opinionated on the internet since 1999

Hi, I'm Sam. I'm a middle school library teacher in an urban, diverse public school district near Boston. I use she/her pronouns.

I care about social justice, urban planning, literature that develops compassion and understanding in young people, living sustainably, cooking and eating good things, biking, and creating a future in which every human is truly supported in their rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

What's this site for?

I miss writing long-form thoughts, and I miss having a place to put them that isn't Facebook or a private journal.

Why does it look like it's 1999 in here?

Because I never got fluent in CSS the way I am in HTML. I've used Dreamweaver and WordPress and Google Sites and honestly? None of them are purely satisfying for me in the way a text file full of HTML is. I'm almost 40 years old and I give zero craps at this point about Building My Brand with a Feature-Rich Website. I found it delightful to hack together this site in a summer afternoon, and I see no reason to do anything with a personal website that doesn't delight me.

Also in 1999 we lived in a world where the Supreme Court didn't hand presidencies to guys who lost the popular vote, and we weren't in endless unwinnable Islamophobic wars, and Donald Trump was an occasional magazine punchline rather than the President of the freaking United States, and my biggest geopolitical worry was Y2K. I wanted to live in the world again for a few minutes. (Yes, I am aware that there were a lot of problems in 1999 too, don't email me.)

How should I comment on something I read here?

Email me like it's 1999: sam AT parenthetical DOT net. So long as your email is appropriate, I'll write back and we can have a nice conversation. Never read the comments, friends.

You can tweet at me if you want, but I almost never look at Twitter and I'll probably ignore you without meaning to.