A Richer Kind of Time - A Poem

When you are slowly dying

You spend a lot of time

Thinking about quality.

Quality of life

Of medical care

Of relationships.

Quality of your time.

You try to fill your days

With constructive

And positive

And useful things to do

You concentrate on the good

And try like hell

To fix the bad

And push it away

When you can't.

And it's okay

To cry

When your life clock

Stands at 3 minutes

To midnight

And you don't want to go yet.

Me, I don't fear it

I also don't seek it

I know it's coming

And I realized

It could happen tomorrow

In a car wreck

Or a Walmart shooter's spree

Or I could defy

My multiple diagnoses

And live another 25 years.

Nobody knows for sure

When the Reaper

Decides to show up.

So I live for the day,

I make them count

I love on my family

I love on my friends

My dogs

And really most importantly

I love on myself.

I am not living

On borrowed time

I merely live

On shortened time.

And when 

You make it good

That is enough.

Copyright Jennifer Thomas, 2026

Mean Girls, You've Got To Be Kind!

I was at Walmart one day and there was a guy sitting on a bench at the front near the registers. He was very obviously profoundly developmentally disabled, completely in his own world, and just having an absolute blast. I can't remember exactly what he was doing, but he was making a fair bit of noise, maybe listening to music because he was singing and chair dancing right there. 

Then these three teenage girls walked by. They were about 16, really pretty, fashionably dressed, the total cheerleader popular mean girl types. They noticed him and immediately started laughing and pointing, mimicking him and just being incredibly mean about it. 

The Windy City and Me

The roots of Chicago stay with you, no matter how many miles or years pile up. For me, that footprint started when I was eleven years old, living for four unforgettable months on South Kedzie Avenue with my Gramma Mary. Down on the Southwest Side, near Gage Park and Chicago Lawn, the city had a distinct, working-class grit. At eleven, that stretch of Kedzie was my entire universe. It was a world of brick two-flats, corner stores, and the constant, lively hum of the neighborhood. It was an eye-opening introduction to the real heart of the city. 

Years later, I returned to Chicago as an adult, but this time, the city showed us a completely different side of its character. 

Big Yellow Taxi of Life

I have no life, am bedridden by chronic illness and mobility impairment, so I have all the time in the world to read and do my hobbies.

But, I miss being busy

"Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got til its gone?" Man, if I'd known how much i would miss those insanely busy days!

I used to wish i could stay in bed all day. the reality is, doing that sucks. It's insanely boring and repetitive, each day is the same as the one before, the only differences are what you're reading, what you're watching, which hobby you're engaging in.

I'm glad to be alive, though.

Why I Write

Ever since penmanship stopped being a burden and became something that I could do well (around the age of 12, I was a late penmanship bloomer), I have been an avid writer. It did not come easily, though.

I remember suffering over "Creative Writing" exercises in 4th, 5th, and 6th grades. Being told that I was not writing poetry correctly because my poems had neither rhyme nor meter, being told that my choice of subject matter was uninteresting, being told that my stories lacked (pick something)..

Penny for your thoughts

When I was ten, I made my artist grandmother a cross for her wall by cutting a couple of chopsticks into shorter pieces with a steak knife, using a leather bootlace to bind them together, and then I used Elmer's glue to attach pennies up and down the stake and the crosspiece.

I remember having to prop the pennies so they would stay still and let the glue dry properly.

Gramma Mary hung that cross on her wall in Chicago, and then took it to California when she moved there when I was about 20. It was still hanging on her wall when she passed away, about twenty years after I made it for her.

It was kind of gimpy, but she loved it, and loved that I had spent time and effort making it for her.

I miss you, Gramma.

The Great Migration: A Cycle of Hope, Hardware, and Hoarding

There is no high quite like the "Order Confirmed" screen. In that moment, you aren't just buying a refurbished HP ProDesk with a solid-state heart; you are buying a version of yourself that is organized and efficient. You tell yourself that this machine will be the one. This is the setup where the art flows, the zines practically layout themselves, and the 32GB of RAM acts as a velvet rope to keep the "system lag" riff-raff out of your creative club.

Tolkein's Vogon Poetry

I've been trying to read Fellowship of the Ring again.

I read the series 35 years ago, and it was like slogging through Boston after the great molasses flood. Just agonizing.

Tolkein couldn't write poetry if a gun was held to his head and he was under threat of death to write a decent poem. And every chapter has one, two, or more of his awful fucking Vogon poetry.

I'll be just getting into the rhythm of the story when fucking JRR decides it's time to pull out his Prostetinic Vogon Jeltz mask and begin:

The Weight of Forty Years

Forty plus years ago, I spent one spring and summer where I had no job and couldn't find one. I was stripping one night a week and paid $25 for that, plus any tips customers stuffed in my g-string, which was usually about $10-15 a night. So my income was no more than $40 a week. I had to eat, and I needed cigarettes, which I considered a priority.

David Gerrold says I am a screechweasel :)

He also lies. Says I blocked him, when, in fact, I only unfriended him. HE is the one who did the blocking.

Would somebody who hasn't left his feed point him to my last two blog posts? 

Looks like I totes got into his skull. 🙂

I did not call him a transphobe. I called him a transphobe LOVER, because he believes its okay to hand your money and time to that transphobic cunt, Rowling.

And we proceed:

Jumping the Shark: The Fonz’s Funeral and Henry Winkler’s Last Laugh

It's a classic case of a show becoming a victim of its own success. What started as a grounded, nostalgic look at 1950s Milwaukee - centered on the Cunningham family - eventually morphed into the "The Fonzie Show," and that’s where the wheels started to come off.

The Surrenderist Guide to Optimized Existing

 

Lets be honest, the rise and grind culture is exhausting, and most life hacks are designed for people who actually have goals. If I see one more suggestion about waking up at 4 AM to drink goddam lemon water and manifest productivity, I'm going to fucking scream into a pillow until I pass out for another six hours. We do not need to optimize our workflow or shred for summer; we need strategies for when the mere act of perceiving reality feels like a full time job with no benefits. This isn't about winning at life - it's about negotiating a peaceful surrender with the pile of mail on the counter.

The Holy Trinity: Why I Keep Buying These Same Three Records

 

Most six-year-olds in 1971 were vibrating to "The Wheels on the Bus" or whatever upbeat nonsense was playing on the radio, but not me. No, I was already deep in the trenches of acoustic melancholy. I was sitting there in my kindergarten class, probably staring at a pile of blocks, while the haunting melodies of Joni Mitchell’s Blue, the earthy warmth of Carole King’s Tapestry, and the gentle drawl of James Taylor’s Sweet Baby James played on a loop in my head. 

I’ve owned these albums on vinyl, 8-track, cassette, CD, and every digital format known to man; at this point, the only thing missing is a reel-to-reel copy, and frankly, my wallet is grateful for that one omission. 

And now, the albums.

41 Pounds of Irony (And Zero Regrets)

I’ve been dropping weight since November. Just grinding it out, watching the scale tick down from 374. I hit 333 and felt like I was finally getting a handle on my own skin.

Then, a few weeks ago, the doctors decided to drop the other shoe: COPD. They handed me a three to five year sentence like it was a piece of junk mail.

Talk about a cosmic joke. I quit smoking two years ago, and let me tell you, that was harder than fuck. If I’d gotten this diagnosis back then, I probably would’ve gone straight out and bought another pack just to spite the world. But I didn't. I stuck it out because I like not stinking of smoke, and I like not having one hand permanently occupied by a cigarette. Most of all, I like not having to haul my ass outside 40 to 60 times a day just to feed the beast.

I spent two years reclaiming my time and four months shedding 41 pounds of gravity, just to find out my lungs are trying to quit the team anyway.

Carpe the Fucking Diem

So my COPD is stage two moving into stage three.

What does this mean?

3-5 years remaining to me. 4-6 if I'm really lucky and extremely diligent.

I did this to myself. I knew I was risking an early death with my chain smoking. Now it's a reality, not just a risk.

Born Loud, Raised Proud

The Stupidest Revenants in Modern Life: DST the Electoral College, and Inches

Daylight Saving Time made sense when the country was built on farming and manual labor. People woke up with the sun. Work depended on daylight. Shifting the clock actually changed how much usable light you had in a day. That world is gone. We are not an agrarian society anymore. We haven’t been for a long time. Yet twice a year we keep yanking the clock around like it still matters.

The whole thing is stupid now. Most people work indoors. Most people live by digital schedules. Our phones adjust automatically. Our jobs don’t depend on squeezing the last bit of sunlight out of the evening. But we still cling to this outdated ritual that does nothing except screw up sleep cycles, disrupt kids’ routines, and make everyone miserable for a week. It’s a tradition that survived only because no one bothered to kill it.

Why Celtics Fans Need to Stop Ignoring Kevin McHale

Kevin McHale wasn’t just part of the Big Three. He was the piece that made the whole thing work. Bird was the genius. Parish was the anchor. But McHale was the matchup nightmare that turned Boston’s front line into something the league had never seen before. Without him, the Big Three isn’t the Big Three. It’s just Bird and Parish with a missing limb.

What’s wild is how often he gets ignored now. Modern Celtics fans talk about Bird like he carried the entire decade on his back, and they treat McHale like he was some nice supporting character instead of the guy who put half the league in the torture chamber. He was the one opponents dreaded. He was the one Barkley and Olajuwon openly admitted they couldn’t guard. He was the one who could drop 30 on you without breaking a sweat or saying a word.

When Their Rights Are Sacred and Yours Are Optional

I am absolutely, unapologetically, and without exception pro transgender rights...

My new cussword insult list

"Cocksucker" is one of those insults that hits hard, but it hits in the wrong direction. Culturally and historically it has been used as a put down that basically says "You are a homosexual and thus you are worthy of contempt". It drags a whole group of people who never did a thing to me into a fight they were not part of. It punches down, not out. Once I actually looked at the word instead of just using it for the sound, it stopped feeling sharp and started feeling lazy...