sara m. b. simon
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sarambsimon.bsky.social
sara m. b. simon
@sarambsimon.bsky.social
1.9K followers 1.2K following 1K posts
phd student in us history (quantification & government data, esp. vital statistics) • former newsroom software engineer & data journalist • she/her • chicago

smbsimon.github.io
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sarambsimon.bsky.social
reporting for sibling duty to provide a regular reminder about my brother's global magazine store in pdx. the shop's called chess club, and it's an amazing space. print's back, baby
my hand holding two magazines: one all about tomatoes and one about paper bag ephemera
November 16, 2025 at 4:28 PM
sarambsimon.bsky.social
excuse me
black cat tail covering up a print news story about chicago arts organizations and their failures to fulfill diversity pledges
November 11, 2025 at 2:02 AM
sarambsimon.bsky.social
excuse me
black cat hair fluff getting in the way of top of book
October 13, 2025 at 2:27 AM
sarambsimon.bsky.social
excuse me
two perfect tuxedo cat paws (white socks, black legs) sitting on an open book
October 1, 2025 at 1:07 AM
sarambsimon.bsky.social
oh absolutely
tuxedo cat belly up, with legs sticking out from under floor-length blinds
September 28, 2025 at 3:08 AM
sarambsimon.bsky.social
it just lights my fire
“I’M THE TYPE of person where, like, if you push me I’ll push back. I don’t like to live in a mindset of despair and negativity. When these people do this shit, it just lights my fire. It makes me more fucking mad. This used to be the best job I’ve ever had, the best environment I’ve ever had, the best culture I’ve ever had—and they fucking ruined it. I will never ever forget how much they ruined it. I’m like, fuck these people. They can’t get me scared. I will not give them what they want. I will not just leave. I’m going to make it as difficult as possible for these fuckheads.” —FEMA employee
September 25, 2025 at 2:18 PM
sarambsimon.bsky.social
this is so human and so infuriating
“WHEN THE CONSUMER Financial Protection Bureau was first gutted, one person left their blazer in the office and was unable to get back into the building to get it. It was the only blazer they owned: They were broke, applying for jobs, and had nothing to wear to interviews because of this.” —CFPB employee
September 25, 2025 at 2:04 PM
sarambsimon.bsky.social
bowl bums
bottom of a homemade bowl, glazed white with tan dips bottom of a homemade bowl, my initials carved into the bottom, glazed white with purple and tan dips
September 23, 2025 at 10:30 PM
sarambsimon.bsky.social
small plate update. i was worried about the glaze jobs on these but not only do i love how they turned out, they also stack perfectly. regular reminder that if you are looking to get your hands dirty and descreen for a few hours, to make something useful and lovely, you really can't top ceramics
my hand holding a small plate that's got a tan glaze on one side, and a dark blue with light blue speckled stripe on the other my hand holding a tan small plate glazed with a grey chunk and yellow line on the side
September 16, 2025 at 12:42 AM
sarambsimon.bsky.social
excuse me
tuxedo cat paws on top of an article titled "negotiating engines of difference"
September 15, 2025 at 3:29 AM
sarambsimon.bsky.social
excuse me (artwork by @alicegoldfarb.com)
tuxedo cat sitting beside a tall stack of books, with a drawing of said cat featured on a postcard behind the book stack. the drawing includes a speech bubble for the cat with the words, "excuse me"
September 14, 2025 at 12:40 AM
sarambsimon.bsky.social
whole story is all kinds of horrifying but this one little detail is delightful
The name "Earl Gray" is highlighted in the following chunk of text: "For decades, no one worried that Americans were consuming large quantities of hthalates in their food. Then in the 1980s, Earl Gray, an Environmental Protection Agency toxicologist, began feeding pregnant rats corn oil mixed with the chemicals. There had been murmurings in the scientific community that the chemicals could block development of testosterone; the EPA was tasked with investigating that question."
September 5, 2025 at 1:30 AM
sarambsimon.bsky.social
excuse me
tuxedo cat arm blocking my view of my book
September 3, 2025 at 8:16 PM
sarambsimon.bsky.social
blate report! a little stripe action in the glaze. great for carrying food to table without risk of slippage. a little small (2lbs of clay) but was perfect for tortillas last night & english muffin this morning
not quite a bowl, not quite a plate, containing an english muffin with one side covered in jam, the other peanut butter
August 28, 2025 at 2:34 PM
sarambsimon.bsky.social
*the* millennium park
“Everybody’s invited to that place and it’s a place of beauty,” Kidjo said. “Sometimes you have events happen in a city, and they put in a s—- theater and a s—- park, and they say, ‘OK, this is for the community.’ No, we are at the Millennium Park."
August 27, 2025 at 4:19 AM
sarambsimon.bsky.social
coincidentally my historical research today led me to this, from 1970
screenshot of old journal article text: "but an empirical rule of near infallibility seems to be developing: Whenever people become absorbed in problems of storage and retrieval of data in a computerized data bank, they tend to neglect the problems of achieving maximum reliability of the information at the grass roots. They become obsessed with the notion that there is a tremendous lot of data around that would answer their every need if only it could be stored in a computer and somehow organized, linked with other data, retrieved on a call, and laid before the boss on a platter every morning at 9am. They seem to overlook all questions of relevance and quality, and they are wildly optimistic about what is really available."
August 5, 2025 at 5:57 PM
sarambsimon.bsky.social
spent the past few days hiking in colorado and probably just should have stayed there
a magical tree-lined hiking path, with blue skies and fluffy clouds peaking through
July 23, 2025 at 10:04 PM
sarambsimon.bsky.social
bats as in boards you secure on top of the wheel, to be able to throw larger and wider pieces like this blate, for example, without ruining a shape when trying to remove it, not bats as in 🦇🦇
large wide freshly thrown clay bowl plate situation, on top of a dark brown bat, which is on top of a pottery wheel
July 17, 2025 at 12:50 AM
sarambsimon.bsky.social
oh, this is satisfying
my hand holding a small plate with an imprint reading "pie!" right in the center. the plate is clearly homemade, with a funky texture and a light purple glaze that makes the plate design resemble the shape of a piece of pie a piece of pie on the plate, with a small dollop of vanilla ice cream on top
July 8, 2025 at 1:45 AM
sarambsimon.bsky.social
really making some kind of reputation for myself here today because i just checked this (from 2001!) out, prompting the library staffer to say, "wow, you'll finally learn"
my hand holding a children's book called "how to conquer the internet" with some real goofy cover art of a young blond dude cartoon character throwing his arms up in celebration in front of a desktop computer
June 30, 2025 at 8:00 PM
sarambsimon.bsky.social
today's task: figuring out who at the library's offsite storage facility to ask about keeping the punch card i just found in the back of a book. am guessing i could just keep it without causing problems or anyone noticing but also feel like an email like this is what librarians live for
my hand holding a punch card that reads "northwestern university library book card, please keep this card in book pocket" and contains a big downward-pointing arrow printed on it, along with many tiny perforated punches
June 30, 2025 at 4:03 PM
sarambsimon.bsky.social
mood
black and white tuxedo cat draped across a brown ottoman, staring directly at the camera and sulking
June 30, 2025 at 3:24 AM
sarambsimon.bsky.social
oh thank goodness, my account listed five ready but only three were on the shelves!
stack of three books: data driven by karen levy, creation lake by rachel kushner, and all fours by miranda july
June 20, 2025 at 8:01 PM
sarambsimon.bsky.social
appreciated this guy here in chicago
hand blocking out the "par" of a traffic sign that reads "no parking any time" while protestors march in the background
June 14, 2025 at 7:31 PM
sarambsimon.bsky.social
excuse me
black and white tuxedo cat torso standing on book about to come at me, to get me to stop reading
June 2, 2025 at 2:12 AM