeam in town (landlord restored a window that had been filled in) and this guy’s all over it.
A large black cat asleep on a pale green couch. One back paw and the end of his tail are dangling over the edge, and one ear seems to glow a little as the sun shines through is.
July 6, 2025 at 2:53 PM
copycurmudgeon.bsky.social
Some area residents will be sad to see the heat dome go.
A sunbeam streaks across a floor beside a white appliance, with the head and shoulders of a black cat sticking out past the machine he’s lying next to, in the sunbeam. He’s blurrily reflected in the appliance’s surface, doubling the contrast of light and shadow throughout the image.
June 25, 2025 at 2:31 PM
copycurmudgeon.bsky.social
This guy came within a gnat’s whisker of stealing a whole takeout container of Brazilian food. Also he’s not supposed to be on the table.
A large black cat nestled on a dining table between a couple totes, a pair of Pyrex bowls and a vase of yellow flowers. He’s kinda looking at the camera, but he does not seem at all concerned about his imminent removal from the forbidden zone.
June 21, 2025 at 6:29 PM