cygnoir.net

2026 Week 21 Notes: All the yeses it took to get here

2026-05-25T06:13:00+00:00

2026 Week 21 Notes: All the yeses it took to get here

🗓️ // 18 — 24 May 2026

In therapy today, I heard myself saying something like I don't feel seen by people who don't read my words, and then I had to somehow exist all day inside the brain that barfed that out.

This from the week that began with the 28th anniversary of my very first blog post. (Someday I'll restore the archives.)

So while weeknotes are a pain in the ass to write, I'm always glad I did them, which reminds me of the Dorothy Parker quote: "I hate writing, but I love having written."

Also this week: Keenan and I released the very last Friendship Material episode. What a ride! I still marvel at all the yeses it took to get here.

Becoming friends with Keenan brought me a lot of joy over the past year, and it also renewed my abiding appreciation for all of the people I've ever called "friend" in this lucky, lucky life.

📸 One Photo

Criminy's squinty face has melted me.

✍️ Writing

A couple of months ago I heard a song and a bunch of memories hit me so hard I started writing them down. It is slowly turning into an essay about this one time twenty years ago I tried not to fall in love with two people falling in love with each other while I was trying not to fall out of love. It's a laugh riot. (Nope.)

A line: "It wasn't so bad, I thought, like the ribbons of basil, to be torn apart and ingested in some better purpose. Usefulness could be a type of love."

I hope to share the rest with you soon.

📚 Reading

This week, Kobo announced a new integration with The StoryGraph ... six months after I switched from The StoryGraph to Hardcover because the latter integrates with my "now" page. 😑

Which integration do I care more about? We shall see.

Finished "Creep: A Love Story" by Emma van Straaten: This was, in fact, creepy!
Re-started "Network Effect" by Martha Wells: I am going to get through these Murderbot books! I like the series, but this one hasn't been as fun to read as the others.

📺 Watching

FunkyPlaid and I were relieved to finish watching "The Boys", a show both repulsively crass and unnervingly prescient.
Before that, we watched "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" which was a fun romp that we were also relieved to finish.

🎧 Listening

In tiny moments of free time over the last month I pored over my music library to find the exact right songs for a very particular playlist. It was glorious.

On Crucial Tracks this week:

🔗 Linking

My Couples Retreat with 3 AI Chatbots and the Humans Who Love Them: I'm still reading articles like this, expecting not to be terrified for the future of human connection, and I have only myself to blame.
The Quiet Grief of Adult Friendship: The bizarre contradiction of losing touch while always being connected.
'You lose yourself': inside the mental health crisis hitting gen X women: Yeah.

Cozy quiet time to break through writer's block

2026-01-17T17:04:00+00:00

Cozy quiet time to break through writer's block

In today's Analog Tools meetup I mentioned a daily "cozy quiet time" practice that helped me break through a significant writer's block several years ago.

I misremembered some timing details when I relayed them to the group, but the components are the same:

Choose a cozy part of your living space to curl up in with your journal, a pen, your phone, and a blanket.
Curl up and set the Insight Timer app to a 10-minute meditation timer with a bell set for the 3-minute mark.
Sit in quiet, gentle witnessing for the first three minutes.
When the first bell rings, start to journal.
When the final bell rings, finish up your sentence and wrap it up.

Credit for this practice goes to my somatic coach, who helped me survive 2021. ❤️‍🩹 If you are in the Portland, Oregon area and looking for a recommendation, let me know.

2026 Week 2 Notes: I need a lot of quiet time to process things

2026-01-13T06:23:00+00:00

2026 Week 2 Notes: I need a lot of quiet time to process things

🗓️ // 5 — 11 January 2026

I gotta say, I'm dragging myself through these weeknotes tonight and I don't love the feeling. Since these are mandated by absolutely no one and really only of interest to myself, I have to ask myself if this is reasonable and surmountable friction borne of the current moment and all of the everything or if this is me trying to tell myself that it isn't fun anymore and I should stop.

Ha ha, if I knew myself that well, we wouldn't be in this situation.

Whew, knowing myself. That's a thing that could happen any day now. In our latest Friendship Material episode, I ponder: If I've stopped aspiring to be the smartest person in the room, who am I aspiring to be?

If existential crises aren't your bag, don't worry. There's plenty of our usual silliness in this episode too.

📸 One Photo

This gift from a friend is the first sticker I put in my 2026 planner.

✍️ Writing

I wrote 2,910 words last week, and I'm still looking for the best markets for weird flash fiction. Got any tips?

📚 Reading

Still reading: "The Book of Doors" by Gareth Brown, "Network Effect" by Martha Wells, and "Man's Search for Meaning" by Viktor E. Frankl

📺 Watching

"pen15" Season 2: This is one of the most underrated shows I've ever seen. I love everything about it, and even more on a rewatch.
"The Pitt" Season 1: Medical dramas aren't usually my thing, but this one is.

🎧 Listening

I forgot how to listen to music again. 😔 But Crucial Tracks just unveiled a new feature that will surely help me remember: mixtapes!

🔗 Linking

Keenan and I were chatting about RSS feeds, and they told me about Artemis. O, it's just so lovely. Artemis is an antidote to my constant RSS reader overwhelm.
Brad loves cleaning fountain pens and so do I.
Michael shared how he added Mastodon comments to his posts. With some clutch help from Adam, it's working here now.

2026 Week 1 Notes: Sigh, me

2026-01-06T04:44:00+00:00

2026 Week 1 Notes: Sigh, me

🗓️ // 29 December 2025 — 4 January 2026

Our latest Friendship Material episode is about boundaries. I love boundaries! I used to hate boundaries but have since learned that what I really hated was never telling anyone about my boundaries and then seething over why no one respected my boundaries. Sigh, me.

As always, I really enjoyed learning about Keenan, and from Keenan too, because they taught me about the INFJ door slam! Maybe you can relate. If so, this episode is for you.

📸 One Photo

In my irritation with book-tracking websites, I dug up my analog book journal, which was a great way to track what I had read and use up a bunch of stickers and washi tape in the process. (Spoilers for books in the "Slow Horses" series, so don't zoom in if you haven't read those!)

✍️ Writing

I finished the flash fiction piece I mentioned last week and then utterly chickened out while looking for markets. Sigh, me.

📚 Reading

Remember when I said I gave up on book-tracking websites? Well, Hardcover has an API, so I can use Melanie's awesome now-updater to automatically update what I'm reading on my Now page. Sigh, me.

Started: "The Book of Doors" by Gareth Brown
Still reading: "Network Effect" by Martha Wells and "Man's Search for Meaning" by Viktor E. Frankl
DNF: "How to Read a Book" by Monica Wood

📺 Watching

"pen15" Season 2

🎧 Listening

According to Last.fm, I've been listening to Olivia Dean, TOPS, KPop Demon Hunters Cast, HUNTR/X & Saja Boys, Ruel, Tricky, HUNTR/X, Ejae, AUDREY NUNA, REI AMI & KPop Demon Hunters Cast, Lizzo, Michael Bublé, Robyn, and Axoe.

🔗 Linking

Robb sells cool stickers.
I don't want to want a tiny e-reader that fits my passport size Traveler's Notebook.
I enjoyed reading about Anh's unproductive and happy holiday and it almost made me feel okay about having an unproductive holiday. Sigh, me.

2025 Week 52 Notes: Monotasking for the holidays

2025-12-29T06:59:00+00:00

2025 Week 52 Notes: Monotasking for the holidays

🗓️ // 22 — 28 December 2025

The contented sigh I just sighed, realizing I don't have to go to work tomorrow. Hello from a holiday week of molasses-time, when everything slows down to the pace I function best in, the pace of handwriting and not typing, of reading and not skimming, of talking and not texting, of monotasking the hell out of whatever I want.

📸 One Photo

And here's monotasking subject #1: setting up my planner for the new year. This is the 2026 B6 horizontal weekly planner from Wonderland 222. I've been using the larger A5 size for the past two years, but haven't needed all the space.

✍️ Writing

I'm editing a flash fiction piece that I hope to submit in the next few days!

📚 Reading

While searching for a book-tracking site that allows me to update my Now page automatically, I returned to a site I've used for twenty years, LibraryThing. They've taken the RSS feeds down for now, but I hope they'll be back someday.

Anyway, I might finish reading one of these three by the end of the year:

📺 Watching

I finally watched "Weapons" because I was tired of being the person at work who hadn't seen it. I loved it! Don't watch the trailer, okay?

FunkyPlaid and I finished watching the first season of "Pluribus". What a show! We immediately veered off into silliness with both "pen15" and "Make Some Noise".

🎧 Listening

The "KPop Demon Hunters" soundtrack is on repeat in my brain at all times. Not much room for anything else.

🔗 Linking

Chuck Wendig writes, in "My Open Letter to That Open Letter About AI in Writing and Publishing":

God, just write your own newsletters, just reach out to readers like a person, moderate your community as you see fit, be a person dealing with people and if that's too much, don't do it. Okay? Okay.

If you have to use AI tools because your boss told you to and you can't afford to quit, I get it, because I also have to earn money to meet basic human needs. But I don't have empathy for people who use AI for creative endeavors. It is an existential threat to my profession and my pursuits, and I've already heard all of the arguments for it. No argument outweighs the drawbacks to myself, to society, to art, or to the planet.

Also, stop telling me that AI generated my text because I use em dashes. I use em dashes because I am awesome. If you can't tell the difference between me being awesome and a computer program copying my awesomeness without my permission, that's a you problem.

Printing photos for journaling

2025-12-27T17:25:00+00:00

Printing photos for journaling

I enjoy adding little flair to my journaling pages. Maybe you do too! Here's my extremely rudimentary and inexpensive setup.

First of all, I look for photos I want to use. Often they're photos I've taken, but I also enjoy trawling the esoterica of Cosmos.

Once I choose the photos I want to use, I save them to my desktop.

I have a free Canva account for this next step: I open this Canva template from Sarica Studio, upload the photos, then drag-and-drop them into the template.

I then print the photo layout on a plain-old printer on standard printer paper or printable vellum. (If you have a photo printer, you can print them out on sticker sheets.)

I use this portable paper trimmer from Fiskars to cut the printed photos out, and a Kokuyo Gloo glue stick to paste them into my journals.

Sometimes I'll add a bit of washi tape so the edges of the photo don't stick out, or if I'm feeling extra fancy.

Here's the final result!

2025 Week 51 Notes: Definitely Not a Year-End Anything

2025-12-22T01:56:00+00:00

2025 Week 51 Notes: Definitely Not a Year-End Anything

🗓️ // 15 — 21 December 2025

O, hello there. I seem to have forgotten how to be online again. So these are weeknotes but also six-months-notes. But definitely not a year-end anything. I don't do those.

When last we chatted, Keenan and I just had launched a podcast about our friendship called "Friendship Material"! This week we released our fourteenth episode! Getting to know Keenan has been a highlight of my year, and it has been so much fun creating something genuine, thoughtful, and silly with them.

And my word, have I ever needed a bit of joy and levity this year. 2025 has been an extremely challenging time for so many of us, and I am entering the last ten days of it in confusion and despondency. All year I've stopped myself before posting here because it felt like I wasn't taking everything seriously enough, or I'm not outwardly outraged enough, or I'm not demonstrating my concern enough.

So I lost my writing voice and my creative energy, watching the ever-flattening of nuance and waiting to be judged for what I won't share online.

Instead of writing, I've been focused on cultivating community. The monthly Analog Tools meetups are about to enter their third year. I host other regular online and offline get-togethers, and I push myself to be as social as I'm comfortable being, because while draining it is also so important to care for one another right now.

📸 One Photo

To defray the costs of my absence from the internet, I shall pay the cat tax with a photo of Crivens.

✍️ Writing

📚 Reading

This year, I pushed myself to read books and genres I felt I had judged unfairly before even trying them, like romantasy (fun but not really my thing) and Murderbot (very much my thing). I'm hoping to finish these in the next ten days:

📺 Watching

Over the past six months, the top shows I've watched have been "The Bear", "Station Eleven", and "Pluribus".

🎧 Listening

Crucial Tracks helped reignite my love of music this year. It's such a simple idea, to post short entries about songs we love and why.

You can read more about the music I love in my Crucial Tracks interview. All of my Crucial Tracks are in this Apple Music playlist.

🔗 Linking

Melanie created now-updater, an automatic updater for omg.lol-hosted Now pages, and has been extremely patient with my many questions on getting it set up. It's working great on my Now page.
This short story made me cry, and then it made me hope: "The Colonization of Confidence" by Robert Kingett
Happy Solstice! 🕯 There's an app for that.

2025 Week 27 Notes: Behind the Baseball

2025-07-07T06:01:00+00:00

2025 Week 27 Notes: Behind the Baseball

🗓️ // 30 June — 6 July 2025

The response to the first episode of "Friendship Material" has been overwhelmingly lovely. I don't know what we were expecting! So of course these two anxious, sensitive humans had to make a bonus episode about it called "Behind the Baseball"[^one].

In other online news, I've discontinued my newsletter. The service I was paying for was unreliable, and it wasn't adding anything new to the world[^two].

📸 One Photo

Happy Disability Pride Month! This button at work made me smile.

✍️ Writing

Only 2,608 words this week. Oops! I know what happened: revenge bedtime procrastination. With my sleep schedule in tatters, I did not have the energy to do much writing this week.

📚 Reading

Finished: "Harrow the Ninth" by Tamsin Muir, which was so good I immediately ...
Started: "Nona the Ninth" by Tamsin Muir
Still reading: "Beyond Anxiety: Curiosity, Creativity, and Finding Your Life's Purpose" by Martha Beck, which I can only read in small bits because reading about anxiety makes me more anxious!
DNF: On the Calculation of Volume I by Solvej Balle
Next up: "A Prayer for the Crown-Shy" by Becky Chambers

📺 Watching

Finished: S2 of "Andor"
Started: S4 of "The Bear"

🎧 Listening

Lately I've been listening to Lizzo, Hilltop Hoods, and Thao & The Get Down Stay Down.

And here are my Crucial Tracks for the week:

All of my Crucial Tracks are in this Apple Music playlist.

🔗 Linking

Pen and paper are superior to your AI bullshit. Yeah!
When I'm looking for something new and fun to listen to, I turn on ScrobbleRad.io. I especially love the monthly mixtape.
@sleepless' Mundane Living #4 made me tear up.

🗣 Quoting

Thanks to my friend Lauren for sharing this with me when I needed it: "I was reminded of the Four Immutable Laws of the Spirit: Whoever is present are the right people. Whenever it begins is the right time. Whatever happens is the only thing that could have happened. And when it's over, it's over." — Anne Lamott, "Some Assembly Required: A Journal of My Son's First Son"

[^one]: If you have no idea what I'm on about, please read my last post.

[^two]: If you were one of the very few subscribers, thank you for caring about what I write! Maybe one of these ways to get updates will work for you.

2025 Week 26 Notes: Friendship Material

2025-06-30T00:41:00+00:00

2025 Week 26 Notes: Friendship Material

🗓️ // 23 June — 29 June 2025

Today's the day, hooray hooray! Today my friend Keenan and I launched our podcast, Friendship Material. Here's our show description:

Keenan and Halsted met online and decided to become friends on one condition: That they podcast the experience. Listen along as two adult humans navigate anxiety and awkwardness, silliness and vulnerability, as they learn what it takes to build a friendship.

Two months ago, I was bantering with someone I vibed with on Mastodon and I suggested that we make a podcast together. In that moment, I somehow got over my profoundly self-conscious nature to dare to hope that someone whose writing I enjoyed so much would want to embark on a creative project with me.

And they said, "Sure!"

We quickly found out that we had a ton in common, like weird amounts of things in common, despite our differences. And that we wanted to podcast this nebulous situation we refer to as "becoming friends" because what does that even mean?

Getting to know Keenan and making this podcast with them has been so much fun. I'm excited to share this experience with you.

📸 One Photo

FunkyPlaid planted tomatoes in one of our raised beds!

✍️ Writing

Currently catching up with an extreme backlog of weeknotes. 😬

📚 Reading

📺 Watching

We only have two more episodes of "Andor" to go. What a show! I never thought I'd enjoy anything Star Wars-related this much.

🎧 Listening

I got out of the habit of posting Crucial Tracks, so there's only one this week:

"Lightning Crashes" by Live

All of my Crucial Tracks are in this Apple Music playlist.

🔗 Linking

Robb made a guide to all the Mildliner colors and sets!
I'm trying out the search engine Kagi, and appreciated fLaMEd's tips on how to get the most from it.
I like the look of this minimalist book log in a Traveler's Notebook.

2025 Week 25 Notes: It's got a funny wobble

2025-06-23T06:23:00+00:00

2025 Week 25 Notes: It's got a funny wobble

🗓️ // 16 June — 22 June 2025

This week I wrote in my five-year journal, "It feels bad to feel good right now." That's the thing I hate the most about the current moment. So much is so awful. Writing little recaps of my week sometimes seems ridiculous. I always feel like there's more I should be writing here, while simultaneously resenting the fact that I feel obligated to perform my values.

This website is a corner of a one-room shack in a wild forest that exists only in our brains. I prop things up in the corner and they say what they say about me. If you know me, you know what I'm about. And if you like peering into this corner, pull up a chair and stay a while. No, not that one, it's got a funny wobble.

📸 One Photo

See, I'm not hoarding my fountain pen ink! I'm willingly (happily, even) sending it away to pen friends.

✍️ Writing

I wrote 5,395 words this week, mostly in new story drafts.

📚 Reading

Finished: "A Psalm for the Wild-Built" by Becky Chambers
Restarted: "Harrow the Ninth" by Tamsin Muir

📺 Watching

Halfway through the last season of "Andor" and I'm already sad it's ending.

🎧 Listening

I got out of the habit of posting Crucial Tracks, but all of my past Crucial Tracks are in this Apple Music playlist.

🔗 Linking

Finding the Why - an Update on My 5-year Journal: I enjoyed reading about how KC is using their five-year journal.
I'm looking for a new solution to extract my e-reader highlights, and might give Kobonotes a go.

2025 Week 24 Notes: Dance like no one's watching Mon Mothma

2025-06-16T06:23:00+00:00

2025 Week 24 Notes: Dance like no one's watching Mon Mothma

🗓️ // 9 June — 15 June 2025

✈️ Back home again! Visiting Chicago was both what I expected and not, in ways I'm still processing. Regardless of the place, I had a wonderful time with my mom, and with my cousins and my friend Adam, too.
🥘 My mom and I made tuna casserole and enjoyed every morsel. I love that we share this unabashed love for tuna casserole. I mean, it has a potato-chip crust. What's not to love?
💼 I've been at my current workplace for nine years this week, which is longer than I've worked anywhere. I have mixed feelings about this; I appreciate having a longer-term perspective on a place, but that perspective feels ever more biased. I'm working on it.

📸 One Photo

Another thing I made and loved was chicken and kimchi rice from Julia Turshen's "What Goes With What" cookbook. Huge flavor with so few ingredients. This is an easy recipe I'll make again! I appreciated the exuberance of this particular ingredient.

✍️ Writing

A solid 5,873 words this week, back to it after vacation time.

📚 Reading

"A Psalm for the Wild-Built" by Becky Chambers

📺 Watching

Back to "Andor"! Now I finally understand why Mon Mothma was dancing like that.

🎧 Listening

Here are this week's Crucial Tracks. If you click a link below, you can read the prompt for each day and why I chose it, plus a snippet of the song:

I ran out of steam for daily posts this week. 😔 This happens; I can keep daily things up for a little while, but not a long while.

All of my Crucial Tracks are in this Apple Music playlist.

🔗 Linking

5 reasons you look bad in photos: Teri Hofford is a wonderful speaker and I appreciated what she had to share so much.
I got to visit Atlas Stationers for the first time on my trip, and it was an amazing experience. Everyone was so approachable, helpful, and knowledgeable. If you're near Chicago and even remotely interested in stationery, do visit!
OK, so this may be a weather app, but it's the most beautifully designed weather app I've ever downloaded. And it's fun!

2025 Week 23 Notes: Because I'm only one swan

2025-06-09T06:23:00+00:00

2025 Week 23 Notes: Because I'm only one swan

🗓️ // 2 June — 8 June 2025

✈️ Hey, I'm in Chicago! I'm visiting my mom in between work things I can't reschedule, so I'm just here for a blip, but it's already a jam-packed blip.
🥘 I was craving orange chicken, so I made some in the Instant Pot, and it was okay but not good enough to make again.
🧶 I decided to learn how to knit socks, finally, but then realized I don't really like socks. So I swerved and am now knitting elbow-length fingerless gloves. Just in time for summer. 😅

📸 One Photo

Chicago's Pizza makes a really good gluten-free deep-dish pizza. And I ate it. Because I'm in Chicago. I didn't make it through the whole pizza. Because I'm only one swan.

✍️ Writing

Too much vacationing to do much writing this week. And I'm totally okay with that.

📚 Reading

DNF: "The Way up Is Death" by Dan Hanks
Started: "A Psalm for the Wild-Built" by Becky Chambers

📺 Watching

No "Andor" while I'm away from FunkyPlaid, but my mom introduced me to "Dept. Q" and I've been loving the glimpses of Edinburgh.

🎧 Listening

Here are this week's Crucial Tracks. If you click a link below, you can read the prompt for each day and why I chose it, plus a snippet of the song:

All of my Crucial Tracks are in this Apple Music playlist.

🔗 Linking

I did not read a lot online this week, so I have nothing to share, but I'm still enjoying the homegrown web directory url.town, and you might too.

2025 Week 22 Notes: Overthinking it, as always

2025-06-02T05:39:00+00:00

2025 Week 22 Notes: Overthinking it, as always

🗓️ // 26 May — 1 June 2025

✈️ Soon I'll be heading to Chicago for a brief visit with my mom. I had to schedule my trip between meetings I can't miss, so it's not as long as I would have liked to get away right now.
💉 In preparation for my trip, I tried to get a COVID vaccine, but I was turned away due to the new CDC guidelines. I'm sharing this information because you might be relying on vaccines being available even after the guidance changed. Please plan accordingly.
🥘 On Monday, I made meatloaf, crispy potatoes, and air-fryer asparagus, which FunkyPlaid called a five-star meal!
🧶 I finished a scarf that had been my "TV knitting" (read: pattern easy enough not to have to focus on) for ages. The colorway isn't really my thing, so I'll probably donate it. I'm moving on to coffee cozies and re-learning Magic Loop knitting to do this on circular needles.

📸 One Photo

This workweek was a lot despite being shortened by the holiday on Monday. By the time I made it to Thursday afternoon, my brainmeats were cooked. After my last meeting, I took a short walk to clear my head and spotted this smol friend.

✍️ Writing

This week I wrote 12,427 words, and if you told me what changed, what enabled me after so long to simply churn out words like this, I could not tell you. It feels great and I'm trying not to think too hard about it. (Ha ha, just kidding! I'm overthinking it, as always.)

📚 Reading

I busted out of my reading slump with a really dark speculative fiction novel, "The Way up Is Death" by Dan Hanks.

📺 Watching

We started watching "Andor", which comes highly recommended by people I trust! FunkyPlaid and I enjoyed "Rogue One" so I expect we'll enjoy this too.

🎧 Listening

Here are this week's Crucial Tracks. If you click a link below, you can read the prompt for each day and why I chose it, plus a snippet of the song:

All of my Crucial Tracks are in this Apple Music playlist.

🔗 Linking

I enjoyed this crossword puzzle!
url.town is a web directory curated by the omg.lol community.
"Politics Can Now Dictate Public Library Collections in Three States, Per Fifth Circuit Ruling" by Kelly Jensen

2025 Week 21 Notes: Surprise hug-by-proxy

2025-05-26T06:17:00+00:00

2025 Week 21 Notes: Surprise hug-by-proxy

🗓️ // 19 — 25 May 2025

🫂 If you are ever having a really bad time of it, I hope you have a friend who texts your partner to synchronize a surprise hug-by-proxy to cheer you up. I have a friend like that, and I'm so lucky.
🌹 Another friend and I took a walk in Irvington, where everything is in bloom! It made me miss living in Northeast Portland, with all the sidewalks and restaurants and happy dogs. We walked around and caught up after several months, during which she experienced several major life events all at the same time and yet remains completely uncynical about her circumstances. I have a lot to learn from her.
🥘 It's always a pleasure to share a favorite restaurant with someone. This week, FunkyPlaid and I shared Mediterranean Exploration Company with an out-of-town guest. My favorite dish there is hamachi crudo with smoked eggplant. 🤤 When we were too stuffed to order dessert, our server brought a small dish of their tahini ice cream to share. Tahini ice cream! So good.
🗒 I fussed over my Forever Notes system a bit before questioning my entire approach to notes. I have ... a lot of notes. Digital and analog. And I don't know that they're doing much except accumulating. Their existence comforts me.

📸 One Photo

My copy of the first issue of Internet Phone Book arrived! I'm chuffed to be included in the Idiosyncratic category.

✍️ Writing

I wrote 11,335 words this week, churning out drafts that I can't bring myself to look at yet. They've been set aside until I'm ready to do something with them.

📚 Reading

Okay, I'm willing to call it now: I am in a full-fledged reading slump. But I will eventually return to these books:

📺 Watching

We're finishing up "The Rehearsal" and "The Last of Us". I think we'll watch "Andor" next.

🎧 Listening

More fun with Crucial Tracks this week! If you click a link below, you can read the prompt for each day and why I chose it, plus a snippet of the song:

All of my Crucial Tracks are in this Apple Music playlist. And don't miss Community Tracks, weekly playlists curated from the Crucial Tracks community.

🔗 Linking

Focusing on speculative futures by Ben Werdmuller
💀 Meditations on Death: Kerri asks, "What if we normalized casual conversations about death?"
The Who Cares Era by Dan Sinker: In a conversation with friends on Saturday we talked about being in a moment of "who cares" societally, and then later I saw this boosted on Mastodon. It was an odd but affirming coincidence.

2025 Week 20 Notes: Real people who live in a real city

2025-05-19T06:23:00+00:00

2025 Week 20 Notes: Real people who live in a real city

🗓️ // 12 — 18 May 2025

After decades of work tote life, I bought a backpack.

This may not seem noteworthy, but I am exceedingly particular about containers. The only thing I dislike more than changing up what I carry around is the back pain I've been experiencing now that I have a new work laptop to carry around.

So I did some research. Actually a lot of research. (Some might say I self-soothe with research. To those people I say: Obviously.) And I finally bought one this week.

I love my new backpack. Not only is it much more functional than a work tote, my back pain is gone! I'm a bit self-conscious about how it looks when I wear it — someone once told me that I was too short to wear a backpack without looking like a fourth grader — but now I have both hands free to make rude gestures in that person's direction!

📸 One Photo

On Sunday, FunkyPlaid and I chose a café from the Portland Café Passport and visited. We had treats and delicious lattes and even a conversation with a friendly stranger at the next table over who asked about the passport. Like real people who live in a real city!

✍️ Writing

I wrote 9,238 words this week, mostly morning (or evening) pages.

📚 Reading

Still unfocused on long-form reading. I'll come back to these soon:

📺 Watching

We're watching "The Rehearsal" and "The Last of Us", and I'm not sure we're enjoying either of them.

🎧 Listening

I'm enjoying Crucial Tracks! If you click a link below, you can read the prompt for each day and why I chose it, plus a snippet of the song:

All of my Crucial Tracks are in this Apple Music playlist.

🔗 Linking

From "An Open Letter to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Who Thinks My Daughter Is a Tragedy" by Anaïs Godard: "She doesn't write poems. She is one." 😭
Our beloved Moshu, a red panda at the Oregon Zoo, died on Wednesday. I'll miss the "Moshu Monday" social media posts that FunkyPlaid shared with me.

2025 Week 19 Notes: All the heartbeats are synonyms

2025-05-12T01:26:00+00:00

2025 Week 19 Notes: All the heartbeats are synonyms

🗓️ // 5 — 11 May 2025

All the beings in the steading have settled. All the heartbeats are synonyms; all pieces of the puzzle have fitted together again. The smaller brother, ever a collection of twitches and flutters, hooks his paw atop the faraway-one's leg, receives pets like a petulant prince. The larger brother curls into a contented comma whenever the faraway-one approaches, black lips flashing as if he could smile. (Of course he can.) And the swan, well, she does her best not to crush her own gladness under the certainty she could not possibly deserve it.

📸 One Photo

While creeping through the overgrown garden with FunkyPlaid, we noted the mass of new tendrils on our jasmine. Summertime's scent soundtrack is coming along nicely.

✍️ Writing

Drafting away. Spring energy explodes into so many new drafts! 8,394 words total.

📚 Reading

I've had no focus for long-form reading this week. Still in progress:

📺 Watching

Now that FunkyPlaid is home, we'll be starting the latest season of "The Last of Us".

🎧 Listening

I had fun choosing this week's Crucial Tracks:

All of my choices are in this Apple Music playlist.

🔗 Linking

From "'Long COVID Mode': Seeing the crisis through games": "Games can be sense-making tools, allowing players to vicariously experience the risks of contracting COVID-19, recognize Long COVID's most challenging symptoms, and connect with others amid an ongoing public health crisis."
"We've crushed fascism before and we'll crush it again."
So now we are resurrecting the likeness of people in favor of repackaging them into a "digestible and shareable format." People are people. They cannot give consent to become our AI monstrosities after death. Everything about the Agatha Christie writing course is revolting to me.
Have a palate-cleanser: this dance company's choreography to Gotye's "Somebody That I Used to Know" (h/t Melissa).

2025 Week 18 Notes: Megaphones and tin cans

2025-05-05T06:13:00+00:00

2025 Week 18 Notes: Megaphones and tin cans

🗓️ // 28 April — 4 May 2025

My friend Sharyn once told me I was the most online person she knew. I don't think it was a compliment, but it wasn't a criticism, either.

Then everyone got online, and Sharyn didn't think of me that way again. I had a bunch of my identity tangled up in my online presence, but I was able to slowly molt it when nobody talked about blogs anymore.

Now people are talking about blogs again! And some excellent essayists are surfacing (or resurfacing). I feel simultaneously experienced and outclassed. And while I'm a little embarrassed of my earlier writing, it's mine. It's how I processed my experiences, before this was all called "content". It's how I lived, and how I survived.

Recently I've pondered a complete retreat from being online, relegating all this to an artifact of a former epoch. Not just departing from social media, but ditching my website altogether.

And then this week happened. I suddenly remembered why I keep doing this, why when so many people are screaming into their megaphones I keep whispering into the tin can at the end of this string. Because occasionally, the line goes taut, and from the tin can I hear, "I'm here, too."

📸 One Photo

Spring slammed into the landscaping at the library. I don't remember planting purple irises, but here they are like they run the place.

✍️ Writing

I was inspired to write this week! I caught up with my weeknotes and started a few drafts of longer posts: 13,246 words total.

📚 Reading

Slowly, slowly reading "Harrow the Ninth" by Tamsin Muir and if I stretch this out long enough I never have to finish the series.
I started reading David Brooks' "How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen" before I realized it was that David Brooks. I'll reread "Big Friendship: How We Keep Each Other Close" by Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman instead.

📺 Watching

I finally saw "Past Lives" and it destroyed me. What a remarkably nuanced portrait of relationships, timing, love, and fate. I'll watch it again for sure.
"Hacks" is back! Which for me means Kayla is back. Megan Stalter is the best.

🎧 Listening

All the music! So much music. Music said, "Hey, remember me?" in the form of Crucial Tracks. And I sure did. Here are the songs I shared this week:

🔗 Linking

The crab people have spoken: "Biology, like all sciences, should never be taken for granted or assumed to be self-explanatory. Even worse, it should never be used to justify weaponised culture-war issues. This ruling is an abuse of science."
It's lovely and inspiring to witness Hollie practicing long-form blogging.
Speaking of long-form writing, do not miss this piece from Keenan about one of their favorite songs.

2025 Week 17 Notes: Largely-unnoticed nonsense

2025-04-28T06:59:00+00:00

2025 Week 17 Notes: Largely-unnoticed nonsense

🗓️ // 21 — 27 April 2025

If you find yourself sobbing on your front stoop, sat next to someone else's jumbo bag of frozen edamame, clutching someone else's sun-faded and fraying Pride flag, just know I have been there too, friend.

Related: The excellent neighbors left Saturday night.

But we made it halfway through FunkyPlaid's sojourn!

🏢 All-day Saturday budget committee meeting party. See what I did there? I added a word to make it fun!
🥘 I forgot how to cook. (OK, not really, but I am tired of all of my recipes and I'm behaving like a child.) Share one of your favorite recipes with me, please.
🤔 Two of my toots resonated with Mastodon pals this week. It was unnerving to go from sharing largely-unnoticed nonsense to somewhat noticed nonsense. I need to be more careful about my nonsense.

📸 Photos

I knew about peonies. I knew about tulips. I did not know about peony tulips before I picked up a bouquet for my coworker. This is definitely a Nutella situation; once one experiences a peony tulip, how does one settle for plain old peonies or plain old tulips?

✍️ Writing

Cranking out around 1,100 words a day, most of them about the cats destroying things we love because FunkyPlaid isn't around.

📚 Reading

I want to read "Harrow the Ninth" forever. Why are these books so good? Tamsin Muir, I'm asking you directly.

📺 Watching

Watching part of an episode of "Scandal" has become a nightly ritual. I can't make it through a whole one at a time because everyone is so danged petty. Past the halfway point in the series, and I'm surprised none of these people have gone no-contact with each other. There isn't a single healthy relationship to be found.

🎧 Listening

Sometimes the algorithm serves me a song from Justin Timberlake's "Justified" album, and I am delighted by the ensuing firework burst of memory. Right before FunkyPlaid moved to Scotland the first time, I swore he told me that he liked this album. It was so odd, hearing this confession, because it did not fit at all with what I knew of FunkyPlaid's musical taste. (A tale for another post, this musical taste of his, so intricate and specific I have always pictured it as an entity existing separately from him.) So of course I bought the album, because I wanted to hear what he heard. I mean, fun songs, sure. But when we got back together I asked him about it, what he liked about it. FunkyPlaid insists he never told me that he particularly liked this album. Bizarrely, it makes me happy to have misunderstood him in this way; as our time together dwindled that summer, I was so desperate for any crumb of his essence that I was frantically filing — and misfiling, most un-librarian-like — any minor morsel. Decades later, I remain this obsessed with understanding how he sees the world. (He may be embarrassed that I wrote this, but he's a third of the world away and can't stop me.)

🔗 Linking

Amit's starting a newsletter called Square One with brief introductions to words we hear often that no one explains. I love this concept. Go subscribe!
bapsi's finishing a journal and starting a new one. I will never get enough of posts like this.
This Five-Hundred-Word Bumper Sticker on My Tesla Explains Why I'm Not a Bad Person — McSweeney's does it again.

2025 Week 16 Notes: Squat, tired, and ready to fight

2025-04-21T06:59:00+00:00

2025 Week 16 Notes: Squat, tired, and ready to fight

🗓️ // 14 — 20 April 2025

Our wonderful neighbors are moving away, far away, next week. I'm not coping well with the impending loss of them, especially the three kids who have become our honorary niblings. At their informal goodbye shindig on Sunday, I sat in their living room at the kids' table and, while they drew on Easter eggs, rearranged a yellow wooden box full of acrylic markers so the colors were organized by hue, the swan equivalent of worrying her wings over a pile of nothing she can control. Everything is change, she breathed, as black feathers fell around the soles of her boots.

🏢 Some days my job is very straightforward, and other days it's the more nuanced meta-work, like trying to establish better lines of communication between departments, or supporting someone through complex personnel issues. I wish I had the comfort of the feeling that only I can do this job but the reality is that someone else could absolutely do this job. What I bring — and what I can control — is not the expertise in the specific tasks, but how I show up to do them.
🥘 My sister-in-law and I have a routine whenever FunkyPlaid is away for a while: We bake a gluten-free dessert and watch a film. This week we tried a Japanese-style cotton cheesecake and watched "Howl's Moving Castle". The cheesecake — which is more of a soufflé texturally — came out of the oven squat, tired, and ready to fight, with none of the fluffy elegance the photos promised. But mascarpone makes up for many shortcomings, so we ate it anyway.
🤔 Is it possible to ever feel interesting enough? I don't mean in these pages, which have never pretended to be scintillating, but in person. I tried to talk to other adults at the party, but I don't have kids and I don't have anything to say about grout. Also sometimes I just start talking about late-stage capitalism, and boy howdy does that clear a room.

📸 Photos

When people tell me to bring gluten-free food to a party, I usually end up bringing the fussiest dish I know how to make at the time. Sunday's offering was a roasted butternut squash and onion gratin with quinoa. I don't know what the quinoa added except for unnecessary health.

✍️ Writing

Fully stalled out on all creative fronts, but the journaling is going so well (read: so emo).

📚 Reading

After prolonging it as long as I could, I had to finish "Gideon the Ninth" by Tamsyn Muir. So good, y'all. I repeat a certain catchphrase (which I will not spoil for you) in my head constantly.
Next up: "Harrow the Ninth"!

📺 Watching

I finished watching "The Residence" and I was delighted by the Traveler's Notebook cameo. Murder mysteries are kinda whatever for me, but this one was cute.
What I hoped you did not notice about earlier is that I had never seen "Howl's Moving Castle" before or in truth any Miyazaki film and please do not cancel me.

🎧 Listening

I learned about Crucial Tracks this week, which I want to use to rekindle my affection for music, but I also struggle with consistency with these once-daily apps. As soon as I say, "I'm going to do this every day!" another part of my brain says, "O yeah? Watch me not do it even though I really want to! I'll show me!"
I did manage to post one crucial track: "Level Up" by Vienna Teng.

🔗 Linking

negative capability is a very useful concept we can credit to keats — Will this become a maya.land fansite eventually? Stick around and find out. (I love her site design and her writing voice.)
Save America, Adopt a Republican — Dr. Blazak regularly presents at a local conference I've attended and I do my best to catch his sessions because he's smart and he's funny and I appreciate his perspective, even when I don't agree with it.
I've missed Sam for a long time (or: Pick Your Battles) — I am often mad at how good Keenan's writing is, but like, a good-natured mad, a mad that is at heart a challenge to myself, an "eugh, OK, I need to get better at writing." But this one. I cried when I read it and I cannot bring myself to listen to the audioblog version. Must-read for anyone who has grieved the many layers of a person you once loved, and disliked, and loved.

2025 Week 15 Notes: Sing to your cats

2025-04-14T06:59:00+00:00

2025 Week 15 Notes: Sing to your cats

🗓️ // 7 — 13 April 2025

So. The first full week with FunkyPlaid away, and I have to admit that I am both doing my best and not doing great. As an avowed daydreamy introvert, it's always been easy for me to lose myself in the pocket universes of books, movies, music, and television for hours, days at a time. I forget how to talk to beings who aren't my cats, and — who are we kidding — I mostly sing to my cats anyway. They love it. You should sing to your cats, if you don't already.

🏢 This was an absolutely bonkers week of work, with multiple big meetings I either had to use all of the brain cells to participate in, or meetings I had to facilitate or co-facilitate. I met friends for lunch on Friday and I don't remember if I said words? In English? Who knows.
🥘 I did, however, eat gluten-free fish and chips. They were oily and salty, and made me miss Scotland a whole lot. In an effort to be healthier I made a big batch of curried lentil soup and thought of the person who gave me the recipe. They left the party way too soon. Missing them a whole lot.
🤔 Should I learn how to make matcha lattes at home? I love them so very much. Is it difficult? Will the internet teach me how to do it without having to buy one hundred specialized things?

📸 Photos

A friend introduced me to Kelley Point Park today, where we sat on a log in the sunshine and chatted and watched the rivers converge and the dogs go by.

✍️ Writing

Hey, you know that thing where you think too hard about what you're writing and decide everything you've ever written is crap and you shouldn't write anymore and that none of your ideas are original and you'd be better off never writing again? N— no, me neither. 👀

📚 Reading

Still reading "Gideon the Ninth" by Tamsyn Muir and intentionally reading so slowly to savor it.

📺 Watching

"Anora" won a bunch of Oscars, so I watched it! It turned into a very different film than the one I started watching. That was good. I liked that. Do more of that, films.
I watched an episode of "The Residence" while folding laundry and doing other care tasks. It's fun! Also, I hear there's a Traveler's Notebook cameo in one of these episodes.

🎧 Listening

I asked my new coworker what she's listening to right now, and she answered, correctly, "Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me" by The Cure so I went right out and listened to that whole album again and had a fantastic out of body experience, full-on time-travel back to hearing it the first time as a much younger swan who was feeling Feelings and did not have Words that matched and then this album. So yes.

🔗 Linking

Is it time to leave the US? A video by Leeja Miller. — Did I enjoy this? No. Did I find it informative and helpful? Yes, very much.
"I'm Not a Robot" — This short film won an Academy Award and I confirm it should have!
The rise of end times fascism — The Guardian, once again. Thank you and also oof.
How Poetry Changes You and Your Brain — Shout-out to S, who sent this my way knowing I would love it.
Letter: Maine cannot do without its libraries — Better than I said it last week. Thanks, JC.

2025 Week 14 Notes: Show up for libraries

2025-04-07T04:33:00+00:00

2025 Week 14 Notes: Show up for libraries

🗓️ // 31 March — 6 April 2025

Today is the first day of National Library Week here in the US. To "celebrate," our federal government gutted the Institute of Museum and Library Services. According to the Wired article, the IMLS annual budget "amounts to less than $1 per person in the US." Are we still pretending that this is about curbing government spending?

I have sounded this alarm many times over the past several years, so many times that you may be tired of hearing me sound it, especially if you don't consider yourself a library user. But even if you don't use your local library, if you live near one, you have benefited from it indirectly. Your local library has strengthened the community you live in by serving your neighbors.

Your neighbors who know how to read? Some of them learned through attending story-times at your library with their caregivers when they were young. Your neighbors who don't have a computer or internet access at home? They're getting online, paying their bills, looking for jobs, and connecting with faraway loved ones at your library. Your neighbors who can't afford to buy books, stream movies and music, or simply prefer the incredible variety of media hand-selected by experts in their field? They're relying on your library to learn and to experience worlds beyond the one they know.

All of us working in libraries right now need you to do more than check out some books. We need you to show up for us. Apply to be on your local library board. Show up to board meetings ready to support library employees. Write letters to the board in support of library services. Go to your city council meeting and give public comment in support of your library. Tell your local decision-makers that public libraries are essential to democracy, because they are.

🖥️ I spent way too much time on my computer for work this week.
🥘 None of the recipes I made this week were much good except for the slow-cooker chicken ragú with herbed ricotta.
🤔 I wasn't surprised to read that many Portland-area residents say they never use government services. Along with not thinking of public libraries as government services, residents don't think of the zoo, the bus, or public parks, either.

📸 Photos

Matchy-matchy pen and notebook time.

✍️ Writing

This week I averaged about 800 words of writing every day, a major achievement with everything else that's going on.

📚 Reading

Still reading "Gideon the Ninth" by Tamsyn Muir and loving every minute of it.

📺 Watching

Only one episode of "The White Lotus" to go.
A friend was horrified to know that I hadn't seen "Scandal" so I started watching. O, what was considered politically scandalous 13 years ago!

🎧 Listening

I asked the computer to play music to calm me down and I liked the playlist it chose. And then I was very confused when I thought I was hearing a lo-fi chill version of Outkast's "Hey Ya!" I decided I must be hallucinating due to extreme stress. But that's exactly what it was!

🔗 Linking

Library Link of the Day has been a steadfast library news resource for over twenty years.
EveryLibrary advocates for libraries in the US.
I've mentioned Kelly Jensen's "Literary Activism" newsletter before. It's well-written and well-researched.

2025 Week 13 Notes: Still writing, still moving

2025-03-31T00:59:00+00:00

2025 Week 13 Notes: Still writing, still moving

🗓️ // 24 — 30 March 2025

🖥️ I caught up with the previous weeknotes I missed posting on time, but I don't know if my RSS feed will tell you that.
🤒 Still feeling punky in the guts, but I think I'm through the worst of it.
🥘 A new recipe I tried was a hit: crispy gnocchi with sausage and broccoli. Very easy to prep, all on a sheet pan.
🤔 FunkyPlaid is getting ready to head to Scotland for a while, which means I get to test my work/life boundaries. In the past, I've backslid fully into working all the time with no one around to nudge me. But I am hopeful that I've learned my lesson enough times not to do this.

📸 Photos

Crivens has been plastered to me this week.

✍️ Writing

Still writing every day, still moving slowly through story drafts.

📚 Reading

Finished reading "One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This" by Omar Al Akkad
Started reading "Gideon the Ninth" by Tamsyn Muir

📺 Watching

Finished the current season of "Mythic Quest", and only two episodes of "The White Lotus" to go
Still watching old episodes of "The Great British Bake Off"

🎧 Listening

I've been listening to the first tracks on The Album Leaf's new album, "Rotations", and I'm pretty excited about the rest releasing on 11 April.
I always want to hear what Kelly Hayes and Mariame Kaba have to say. This episode of Movement Memos gave me a lot of hope for what we can do right now: "We Must Burst Our Algorithmic Bubbles and Build Together Across Difference"

🔗 Linking

How accurate is this very cynical depiction of university students right now? "Students are not absolutely illiterate in the sense of being unable to sound out any words whatsoever. Reading bores them, though. They are impatient to get through whatever burden of reading they have to, and move their eyes over the words just to get it done. They’re like me clicking through a mandatory online HR training. Students get exam questions wrong simply because they didn't even take the time to read the question properly. Reading anything more than a menu is a chore and to be avoided." — Hilarius Bookbinder, "The average college student today"

2025 Week 12 Notes: Lackluster cookies

2025-03-24T00:58:00+00:00

2025 Week 12 Notes: Lackluster cookies

🗓️ // 17 — 23 March 2025

🪫 Our EV charger, barely a year old, died unceremoniously in the middle of a charging session. None of our attempts to resuscitate it worked. It's under warranty, so they'll send a replacement, but because it's hardwired it'll cost us another installation fee to put the new one in.
🤒 I dealt with something that presents as moderate inflammation in my gut, the symptoms of which make normal routines unpleasant for a day or two. For longer, it's quite demoralizing.
🥘 I made some lackluster new recipes this week, perfectly edible but not great, and then redeemed myself (to myself, my worst critic) by making that crispy roast potatoes recipe.
💼 At work, a minor milestone achieved: My new assistant starts on 7 April and I could not be more thrilled!
🤔 How can I show up for myself as much as I show up for others? What does that look like? I am wracked with guilt whenever I have to cancel plans because of illness. I've lost friends over not being a reliable attendee of plans, good people who just did not think I could really be that sick or that I was canceling for other reasons.

📸 Photos

One of the lackluster recipes, salted chocolate chip cookies.

✍️ Writing

I've stayed in my daily writing practice, which is a win, but haven't worked on any creative writing this week.

📚 Reading

Finished reading "The Memory Police" by Yōko Ogawa, translated by Stephen Snyder
Started reading "One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This" by Omar Al Akkad

📺 Watching

Finished season 2 of "Severance"
Still watching the latest seasons of "Mythic Quest" and "The White Lotus", interspersed with episodes of "The Great British Bake Off"

🎧 Listening

I'm listening to the second season episodes of The Severance Podcast with Ben Stiller & Adam Scott, but I might be Severanced-out at this point.

🔗 Linking

I switched to the beta of Zen Browser this week. It's got the best of Firefox and the best of Arc, and I'm enjoying it so far.
Nothing I read this week was worth saving to share later, apparently. And that's okay!

2025 Week 11 Notes: Tiny hailstones

2025-03-17T00:55:00+00:00

2025 Week 11 Notes: Tiny hailstones

🗓️ // 10 — 16 March 2025

👯‍♀️ Lots of social time this week, including a visit from an out-of-town family member, dinner and a film with my sister-in-law, and co-hosting the monthly meetup for fans of analog tools.
🥘 One real winner of a recipe this week: spiced chicken with cardamom and cinnamon. I'll definitely make this again!
🤔 Whenever I start posting online regularly again, I stop. This struggle with consistency makes me question why I share anything online, and have done so (on and off, of course) for over 25 years. I'm wildly uncomfortable with the performative nature of it, while still wanting to connect with others in this way.

📸 Photos

We had a hailstorm on Thursday. These tiny hailstones stuck around a lot longer than I thought they would.

✍️ Writing

I've kept up my daily writing practice, but didn't make much headway on my stories in progress.

📚 Reading

Still reading "The Memory Police" by Yōko Ogawa, translated by Stephen Snyder

📺 Watching

Still watching the new seasons of "Severance", "Mythic Quest", and "The White Lotus", interspersed with episodes of "The Great British Bake Off".

🎧 Listening

Still listening to The Severance Podcast with Ben Stiller & Adam Scott

🔗 Linking

2025 Week 10 Notes: Surprisingly listenable

2025-03-11T03:55:00+00:00

2025 Week 10 Notes: Surprisingly listenable

🗓️ // 3 — 9 March 2025

🖥️ I didn't spend much time online this week, and I didn't miss it.
🥘 I made a couple of new recipes: sticky coconut rice and chicken, and stir-fry pork udon. At the last minute, I managed to rustle up a pantry meal of spaghetti, marinara sauce, and vegan meatballs, and I'm going to have to remember that trick for later.
😻 Crivens and Criminy were pronounced healthy at their annual checkup!
🤔 Who are these weeknotes for? I wish I knew.

📸 Photos

Would you like a mochi donut?

✍️ Writing

Jumped back into the flash fiction story!
I didn't submit any stories this week. I need to break out of this slump.

📚 Reading

I finished reading "Demon Copperhead" by Barbara Kingsolver, which was the most fun I've had inhabiting the mind of a flawed protagonist in a good long while. Also I love the feeling of trusting an author completely; I never once worried about where the story was going or how it would end. (You don't need to know the plot of Charles Dickens' "David Copperfield" to enjoy it, but I loved the nods to the original.)
I started reading "The Memory Police" by Yōko Ogawa, translated by Stephen Snyder.

📺 Watching

Still watching the new seasons of "Severance", "Mythic Quest", and "The White Lotus", interspersed with episodes of "The Great British Bake Off".

🎧 Listening

"stelluB" by They Might Be Giants is surprisingly listenable. (It's "Sapphire Bullets of Pure Love" sonically in reverse.)
Still making my way through the first-season episodes of The Severance Podcast with Ben Stiller & Adam Scott.

🔗 Linking

Project Management in your Bullet Journal (Free Template) by Nicola @ My Inner Creative
Democrats Are Acting Too Normal by Tom Nichols
Spring 2025 Campaign Forecast: Our Libraries on the Ballot by EveryLibrary
It is as if you were on your phone, a game by Pippin Barr