They've made a home in the borders

[sovay]

My poem "Colonial" has been accepted by Mithila Review. There's a strange chime of timing: I wrote it last spring during the protests when the federal government had just designated anti-fascism a form of terrorism, as opposed to the patriotism of attempted coups. The longer fuse was the information about my ancestry which had come to light the previous fall, namely that all my life I had been used to thinking of myself as descended from immigrants on the margins and suddenly there was a recognizable name on the rolls of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1636. It does not change my responsibilities to this country's present and future, but it is the reality of the past. I am very pleased that the poem will have this home, especially now.

Comments

[sovay]

(they are Manns, their house is now a museum outside Boston)

That is a pretty sweet-looking ancestral museum.

I don't know much about who married into or out of the family, but I tend to assume that the colonial families far enough back stand a strong chance of interrelation. Hence wondering about me and spatch, because the Noyes name is woven all through New England.

We were over on the second boat after the Mayflower, which is one of those "colonialist history also-rans" situations, I guess.

That's sort of hilarious.

[sara]

My family: generating ancestral museums we didn't even know about (as opposed to the ones in which I was raised). It's on my list of things to do if I'm ever up that way. My paternal side cousin went a few years ago when she lived in Boston and said it was good.

If we'd been on the first boat I could wear one of those gigantic Mayflower Society crests on my blazer, which is the sort of hilarious colonialist camp I'd probably actually go for. Sadly when your ancestors were like, "You go check it out, Bill, we'll catch up!" there is no participation award. I mean, aside from the continent. Which, let's be fair, is a pretty sweet I Showed Up For Colonization prize.

[selkie]

Comes with one free haunted bedstead, please check your yike at the top of the stairs and mind the load-bearing beams! (Nice place, though, really. State of the art kitchen!)

[moon_custafer]

My brother bought an old house a few years back to fix up and run as an AirB&B and eventually a regular B&B – lockdown has obviously been interfering with that, but he’s been using the closure to do more renovations. Today he posted video of the upgraded sun-room, now with new shelves full of books and board games. “How are the ghosts reacting?” quipped one of his friends. “They seem to really enjoy playing IQ 2000?” was his reply.

[selkie]

Well, ghosts assembling jigsaws just gets weird. I'd personally much rather they stick to trivia even if the electronic board sounds out in the middle of the night.
(Our previous rental was a fairly new townhouse, but so badly wired I think it was a paranormal lightning rod.)

[moon_custafer]

Meanwhile the dude who ran Parler is fundraising for money to hire bodyguards, but the attacks he fears reportedly also include hexes: https://www.wonkette.com/stop-the-steal-organizer-needs-2k-a-day-to-hide-from-witches
Probably a grift but if he’s serious-- my man, I’ve read M. R. James – if a curse is after you a conventional security detail is not going to be any help. Your only hope might be to locate the runes and mark them Return to Sender, but it’s going to take lots of skills.

[selkie]

There's lots of problems I can fix for $2k a day, and I'm not even a witch, just an enthusiastic home herbologist with some salt and a couple fun knives.