am i tho

sitting at starbucks like a grown-up, trying not to watch the clock and think about constraints, but instead to enjoy the feeling of coffeeshopness. 

wondering why blogger indents the first line of any post by one spaceband. not the beginning of every paragraph... merely the first line of the entire post. by one single spaceband. automatically. every time.

listening to laurie r king's "lantern's dance", the 18th in the mary russell & sherlock holmes series. the first in the series, "the beekeeper's apprentice", was published in 1994. that's at once pretty recent and unbelievably far in the past. 30 years. crazy, actually.

trying to ignore the woman next to me... pull out the chair, pull it in. fidget with belongings, be still. get up, sit down. 

wondering if wearing kurta pajama would be cultural appropriation, and if that matters. can't we all just share the best of our cultures with each other? people all over the world wear NYY ball caps. isn't that appropriating american culture? maybe that doesn't count because america is a melting pot or maybe sharing isn't such a bad thing. 

maybe i am just old.

 

books 2024

* = book club book

	audio books the secret book of flora lee - patti callahan henry * time and tide - peter grainger the rags of time - peter grainger in this bright future - peter grainger persons of interest - peter grainger luck and judgement - peter grainger but for the grace - peter grainger an accidental death - peter grainger the running grave - robert gailbraith remarkably bright creatures - shelby van pelt * ink black heart - robert galbraith troubled blood - robert galbraith surrender, new york - caleb carr
	paper books
	ebooks an echo in the bone - diana gabaldon

turn the lights back on

ICYMI the inimitable billy joel has produced a new song. 

back in the day, i got my albums via the columbia record & tape club. cr&tc was truly a racket based on the human inability to remember to say "no" via postcard once per month, and simultaneously, it was a cost-effective way to get recordings delivered right to the door. each month when my new billy joel or jackson brown or james taylor or dan fogelberg or supertramp or david bowie or reo speedwagon or eagles or cat stevens or barry manilow album would arrive, i'd put it on the stereo record player i'd saved money to buy from zayre's and i'd play it over and over and over again, with the lyrics (inevitably printed on the liner notes) in my lap, singing along and memorizing the lyrics, melody, and pocket.

some singers stay firmly in the pocket. the eagles, for example, due to the requirements of both tight harmony and the simple act of singing at the same time, stay in the pocket. barry manilow stays in the pocket...i don't have music theory training, so i can't say why he does this exactly, but it's got to do with the sound he's trying to produce. james taylor stays pretty much in the pocket as well. jackson browne tends to drag slightly behind the pocket, which i am guessing is due to his being sort of bluesy.

nearly always, billy joel gets ahead of the pocket. this makes it a real challenge to sing along, because you have to anticipate. eventually, i got pretty good at memorizing his timing, which can be like memorizing lyrics. it does make it difficult to just pick up one of his songs, but it's a fun kind of puzzle to get it right. 

i haven't taken the time with the new song to really get it down. i want to do so, but you know, life is so different when you're a grown up...not different bad or anything, just that time gets allocated in ways that seem to stymie hours-long sessions pounding one song in the ol' cranium.

i did notice that during the piano solo, there is a touch of "italian restaurant". did he do that on purpose? a tie-in from that song seems to fit thematically. 

in conclusion, i'm convinced all this singing along with men in the vocally formative years of my youth resulted in my being an alto. i mean, right?

i covet your thoughts on this matter.

1 = i have dry hair and dry skin. partially age-related (get off my lawn!) and partially just the luck of the genetic draw. 

2 = this winter, we went hiking a couple times. very cold and very fun. upon returning to the domicile from these frigiventures, i partook of steaming hot showers. i mean, steaming. steaming hot. so hot it felt cold. (have you ever experienced water so hot it feels cold? just me? mmkay.)

1 + 2 = my skin literally falling off like flakes of snow. body dandruff. 

wups.

to repair the skin damage, my aesthetician (yes, i have one of those [not actually personally owned, but you know... mine]) recommended nivea - the nivea that's like paste in a pot. i am very familiar with this product, having slathered it liberally upon my visage since college (a couple years ago) (lol).

but i figured, if i had done this kind of damage to my skin, probably something similar had been done to my hair. simultaneouswise, target had one of those offers like "spend X dollars on beauty shizzle in the app and get a $5 target gift card!!!!!!!" so, i shopped up some cucumber + mint vegan volumizing shampoo and conditioner which is "thoughtfully made" and promises weightless clean volume and declares itself paraben-free in no less than two of the eight descriptive bullet points on the product page.

impressive.

received product. placed in shower. used. obtained benefits. (also, it smells great!)

now...i already have a 2-in-1 shampooditioner leftover from summertime when the living is easy, which had been pushed aside for the separate shampoo & conditioner procured in autumn when the living becomes more complex. with short hair, these products can last for months, so i already have three bottles (jars? containers?) of hair product in the shower, and here come two more. 

the ish is that i don't have room for all this. the conundrum is what to do with the unused portions of the previous solutions. do i put it back in the closet and pretend i am going to use it again sometime? leave it in the shower to continually shame myself for being wasteful? throw it out?

i would really like to take door number three, but can't make myself. it would be gloriously freeing and also naughtily wasteful - which combines to make it sound fantastically fun. but i just can't seem to bring myself to have that much fun.

i covet your thoughts on this matter.

perambulators perambulate

in an earlier season of my life, i hung out in an online space where runners chatted about running stuff and tossed around phrases like "runners run" - a wisdom disguised as an inanity, equal parts well durr and HELLS TO THE YES. in those days, it wouldn't be unusual for me to put in 9 miles in one lunch hour (or so) - 3 miles to the park, 3 miles speed work, 3 miles back...my job was very different then, and my running much quicker. 

my job changed. our offices moved and instead of in a secluded alcove, i was working in a glass box. that and the larger team signaled increased responsibility. i could not in good conscience take expansive lunch hours.

my ability changed. i was diagnosed with asthma, battled tendonitis, took the skin off my right knee thrice across so many years - tripped while running. the last time, there was legit doubt that i had enough knee skin (as opposed to scar tissue) to enable skin to grow back. it did grow back thank goodness because getting butt skin grafted onto my knee did not seem a promising route. 

then there was the pandemic. rather than my tediously detailing the derailing, i'll just say that job, office, running, and family were all significantly disrupted, maybe not in that order. 

during that time, though, i did discover real joy in walking. well, walking and audiobooks. this is my balm, my rejuvenation, my joy. give me 3 miles and a narrator with no goofy vocal habits. ahh.

here recently, however, 3 isn't enough. i want 4 or 5 or more. the other day i miscalculated my route and did 7.5 and loved it, no regrets. the books are still part of it - undeniably - but i can listen to books sitting on my ass. the mileage craving is a thing unto itself. 

we'll see where it takes me - literally and figuratively - but i don't care about the ends. i don't have goals at this point...right now, it's just me and the mileage. 

why? c'mon. you know why. 

perambulators perambulate. 

nose in the ayer like i just don't cayer

 yesterday whilst i was out perambulating, i noticed how fresh the air was. not "fresh like spring" but just fresh, clean, clear like a chalkboard waiting for the first day of school. 

then i noticed...

someone is doing their laundry. that hot-dryer-sheet aroma just wafting down their driveway and across the sidewalk...nice to be wrapping up a chore at day's end.

someone has coffee outside, mmm the smell of caffeine! did they make coffee outside?? maybe just did a starbucks run and carrying it inside from their car... maybe just having a cuppa on the deck, watching the evening sky.

someone is digging in the dirt, putting off a turned-earth bouquet gardening? preparing the ground for spring flowers? maybe kids digging random holes. maybe someone burying their dog*. (*dead dog)

someone had pizza last night. nice trash bin, jonses. who's keeping up with THAT?

someone needs to visit their mechanic. snuffly joe mczhausterton! tryna perambulate here, buddy! ugh, get that checked OUT.

what happened to my frosh ayer???

reset. 

reset.

ah.

someone is having italian food for supper. lasagna? baked ziti? cooking with the windows open on a cool evening - so maybe it's steamy spaghetti. smells goooood. enjoy your supper, neighbor!

someone is heating with wood, got a nice little fire going in their fireplace, burning a little hickory. mmm. yes, smells like hickory and not treated lumber. domesticated fire FTW.

and there's the freshly turn earth again.

and there's the laundry.

what happened to the coffee?

and i'm back to the car, in it, driving, home, and on with my own evening activities.

i can see why puppies always have such active noses - up in the air, down on the sidewalk, sniff, sniff, sniff - - you can learn a lot!

platform merge

many of my photos are stored on microsoft's onedrive platform -- samsung used to have a backup platform of its own, but sold out to microsoft some years back. 

wait. back up a bit.

before the Great Samsung Sellout, the place i work (i'd like to be more concise, but: my company? i don't own it. my work? it's not only mine. my office? we're virtual, so...) had shifted to a complete microsoft immersion experience called 365 which comes with storage called onedrive. kind of like dropbox or google drive - but integrated with outlook, word, excel, et alia. 

so, i had a work onedrive account when samsung migrated their backup to the platform as well.

one for work. one for personal. microsoft don't care. 

i think MS's brain is just too small to understand that one person could want two touchpoints because they merged me. the only thing i can figure is that their wormy software noticed the two accounts when i logged in from my phone, and decided to "help" me by merging them.

who has ever experienced "help" from a tech company as authentic help? if you, please provide your story in the comments.

the outcome of this mergation is that i receive "your memories from this day" emails to my work account. it's fi-i-i-i-ine. whatevs. but still annoys the hell outta me because come on, microsoft, do better!

also, i have to log in to my account constantly. follow a link from a coworker's email? login. open a cloud file in excel? login. view my memories from this day? login. 

i hear you - you think i have to log in so much because i am logging into a personal account and a work account. GREAT THINKIN BUT NO. it's the same account - same username (my work email) and same pw for both. 

okay, sure. something is twisted up somewhere. at some level, the two accounts are different - but not any level visible to the human eye.

i tie this invisibility to microsoft's (and all tech companies these days it seems) blind adherence to privacy rules. they are so darn determined to layer on privacy that they end up hiding me from myself.

this note is at the bottom of each "memories from this day" email.

Your privacy matters

No human saw your photos, and no additional storage was used when this collection was created.

firstly, why is there no "." at the end of the first sentence? or, perhaps a ":" as in - here is what we have to say about your privacy mattering. 

secondly, that's a weirdly phrased disclaimer. really can't quite figure out why, but it strikes me as both funny haha and funny odd.

slashes are the bane of my existence

slashes, case in point:

This exercise is a great illustration of our need to have the “source of truth” in a single location, but more importantly that we cannot have a single source of access/tools/skills.  We must widen our ability to gather/use the data across more (maybe many) of our teams/leaders.

slashes are lazy.

slashes are a log in the path, where the reader has to stop and decipher what you mean. are you saying "and"? "or"? both? is it multiple choice or a set? it's not clear to the reader and causes a stumble. don't cause your reader to stumble - do the work and be clear.

slashes imply equal weight where it may not exist. if you are coming up with two words and they seem equally necessary: 1. consider whether they are synonyms, and if so, choose one and use it to boldly proclaim your thought. 2. consider whether they are a list and if so, use punctuation that clearly displays their listyness, such as a comma, numbers, bullets, etc. 3. consider whether you mean "and" or "or" and if so, use the correct conjunction*. don't imply equal weight - either apply it (list) or discard it (redundancy or conjunction). do the work and be clear.

*and/or is not a conjunction. it's a laziness. "We need access to books and/or videos." could easily be "We need access to either books or videos, or if possible, both." just look at how clear that is!

all that said, sparing use of slashes can be okay. 

This exercise is a great illustration of our need to have the “source of truth” in a single location, but more importantly that we cannot have a single source of access, tools, or skills.  We must widen our ability to gather/use the data across more (maybe many) of our teams and leaders.

that's not too bad. 

the constant peppering of slashes, though? STOP IT.

narrators

i am writing about books again because that's where i spend a lot of time. if you don't like it, feel free to comment with suggestions of things you'd like me to write about.

i started to listen to "the running grave" - robert galbraith's most recent book, but realized i needed a solid catch-up, so i reversed to troubled blood which i'll follow with "ink black heart" and only then will i be ready for "the running grave".

the narrator of these books is robert glenister. he's definitely in my top picks, narrators that i look for regardless of book genre. this group includes: 

• wil wheaton - ready player one (ernest cline), dancing barefoot (wheaton)
• robert bathurst - inspector gamache series (louise penny)
• jayne entwistle - flavia de luce series (alan bradley)
• tom taylorson - joe gunther series (archer mayor); surrender, new york (caleb carr); plus one (christopher noxon)
• jim dale - harry potter (jk rowling)
• will patton - raven cycle, dreamer trilogy (maggie stiefvater), when zachary beaver came to town (kimberly willis holt), train dreams (denis johnson)

there are certain qualities of voice which are intolerable to me (see: misophonia) and other qualities which are likely to put me to sleep (see: asmr). and then there re voices which hit the sweet spot between the two.

-----

old words that sound like new words.

britomart is the name of a nymph of greek mythology and a character in edmund spenser's "the faerie queene".  it also sounds like a 7/11 specializing british foods.

metacomet is a 17th century indian chief and sounds like a robot or rocketship. 

you got any?

0th world problems

i am in planner hell. 

i know exactly what i want and it doesn't exist. i tried to make it myself and it's so hard //whine//

so, yes. i'll grant you: not being able to find the ideal planner is definitely a first world prob. how first world is it?it's so first world that... meh whatever. 

most planners are calendars. that's fine but not precisely what i'm after. i have a work calendar in outlook and a personal calendar in google, and i don't want to replicate any of that on paper. 

they make undated planners, of course, but the choice there is blank pages or, generally, overly fussy designs. i don't need a million boxes, lines, and graphs. i don't need a dot grid in one corner of the page. i don't need little water droplet outlines to scribble in like the ACT answer sheet of hydration. i need spaces for three daily goals and one "grateful"; a to-dos box each for morning, noon, and afternoon; and a free space for simple notes. i can draw what i need. i HAVE drawn it...but i don't want to. i want someone to make it for me. i want it to be professional.

besides the pages themselves, i seek a spiral bound hard cover in the 5x8 or 6x9 size with a REAL pocket, a pen holder, an elastic loop closure, and a ribbon marker. 

the pages need to be big enough to make sense without being unwieldy. 6x9 is about the limit that i can reasonably be expected to schlep around. 8x10 or bigger is for teachers and architects.

using the spiral to hold the pen is for the birds and those plastic TODAY markers are even birdier. a connected ribbon is so much smoother and classier and actually workable. the plastic ones just break. 

the pocket is essential. not one of those absurd squashed-on-the-inside-back-cover pouch pocket things. a REAL pocket, preferably double-sided, to contain receipts, notes, that postcard from your bro, et cetera. 

so, we have: 5x8 to 6x9 trim for carrying convenience. spiral to lay flat or even turn back for a smaller footprint. hard cover for writing anywhere and holding up in my bag. elastic loop to prevent flop-opens. double-sided pocket for whatnots. pen holder to preserve the spiral. ribbon marker because i am not a bird. 

truth is, if i could find a blank book that met all these specs, i'd pull out the ol' ruley-ruler and draw my own pages. but...haven't found it yet. if you spot one, definitely let me know. 

it's a pro nation

monday, march 2, 2020, a tornado hit nashville and put out the power to the building where i worked alongside a few hundred colleagues. we were sent home due to the lack of power, and welcomed back to the building on the following monday, march 9. 

friday, march 13, we were sent home again - they said for two weeks. that two weeks extended and extended, and a year later the building was on the market. it sold within a few months and just like that, we are a virtual company.

oh, not "just" like that. we cut more than half the staff in an all-out effort to survive one of the hardest hits our niche market will likely ever take. we are still hanging in there, nearly four years later. there hasn't been another devastating blow, nor has there been a magnificent breakthrough. 

we are here, we are here, as cindy lou who said.

anywho. (LOL)

the point isn't the beleaguered business where i work. the point is: sockfeet.

i haven't worn shoes to work in nearly four years. i do put on "work clothes" and i do come into my office and i do do (LOL) work things for like 6 hours per day. (8 hour work days are a myth. without the gabbering around the coffee pot and incessant "how was your weekend" drop by convos, one can get an amazing amount of work done in a lesser time.)

but i digress. again.

i haven't worn shoes to work in nearly four years. just my sockfeet on a fatigue pad at my standing desk.

on a hike recently, my companion had taken the rear guard and pointed out with all the tact you'd expect, "you're pronating pretty bad."

i knew i was pronating some, more than in my younger days, but i didn't realize it was point-out-able. "yeah, it's pretty bad."

first, i blamed my heel lift - it's probably slipped and pushing my foot to the inside. however, that was not the case. next, i blamed standing around barefoot for umpty number of months. hmm.

so i dug out my birks and have been standing around in these for a few days. i can't use the fatigue pad with them because then i'd be out of kilter with my custom made and actually not quite tall enough standing desk. (why didn't i measure my keyboard height with shoes on?! oh yeah, i wasn't wearing any.)

i chose the birks because of their arch support but now my back hurts. these shoes appear to be made for walking, not standing around typing and zooming.

so...what do you think? does standing around barefoot exacerbate pronation? will birks help slow the decline - or even miraculously fix it? would another shoe be better - or go back to no shoes at all?

i welcome your input.

not a candlestick maker

really really really have no idea what to say. this is a bit of a fake it til you make it situation.

i'm at starbucks. altho i feel that the homogenization of culture across these our united states is a damn shame, i appreciate the anonymity of starbucks. sure, it's nice to go "where everybody knows your name" but can we just all agree that sometimes it's nice to go where nobody knows your name? 

well, it's nice to me.

i mean, i could be anyone here. a student. a teacher. a candlestick maker. 

a WRITER.

i had enough points to get a piece of merchandise. that's 400 points, or in layman's terms "uh... over-caffeinated much??" 400 points gets you $20 off a piece of merch. i perused the selections, and there are many fine selections: insulated cups, thermos bottles, mugs, beans. so many fine selections. 

in the end, i selected a pour-over set. do i need a pour-over set? well, at least as much as i need another drink bottle or bag o' beans. which is not at all. will i use it? that remains to be seen. do i sort of regret splurging all the points - which would have been a lot of free cups of coffee - on one purchase? uh... yeah, pretty much. 

i have never collected 400 points before. over the holidays, hosting others to cups of joe and collecting bonuses along the way, i quickly amassed a mass of points. they were burning a hole in my pocket, and now i am the owner of a pour-over set.

the more i discuss it, the worse i feel about squandering my points. 

in fact, i don't want to talk about it anymore. 

i could be anyone here. could be. in fact, i am Regretful Splurger. 

//sigh//

write about something besides the books, she said. //sigh//

i used to think of things to write about while i was running. running my legs and letting my mind run free. now i walk while listening to audiobooks so what else am i meant to write about?

life goes in seasons. for everything there is a time. turn turn turn. 

i used to work in an office, now i work at home. i used to care about comma splices, now i don't. 

who am i kidding, i never cared about comma splices. 

this could be a new season of writing for me. thing is, i am completely out of the habit and therefore likely to 1. forget to write, 2. have nothing to say, 3. lack the necessary desire to get my words together and write them down. 

i know you're all on the edges of your respective bated breaths just waiting to see what'll happen.

//sigh//

a look at books - my 2023 reading

in 2023, i... 

 ...read 63 audiobooks and one paper book. 63 is more than one per week, which is impressive until you see how short some of them are. maybe it's still impressive? maybe there is a way i can add up the hours i listened to audiobooks. interesting thought, but seems time consuming. it's about an hour a day, maybe 90 minutes some days and the occasional couple-of-hours days.

 ...discovered archer mayor's "joe gunther" series, a set of over 30 police procedurals narrated by tom taylorson. not only are police procedurals one of my favorite genres, mr taylorson is an incomparable narrator. currently listening to his work in "surrender, new york" and all the voices are completely different than any of the voices from the gunther series. how many voices are in this man's head?

...reached out to mr taylorson on twitter to let him know how much i appreciate his talent. 

 ...suscribed to audible using some sort of 6-months-paid-in-advance offer. this was on the heels of having subscribed to kindle unlimited specifically for its audiobook offerings. if you have spotted that this is redundant, well good on ya. 

...read one paper book: "lessons in chemistry". this has been made into a series on apple tv which i have resisted watching because, although the book was very good, it was also challenging in ways that would play out quite differently on video. my mind's eye goes only so far, and i am good with that. also, the characters are really clear in my mind, and unless casting is spot-on, i am going to be disappointed. case in point: "three pines" on amazon prime. alfred molina is not armand gamache in my mind - and that's in large part due to (bless his heart) his hair being black while his beard is white. that's just ridic and he needs to fix it. i really enjoy the book series that the show is based on, but there is no possible way that i can watch that show.

...used audible, kindle unlimited, and libby apps to listen. the vast majority of this is streaming with purchases limited to jk rowling and her alter ego robert galbraith, maggie stiefvater, patrick rothfuss, kat timpf, and i believe one book club book is in there. otherwise it is borrowing and streaming for me. i am a lot more likely to purchase a paper book rather than an audiobook.

books 2023

* = book club book

	audio books fall guy - archer mayor marked man - archer mayor misfit - gary gulman orphan's guilt - archer mayor ascension - nicholas binge * the narrow road between desires - patrick rothfuss bomber's moon - archer mayor bury the lead - archer mayor trace - archer mayor presumption of guilt - archer mayor the company she kept - archer mayor proof positive - archer mayor where the forest meets the stars - glendy vanderah * three can keep a secret - archer mayor paradise city - archer mayor portrait of a theif - grace d li * tag man - archer mayor the price of malice - archer mayor the catch - archer mayor chat - archer mayor the second mouse - archer mayor st. alban's fire - archer mayor the surrogate thief - archer mayor gatekeeper - archer mayor the sniper's wife - archer mayor tucker peak - archer mayor the marble mask - archer mayor occam's razor - archer mayor the disposable man - archer mayor bellows falls - archer mayor the ragman's memory - archer mayor the dark root - archer mayor fruits of the poisonous tree - archer mayor skeleton's knee - archer mayor scent of evil - archer mayor borderlines - archer mayor open season - archer mayor hello (from here) - chandler baker and wesley king ocdaniel - wesley king * the recovery agent - janet evanovich every city is every other city - john mcfetridge you can't joke about that - kat timpf sycamore - bryn chancellor * folly - laurie r king crazy brave - joy harjo * greywarren - maggie stiefvater mr impossible - maggie stiefvater call down the hawk - maggie stiefvater eternity's wheel - neil gaiman the silver dream - neil gaiman interworld - neil gaiman mouth to mouth - antoine wilson * the activist - john grisham the accused - john grisham the abduction - john grisham kid lawyer - john grisham the searcher - tana french cold, cold bones - kathy reichs a conspiracy of bones - kathy reichs the bone code - kathy reichs back to the garden - laurie r king slow fire burning - paula hawkins * the ink black heart - robert galbraith
	paper books lessons in chemistry - bonnie garmus *
	ebooks an echo in the bone - diana gabaldon