Recently finished reading Dan Brown’s Secret of Secrets. I enjoy his writing but like my literary hero Alan Moore, he spends a fair amount of time teaching. I don’t mind because I appreciate his topics, but sometimes, in the middle of a thriller, it pulls you right out of the story.
I paused my Lord of the Rings re-read all while considering finishing that and starting over with Laurell K. Hamilton and/or William Gibson. For example I re-read Neuromancer inside of the last year and kind of want to read my way back through that universe. I’ve started the peripheral a few times and have had a difficult time, I’m sorry to say.
I’m no literary snob. I live and breathe genre fiction for the most part.
Have read some witchy titles recently because Kindle Unlimited. I read Salt & Broom most recently of four, and of them I enjoyed it the most because at no point did I really know how much the protagonist knew how to do. The danger was perhaps a little too easily held a bay a few times so while I enjoyed it I didn’t love it. The other three were more educational for me from both a historical perspective and a gender perspective: The House of the Witch and The Library Thief and The Familiar. As in the best fiction, stories and details that would not have occurred to me, but all of them showed old gender issues that we wrestle with to this day and caused me to sit with ramifications. There is something that needs to be smashed, and I am with you.
Also have read the Gibson Blue Ant series. Having a hard time with the chronological next book he wrote because it’s different still from his other work.
Finally also read Asimov’s Foundation. Working my way through the second in the series. The scale of time and space is impressive. I realize while writing this that I have made some assumptions about what I have read, so far, and while it may not be the best thing I have ever read, I am excited to see how it is ultimately realized.
Everything changes. I’m currently doing more team-specific support, which is different than the very general focus of my previous role. I’m officially a lead, but I see my team of two as a partnership.
I wish conference room technology was less vendor-specific (or perhaps more cloud agnostic) and that folks would stop blaming the meeting room when it doesn’t intuitively and automatically configure itself the way a person imagines it should work for them.
It is strange how technical support has meant I now also have to be worried about video streaming, audio amplification, lighting, framing, editing—every bit as much as the videographers and audio engineers and production teams have needed to become more adept with their use of computers and software.
I have some latitude and control in my latest role. Looking forward to making a difference.
I have the Switch 2 and am excited now that there are more Switch 2-specific updates and releases. Going to stick to this console for the majority of my gaming, but there is a PS5 in the other room.
Animal Crossing New Horizons is where I spend a lot of time. I do currently have islands on two consoles, the Switch 2 and a recently acquired, used, Animal Crossing-themed Switch.
I grabbed Cozy Caravan and I have spent a lot of time on that in the last few weeks. It has a ridiculous number of competing tasks, but the deadlines are lax or non-existant. I won’t lie, the travel required between plot points is kinda ridiculous, but I have really enjoyed filling in the map and it seems like there is a fair way to go in terms of what needs to be finished. It seems like there could be a sort of end, but I really have only been playing for two weeks at this writing.
I am feeling like expanding back out to other games again. I have gotten two characters to Level 20 in Hogwart’s Legacy but it feels like hardly getting my feet wet. Probably will restart that, again.
We’ve been enjoying Ghibli studio movies as a family. If that is your jam, please check out the festival. Maybe it has been running for many years, but have certainly enjoyed going to these movies over the last year. I just watched the 4K re-release of Kiki’s Delivery Service at an Imax theater with kiddo. Would recommend.
I have spent a ton of time working on the Forever✱Notes methodology. I keep revising, revising, revising my system and my linking and my daily note template. I try so hard not to blog about blogging, or blog about journaling. But I think about it a lot and I’m being better about using this tool, lately.
My comment here is that this specific way of journaling can help me to revisit what I have already written. In that line of thinking, I’m considering the One Sentence summary of my day, and putting it at the top of the note as something to think about as I add consecutive days, per note.
At the same time, getting too fussy can be overwhelming, and overwhelm leads to me quitting things. My daily note template reminds me of some of the decorative layouts I looked at when I was more actively doing the Bullet Journal method with paper and pen.
Except with electronic tools, it’s way less time consuming to copy/paste a layout than it is to spend a half hour drawing a layout for a day in my Bullet Journal.
By the way, it’s super easy to incorporate aspects of the Bullet Journal method into Forever✱Notes. Further, Forever✱Notes methods would work well in most modern note-taking apps like EverNote, Obsidian, Bear, etc. Apple allowing Markdown exporting would ease the transition if one decided to transition.
I’m diabetic and currently using GLP1 meds. Because the GLP1 meds are helping me to not shove tasty food into my mouth at every opportunity, I’ve been able to cut two other meds I have been using, but I still take a good amount of Metformin.
I love carbs. Love ‘em. And that is going to continue to be a challenge. I’m thinking a lot about simple fasting at this point, because I don’t want to be on meds forever and ever. Or at all. And I don’t want to die.
Statins are in the house because of cholesterol. I am so not proud.
And introducing: Back Pain.
I am friends with a heating pad and physical therapy. I hurt, I have taken time off from work and I miss work to make the therapy happen.
I have reached the use it or lose it portion of my life. I have reached the point of being solely responsible for the quality of the rest of my life.
The work is hard. I am not immortal. My body is yelling at me.