Hoarded Ordinaries

Feb 21, 2026

Cozy but not claustrophobic

Yesterday when I went to the library for my weekly writing time, I tried something new. Instead of claiming a spot at one of the long tables in the first floor atrium, I went to the second floor and tried one of the new study pods there.

These nooks are shaped like small, open-faced houses with a table, overhead light, and booth-style benches. They are set up for face-to-face conversation, but I claimed a pod for just me and my laptop, and by the time I left an hour or so later, other solitary patrons had claimed the nooks on either side of mine.

My pod was snug and private to work in, even though the space is open. It felt like a larger, airier version of a study carrel–cozy but not claustrophobic–and working there felt like I was sitting at a restaurant or cafe table in the middle of the library.

Feb 20, 2026

A blur of gray

Posted by Lorianne under Art & culture | Tags: Jasper Johns, U2 |
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This morning I turned the page on my Met Museum desk calendar to reveal White Flag by Jasper Johns. The choice feels appropriate on a day that started gray and leaden and is ending with a messy mix of sleet, freezing rain, and snow.

Johns’ painting is a wash of gray, with hints of the stars and stripes of the American flag. The painting resembles a February landscape–monochromatic shades of gray–or a flag viewed through fog and ash, like the eerie photos of Ground Zero on 9/11, with everything and everyone coated in dust.

In a fitting coincidence, earlier this week–on Ash Wednesday, to be exact–U2 released an EP called Days of Ash that contains a protest song called “American Obituary.” A requiem for Renee Good, the song reminds listeners that the power of the people is stronger than the people in power.

Believing this takes an act of faith. America will rise, Bono sings, but sometimes you have to squint to see a flag of promise where there is nothing but a blur of gray.

Feb 18, 2026

Keep hope alive

Posted by Lorianne under Life lessons
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Yesterday the BBC played a clip from one of Jesse Jackson’s campaign speeches with his familiar refrain “Keep hope alive.” I’ll admit, I sighed at the line. Hope is hard to hold: in my experience, hope is fragile and easily bruised. Everywhere at all turns are reasons to despair: injustice is a weed with deep roots, and hope is a tender flower that is easy to trample.

And yet. I’m currently reading Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619 – 2019, edited by Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain, and one recurring theme is the sheer resilience of Black people and Black culture in the face of ongoing injustice. Sometimes hope is forward-facing, the act of looking ahead to better days, and sometimes hope is simply refusing to give up.

The first step toward keeping hope alive is staying alive, staying awake, and staying engaged. It is hard to stay hopeful in a world that tries at every turn to harden our hearts, but somewhere deep inside is a buried seed that will sprout and blossom if we cultivate it.

Feb 16, 2026

Too long, too much

Posted by Lorianne under How's the weather
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Today is bland and gray, with temperatures hovering around freezing. Every year, February weather can’t do anything right: sunny days are too glaring, and cloudy days are too dreary. Melting days are too drippy, freezing days are too slippery, and in-between days are too meh.

The whole vibe of February is too long, too much. Winter has dragged on too long, and whatever we have at the moment–snow on the ground, clouds in the sky, ice on the walkways–is too much.

Feb 15, 2026

Lucid dreaming

Posted by Lorianne under Life as Lorianne | Tags: dreams |
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Last week, I dreamed I was at a conference and left my laptop on a table after the keynote session. After lunch, I looked for my laptop in a stack of abandoned laptops and tablets one of the organizers had gathered, with each device carefully wrapped in a clear plastic sleeve.

As I repeatedly combed through this stack of devices, I had a moment of clarity where I reminded myself this was a dream and my laptop was safely charging on my desk. Even so, in the dream I kept poring through the stack, certain I could find my laptop if I just kept looking.

Feb 11, 2026

They hop among us

Posted by Lorianne under Nature & animals | Tags: cottontail |
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If you’re an early dog-walker after overnight snow, you might see undeniable proof that neighborhood rabbits use shoveled sidewalks as their own hopalong highway.

Feb 9, 2026

Down the same sidewalks

Posted by Lorianne under How's the weather
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We’ve reached that place in winter that Taylor Swift so aptly describes: “All my mornings are Mondays stuck in an endless February.”

Every morning for weeks, it seems, the weather report is the same: sunny and cold. Every morning, the dog and I walk down the same snow-rut sidewalks, trying to avoid the same slippery spots.

Someday in spring, when the snowpiles and snowmelt are gone, we’ll walk longer and farther, but for now, we slalom down the same sidewalks.

Feb 6, 2026

Timeless

Posted by Lorianne under Ordinary time
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What kind of faith does it take to withstand the dark sterility of winter? I ask myself this same question every year. If you were Adam or Eve cast out of a summery paradise into winter’s chill, at what point would you give up hope that warmth and light would ever return?

I wrote these three sentences in November, 2011, but I could have written them yesterday.

Feb 4, 2026

Current mood

Posted by Lorianne under How's the weather
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This photo tells you everything you need to know about February in New England. The streets are clear, blanched with salt, and fringed with snowbanks. The sidewalks are a patchwork of trampled snow, frozen meltwater, and bare pavement. And a toppled recycling bin is the only splash of green in sight.

Feb 2, 2026

The Change

Posted by Lorianne under Book chat
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I’m currently reading Kirsten Miller’s novel The Change, which in theory I should love. The basic premise is delectable. Three post-menopausal women channel various superpowers to bring justice and vengeance on a serial killer targeting young women. In a world where young women are prey, these grown women use their accumulated wisdom to extract revenge.

The execution of this premise, however, is clunky and cartoonish. As a post-menopausal woman myself, I smiled at the image of witchy crones working out their Female Rage at an all-women’s gym called Furious Fitness. Elsewhere in the novel, however, the characters were shallow caricatures.

Violence against women and the patriarchal structures that enable it–I’m looking at you, everyone in the Epstein files–are serious enough. We don’t need to sensationalize then.