concrescence, or growing together

Of my week, all things said and done, I relished the persisting troubled sleep. Night upon night of sweetly shipwrecking on the rocks. To me nocturnal restlessness is by far the more interesting state of mind. Waking in the middle of night with the troubled mind of a thousand spot fires on the verge of growing together into that fiery front greater than the sum of its parts. Concrescere! A convulsion of many minds in one. Darting this way and that. Each haplessly splashing about a few spades of water in its tiny bucket. Or else glued to the spot in sheer terror.

My stir and panic was about control. Useless control. Even worse is the retreat into timidity which follows. For the sake of timidity, I had been smothering out the very life of my mind with endless distractions. Distractions which titillate, but only ever so slightly. Distractions devoid of meaning in case of suddenly irrupting into roaring significance. But now I cannot unsee this poison keeping me subdued.

When did I choose to wake? At four o’clock this morning, precisely. I was a nervous tremble. Spot fires everywhere. I plugged my earhole to soothe myself with the sounds of a podcast. But the host’s gentle voice was too tinny in the tiny earphone. And, following his cadence of thought, I myself began to think his thinkings at the annoying remove of bafflement or utter boredom – I could not tell which. So I exasperatedly flicked the earphone aside. For some minutes I lay waiting and watching my thoughts fly past in great traumatic rivers. Then, as goes all flirting at the boundary, I first surrendered myself to them and then, once along for the ride, recast my surrender as taking a noble stand. The biggest swells and soaring crests began collapsing upon themselves. The river subsided and a single mottled pebble remained. Its stillness stayed my own raging appetite for comfort. And I rose and went to clean forks and spoons in my tiny kitchen sink, and make chai. Only now I have passed to the other side can I laugh huge guffaws at the faux nobility which got me here. It is time to kick down my ladder? Is it time to kick the pricks?

The moon has been shining bright, full and with a silvery glow without warmth these past three days!

And tonight it was only 98% full but bright as ever nonetheless!

And it made me think of this Song of Songs: Ohia/Magnolia electric co. “Almost was good enough”

It’s one of my favourites, even the lyrics really does strike a chord

First:

Did you really believe, come on, did you really believe That everyone makes it out? Almost no one makes it out Almost no one makes it out

And then, finally

For once, almost was good enough Almost was good enough Almost was good enough

It’s good,

Cöda 5609c

Op alle slakken leg ik zout en ik zaag ook planken van dun hout het kan me niet verrekken dat ik maanden bezig ben om die slakken te dekken of dat mijn planken zelfs niet goed genoeg zijn voor de scandinavische meubel bakker als ik het niet doe lig ik alle nachten wakker ik laat me echt alles op de mouw spelden ben te slecht in koprekenen om op mijn tellen te letten het kan me niet verdommen dat het gevaar in drommen op me af komt door foute aftreksommen mijn armen niet meer op kan tillen door overgewicht als ik het zou laten deed ik geen oog meer dicht ik weet van geen wijken zet ontzettend veel zoden aan alle dijken het maakt me echt niks uit ook al gaat de hele wijk met mij achteruit halve en hele zoodjes moeten elke dijk en masse bedekken zodat er rede is om de wekker te zetten.

Welterusten

I had some reservations about Gwyn Thomas’s book The Dark Philosophers when I read it earlier this year, yet I liked it well enough to want to try one of his later productions. I settled on a volume of his short fiction entitled Gazooka and Other Stories, first published in 1957. I wanted to like this book but can’t say that I did. I finished it yesterday. Most of the pieces in the collection are in a more or less comedic vein, and the tendency of humour to age poorly accounts for some of what I disliked. It’s not the worst of such cases — relatively little in it has fully curdled — but an air of mustiness prevails.

I get the impression that Thomas was first and foremost a prodigious talker: an unstoppable anecdotalist and raconteur. Without the music of his voice to animate the words, they can seem to lift a little feebly from the flatness of the page. If there had been such a thing as an audiobook version read by the author, that would have been the ideal way to approach it. There is altogether too much dialogue for my liking: characters often talk or think in overdone half-page paragraphs, minimising narrative momentum.

To my taste the story that worked best was one called ‘A Teacher’ which was one of only a couple of pieces in the book not aiming for laughs. The title story is by some distance the book’s longest (‘gazooka’, I gather, is just another word for kazoo). It concerns some farcical events centred on a marching band (of kazooists), set in a South Wales Valleys town in the summer of 1926 — the grim year of the General Strike. Events unfold with exasperatingly slow wordiness, with ostensibly humorous set-pieces failing to raise a smile. Plodding through with scant enthusiasm I was much surprised at the genuinely beautiful ending that Thomas contrived for it.

---

After a bad experience with vintage sealing-wax I’ve acquired some that’s newly-made in the traditional style, concocted in France to a 17th-Century recipe by J. Herbin. I won’t be using it often, so the box of ten sticks of wax may even last beyond my lifetime. It would have been more sensible to get just a few loose sticks, but in doing so I would have missed out in the glorious old-school packaging a full box provides.

---

Via Discogs I obtained a second and better-sounding CD copy of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers With Thelonious Monk (as mentioned in the entry before last). Ordered together with it was Les Fleurs, a 2001 compilation of music by Minnie Riperton. Hitherto I’d only been familiar with the famous ‘Lovin’ You’ and (though I had more than once forgotten its name) the title track. Spanning a progression from psychedelic soul through to disco, it’s a fine introduction to her work. Her pre-disco numbers are more to my taste than the later output. Riperton’s voice is exquisite throughout: crystal-clear diction; a bright, clear timbre — and those astonishing high notes.

I just made myself eat canned salmon for lunch. I haven't had canned salmon in a very long time. I don't like salmon, in general. Not cooked, not canned, not smoked. I only like sashimi with a generous dollop of wasabi and pickled ginger.

Because I haven't had it in forever, I forgot what it looks like upon opening the can. It looked worse than sardines. When I eat sardines, it is with skin and bones. This had skin and bones, too.

I may give the other cans away.

This is a note to myself that I will likely never read. “No matter how much you like sashimi, and no matter how much you think your body would enjoy having the canned salmon added to your diet — it is not for you. The bones are different than in the sardines, and it's possibly even more fishy. Ugh! You just burped salmon! You never burp! Nope! No! Nadal! Whatever were you thinking?!”

© 2026 AnOublietteofThought. All rights reserved.

Why Leave Wyoming?

I’m going to ride around the South in an old truck, sit on tailgates, and take photographs. Out-of-the-way places and the people who live there, not big cities. Talk to folks about place. A piece each month, with a few snapshots.

On the way back with my dog, I noticed near the Arkansas–Missouri line it became… Southern. I pulled into a 1950s style roadside hotel, the Rainbow Trout Lodge, at Mammoth Spring. In the damp evening air I heard crickets, sweet music I had forgotten all this in the snow and wind of Wyoming. I smelled honeysuckle, and behind the hotel a bank of kudzu led down to a river filled with trout.

I walked across the road to a barbecue joint that served sweet tea while Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama” played. Their motto was “I like to get my butt rubbed,” referring to a spice rub on slow-cooked pork butts over an open pit. I noticed, however, only women wore those shirts.

Most of the rebel-flag-waving crowd don’t understand this song, which was a reply to Neil Young’s “Southern Man.” Listen carefully to the lyrics as it questions George Wallace and points to one of Alabama’s moments of truth in Birmingham in 1963, when four young girls were killed in a church bombing: “Does your conscience bother you? Tell the truth.” For many of us, yes, it does.

My mother grew up next door to Wallace in Clio, Alabama. She and her sister described him as a short little boy called “Runty” who was bullied and cried a lot, wetting his pants. His parents had him learn boxing to defend himself. Of course he became a Golden Gloves boxer and later bullied folks back on a monumental scale as governor before someone shot him and put him in a wheelchair.

While waiting on a plate of ribs I sucked sweet tea like an addict on dope, listening to Skynyrd’s words, and realized just how much the South was in me. That is why I came home. Despite my love for Wyoming, I needed to leave. For months I struggled with the decision. Both parents were gravely ill, hospice had been called in, and my workday became a barrage of calls from nurses and social workers with updates.

Then the hard question came: “Don’t you think it’s time to come home?”

I asked for two weeks off without pay. A numbing silence ensued. That made the decision for me. I had known a racist white sheriff who let Black inmates out for a week to be with dying parents. This was a different culture—all about a dollar to folks like this.

My line to the mayor of a small town was, “With no respect… fuck you and the horse you rode in on.” If I had not quit, I would have been fired after I said that, so it’s probably the best explanation for my departure. Not hard to say to a man who referred to Black folks as “darkies.” It confirmed what I had known for a while: maybe it was time to move on, pursue my passions, and stop dealing with other folks’ problems.

My day job had been director of planning in Wyoming for a town and county. Not the best job, but it was doing a good thing protecting a community’ reaching culture, state benefits and it let me see the places I wanted to photograph.

Wyoming is the least populated state in the nation for good reason. My woman, while visiting—she refused to move there—remarked that Arby’s had the best coffee in town.

I’m a cowman, seven generations in my blood, so a place with a lot of cattle worked for me. I had rented a small house in a feedlot operation. Reflecting on that fact, it’s a wonder she even came to visit. A ranch hand vividly described swarms of black flies in summer that took two layers of screening on the windows to keep out.

My woman likes to garden and lounge around nude as God made her, sipping mint juleps on summer evenings. The stench of cow shit and biting black flies in hot Wyoming summers held little appeal. I had thought she could wear a beekeeping suit, but that idea didn’t fly.

Wyoming is… unusual. Author Annie Proulx wrote of a bizarre landscape and culture where the ground opened up and swallowed people. From what I observed, November to April was eroded rock outcroppings cracking in a freeze-thaw cycle, with blizzards and wicked winds that never stopped. Graves were dug with jackhammers. In some communities they just kept the dead in a freezer and had a mass burial after the spring thaw.

In most places that have hard winters there is skiing, hockey, snowmobiles, ice skating, and coffeehouses. Not there. People sat at home and stared out windows. I asked a local doctor, a fellow Auburn graduate, about winters. “Well, a lot of cabin fever and suicides. Depression is the big thing here. But there is always spring”

I realized, in the depth of that winter reviewing my photos, that almost every photograph I have ever taken was an effort to understand and define the American landscape—mostly the cultural landscape, as J.B. Jackson would define it. That’s what I write about, think about, and photograph. My year in Wyoming only sharpened that instinct.

I’ve had this idea in my head that won’t go away. Despite the notion that humans shape the land and imprint their will upon it, the land really shapes us—how we think, how we live, and the culture we construct—far more than we give it credit for. My photographs and drawings explore this hidden influence.

I think my short tenure as an investigator in law enforcement also gave me the idea to write this column. In one case I learned of an inmate held off the books in a county jail, waiting for a trial for a decade. It was hard to believe when the local newspaper had never heard of him. But when I knocked on his mother’s door and interviewed her, the story of Kharon Davis got out. It became known as one of the worst delayed trials in modern American memory.

That taught me the most interesting people are often the ones we never know about. The thinly disguised ad-monsters called “newspapers” rarely listen to the disenfranchised, the misunderstood, or the rural poor. But it is with these people that the real truth about a place is found.

Headed back to the South, I am ready to face a hidden landscape: moonshiners on remote creeks, mobile meth labs in plain sight, inmates starved into plea deals, a preacher who believes the Garden of Eden is in Edwin, Alabama, Bigfoot hunters prowling the banks of the Choctawhatchee River with night-vision gear and drones.

People say the South is a different world from the rest of America. But the real question is why.

Feel free to subscribe and follow along.

There exists an alternate version of this post with the profanity intact. I let it simmer for awhile, and then removed it all before posting. There was a lot.

These are the mornings I like the best. I can get up and sit here typing things for a little while before I have to start thinking about going to 'that place'.

Today might be my last day before vacation begins. I say might be. As they did with Canada Day; they are now doing with Truth and Reconciliation Day. They told us that they switched it from Wednesday to the following Monday. Months ago I had booked Thursday and Friday of this week, plus all of next week. It was all booked and approved. Plan was to start vacation on the stat holiday Wednesday. When they made the announcement to us about the day being switched, I made the mistake of going and talking to the boss about it.

I asked, “I have Monday booked, so does that mean I get to be off Wednesday?” His response, “I can't make you come in, but I would rather you were here. It is month end.” I was annoyed, but I can't say that I was surprised. That was a few weeks ago. His response kind of caught me off guard, and I was like, I suppose I could come in. The closer it got though, and now that the day is tomorrow; my mind has changed. This is my vacation start, booked and approved months ago. I never talked to the boss again about it. Nothing yes or no was officially confirmed.

I have an app on my phone that I use to request and confirm vacation requests. I have been checking it often to see if he has gone in to the system and altered my approved requests for the vacation day to better suit the needs of the company. If nothing has changed before tomorrow morning then I'm not going to show up.

I will take screen shots of the approved requests, and also screen shots of the time stamps on the screen shots. Then if he tries to be difficult about it I have something to show to HR. A modern version of 'having it in writing'. I shouldn't take it personally, but I do. Also though, he could have been like, oh yeah, no problem, enjoy the vacation. I guess he's just doing his job. Being an a-hole.

If he does change my request, then I will accept the mistake I made talking to him about it, and I will show up tomorrow.

When month end arrives they are always saying, all hands on deck. It drives me insane. How quickly and efficiently we get the orders out the door has very little to do with quantity of workers present. It is more about how the work is being done. The quality of our processes has been on a decline for years now. I feel sometimes that we could get twice as much done with half the people if things were being done right. That is quite an exaggeration, but really not exaggerated by much.

There are so many things contributing to the loss of quality in the workforce these days. In this company where I work a lot of it began with a high turnover beginning when covid began. We are constantly a workforce of new people. A lot of long term workers left back then, and never came back, even when this version of normal began when covid was shoved to the back burner, (or maybe it was shoved right off of the stove, still boiling?). I think we are also being impacted by the rise of fascism, and the decline of intelligence that is coinciding with the rise of A.I. use. The oligarchy that has always been unfair are choosing to tip things even more precariously in their favour with the fascists help. That is my opinion anyway. I feel that is all contributing in subtle ways to our decline as a company. Subtle in my day to day work days. Not so subtle in society at large.

Most of the problem though, also IMO, is that no one seems to be able to understand the physical work side of the processes. The physical work is being directed by a crew of people who have never done it themselves. All they see is numbers on screens, and there is just nothing in their brains that translates that to what is happening in the physical warehouse.

Coffee is done. And time to get ready. Hopefully starting tomorrow I won't have to think about this work crap again until after vacation.

I really didn't even want to blog honestly. I like being obscure and invisible in most situations. Sometimes something is too important to me and I have to stand up and let my voice be heard. It doesn't mean it is, but at least I try.

This all started because of a writing I put together and my wife edited titled “DIY Tech Privacy.” It's still very important to me, and I'd like it to be important to you as well. That is why I speak to you all in this sphere of very limited influence. This started with three platforms and I was very open to continuing these three. But two have stood out and one has really shined. Truly who knows what is best when one starts something? Often we find ourselves in a chaotic mess...

First the attempt was to completely bypass engaging in any sort of self-created-content-centered-platform path, and I hoped that others would post content for me. Honestly it was a selfish reason. I thought that the ideas were strong enough to ride on the wispy tails of others. I brought the “DIY Tech Privacy” write-up to others that I find very inspiring. They had built up their audience and I had a hope that those I found inspiring might find what was put together inspiring as well. If they did, it would save me a lot of effort. The effort of creating any sort of platform to share these ideas with others. I could stay in obscurity and write from time to time for other people. I was mildly hopeful that I could sit in the shadows and write longer, more detailed informational write-ups for other more significant “influencers.”

Well it turns out I'm not very good at this, or significant, or something-or-rather. As I started sharing content with people I respect and think pretty awesome, there wasn't much back-and-forth. It was more of a sending of ideas and mostly getting a void back. And that is very understandable. The people I'm trying to talk with have influenced many people, they likely have 20,000+ regulars and some well over 100,000+ regulars. It is a little bit rude attempting to nudge in on that sort of scale when starting at zero.

I hope you see where this is going. I am an obscure shadow of a figure. And that is what I desire to be. But I have ideas like many of you that at least I find to be important. To me the idea that one single individual connecting to another is important. If the majority of humanity agreed with me on everything I'd assume that I was way off the mark. I'd doubt myself and probably stop talking. But that is very likely not going to happen thankfully, that is for the politicians, they love to have at minimum the majority +1. At least from the voting class of society.

So I very much appreciate those I sent the write-up to that linked it for others. Thank you for that, one person alone added over a third of the viewers to the DIY Privacy Tech post. This has brought the primary post I started this for to over 300 reads and counting. Over 40 downloads have happened as well. This is more than I ever really expected, and I hope people are sharing it and more importantly using the information. This is a drop in the ocean in terms of influencing the human race, but that's perfectly fine (the human race is nuts, lol). Through all of this I very much appreciate the voice from James Corbett. I reached out to him first, and it seems to me this was for a reason. He's honest with an ethic built in stone and I hope others see that he is full of wisdom.

We had some small back and forth emails and I was guided through that to send this information far and wide. If I care about it then put it out there. It was clear he was not going to be my easy way out, but I think that is for the best. If he had just posted my write-up I may have been done. But maybe I shouldn't be done.

We all are far more rich, diverse, and full of potential than most of us give ourselves credit for. Meaning, you are awesome and you matter. Keep thinking, and doing, and being, and reasoning, and changing, and seeking truth. If the minority just gave up, what hope is there really? We all need to share our voice wherever we can. In return we may get some push back – especially if it isn't mainstream. And we may need to refine our ideas. And that is great! So let's keep putting our ideas out there, and refining our ideas. If people continue to do that there is a potential good things will happen.

So as I got a light push back I decided to figure out how to put these ideas out there. I'd say this was primarily inspired by Corbett – I thank him for this. It is desirous to me for people to take action, and do things they can do on their own. Without going to the false gods of politicians and law.

I'm sharing a little bit here on why this blog exists. This is also a thanks to the platforms that make this easy. I did not want to make a website from scratch. I've done that before and overall didn't like it. So thank you Bear Blog, Write.As, Mataroa, and others who make an outlet for people without heavy algorithmic controls to push their own narrative.

Like a troubadour tangled in the miscast clots of a consolidated breem, I spool defective. Nots untwine. Resists converge. The very breath of my being — ceases to splatter. Or matter.

Refusing to batter against a stale, enforced end in taught's ecosystem of downtrodden pretend, I refrain immortal...

forever spiraling in search of a cyclone untethered to a fronted response that disallows new pathways to begin. I sing of the end. I gale and I mend.

© 2026 AnOublietteofThought.

Roxy has a murder bark.

That’s what we call it.

Somebody comes to the door, and that old Rottweiler lets loose with a sound that says, “You have made a terrible mistake.”

The papers I got from the vet tells me she has a bite history.

Maybe she does.

I never saw it.

What I saw was a dog who had been hurt enough to believe that hands weren’t always good things. Scar around one of her back legs right above the paw, like it was caught in a trap or the fence of a breeding farm’s pen. Her teets hanging low all the time as if she’s ready to start nursing babies that are long since gone.

And she seems to look for them at times, eyes looking off into the far off past, her black and tan face touched by a sadness only a mother can know.

It took me three days just to get her to take a dog biscuit from mine.

Three days.

One biscuit.

And I suppose somewhere along the way she decided I was all right.

Because now she comes over and looks at me with those great big eyes.

And I swear that dog smiles.

And that little stubby bear tail that Rottweilers are famous for starts going.

Faster.

Faster.

Like the wing of a hummingbird stuck on the backside of a ninety-five-pound Rottweiler.

Sometimes I tell her, “Roxy, you better slow that thing down or you’re gonna fly away.”

They tell me she’s overweight.

“Put her on a diet.”

I look at Roxy and think, What for? What has an old dog got left to look forward to?

She isn’t trying to fit into a dress.

She isn’t worried about swimsuit season.

She wants a biscuit.

She wants somebody nearby.

She wants to know she’s safe.

And mostly…

she wants to love us.

But lately, the old girl stumbles down the stairs. Her eyes aren’t what they used to be. Sometimes her mind wanders.

Sometimes her body forgets things before her heart does.

And I know what’s coming.

I just don’t like knowing it.

Someday that murder bark will be gone.

The house will be too quiet.

There’ll be no big Rottweiler looking at me with those eyes.

No smile.

No ninety-five-pound body coming over just to be close.

And no little bear tail beating the air like hummingbird wings.

Someday Roxy really is going to fly away.

And when she does,

I hope somewhere, somehow, she finally understands what took her three days to believe:

That this hand of mine reaching toward her

was never going to hurt her.

Oh! She was safe.

Oh! She was wanted.

Oh! She was loved.

And Roxy… you can quit barking now.

Nobody’s ever going to hurt you anymore.

Go ahead, old girl.

Let that little bear tail fly.

And one day soon…

I’ll join you in the sky…

And I’ll fly away and meet you…

And grandma Carolyn…

In the Sweet By and By…

***************************************** *****************************************

Hymn: “In the Sweet By and By”

There’s a land that is fairer than day,

and by faith we can see it afar;

for the Father waits over the way

to prepare us a dwelling place there.

Refrain: In the sweet by and by, We shall meet on that beautiful shore; In the sweet by and by, We shall meet on that beautiful shore.

2 We shall sing on that beautiful shore the melodious songs of the blest; and our spirits shall sorrow no more- not a sigh for the blessing of rest. [Refrain]3 To our bountiful Father above we will offer our tribute of praise, for the glorious gift of His love, and the blessings that hallow our days. [Refrain]

Thirty-nine was the quiet masterpiece. The year the cage broke. ​I burned the script; no lease, no routine, no standard loop. Just seasonal work, state lines, and Alaska’s wild, heavy air blowing every tiny fear right out of my chest. I said yes to a million things I’d never done before, chasing breathtaking landscapes and views that made me hold my breath just to take them in.

​I lived raw. Loved hard, skin against skin, under skies that didn't care about my plans. Met strangers who felt like old friends, read a mountain of self-help books, and finally went to war with my anxious attachment instead of running from it. And the best part? I quit the poison. Traded the foggy nights for total, uncut clarity. Waking up clean, holding my own wheel.

​The sting is that the brightest things didn't stay. The connection, the story I wanted to keep, it was just summer lightning. Hot, blinding, and gone before the thunder even settled. It cuts deep, but those souls came to teach me, not to stay. Sucks to lose what we had, but I’m keeping the fire that got woke up inside me. ​ ​Happy 40th to me.

Here I sit alone, nowhere to take my longing but an empty page, no one to hold my crashing head, filled with memories this Cosmos craves constantly to claw away — half in love with her and half with the profound conveyance of easeful Death.

Darkling, n. being in the dark, or without light — Webster’s (1898).

Darkness is still a strange new topography for me, unlike any vast sweeping desert, ocean, or mountain range I can see or imagine. A miasmic sort of void that clings to the skin and clouds the mind, slowly erasing the sparkle of her eyes, the softness of her touch — her countenance now shadow this morning turned. And yet I journey this dream of life, half knowing and half not, torn between and betwixt — within and without — by a fate without precedent, a bond that, despite the retrograde, intensifies.

Here I sit together with no means to correspond, no sense among but these five to perceive. Just these fleeting words read by a longsuffering soulmate, in imperceptible omnipresence, and through the blinding noise of humanity, dying to hear her faint familiar words whispered warmly again in my ear, “Darling, I’m listening.”

#Intermundia

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By D. Bowman | Nomina Numina is a journal of my reflections, moments, and meaning-making between worlds. Reply by email.

Our Father Who art in Heaven Hallowed be Thy name Thy Kingdom come Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven Give us this day our daily Bread And forgive us our trespasses As we forgive those who trespass against us And lead us not into temptation But deliver us from evil

Amen

Jesus is Lord! Come Lord Jesus!

Come Lord Jesus! Christ is Lord!

Life of Greenland-Denmark

I thought you knew In escape from that,- appearance in travel A night machine unawares Light of Sky Beginning Sun Efraim of the States And burning Monday Of territory that is Northern We sought a few at will And declined our star And our request And hit annul For this land Designed fit for a Queen In the silence we are certain The Earth in line Trails unending high Life at pattern And to know- the stalwart way of war And people were thinking- What is this police And why were we murdered And why didn’t anyone listen

In great beginnings,- the thought of worth And for the weary hunt Taxed on the way To lights that go And up up up This final reenact When fortune seeks a road

Nights for then To imperil in our trust When lives are due Who signed away our freedom And in this clone Of highest word We were ready for the court In uncondition Frail seeks of peace And in repeal to notice Our timely way of rewrite Unforcing the appeal Of out of officially sorts- partition In line to view our philosophy Protected by the Earth And unamended These are our stars Where we query the most And to our Sun- For fortune to our standing Mercy on our own For Heaven’s way Spots of neighbour here In Soviet pairs to lease And own in better standing The Earth requested us near And to be sold A fainted chasm; a post And system broken Whales at our sea

Misery to tomorrow In these days of our lantern And hitting hard Where Greenland is our testament We disappeared from need Forces pay and clear We knew the way And still do And separate do us part Beginning ache The lines of storied welcome But as so rewritten Apocalypse to war Aseated thine And notions now Particular to our favour And meaning nothing But power in our keep We came in candour Aflailing better time And in our boats The about face Nights of distant death The faithless card As Earth is final Melting to our ward And even hearts Moved a bit unfold And more And due cancel Our Heaven then Greenland is ours An independent island Lost for treasure But in its heart we scold Us to rewrite And pleasure in our worth The notions past If distancing to the pain All afford to wisdom Our better afternoon We are one And deliver here Every drop- the mines do feel This to our own country I’m never then Earth was gone And made to be Never again- a colony.

Icy Waters of The American

And to June, this emerald Trust the British and the French An island in the mirror And I am Qadesh A strange affection for the Princess Isle And the pattern of shows- for the mistress We knew of the second war And of captains in Lichtenstein Adjusting to the rail And the sight of the Moon Insofar to predicaments Accepted for Mother Joy A crack in the windshield Of this Windsor by morning In comatose to November And the size of me We cheered the differences And Michael Jackson became my hero Obsessed with the Other Land And pure as fact, I surrendered And they accepted the Forces And a first trip to the Sun Why absolutism had its draw I was afraid of the altar in June And to be seen sunbathing And a sure source of trauma I played to the ghosted end For surefire and a son of ten Who looked up to me, Mom In these nights of the interhaven We leapt to the camera left On this tiny mansion to the better night Obsessing with you We had underperformed by the lights Offences to the Apple by Qatar I would have played with you But the time was our only living And afraid of you, Being Boring The serviette of a worldly glow In time, the distant will be mine For these luscious flowers that I pray are all yours And Andrew, you must Be gone with a prayer of peace Surely to the heights of Women A world we call whole Will shudder the curia- for a night forty two And justice to Balmoral These knees called an ambulance In sincerity to Give Him A Chance We were both liberal,- and they knew as war To Charles de Gaulle Appearances in the morning car We swayed just a little And alimony to our sons by dawn We paid the human mission To be Elton-like and Fibonacci’s grade The decency of predictions calling There is much that is certain war And calling on my favourite win That this story was the final away from him My sorrow and my joy A human hand, to the other landing

Inferences to the blessed timing A place in Heaven to the breath of dawn Affairs and nights of wanderlust I love you,- my Amethyst.

Nobody clicks your share buttons By Derek Hanson

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I saw this blog post on bubbles.town, and the title caught my attention, so I clicked through to read it. It was also timely because just a few days earlier I had added share buttons to my own site.

I don't know if I agree with the conclusion of the post. If share buttons are done tastefully, selectively, and with privacy in mind, I think they're perfectly okay.

We're seeing a trend toward making websites personal again, a little like they were in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Social sharing buttons started becoming common as services like Twitter and Facebook (UGHHH!) grew in popularity. Email, of course, has always been around.

I think the more ways people have to share something, the better, as long as those options are implemented tastefully and don't track visitors. Especially today, when people may prefer one platform over another, whether that's Mastodon, Bluesky, Twitter (I still can't bring myself to call it X), Threads, or something else.

So when Derek says:

I don’t click share buttons. I never have.

When I find something worth sharing, I tap the share icon in Chrome on my phone. That’s it. On my desktop I click the little link icon in Arc’s browser bar, or I just double-click the address bar and hit command-C command-V. I’ve never once looked at a row of branded social icons at the bottom of a blog post and thought, “Oh good, there’s the Facebook button.”

— By Derek Hanson · Nobody clicks your share buttons

I don't know that most people necessarily behave the same way. Derek does cite data showing very low usage of share buttons. But I also think the type of website, the audience, the content, and even the way the sharing options are implemented matter.

Especially within IndieWeb circles, share buttons can be implemented without the tracking and third-party scripts that caused many of the problems associated with older social-sharing widgets. A simple link doesn't have to phone home to Facebook or another large platform every time somebody loads the page.

There is even some evidence that the implementation makes a difference.

Google's Santa Tracker team had previously removed its individual social-sharing buttons from mobile because they took up too much space. In 2016, though, they added a single Share button using the Web Share API, which opens the device's native sharing interface. According to Google's web.dev documentation, users who had that option available shared about 20% more than users without it.[1]

That was a mobile experiment, so I wouldn't use it as proof that a row of sharing buttons on a desktop blog is going to suddenly make everyone share your posts. It does suggest to me that the conclusion shouldn't simply be that share buttons don't work. How they're implemented seems to matter too.

Maybe people don't want a row of intrusive Facebook and Twitter widgets. That isn't necessarily the same thing as not wanting an easy way to share something.

I do agree more with this part:

This idea has been rattling around in my head for years. Back when I was deep in my PhD research at Iowa State, I came across Andy Crestodina from Orbit Media writing about things you should remove from your website. One of them was social icons in your header. Not even the share buttons; the plain follow-us icons. His argument was simple: those icons are exit signs. You spent all this effort getting someone to your site, and the most visually prominent element on the page is an invitation to leave.

— By Derek Hanson · Nobody clicks your share buttons

That's one reason I think putting share buttons at the end of a post makes sense. They seem natural there. How do you know whether you want to share or save a post until you've read it?

I also think the type of site makes a difference.

Derek cites GOV.UK's experiment showing very low overall usage of its sharing buttons. During the ten-week experiment, visitors used the buttons 14,078 times across roughly 6.8 million pageviews.[2]

But when you look at GOV.UK's own report, things get more interesting. Sharing varied depending on what people were reading. World-location pages had a sharing rate of 0.58%, while consultations were only 0.06%. Individual news stories varied even more, with sharing rates ranging from 0.18% to 1.6%.[2]

GOV.UK's own researchers said there was more work to do. They wanted to compare their numbers with other types of websites and test things like button placement.[2]

That seems important to me. Someone visiting a government website to complete a form, check a regulation, or find information about a government service may behave very differently from someone browsing personal blogs because they're interested in what people are writing.

The GOV.UK results are useful. I don't think we can automatically assume people behave exactly the same way on every kind of website.

There is another issue with some of the evidence being used here and it is its age.

The GOV.UK experiment ran from December 2013 through February 2014. Just look at the social-web landscape represented in the original article itself.[2] This was the era of Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, Pinterest, Blogger, RSS, and rows of branded social icons everywhere (evidenced by the own articles feature image).

GOV.UK's actual experiment measured Facebook and Twitter sharing, and the researchers themselves said more comparison with other kinds of websites was needed. Their conclusion was also qualified as applying “at least on desktops.”

That matters because the web of 2026 is not the web of 2014. Today we have native operating-system sharing, the Web Share API, Copy Link buttons, email sharing, new platforms like Mastodon, Bluesky, and lightweight links that don't require loading third-party tracking code.

So I don't think a study of Facebook and Twitter buttons from more than a decade ago should be treated as the final word on whether a privacy-respecting share option belongs on a personal website today.

I would concede that bookmarks, RSS readers, copying links, browser sharing features, and private sharing through email or messaging are probably doing much more of the heavy lifting than share buttons. But I don't think that makes share buttons useless.

There's also an interesting overlap here with Derek's own recommendation. He says people already have a Share button built into their browsers and operating systems. That's true and the modern Web Share API lets a website put a simple Share button on the page that opens that same native sharing interface. The website doesn't have to decide whether you use Mastodon, Bluesky, email, Messages, or something else. Your device handles that.[3]

To me, that's quite different from the old Facebook and Twitter widgets.

On a personal website, if a sharing option adds almost no additional load, doesn't track visitors, and stays away from those old FAANG-style embedded widgets, I don't see much harm in offering it.

Then there's this:

And here’s the thing that should settle this for good: in November 2025, Meta announced it was permanently discontinuing its external Like, Share, and Comment buttons for third-party websites. The shutdown date was February 10, 2026. Meta’s own words were that the plugins reflect “an earlier era of web development” and that usage had “naturally declined.” When the company that invented the Like button walks away from it, that’s the signal.

— By Derek Hanson · Nobody clicks your share buttons

I actually see that as more of a win for the web than a loss, rather than confirmation that sharing buttons themselves need to disappear. Good riddance to the giant third-party widgets that tracked people across the web.

But a small, privacy-respecting link that says “Share on Mastodon,” “Share on Bluesky,” “Email,” or “Copy Link”? Or even one simple Share button that hands things over to your operating system?

I think there's still room on the web for that.

As you can probably tell, Derek's post really hit a nerve with me, probably because I had just finished putting the share buttons and other sharing options on one of my websites and making them look tasteful and modern when I came across his post.

That's my two cents on the matter. What's yours?

1. Google, ["Web Share API"](https://web.dev/articles/web-share), web.dev. The Santa Tracker team reported that users with Web Share enabled shared about 20% more than users without it. ↩
2. GOV.UK, ["Social sharing buttons: the first 10 weeks"](https://insidegovuk.blog.gov.uk/2014/02/20/gov-uk-social-sharing-buttons-the-first-10-weeks/). The experiment ran from December 2013 to February 2014 and found substantial variation in sharing rates between different types of content. ↩
3. MDN Web Docs, ["Navigator: share() method"](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Navigator/share). The Web Share API allows a website to invoke the operating system's native sharing mechanism rather than embedding third-party social widgets. ↩

#blogging #opinion #technology