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middleageunicorn.bsky.social
JFW
@middleageunicorn.bsky.social
160 followers 51 following 240 posts
she/her
📚 Reader: mystery, true crime, sci-fi, reading diversely
🎨 Art journaler and former poet
🔮 Tarot card collector
🦄 Perimenopausal mom & educator still figuring my 💩 out
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middleageunicorn.bsky.social
48 and... well, I like myself more and care less about what other people think of me.
It's me, a proudly middle-aged lady with a short, reddish brown, curly bob. I'm wearing a multicolored blouse with an "I Voted" sticker. I'm smiling and wearing big sunglasses.
June 23, 2025 at 12:11 PM
middleageunicorn.bsky.social
I crave the end of the semester. There's a rhythm to the year: 10 frantic months/2 reflective months. I just read #TheEndofBurnout by Jonathan Malesic. He's a former professor who left academia after earning tenure. It's both memoir & history of American burnout culture. 🧵 1/X

#booksky #academicsky
Cover image of The End of Burnout: Why Work Drains Us and How to Build Better Lives by Jonathan Malesic
May 10, 2025 at 8:55 AM
middleageunicorn.bsky.social
I celebrated #IndependentBookstoreDay by going to #InkwellBooksandThreads in downtown Rockton, IL. Picked up these lovelies while there. I'm coming up on my slow season at work, so I've got to expand my #tbr pile some more.

#booksky
#buylocal
I'm holding a glass tumbler with a wooden top and plastic straw. It has hand drawings of bookshelves with books, plants, candles, and potion bottles. The bookshelves titles depicting tropes in smut & romance novels: Bad Man, Forbidden, Morally Grey, Banned, Fairy Smut, etc. There are two paperback books on q table. The first is How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them by Jason Stanley and Butcher & Blackbird by Brynne Weaver.n
April 26, 2025 at 9:34 PM
middleageunicorn.bsky.social
Post your favorite Doctor Who. Wrong answers only.
Q from Star Trek:Next Generation in a black and red judge costume. It includes a ruby and gold necklace, gloves, and a jaunty cap.
March 18, 2025 at 9:32 PM
middleageunicorn.bsky.social
Modern riot girl album.
A close-up of a discarded blonde Barbie laying on her side on a white rug. She is wearing a glittery pink and blue leotard. Her groin and things are closer to the camera and a little blurred while her face is in focus, but at the top of the frame.
March 9, 2025 at 3:28 AM
middleageunicorn.bsky.social
My current #workinprogress in my #ragejournal. I bought a vintage doll collector book at a $1 bag sale at my local library. The pictures of these posed dolls + doll parts are horrifying but also evocative. I'll share more when I'm done.

#artjournal #artjournaling #junkjournal #mixedmedia #collage
Left side of a 2-page spread in a Dylusions art journal. The page is layered with book scraps, gesso, and smeared and drippy blue, purple, and silver paint. In the lower right corner, there is a scratchy white space that has two shadowy shapes behind it. In the upper left corner, there is a black + white picture of a blonde porcelain doll face. The page is bordered in dark blue. Right side of a 2-page spread in a Dylusions art journal. The page is layered with book scraps, gesso, and smeared and drippy blue, purple, and silver paint. In the lower left corner, there is a scratchy white space that has a tall, shadowy mannequin body beneath it. In the upper right corner, there is a black + white picture of a black-haired porcelain doll face with dark blush and dark eyes. The page is bordered in dark blue.
March 2, 2025 at 4:44 AM
middleageunicorn.bsky.social
February #storygraph summary. I'm a slow reader, so 3 books/646 pages is a win.

Books read:
❤️ Head On by @scalzi.com
❤️ Unlocked by @scalzi.com
❤️ Dawn by Octavia Butler

I'm 90% finished w/ Adulthood Rites, the 2nd book in Butler's #Xenogenesis / #LilithsBrood series, which will count for March.
Storygraph mood graph for the books I read in November: 3 books, 646 pages, average time to finish was 5 days 2 books were challenging (white) 2 books were adventurous (green) 1 book was tense (fuschia) 1 book was mysterious (brown) 1 book was dark (dark gray)
March 1, 2025 at 2:29 PM
middleageunicorn.bsky.social
Day 19/20

Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days(or however you like), in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. 📚💙

#booksky
Things Fall Apart - Chinia Achebe
February 26, 2025 at 4:09 AM
middleageunicorn.bsky.social
The gold standard has been a libertarian talking point since I was a kid. Here's a halfway decent paper: blog.uwsp.edu/cps/2024/09/...
The Project 2025 monetary policy proposals include: 1. Returning the U.S. to the gold standard (commodity backed money). 2. Elimination of the Federal 3. Reserve’s dual mandate of maximum employment and price stability replaced with a focus solely on price stability. 4. Reduce and limit Federal 5. Reserve purchases of financial assets, including federal debt and mortgage-backed securities. 6. Limiting the Federal Reserve’s lender-of-last-resort function, which offers loans to banks near collapse. 7. Exploring alternatives to the Federal Reserve System, including elimination of the Federal Reserve and the implementation of “free banking”.
February 22, 2025 at 2:15 PM
middleageunicorn.bsky.social
Things that are satisfying after an exhausting week:

🫠 Peeling the dryer lint off the lint trap in one perfect piece
🫠 Putting my frizzy hair in a tight baby ponytail
🫠 Cadbury Creme Eggs
🫠 Buying more art supplies for no damn reason
🫠 Ugly crying during the week's episode of #thepitt
Noah Wyle is a sad-man doctor who doesn't sleep, or have time to pee, talks in a soft ASMR voice, and mourns every patient's situation, while still looking fine as hell in scrubs and a scruffy beard.
February 22, 2025 at 4:58 AM
middleageunicorn.bsky.social
Day 19/20

Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days(or however you like), in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. 📚💙

#booksky
Writing Talk: Paragraphs and short Essays with Readings by Nathibh C. Winkler and Jo Ray McCuen-Metherell
February 22, 2025 at 4:24 AM
middleageunicorn.bsky.social
Day 18/20

Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days(or however you like), in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. 📚💙

#booksky
Memoirs of a Beatnik - Diane di Prima
February 19, 2025 at 2:53 AM
middleageunicorn.bsky.social
I worked in my #ragejournal this evening and finished the first page. You can't see it, but I scribbled, "We are not for sale," over the painting, but under the map.

#artjournal #journaling #junkjournal #dylusionsjournal #mixedmedia #WeNeedMoreVoices
Close up of my art journal page. Layered on top of orange and red acrylic paint is a vintage map of the United States. The map has zones marked with prices listed each zone, getting less expensive from West to East. The map is outlined in black pastels. Larger view of my art journal. In this shot, you can see the entire US map against orange and red paint. On the foreground are black paint splatters against white. The journal page's edges are streaked with black pastels. In this close-up shot, you can see the map of the United States layered on top of orange and red paint. Across the East Coast is a magazine clipping that says, "We need more voices." It is circled in red and black pastels.
February 17, 2025 at 2:28 AM
middleageunicorn.bsky.social
#CurrentlyReading Dawn by #OctaviaButler, Book 1 in her Xenigenesis series. I'm 50% through & it's so good. There's great world building & a strong MC, as expected in #sci-fi. The way that she spins colonialism and slavery into the plot is perfection.

💙📚 🪐📚
#booksky
#readingdiversly
#blackauthor
Cover image of Dawn by Octavia E. Butler Book 1 of the Xenogenesis series. A Black woman bathed in gold light leans against alien-looking plants.
February 16, 2025 at 11:27 PM
middleageunicorn.bsky.social
Day 17/20

Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days(or however you like), in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. 📚💙

#booksky
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration- Isabel Wilkerson
February 16, 2025 at 2:23 PM
middleageunicorn.bsky.social
Day 16/20

Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days(or however you like), in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. 📚💙

#booksky
Einstein's Dreams - Alan Lightman
February 16, 2025 at 1:12 AM
middleageunicorn.bsky.social
I like to have ASMR YouTube videos playing while I work. While on #MiracleForest, I may have found the weirdest so far: Gathering of the Moon Cats. And yet - it's so good. Purring, rustling leaves, and windchime sounds.
Picture of my laptop keyboard and screen. On the screen is an ASMR video showing a dark forest clearing. The silhouettes of 6 cats surround a bright white crescent moon lying in the grass. There are sparkles of light drifting up, and you can see pairs of cats' eyes glowing in the distance.
February 14, 2025 at 8:40 PM
middleageunicorn.bsky.social
Day 15/20

Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days(or however you like), in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. 📚💙

#booksky
Go Ask Alice - Anonymous
February 14, 2025 at 4:57 PM
middleageunicorn.bsky.social
The world is a 🗑🔥and my epilepsy is being annoying. (No seizures, just other dumb symptoms), so I'm posting memes. This is 100% my daughter (Libra] and I (Capricorn) fighting.
This is how Capricorns apologize : honestly I just hope you learned from this This could have been a costly lesson. I hope you understand me better now. This is how Libras apologize I'm sorry that you misunderstood everything I said and got all sensitive about it
February 13, 2025 at 6:47 PM
middleageunicorn.bsky.social
Day 14/20

Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days(or however you like), in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. 📚💙

#booksky
Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America - Barbara Ehrenreich
February 13, 2025 at 3:24 AM
middleageunicorn.bsky.social
Day 13/20

Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days(or however you like), in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. 📚💙

#booksky
Thr House on Mango Street - Sandra Cisneros
February 11, 2025 at 6:27 PM
middleageunicorn.bsky.social
Day 12/20

Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days(or however you like), in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. 📚💙

#booksky
Meme Wars - The Untold Story of the Online Battles Upending Democracy in the United States by Jean Donovan, Emily Dreyfuss, and Brian Friedberg
February 8, 2025 at 11:00 PM
middleageunicorn.bsky.social
Day 11/20

Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days(or however you like), in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. 📚💙

#booksky
Gig - Americans Talk About Their Jibs Edited by Jihn Rowe, Marisa Rowe, and Sahin Streetwr
February 8, 2025 at 4:31 AM
middleageunicorn.bsky.social
Day 10/20

Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days(or however you like), in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. 📚💙

#booksky
Sleeping with the Dictionary by Harryette Mullen
February 7, 2025 at 3:27 AM
middleageunicorn.bsky.social
Day 9/20

Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days(or however you like), in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. 📚💙

#booksky
February 5, 2025 at 9:51 PM