Laurell K. Hamilton

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! We just finished watching the movie, Grabbers. The person who recommended it said it was the most Irish monster movie ever. No arguments from us. It was a lot of fun and I think we have a new tradition for the holiday.

@Mr_Husky1 Happy sobriety to you! Sobriety companions, come in all shapes and sizes.

I adopted my dog three weeks after I got sober and everyone in my life thought it was a terrible idea. My sponsor said I needed to focus on myself. My sister said I could barely keep a plant alive. My therapist said, carefully, that she wanted me to think about whether I was ready for that level of responsibility. They were all correct and I did it anyway. His name is Frank. He is a six-year-old Basset Hound I found on the shelter website at 1:00 AM on a Thursday, which is the kind of decision-making hour that should probably require a second opinion, and I drove to the shelter the next morning before I could talk myself out of it. Frank had been there for five months. He was surrendered by a family who said he was too slow, which is the most accurate thing anyone has ever said about him and also not a reason to surrender a dog. He sat in his kennel with the dignified resignation of someone waiting for a connecting flight they have accepted will be delayed indefinitely. When I knelt down at his kennel he walked over slowly, sniffed my hand with great thoroughness, and then sat on my foot. The volunteer said he had never done that before. I took him home that afternoon. The first year of sobriety is hard in ways that are difficult to explain to someone who has not been through it. The cravings are obvious but the other parts are less discussed — the boredom, the social anxiety, the strange disorientation of being present in your own life after years of not being. The evenings were the hardest. That specific window between 7:00 and 10:00 PM when I did not know what to do with my hands or my thoughts and the silence in my apartment felt like something that needed to be filled. Frank filled it. Not by being exciting. Frank is not exciting. He sleeps approximately nineteen hours a day and approaches every situation with the same level of unhurried evaluation, whether it is a new toy or a fire alarm. But he needed to be fed at 6:00 PM and walked at 7:00 and again at 9:00 and those three facts restructured my entire evening around something other than the inside of my own head. My therapist said six months in that Frank might have been the best decision I made in early recovery. She said it like she was slightly annoyed about it, which I respected. I have been sober for two years and four months. Frank is currently asleep on the couch with one ear flipped inside out, which is how he sleeps about half the time, and which I have stopped trying to fix because he clearly does not find it inconvenient. My sponsor asks about him every week now. My sister bought him a birthday cake last month. Frank did not save my sobriety. That was my work and my choice and nobody else's. But he gave me a 7:00 PM and a 9:00 PM and a reason to be home and present and responsible on the nights when I most needed something that required it of me. Sometimes a Basset Hound is exactly the right medicine.

@oelma__ Bambi, I was three. My mother took me and three years later she died just like Bambi’s mom. Nothing like trauma to make you remember things.

Do you?

@loscharlos I’m so sorry you’re going through this. I got long covid in 2022. I’m lucky in my symptoms compared to others, but I just got Covid again and now it’s like rolling the dice every time.

6 years ago today I went on my last run (pic left) — today I’m 36 and I’ve spent my entire 30’s with #LongCovid struggling to walk up and down the block, or work more than 1-2 hours a day. Heres 4 things I never thought I’d lose at this age:

@outback_camera Sounds reasonable

@LKHamilton Right forearm

I’ve now watched the extended versions of Lord of the Rings so much that I’m back to wanting a LOTR tattoo, but it’s totally different than the one I wanted years ago. That’s why I always wait so long before deciding on a tattoo.

@lippyent Junior high

I know I'm from rural Ohio but... Hmm 😒 🤔?¿

Tornado warning here. Everyone in St.Louis, St. Charles, and the whole area be safe. We’re in basement with all the cats we could lure down. Magnus decided to okay stealth hide and seek.

@outback_camera I’m sorry you’re having a conflict about it. It looks like a very understated tattoo. Where do you want to place it?

@LKHamilton I have chosen the LOTR tattoo I want, but my wife isn’t letting me get it! I can dream I guess

I waited years to get my first tattoo. No regrets.

@AdVixen5445 Honored that my stories could see you through hard times and on better things.

There's something very cathartic about holding the book you read in the hospital 2 years ago that gave you the strength to keep going. And in the city the book takes place in...at the book store the author does her signings at. Thank you @LKHamilton

She kept finding women in laboratory photographs from the 1800s. Then she read the published papers—and every single woman had vanished. Someone had erased them from history. Yale University, 1969. Margaret Rossiter was a graduate student studying the history of science. She was one of very few women in her program. Every Friday afternoon, students and faculty gathered for beers and informal conversation. One week, Margaret asked a simple question: "Were there ever any women scientists?" The faculty answered firmly: No. Someone mentioned Marie Curie. The group dismissed it—her husband Pierre really deserved the credit. Margaret didn't argue. But she also didn't believe them. So she started looking. She found a reference book called "American Men of Science"—essentially a Who's Who of scientific achievement. Despite the title, she was shocked to discover it contained entries about women. Botanists trained at Wellesley. Geologists from Vermont. There were names. There were credentials. There were careers. The professors had been wrong. But Margaret's discovery was just the beginning. Because as she dug deeper into archives across the country, she found something far more disturbing. Photograph after photograph showed women standing at laboratory benches, working with equipment, listed on research teams. But when she read the published papers, the award citations, the official histories—those same women had disappeared. Their names were missing. Their contributions erased. It wasn't random. It was systematic. Women who designed experiments watched male colleagues publish results without giving them credit. Women whose discoveries were assigned to supervisors. Women listed in acknowledgments instead of as authors. Women passed over for awards that went to male collaborators who contributed far less. Margaret realized she was witnessing a pattern that stretched across centuries. Women had always been present in science. The record had simply pushed them aside. She needed a name for what she was documenting. In the early 1990s, she found it in the work of Matilda Joslyn Gage—a 19th-century suffragist who had written about this exact phenomenon in 1870. In 1993, Margaret published a paper formally naming it: The Matilda Effect. The term captured something that had been hidden in plain sight for generations. Once you knew the term, you saw it everywhere. Her dissertation became a lifelong mission. For more than 30 years, Margaret researched and wrote her landmark three-volume series: Women Scientists in America. She examined letters, institutional policies, individual careers. She gathered undeniable evidence that women in science had been consistently under-credited and structurally excluded. Her work faced resistance. Many dismissed women's history as political rather than academic. Others insisted she was exaggerating. Margaret didn't argue emotionally. She presented data. Documented cases. Patterns repeated across decades and institutions. Eventually, the evidence became undeniable. Her research helped restore recognition to scientists who had been erased: Rosalind Franklin, whose X-ray work revealed DNA's structure—credit went to Watson and Crick. Lise Meitner, who explained nuclear fission—omitted from the Nobel Prize. Nettie Stevens, who discovered sex chromosomes—received little credit. Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, who discovered stars are made of hydrogen—initially dismissed. And countless others whose names had nearly vanished. Margaret changed the narrative. Science was no longer just the story of solitary male geniuses. It became a story of collaboration that included women who had been written out. The Matilda Effect became standard terminology. Scholars used it to examine how credit is assigned, how authors are listed, who receives awards, who gets left out.

@lady_valor_07 Look around at the people doing better than you are and figure out what they’re doing that you aren’t, then do it. If what they are doing, doesn’t work for you then try something else until you find what does work for you.

I’m 25. Give me oddly specific life tips. No general ”surround yourself with positive people” tips. I want the most random, specific advice possible.

Thanks for all the suggestions for things to watch as I heal from COVID. Great minds because many suggestions I’m already caught up with. I’m marathoning Babylon 5 for first time & catching up on Next Level Chef, plus the podcast, Crime & Coffee Couple.

I can’t figure out how to add the link but I wanted you all to have a chance to win.

@lynnscnole Thanks

@LKHamilton The Jackal, Fallout, Derry Girls, Slow Horses, Mayfair Witches. Hope you feel better soon!

Thanks for all well wishes and healing vibes. I am getting better but still horribly tired so needing to find shows to marathon or new movies. I can’t seem to settle on anything so your ideas would be welcome.

@Specksus I tired to get into the first one but just couldn’t, but Solo Leveling is a serious favorite.

@LKHamilton That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime or Solo Leveling on the anime side.

@k2_hart I’d forgotten about Monarch. We started watching it and just stopped. Sometimes there’s so much good stuff on it’s hard to keep track. Great problem to have.

@LKHamilton School spirits on Paramount + , The Pitt on HBO, The Hunting Party on Peacock, Fallout on Prime Video, Monarch Legacy of Monsters - be sure to watch the Godzilla Monarch movies before - Series on Apple TV, SILO on apple TV. The Gorge on Apple TV, Foundation on Apple TV..All good

@lindamargaret54 Yes!

@LKHamilton Have you seen Once Upon a Time or Haven?

@Cutestmommmy Feel better. I thought about Harry Potter.

@LKHamilton Gilmore Girls, Everwood. I just binge watched all the Harry Potters again, sick as well.