Killin' time being lazy

Got nothin' to prove

2012-02-10T08:02:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking about the question of proving myself as I read different blogs. Some of the ones I read are simply informational or news-oriented, extensions of an organization's outreach, which are neutral; more and more it's the ones that are individual blogs that I've been thinking about. Several of them appear to be not simply concerned with sharing information or thoughts but of proving

The Joys of the Shared Bed

2012-02-04T08:46:00.000-05:00

One of the things I'm not good at is sharing, particularly my personal space. Surprisingly I've never had to share a bedroom beyond 6-7 weeks at summer camp (and then it wasn't a bedroom, it was a bunk with a number of others) - not in prep school or college, and certainly not as an adult. However one could argue that I share my life, including my bedroom and my bed, and have done for the past

Meeting Musings

2012-01-29T14:57:00.001-05:00

Instead of going on my planned trip to Philadelphia this weekend, I stayed home - one thing changed, and it seemed better to change all my plans. And now it's clear why that felt like the right decision to make... Today, during Meeting, a Friend stood up with the following message (which I will try to repeat verbatim): I'm going through some changes in my life and they're no going as smoothly as

Links Galore

2012-01-20T07:29:00.001-05:00

Not quite ready-for-prime-time -or-annotation bits and pieces from other blogs, tweets and e-mails: Don Camillo podcasts (via Cam) I tried so hard (add this to Inspector Gamache's four sentences to live by, "I’m sorry. I was wrong. I need help. I don’t know.")

#Reverb11: Final Round-up

2012-01-16T07:02:00.004-05:00

The final #Reverb11 prompts - here are my responses: Prompt 21: Space Where do you feel most safe, most free to be yourself—where you let down your guard? - Of course "at home" should be my first response but, well, it depends on who is at home with me. The Herd? The Things? Family? Friends? So it's not a real space, it's more a mental space created by the people I'm with. Prompt 22:

Guidelines for 2012

2012-01-10T11:29:00.000-05:00

Over the years I've tried to make New Year's Resolutions and, well, like many people I've completely failed. And who likes failure? So then I tried Goals, which had a better success rate than Resolutions. This year I'm trying Guidelines. Robin, over on What Canst Thou Say? is my guru on this; for 2012, her guiding words are wisdom, serenity, courage, discipline. What beautiful guides. For

Is there an editor in the house?

2012-01-04T18:40:00.000-05:00

Let's play spot the homonym error. For shame, NYT.

#Reverb11: Week Four

2012-01-01T09:26:00.002-05:00

The fourth week of #Reverb11 prompts - here are my responses: Prompt 13: Love What are the things (or people or animals) in this world that you love the most? - Obviously The Herd (and their predecessors) is practically tied for top spot; Thing One is right up there as well. While I should say "my family" the problem is that there are members of my family that don't quite make the cut and since

A 2012 Reading Resolution

2012-01-01T07:30:00.000-05:00

Way back in November, Shree posted abouther reading challenge plans for 2012. I'm not so organized, but I kept thinking about her post and there's one challenge I think I can actually do: The Read Your Own Books Challenge. What does it entail? Rules: Starts January 1, 2012 and ends December 31, 2012 Anyone can join You don’t have to have a blog to participate. Non-Bloggers feel free to share

2011 Year-end Reading Round-up

2011-12-31T04:56:00.004-05:00

Counting down from last year's 3381 books left to read, I've got "only" 3131 more books to enjoy. What did I think about books I've read this past year? For lists, go here, here, here and here. And here's the 2011 reading analysis (2010 numbers in parens): number of books read in 2011: 250 (200) best month: August/29 (July/37) worst month: May/12 (September/7) average read per month: 20.8

Notes from Mt. Bookpile

2011-12-31T02:25:00.002-05:00

Whew! What an amazing year of reading... and this quarter brought 60. Reviews in the usual place. Biography/Memoir One Hundred Names for Love; Diane Ackerman The Artful Dodger; Nick Bantock The Merry Recluse; Caroline Knapp Catherine the Great; Robert K. Massie Children's/Young Adult Mercy Lily; Lisa Albert Perfect Escape; Jennifer Brown 3:15 Season One; Patrick Carman The Way We Fall; Megan

Surprising Moments of Joy

2011-12-30T05:13:00.002-05:00

My sense of myself is not of someone who has many friends. That's not to say I'm a loser/loner, but that my natural state is to have a few people that I'm friends with outside work and then a bunch of people at work with whom I'm friendly. This past year has taught me that perhaps that's not quite the case! There has been a Big Life Change, a Massive Disruption if you will. While part of me

#Reverb11: Week Three

2011-12-25T07:52:00.004-05:00

The third week of #Reverb11 prompts - here are my responses: Prompt 8: Limits We often learn our limits the hard way. Were there any limits you realized this past year? Alternately, what self-imposed limits were you able to move beyond this year? - I'm not sure that I realized any new limits this year, but I have become more aware of the limits to my energy levels, my ability to deal with

Can you say "bias"?

2011-12-23T06:35:00.000-05:00

When I work with students on evaluating information, one of the things we discuss is how polls are conducted: how are the questions asked becomes one of the critical pieces. This e-mail blast from my Congresswoman really illustrates biased questioning: (for full message, go here) I've been appalled by the irresponsibility of the Republicans, whose only goal seems to be "defy the President"

Yet another crash blossom!

2011-12-22T07:48:00.001-05:00

Yesterday I saw this in my e-mail inbox: Did they mean that you could use Christmas to inspect your car? St. Patrick's Day as a coaster? Sadly, this is what they meant: (yes, my sense of humor leaves something to be desired)

#Reverb11 Round-up: Week Two

2011-12-18T07:57:00.003-05:00

The second week of #Reverb11 prompts asked us to think about the topic of giving. Here is my response: Prompt #7: Giving “The purpose of life is to discover your gift. The meaning of life is to give your gift away.” (David Viscott) What is your gift to give? - I'd like to think that my gift to give is my loyalty to my friends, trying to be there when they need me, offering hope, encouragement

I just know I mis-read this

2011-12-16T06:30:00.000-05:00

Chirac Gets Suspended Sentence - WSJ.com via kwout At 4:15am, blearily glancing at this, I wondered "how does one become ex-French"? Then as the fog cleared I realized they meant "former French President". Thank you, WSJ, for today's crash blossom!

Getting into the holiday spirit

2011-12-11T15:55:00.000-05:00

For the past few weeks I've been complaining about the Best Buy commercials that feature women buying many, many gifts for family (and friends) and then sneering at Santa for not being relevant or needed. My thoughts are along the lines of "isn't this mean-spirited? why do they need to go there?" The other day Thing One sent me this link to a WaPo article about these commercials (they include

#Reverb11 Round-up: Week One

2011-12-11T07:08:00.001-05:00

As I mentioned at the start of December, I've been participating in the Reverb11 meme. And as promised, here's a round-up of the first week of prompts and my responses. Prompt #1: One Word Encapsulate the year 2011 in one word. Explain why you’re choosing that word. Now, imagine it’s one year from today, what would you like the word to be that captures 2012 for you? - For 2011, it would be

Notable Quotes

2011-12-05T07:12:00.000-05:00

Things are better now, but for a while it seemed like there was a Puritanism running through children's publishing that bore no resemblance to reality. Kids were thought to be unable to separate the mildly gross from the debauched -- to my mind, a horribly patronizing attitude. My children adored Roald Dahl, and they had no problem separating out his diet of squashed worm sandwiches from their

#Reverb11

2011-12-02T07:08:00.000-05:00

Scanning my RSS feeds this morning, I saw a post on A Beautiful Ripple Effect that talked about Reverb11: The purpose of Reverb11 is to reflect on the past year and usher in the new year with intention. Rather than blindly entering 2012, you enter the new year with a renewed sense of purpose and empowerment. This new perspective enables you to be more proactive rather than merely reactive.Having

I'm a loser!

2011-11-27T07:12:00.001-05:00

No, don't try to tell me I'm not. I am, and I'm proud of it. Recently I've been on a losing streak: I decimated my weight (yay!!) I've "lost" nearly one third of The Collection, mostly to my local public library, but a few went to friends, a niece, or the children of friends This huge pile o' stuff went to the Vietnam Veterans Association (use this link to find charities that will actually pick

Another Thing

2011-11-23T12:21:00.001-05:00

I almost called this post tertium quid, but that's an inside joke and the insiders don't read this blog... anyway, let me introduce to you Thing Three. Who is Thing Three? He's my BFF from college, so predates Things One and Two (and I just realized that I've numbered the Things in reverse order of how long I've known them, which must mean that a putative Thing Four would come from my HS years.

"What do you love?"

2011-11-14T13:06:00.000-05:00

I had a blogpost all prepared to go today. It was about two guys I know, M1 and M2. Both have made choices about how they would live their lives that were admirable, particularly since those choices come with consequences that weren't always comfortable. Recently, however, I've lost my respect and admiration for them. I was going to go into detail and rant, but at Meeting yesterday I realized

In my e-mail today...

2011-11-13T09:17:00.000-05:00

Do you think it's because I'm a member of AARP? Is someone trying to tell me something? Am I overthinking this?