Hello! This is just going to be a quick one, but I wanted to give you an update since I didn’t post on Monday, and this definitely isn’t your Weekly Rondo.

I have a dear friend who has been begging me to come visit her in Boston for about three years. I finally got a ticket to visit her at the end of February 2020… and then all hell broke loose. Unfortunately, she was just finishing up cancer treatment, and visiting a vulnerable friend in the middle of a pandemic didn’t seem like the best idea, so I kept putting it off.

And then, by some miracle, I found myself with a whole lotta time on my hands and more mobility than I knew what to do with. This friend just bought a house outside of Boston (and no, that is not a euphemism for Harvard), and asked me t stay with her for a month or so.

I’ll be writing from there, but I had to spend most of my week pulling my apartment together, so it isn’t a complete disaster while I’m gone.

While I have your attention…

If any of you have been to the Boston area, would you let me know what I should go see? Obviously, I will be going to Salem, but I’d love to know what else you recommend.

Coming up…

I will be right back at you next week with another installment of “The friend of the people.” We’ll be talking about what elements of the French Revolution made the perfect storm for a witch hunt.

Please stay. You are loved. You are needed.

I watched a bit of my Governor’s monthly press conference today, and he mentioned something about the high prevalence of suicide we’ve been seeing, and I noticed quite a few people bringing the issue up recently.

A few years ago, I wrote about my experience with suicide and revised it a few months ago to add a few more lessons I have learned. I attempted suicide when I was 17, and it left an indelible mark on me in the best sense of the word. I wanted to share it with you again here.

The Charrette

The Black Dog: How to Talk about Suicide

A Foreword… When I started this Substack, I did not imagine this would be the first piece I would publish. I had several ideas in the hopper like “The Slap™ as Performance Art” to talk about how Will Smith’s slapping of Chris Rock became a meta performance art piece wherein Smith was the artist…

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4 months ago · 12 likes · Kathleen Sykes

Have a great weekend.