TNFro Is Reading

11/13/2026

11/12/2026

Felicia's Favorite Things. Not Oprah's list. Mine, chosen on purpose.

Number one, books. Right now I am comparing East of Eden against two Black classics: Go Tell It on the Mountain, and Alice Walker's first novel, The Third Life of Grange Copeland. Same themes, different rooms. My verdict is pending, and there will be notes.

Number two, the ramen experiment. Pork belly and broccolini versus thin-cut pork ribs marinated overnight with green onions. Toppings must contribute to the dish or be excluded. The board is in session.

Number three, the crystal key. Writing on cut gemstones that glow. The hunt for the next one is open-ended, because tools should make the work feel good.

Number four, rosehip clarity tea, day seven and counting, and my coffee. Hold my coffee while I handle what needs handling.

That's the list. Choose your favorites on purpose.

11/11/2026

Rooted. Shielded. Undisturbed. Applied to a state where the wave didn't land.

No blue tsunami here. Just cracked red clay with a root system quietly working underneath.

The Shielded Life response to a national win you can't feel locally is not celebration. It is discipline. Tend the local ground: the commission seats, the county races, the school boards nobody watches. Guard your perimeter. Do not confuse a national result with local arrival. Nobody is seated until January, and the menace of the current administration does not pause because an election happened.

So what does undisturbed look like in a state that stayed red? Building anyway. Voting anyway. Showing up to the county meetings anyway. Protecting your household and your community in the meantime. Food sovereignty and self-sufficiency are not hobbies here, they are the ethos: grow what you eat, know what you grow, owe as little as possible to systems that did not build for you.

And I have to say something about the new grass roots effort, the Millennials. A bit unhinged and messy. Raised on Bravo and TikTok by Gen X parents and relatives, slightly feral, kind of rude. Kind of anti-establishment. They respect Michelle Obama on general principle, and they will go underneath Hell if necessary. They are getting grievance lists together, and they will expect everyone to do their damn job. Good. The mess is the building crew arriving.

It was speculated that a Black Fox reporter was fired after asking the governor-elect, the first woman elected to lead the state, um, err, Blackburn, specifics on how to work with African Americans. Fine. Detached. That just means he goes back to TikTok and trolls and drags without restriction.

I will be continuing my work reporting the truth. But I plan on enjoying the mess as we rebuild to a stronger society. Sometimes things have to be torn down to rebuild stronger. Gone is the status quo. I am here for the mess.

Rooted. Shielded. Undisturbed. Use the tools. Verify the work. Protect the people.

11/10/2026

Part 2: an estate that began insolvent, over $400 million in debt, now valued in excess of $2 billion. Billboard reports Paris Jackson says the executor failed to justify a $100 million fee, calling it particularly offensive. From a CFE lens: what fiduciary duty requires of an executor, what similar estates charge, and why the receipts matter. Allegations remain allegations.

11/10/2026

Part 1: an estate that began insolvent, over $400 million in debt, now valued in excess of $2 billion. Billboard reports Paris Jackson says the executor failed to justify a $100 million fee, calling it particularly offensive. From a CFE lens: the fiduciary duties of an estate executor, and what fees look like in comparable estates. Allegations remain allegations. Part 2 at noon.

11/09/2026

Just a girl with a porch and her new keebs.

Day seven of the rosehip tea. My Gemini research says rosehips lessen neutrophil migration to joints, and seven days in, my body agrees: less stiffness, less overall pain. The lemongrass is drying now for the waiting sachets. The ritual is earning its keep.

And the tools of joy: two new keyboards arrived, and I am writing this on the blue crystal one. New headset with tiara and bling to match. Yes, really.

I am living a life most people can't imagine, and I feel sorry for them, not for missing the stuff, but for not being joyful over the little things and not wanting to create beauty. That is just me being a nerd, I guess.

But really, I don't care. I am leaning into the nerdiness on purpose. The grind trained me to lean forward. This is what leaning back looks like when it wins.

The grind funds the joy. The joy fuels the grind. Signal over static.

11/08/2026

This week I vacillated between despair and booking a one-way ticket to Thailand. Then I asked the honest question: why would I do that? My house is here. My peace is here. The work is here.

The provocation of the week: a proclamation designating the first week of November as Anti-Communism Week, calling on Americans to defend against threats to liberty. Read that twice and the smoke screen shows itself. The greatest threat to this democracy is not from that fool and the other maggots performing on the letterhead. The distraction is the point. You announce a war against an old enemy nobody named and hope nobody looks at the actual ledger.

So I fall back on the AfroDruid ethos. No smoke screens. Always look for the truth underneath the performance. Meditate and reset, every day, not just when the news gets loud. Keep the upgraded clarity tea, rosemary, ginger, rosehips, because this foolishness requires a clear mind.

Clarity is not a mood. It is a discipline. Being present enough to recognize the trick in real time is the whole practice, and it has to be renewed daily because the tricks renew daily too.

Sunday reset: movement first, lemon water, rosemary-ginger-rosehips tea, coffee after. The perimeter of the mind is maintained like any other perimeter.

Down with smoke screens. Clarity and presence, every day.

11/07/2026

Weekend Reads & Vibes: S'mores coffee, a finished memoir, and the parking lot goodbye.

First, the coffee. The S'mores roast turned the family room into a campfire: graham, marshmallow, that toasted edge over the flame. Dark roast, black, two raw brown sugar cubes. The reading fort held. Slow weekend read angle, executed.

The reading report: In the Shadow of Eight is finished. The diaries are still in transit, so the file stays open. Last week's book club discussion lives on the page if you want the full thread.

Now the retraction, told honestly. I came into this book expecting an abusive father. I left with cribs and a parking lot instead. That is the correction, and it is mine to make.

The sourced beats, because feelings are not evidence:

The congregation's cribs in 2004, documented. Kendra's 2014 account with the seven-word line. The Us Weekly friction details, flagged as one second-hand account, which is what a single source is. Kate's own "before television" version from the 2009 special. Kevin and Jodie on CBS.

And the generational echo, which is the spine: unexplained rupture, documented by someone one step removed, silence from the two at the center, twice, with Kate on both sides of it. Collin and Mady, Jon's decade of silence, the Hannah-View-Collin contradiction. My read of the contract clauses and the incentive structure stays exactly that, my read.

Father-abuse narrative: retracted as fact. Retraction is not weakness, it is the discipline.

The closing beat belongs to Hannah. She said nothing bad. She set a boundary. There is a difference, and knowing it is the whole work.

S'mores coffee, a finished memoir, and the parking lot goodbye. Weekend Reads delivered.

11/06/2026

Friday audit, and this week the numbers wrote the story before I could.

What worked: Juror 52. The post about the juror who came home to $120,000, called the police instead of keeping it, pulled 712 media views on Facebook and 310 video views, my biggest single post of the cycle. The Hallmark Gift Bag opener ran right behind it at 693. The scam lane keeps printing.

What also worked: Torikaya. Act One drew 330 media views and 100 video views, my best organic food number since the neckbones era. The food lane prints too, when my face is in it.

The honest miss: Part 3 of the scams series collapsed to 41 media views at 4 PM. Two reads: the late slot is unreliable, or a three-part drop burns its own audience by the finale. Next series keeps two acts and saves the finale.

The experiment: Wednesday's noon static test. I changed the clock and the hashtag count exactly as advised. The format stayed static, and the numbers stayed quiet: 10 media views versus 20 for the same format at 9 AM last week. The variable that matters is format, not timing. Video first, and my 9 AM commitment keeps its receipts.

Honorable mention: a historic week. The Blue Tsunami won fair and square, except in Tennessee and Florida, where the work continues.

And reportage, not my verdict: The Guardian reports that Hegseth may take the fall despite President Trump's public support. CBS News reports that Trump had asked advisers whether Hegseth should stay, while publicly praising his work. The Guardian also reports that Representative Thomas Massie filed articles of impeachment and planned to push for a vote. The allegations against Hegseth have been reported for years; they remain allegations, and he has denied wrongdoing. That distinction matters. Allegations are not findings, and political blame is not proof. My point is the pattern: a party looks for someone to carry the cost of a loss, while the president says he still has confidence in the person under pressure.

Small numbers, my dashboard, my week. Direction, not a universal rule. Use the tools. Verify the work. Protect the people.