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sara waxelbaum🌻

@woodsandwaxelbaum.bsky.social

270 followers 250 following 730 posts

author • pirate enthusiast • audhd • antifascist jew • land back • acab Sara Waxelbaum: Don’t Forget to Breathe (10.21.25), Margo Zimmerman Gets the Girl Sara Taylor Woods: Hold Me Down, short stories rep: Rebecca Podos www.woodsandwaxelbaum.com

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sara waxelbaum🌻 @woodsandwaxelbaum.bsky.social · Feb 21

BEHOLD. the absolutely gorgeous cover that Clare Vaughn and her team at @epicreads.bsky.social got @briannashrum.bsky.social and me for our next sapphic YA romance, DON'T FORGET TO BREATHE. it's out 10/21, and yes, you can preorder it! bookshop.org/p/books/don-...

book cover: a white girl in a pink mini-dress and athletic sneakers sits on the large branch of a tree, in front of a swath of the tree's blooming white flowers. her head is not in the picture. below the tree branch (about halfway down the image) is a night sky, with two constellations highlighted--Maui's fishhook and Orion. layered on top of the sky is text: the top two lines are in a small white block font, in all caps; they read, "even when/you're falling..." Below, in the same shade of pink as the girl's dress, is the title of the book, one word on each line: "Don't Forget to Breathe." The first and third words "Don't" and "to" are in block caps, and the second and fourth, "Forget" and "Breathe" are in a romantic script, accentuated with the tree's white blossoms. Below the title are the authors' names, in the same white block font as the first lines: Brianna R. Shrum & Sara Waxelbaum.

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sara waxelbaum🌻 @woodsandwaxelbaum.bsky.social · 4h

consider the humble fleshlight: fits in your computer bag and doesn’t require the power consumption of a small nation

The Verge @theverge.com · 11h

Sam Altman says ChatGPT will soon sext with verified adults

ChatGPT is about to get flirty.

buff.ly

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Michael Burns @michaelburns.bsky.social · 6h

"sorry kids we can't drink water because dad and his friends spent 10 years sexting with Carmen Electra on ChatGPT and we accidentally drained the great lakes"

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Alex Degen (Magic Serple 2025) @adactivity.bsky.social · 11h

This is cool after the war on everything called “porn” by platforms and payment processors. A machine that stole all your words can generate and sell “erotica” but you can’t haaa

Matt Burgess (WIRED) @mattburgess1.bsky.social · 11h

Oh good, ChatGPT is getting "erotica for verified adults" later this year

We made ChatGPT pretty restrictive to make sure we were being careful with mental health issues. We realize this made it less useful/enjoyable to many users who had no mental health problems, but given the seriousness of the issue we wanted to get this right.

Now that we have been able to mitigate the serious mental health issues and have new tools, we are going to be able to safely relax the restrictions in most cases.

In a few weeks, we plan to put out a new version of ChatGPT that allows people to have a personality that behaves more like what people liked about 4o (we hope it will be better!). If you want your ChatGPT to respond in a very human-like way, or use a ton of emoji, or act like a friend, ChatGPT should do it (but only if you want it, not because we are usage-maxxing).

In December, as we roll out age-gating more fully and as part of our “treat adult users like adults” principle, we will allow even more, like erotica for verified adults.

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sara waxelbaum🌻 @woodsandwaxelbaum.bsky.social · 8h

if you’re wondering how it’s going, I spent the same amount of time on one single page of revisions this morning as I did sleeping last night: three and a half hours.

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JazzReads📚 @jazzreads.bsky.social · 16h

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🔥The Quirky Pastor🔥 @quirkypastor.bsky.social · 1d

A reminder that even in his lifetime Christopher Columbus was considered so horrendously cruel that the people responsible for the g*ddamn Spanish Inquisition went “oh my God. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU???” And had him arrested and stripped of his titles.

Dunking on Columbus isn’t “revisionist history,” it was literally an order from the crown of Spain in 1500

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Jeanne Timmons @mostlymammoths.bsky.social · 1d

6pm tonight EDT (if I'm getting the time zones correct) 🧪🧬

Te Ara Paerangi Com - Research Advocacy Capability @te-ara-paerangi.community · 7d

We'd love to have a huge turn out for Nic's talk. Please help spread the word. There are downloadable pdf adverts in the link below. They can be emailed or printed. If you work in a public space (e.g. Library) you could help by printing and posting one of the flyers. Ngā mihi nui!

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Hetan Shah @hetanshah.bsky.social · 2d

This is such a clever idea on taking kids to museums/galleries
www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

Nadia from London has an idea that sounds such fun you'll be booking a day out asap.
"I've always loved museums," she says,
"but they can be overwhelming for children. For decades now, I've done something called 'playing postcards'
We do
the museum backwards, visiting the gift shop first. Each child gets to choose three postcards. Then they take it in turns to find that particular artwork in the museum and give us a little information about the piece from the details on the postcard, or from any gallery plaque. At the end of this treasure-hunt-style activity, we vote for our favourite in the cafe."

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sara waxelbaum🌻 @woodsandwaxelbaum.bsky.social · 4d

nailed it

Juno Rylee Schultz @junoryleejournalism.com · 6d

David Simon, creator of ‘The Wire’, being interviewed by Ari Shapiro (NPR)

SHAPIRO: OK, so you've spent your career creating television without Al, and I could imagine today you thinking, boy, I wish I had had that tool to solve those thorny problems...
SIMON: What?
SHAPIRO: ...Or saying...
SIMON: You imagine that?
SHAPIRO: ...Boy, if that had existed, it would have screwed me over.
SIMON: I don't think Al can remotely challenge what writers do at a fundamentally creative level.
SHAPIRO: But if you're trying to transition from scene five to scene six, and you're stuck with that transition, you could imagine plugging that portion of the script into an Al and say, give me 10 ideas for how to transition this.
SIMON: I'd rather put a gun in my mouth.

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Municipal Fox @amunicipalfox.bsky.social · 6d

This frog is your FRIEND
He fights for FREEDOM

Person in a frog costume faces down ICE agents

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Marxist-Glonzoist @primaryschool.bsky.social · 6d

making getting assaulted by armed agents of the state into a funny meme is like unironically how we get critical masses of dumb white boys in the streets, Portland frog is a hero and a patriot

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sara waxelbaum🌻 @woodsandwaxelbaum.bsky.social · 8d

oh and I will stan Alan Alda until I die

sara waxelbaum🌻 @woodsandwaxelbaum.bsky.social · 8d

since 2015, I haven’t recommended it to anyone, and I’ve actually actively discouraged people from watching it for the first time. Who could possibly say why

sara waxelbaum🌻 @woodsandwaxelbaum.bsky.social · 8d

I haven’t watched it since 2006 and I won’t rewatch because I don’t want my millennial nostalgia harshed, but Sam was absolutely right that education is the silver bullet.

Conrad Hackett @conradhackett.bsky.social · 9d

What is your 2025 take on The West Wing (1999-2006 tv show)?

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Jordon Nardino @jnardino.bsky.social · 9d

They are called writers

derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 9d

we need a word for a type of person who spends all their time working to live in a city so they can be near cool things, but they don't actually like going out

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The Tennessee Holler @thetnholler.bsky.social · 9d

SOUTH CAROLINA… “Judge Goodstein was walking on the beach when the fire started. Her husband, Arnie, was in the house with children and perhaps grandchildren. The family had to escape by jumping from a window or balcony...” www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article...

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Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst @profirmf.bsky.social · 9d

my semi regular reminder to all of us who love to cite Mr Roger’s “look for the helpers” in times of stress

like when folks are being abducted by secret police

that that was advice for children to feel safe in times of crisis or need or fear

YOU are not the looker now

YOU are the helper

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sara waxelbaum🌻 @woodsandwaxelbaum.bsky.social · 9d

MAGA is the logical conclusion of mixing evangelical Christianity with politics:

the oppressing party insisting that they’re actually being oppressed

“because I said so” authoritarianism

the President is the head of the country like Christ is the head of the church

Brian Tyler Cohen @briantylercohen.bsky.social · 10d

They literally only know how to be victims

sara waxelbaum🌻 @woodsandwaxelbaum.bsky.social · 9d

I’ve bailed on several synagogues that have espoused politically/ morally problematic ideas. I also live in an area that has a very limited number of congregations—of which Chabad is the least politically problematic. there isn’t a right answer; there’s only the answer that lets you sleep at night.

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sara waxelbaum🌻 @woodsandwaxelbaum.bsky.social · 9d

there is a time to daven and there is a time to argue and it’s not while you’re davening. let’s say Kaddish and hear the shofar, and when we get to the kiddush, THEN we can argue.

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sara waxelbaum🌻 @woodsandwaxelbaum.bsky.social · 9d

and who out there thinks Jews AREN’T having hard discussions and arguing with each other? a big difference between Judaism and Christianity is that when Jews disagree on doctrine, etc, we don’t just automatically take our toys and make a new congregation.

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sara waxelbaum🌻 @woodsandwaxelbaum.bsky.social · 9d

the worst possible punishment in the Torah is not death; it’s exile. it’s separation from the community. when you live somewhere with a small Jewish population and limited congregation options, things get complicated fast.

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sara waxelbaum🌻 @woodsandwaxelbaum.bsky.social · 9d

the whole undercurrent of Judaism and Jewishness is community. you can’t say Kaddish without a minyan. you have to learn how to chant/read Torah from someone who already knows. we cannot excise community from our religious lives without sacrificing observance.

Tzfardea Tzedek 🐸 @jsx.bsky.social · 11d

This is one of those things that *sounds* reasonable if your context for religion is Christianity, and your assumption is that there is a wide range of congregations to choose from in any given town, and if you still don't like any of them you can just do religious stuff on your own.

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Mary Sue @marysuesays.bsky.social · 9d

STRETCH.

FOR THE LOVE OF BUNNIES, STRETCH EVERY DAY!

essencesimmone.blacksky.app @essencesimmone.blacksky.app · 11d

Those who are 35+, what advice do you have for people just entering their 30s?

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AK Faulkner @ NYCC @poopraven.bsky.social · 10d

It's a lovely morning on the internet and you are a horrible queer!

Drop your links to queer books! Yours, someone else's, tradpub, indie, share ALL THE QUEER BOOKS to make a fash shit themselves.

Go!!!

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