Atomic Cupcakes

"I hate Illinois Nazis."

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Christianity for non-Christians

I am not an expert. I was raised in the Christian faith, however – traditional Protestant. All the Protestant faiths diverge over points of theology and belief, so it’s hard to parse out for non-Christians what are the core beliefs among them. Also, the Protestants are different from the Catholics – who also seem to have their splinter sects. But Protestants split from the Catholic Church…

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Do I want to write a blog post a day?

Apparently, there is a blogging challenge in April: Blogging from A to Z. You pick a topic, and then write a blog post every day (except Sunday – though I imagine different faith traditions would pick Saturday as a day of rest) on that topic in alphabetical order. Choosing cooking seems like a great choice: Apples, bananas, cinnamon, dessert, …. ok, I stuck on E but I think there is something…

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Sinners

I’m avoiding talking about current events today. Enough already. Sometimes good art is what you need. We watched “Sinners” for the first time last night. On streaming, not on the big screen, which is probably a crime against art. Let me start out with a few caveats: I don’t like horror movies. The horror books I read is pretty confined to Shirley Jackson, and while I keep intending to do a…

[atomiccupcakeobservation]

2025 and into 2026

Listen, normally I do an end of December post about all the things I read/watched/paid attention to during the previous year – you know, the traditional “year-end wrap up.” I usually enjoy doing it: it’s a good reminder of the things past, of the year that was, that there was joy and darkness and light and terror but good things too. It’s not a “best of” the year, because it’s just what I…

[atomiccupcakeobservation]

Happy New Year! (not the year end post)

The last couple of years I’ve written a “Things I liked in 20 ….” post. This is not that post. But why? Surely 2025 wasn’t ALL terrible (tho a lot was terrible)? No, I did read things and watch things and have some opinions but … But I spend all Christmas week with a fever. Trying not to infect my parents. Grateful my partner didn’t get my dread disease (miraculous, really). Being guarded by…

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Movie Review: Angel's Egg

Ok, This movie came out in 1985. It’s a Japanese animated movie by Mamoru Oshii. I saw it this afternoon. This is the description from Letterboxed: Under a sky where clouds make sound as they move. In the ruins of a strange city, a young girl takes care of a large egg she holds carefully in her arms. She bonds with a boy who is searching for a bird he saw in a dream. If the young girl and the…

[atomiccupcakeobservation]

Rewriting

This will be a short blog post, as I am nearly the end of a revised first draft. It’s been a learning journey. If this one never goes out in the world … I will have learned a lot. I spent the month of November doing “Novel November” and working on it every day, usually twice a day. I learned I do not write much in the afternoon: I will write mornings and evenings, though. I spent a lot of time…

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Hurricane Melissa

Happy Halloween, for those who celebrate. Me, I’m going as a hurricane this year. No, I’m not. We will give out some candy this year, and I’m wearing my shirt with skulls on it, and that will be the essence of our celebration. When it was first announced that there was a hurricane with my name, I was a bit proud – it was a Category 5 hurricane, after all, something to be feared! Not a wimpy…

[atomiccupcakeobservation]

Masking

Recently, a conversation came up in a group I belong to about authenticity – when are we are “real selves” and when do we need to “mask.” Some of it has to do with the roles we play: mom role, professional person, our spiritual side, our social side, playing to the good daughter, playing the good wife – all of the different sides we have in our lives. I argued that it’s when we learn to…

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The August post on September 1

August flew by – so much happening in the world, so much happening in life. What happened to the times when August was the slow month, and everyone just went on vacation? Far from being a slow “news” month, we had attempted takeover of Democratic cities – just because they were a) Democratic and b) non-white people live there (and as we all know, as Stephen Miller would like us to believe,…

[atomiccupcakeobservation]

In praise of public libraries

Public libraries are the best. Other libraries are great: I remember in grad school having a class in the Harvard Theater Collection and what a special and wonderful class that was – filled with archival material that was just one extraordinary bit of history after another. But academic libraries and special collections of that sort are limited to the few people who can get access (or prove they…

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End of June: here we are, but where are we?

Wins: No Kings Day was a success, and more so because the military parade was a complete flop: good contrast there. Loss: The US government turned around and bombed Iran to save face, apparently. Because bombing people in the Middle East apparently never gets old. Wins: people keep getting released from ICE detention by judges. Loss: The Supreme Court has (mostly) lost its damned mind. Those…

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Connections

Thinking a lot about the importance of feeling connected lately – as this country political ecosystem seems to be intent on pulling people apart, and making everyone else seem like “the other” to be feared and hated. And I am guilty of that: I hate fascists, and will continue to think they need to ostracized from all community so that everyone else is safer. Take your self-centered, racist,…

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Review: The Residence

I was going to get into doing more reviews of movies, TV, and books … but it just seemed like this was not the right time to continue. Or maybe I didn’t see anything I really wanted to comment on. Or … life has been complicated and hard. However, we watched Shondaland’s “The Residence” on Netflix, and man is it good. Just loved every episode. Loved the perspective of the birder, loved the main…

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Thinking about protests

This country has always had protests of one kind or another. In fact, you could say the US started as a protest: for what else where the events leading up to the Revolutionary War? Some protests have worked better than others; some have been brutally suppressed, some have lead to war, some have lead to change. Sometimes they combine with other events to push the direction of the country…

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An Act of Resistance is an Act of Hope

I failed to write a blog post in March – a failure on my part. I kept putting it on my “To Do” list … then not doing it. Not having an idea of what would be good to write, whether it is worth it to keep commenting on the current horrors or whether it is better to find something else to write about so this blog doesn’t get all one-note …. Feeling guilty, not writing, having other stuff to do –…

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[atomiccupcakeobservation]

I got nothing

I wish I had something with insight to say about our current situation, but alas, all I see are are the clowns of destruction. There are good things happening: protests and lawsuits and angry town halls and people standing up to chaos and authoritarianism … But the destruction is pretty devastating. Relentless. Here’s the thing: the damage done so far is so vast, it won’t be repaired in a few…