Kelly Holmes

@kellyjholmes.com

2082 Followers 556 Following

Writer, small business owner, book-loving troublemaker raising 4 book-loving troublemakers in ATX. My love language is baked goods. She/her. ✨ Libraries are magic. Use yours! ✨ Saving democracy one tiny step at a time: mollysarmy.com 💪

Cover of The Road to Tender Hearts by Annie Hartnett, featuring an illustration of a man pushing a station wagon with a child and another adult inside, plus another child on top of the car and a cat running alongside the car
StoryGraph to be read page, showing the option to switch away from infinite scroll
Spreadsheet showing: The first person had 15 4/5 star books that I also read, and my rating for those averages out to 4.67. The second person and I have 7 books overlapping, and my average rating for their 4/5 star reads is 3.86.
I try to be charitable to folks who say they are happily chatting away with a large language model as they do their work of writing, seeking feedback and critique, receiving insights that they say would otherwise not be available, but deep down I see it as a kind of madness, babbling at an algorithm that cannot think or feel, the very things writing is meant to engender in the reader. When I truly think on it, when I envision it, it is grotesque.
Review on Yelp: “I went here to get a drug screen for employment. It was on a list of places near me printed out by my future employer. I am glad I was able to go somewhere close, but I wouldn't go back again. There's something too casual and too run down about the place where you question things. I don't know if they do blood work there, but I would never get my blood taken there. The two people I saw seemed to both be about 19 years old. They were very nice and polite, but just again like me questioning if everyone knows what they're doing. The bathroom door was supposed to be able to close and lock, but a few seconds later I found it hadn't locked and was a few inches open. I could barely get it to stay closed. It's just not one of those regular professional lab places I'm used to where everything seems super hygienic, super clean, super up to date.”
Person in an axolotl costume holding a sign that says: ATX salamanders against authoritoadian regimes
A closed book with wings, with the title "Books Are Magic"
Poster that reads: HOW TO DE-ESCALATE IN LIBRARY SPACES Join your fellow librarians and information workers for this virtual workshop: 27 March 2025 5:30–7:00 PM AGENDA: ICE De-escalation Reproductive health Register at bit.ly/crim202
Cover of the book Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher, featuring a person shown from the back wearing a dark green tunic, with thorns and branches growing out of it
Chart from the Scholastic Kids & Family Reading Report, 8th Edition, titled "How Much Do You Enjoy Reading Books for Fun?" At ages 6-8, 70% of kids love or like reading for fun. At ages 9-11, 61% read for fun. And at ages 12-17, 46% read for fun.
The mushy middle can be too welcoming to the right, but the puritanical part of the left has a perpetual unwelcoming committee for people who are not in perfect agreement or all up on the terminology and stuff. If organizing consists of building movements through finding common ground and motivating people with a sense of confidence and possibility, this is pretty much a tactic of disorganizing, of coalition prevention and driving people away by making them fearful of getting anything even slightly wrong. It can be a conscious technique of sabotage, but I believe it's most often an unconscious technique by people who think the assignment is to be perfect rather than to be powerful. By powerful I mean achieving your goals, realizing your hopes, and that's most often done incrementally, imperfectly, and by working with people who don't agree with you about everything. Maybe getting them to agree with you through an exercise of skill and even compassion.
Cover of the book On Disinformation: How to Fight for Truth and Protect Democracy
Screenshot of the Libby app, showing the Lucky Day Collection section and several book covers. Text below the Lucky Day Collection heading reads: "Titles shown in this list are available for immediate 7-day checkout. No holds. No renewals. If you already have a hold on this title, it won't be canceled by a Lucky Day check-out." Book covers shown are: Counting Miracles by Nicholas Sparks, The Rom-Commers by Katherine Center, The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson, Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson, Never Say Never by Danielle Steele, and Twilight by Stephenie Meyer.
The quality of life is in proportion, always, to the capacity for delight. The capacity for delight is in the gift of paying attention. — Julia Cameron
Screenshot of the app Finch, showing a birb named Pebble in its cozy home
Book cover: Sorcery and Small Magics by Maiga Doocy
Art Society board game cover
Wall Outlet with USB Dual Type-C/C Ports
Avocado Huggers
A collage of 4 photos showing the Zero Waste Cap in use
Robert Downey, Jr. holding his hands to his chest while closing his eyes and sighing in relief, overlaid with the text "When you're trying a new recipe and the blogger includes 'Jump to Recipe' button on the page"
The will to be polite, to maintain civility and normalcy, is fearfully strong. I wonder sometimes how much evil is permitted to run unchecked simply because it would be rude to interrupt it.
Illustration of a person carrying a book in one hand and a library card in another hand, with the caption "Library defenders"
Tony’s Chocolonely Everything Bar
My menu of joy * Update my reading tracker spreadsheet * Eat something yummy: a baked good, piece of chocolate, oatmeal * Drink a warm coffee * Read a good book * Pick my next read * Research books the kids might enjoy * Browse book reviews * Climb into a freshly made bed with clean sheets * Play a board game with the kids * Read aloud to the kids * Hug someone * Listen to new-to-me music and find a new favorite song * Look up when I start my morning walk and notice the stars * Skip setting my alarm in the morning and wake up when I wake up * Listen to Christmas music * Organize social media bookmarks in my Notion database * Spend time with the bunnies * Do something to make the kids giggle
Stack of patriarchy-smashing books: Yes Means Yes, Believe Me, Unscrewed, Unladylike
If we are going to ever defeat Trumpism, modern fascism, and wage a viable challenge to gendered racial capitalism, we must revive the old IWW slogan, “An injury to one is an injury to all.” Putting that into practice means thinking beyond nation, organizing to resist mass deportation rather than vote for the party promoting it. It means seeing every racist, sexist, homophobic and transphobic act, every brutal beating and killing of unarmed Black people by police, every denial of healthcare for the most vulnerable, as an attack on the class. It means standing up for struggling workers around the world, from Palestine to the Congo to Haiti. It means fighting for the social wage, not just higher pay and better working conditions but a reinvestment in public…”
The people in the room think he is not an American, but he is more American than almost any of them. He has discovered America and his spirit is the spirit of the pioneers. He is furious with America because it does not realize its strength and beauty and power. He talks about the workmen in the factory where he is employed. . . . He took the job “in order to understand the real America.” He thinks the men are wonderful. “Why don’t you American intellectuals ever get to them; talk to them?” I grin bitterly to myself, thinking that if we ever got into war with the Nazis he would probably be interned, while Mr. B and Mr. G and Mrs. E would be spreading defeatism at all such parties as this one. “Of course I don’t like Hitler but . . .”
Chart showing how registered voters consume news, by their support in the 2024 election