malarkey, n. Humbug, bunkum, nonsense; a palaver, racket. (Usually of an event, activity, idea, utterance, etc., seen as trivial, misleading or not worthy of consideration).  (OED)

The Malarkey Bin has been around in some online guise or another, all now defunct or completely privatized, since 2004. I don’t know how I came up with the name exactly, but I think it went something like this: I’ve always been quite fond of the word “malarkey”; it rolls nicely off the tongue and makes for a fancy-sounding exclamation when needed (as in “That’s a bunch of malarkey!”); I guess the “bin” part followed, as in a container (of humbug, bunkum, or nonsense); and so The Malarkey Bin became the nonsense container for the various threads of issues, things, people, activities, navel-gazing thoughts that make up the messy filing cabinet of my brain (usually in blog form).

Somewhere around 2012, I decided to revive the Bin as a kind of a brand that drew together various facets of my life at the time: academic by trade– of the literary / English-y variety; I taught college people how to write pretty words for somewhere around 20-ish years; I also taught and performed bellydance for somewhere around 15; and I did some freelance writing and photography, usually for barter rather than pay. Most of those entries were half-hearted attempts to start writing again after I finished the doctoral gantlet… so they’ve been privatized.

Now it is 2026. I am in that midlife crisis (um, renaissance more like it) era, and I finally… kinda?… feel like writing again. But the way I used to, just to blog and get stuff out, not to say anything important or newsworthy or whatever. Just because I can. Because I want to. Because blogging style circa 2003 seems comfortable right now. Because last I checked, the whole goddamn world is on fire.

The Bin is — and has always been — where I get to collect all of my stuff and things in one space. And as I stare down level 50 of this video game of life, I just want that space for me… and anyone who happens to stumble upon it, I suppose.