Moment of Zen: Reading

Pic of the Day

An In-Between Kind of Day

I’m so glad today is a work-from-home day. Tomorrow I’ll be in early for a special event, so having this quieter morning feels like a small gift.

Since I’m working on Saturday, I had yesterday off—and because I’m working from home today, I’ll still need to head in early to get everything set up for the program I’ll be doing. It’s one of those in-between days: not exactly a day off, not quite a full workday either.

I only wish today’s weather was what we’re expecting tomorrow. Today will warm up to about 23 degrees—the mildest it’s been in weeks. Tomorrow, though, is a very different story. We’re under a severe weather advisory, with wind chills expected to drop 20 to 30 below zero. At least the museum should be warm.

I have a few things to take care of while working from home today. Tomorrow’s program should wrap up by around 10 a.m., and after that, the rest of the day will be paperwork and taking things easy until it’s time to head home.

Some days are about bracing against the cold. Others are about finding the small comforts where you can—and today feels a bit like that.

* 🚨 * 🚨 * Red Alert * 🚨 * 🚨 *

🖖Possible spoiler ahead…

Starfleet Academy Update

Y’all know I’m a Star Trek fan, so you’ll just have to get used to at least five more weeks of me sharing my thoughts on Starfleet Academy. My favorite Star Trek series has always been Deep Space Nine. It’s one of the most complex and intriguing of all the Treks, and I’ve watched the entire series dozens of times.

I think we all have a movie or TV show we return to when we need something familiar—mindless comfort, a pick-me-up, or just a way to quiet whatever’s rattling around in our heads. For me, that show is Deep Space Nine.

So when I read that this week’s Starfleet Academy episode was being described as a “love letter to Deep Space Nine,” I was—needless to say—very excited.

There were definitely things I loved about the episode. The little bit of gay drama between Jay-Den and Kyle was fun, and Darem’s jealousy was about as subtle as a photon torpedo. Drag queen Jackie Cox appears, Tawny Newsome guest stars, and we get to see Cirroc Lofton again—who has grown into quite a handsome man.

That said… there is one thing about the episode that genuinely pissed me off.

If anyone’s curious what that was, let me know in the comments. I’m happy to answer there, or I may save it and talk more about it on Monday—once everyone who wants to watch the episode has had time to do so.

🖖

Pic of the Day

A Quiet Morning

Some mornings, the words just don’t line up the way I want them to. Today is one of those days. I’m sitting here with thoughts drifting past, but none quite willing to settle into sentences.

That’s okay. Not every day needs a polished reflection or a carefully shaped idea. Sometimes showing up is enough.

I hope your day brings you something steady and kind—a good cup of coffee, a moment of quiet, a laugh you didn’t expect. Wherever you are and whatever you’re carrying, I hope today treats you gently.

Pic of the Day

Halfway Through

Some days don’t arrive with an argument or an insight. They just show up.

Today is one of those days. The week is halfway over, which somehow feels both reassuring and slightly disorienting. I’m off tomorrow, though I’ll be working Saturday, so the usual rhythm of the week feels a little skewed—time folded in on itself.

Work today is steady but manageable. There are several things I need to get done, but nothing especially heavy or consuming—just the kind of tasks that move projects along without demanding all of my attention.

Thursday will be simple and practical. A short doctor’s appointment to finish something we couldn’t quite wrap up earlier in the week. Nothing dramatic, just a loose end being tied. After that, Planet Fitness—probably just thirty minutes on the treadmill. No grand workout plan, no pushing limits. Just walking, moving forward, letting my thoughts drift while the minutes pass.

I usually read while I’m on the treadmill. It makes the time go faster and keeps my mind from constantly checking in with that familiar question—how much longer? When I’m absorbed in a page or two, my body seems to take care of itself. I don’t think as much about balance or movement; I just keep going.

The part of the day I’m most looking forward to comes later: spending the afternoon with an older male friend I don’t get to see nearly often enough. We usually talk nonstop—about books, art, history, museums, and whatever else the conversation wanders into. Those kinds of conversations are their own kind of nourishment.

Not every day needs to be productive in obvious ways. Not every post needs a point. Some days are about maintenance—of the body, of routines, of friendships. And that’s enough.

Sometimes, halfway through the week, showing up quietly is its own accomplishment.

Pic of the Day

Song of Myself, XI

Song of Myself, XI

By Walt Whitman

Twenty-eight young men bathe by the shore,

Twenty-eight young men and all so friendly;

Twenty-eight years of womanly life and all so lonesome.

She owns the fine house by the rise of the bank,

She hides handsome and richly drest aft the blinds of the window.

Which of the young men does she like the best?

Ah the homeliest of them is beautiful to her.

Where are you off to, lady? for I see you,

You splash in the water there, yet stay stock still in your room.

Dancing and laughing along the beach came the twenty-ninth bather,

The rest did not see her, but she saw them and loved them.

The beards of the young men glistened with wet, it ran from their long hair,

Little streams passed all over their bodies.

An unseen hand also passed over their bodies,

It descended tremblingly from their temples and ribs.

The young men float on their backs, their white bellies bulge to the sun, they do not ask who seizes fast to them,

They do not know who puffs and declines with pendant and bending arch,

They do not think whom they souse with spray.

About the Poem

This section of Leaves of Grass is one of Walt Whitman’s most quietly radical explorations of desire, longing, and the power of imagination. Twenty-eight young men bathe naked together in the water, carefree and unselfconscious, while a woman of the same age watches from the privacy of her home. She is physically separated from them—clothed, indoors, alone—yet in her imagination she becomes the “twenty-ninth bather,” joining their laughter and movement, touching and being touched. The men never see her; the encounter exists entirely within her longing.

Whitman presents this imagined intimacy as emotionally and sensually real, refusing to diminish it simply because it is unacted. There is no punishment for desire here, no moral correction. Wanting, especially wanting that cannot be fulfilled, is treated as a fundamental human experience rather than a failing. The poem honors the interior life as a space where longing has its own truth and legitimacy.

For 19th-century readers, this treatment of desire was deeply unsettling. The poem lingers on naked male bodies without euphemism, grants a woman an active erotic imagination, and treats sexual fantasy as natural rather than sinful. Victorian literary culture demanded modesty, restraint, and silence—particularly from women—but Whitman offers none of those reassurances. Instead, he insists on the holiness of the body and the legitimacy of erotic thought.

At the same time, the poem’s gaze dwells unmistakably on male physicality and communal intimacy: bodies floating together, bellies turned toward the sun, touch passing freely among them. This focus aligns with Whitman’s broader treatment of male-male closeness throughout Song of Myself, where affection between men is often physical, tender, and spiritually charged. Although framed through a woman’s perspective, the poem participates in Whitman’s larger project of celebrating bodily connection beyond conventional boundaries.

Read this way, the woman’s presence can feel almost like a veil—one that allows Whitman to explore erotic attention to male bodies and shared sensuality while navigating the social constraints of his time. Ultimately, the poem becomes less about voyeurism and more about exclusion and yearning: the ache to cross boundaries, to belong to a world of unguarded bodies and mutual touch, and to claim desire itself as something worthy of recognition and song.

About the Poet

Walt Whitman (1819–1892) reshaped American poetry by rejecting formal verse and embracing a bold, expansive free style that celebrated the self, the body, and the collective human experience.

With Leaves of Grass, Whitman insisted that:

• The body is sacred
• Desire is not separate from spirituality
• Love—especially between men—deserves poetic dignity

Though he never publicly named his sexuality, Whitman’s poetry has long been recognized as foundational to queer literary history. His work insists on the holiness of physicality and the legitimacy of desires that society prefers to hide.

Whitman’s enduring challenge to readers is simple and radical: to see the human body, in all its longing and beauty, as worthy of love and song.

Pic of the Day