Category Archives: doing it wrong

I wanted to do a representation of my “to read pile” except I couldn’t figure out a good way to do this. My eReader doesn’t have any great way to show my list. This is not my complete paper book to read pile — it’s just a shelf area. There are other shelf areas and unread books mixed up with already read books. I don’t mind a little chaos with my books.

Someone should invent a way people can show their TBR piles of ebooks.

If someone has, and you think I would understand it, please forward the info.

The NYT did a list of 100 books of the century or something like that. Like many people, I had to go through and see how many I’ve read. Only 22. For example: Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. I recommend! The HBO series, too.

There were about a half dozen that I tried and quit. For example, Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald. As I recall, I had something going on at the time and couldn’t get into it. But I also recall there were no paragraphs. The wall of text was overwhelming.

Most of the authors that had more than one book, I had read at least one.

And there are about a half dozen currently in the TBR pile.

I did a little better with the Reader Top 100. I read 33 of those.

I don’t care a lot about lists — it’s all arbitrary and a good way to get clicks. But it’s fun to see what makes the cut.

I am surprised by popularity of Elena Ferrante. I got the My Brilliant Friend series as ebooks and then could not make it through the first 50 pages. I hated the voice. I have been convinced to try again and it’s back in the TBR pile.

There are A LOT of potatoes in my yard.

Since I took this photo, I cooked about 1/4 of these. I have given away several pounds. But still, lots of potatoes.

Somehow, I cut one of my toenails weird and then it grew and somehow I wasn’t paying attention and it was like a talon. My foot was dangerous. I scratched my own self with my pointy toe nail.

I know, this is a weak post. See the manager for a refund.

I’ve had time to go back through some old non-priority projects at the office and I found this note to myself: a true classic. After reviewing the situation, I think I recall my thought process and I think it’s both incomplete and a duplicate. If we’ve lived without it since 2021, not sure it’s critical but I’m going to spend a little more time with it.

I had a tooth pulled last October (bottom of post). It was one of the very last ones in the back.

Initially, I decided I would not get the implant. At least one person advised I was unlikely to miss the tooth and I felt like I didn’t miss it.

Until,

on the other side of my mouth in the very back, the crown failed. That was a whole other not-wonderful dental adventure that I’m not going to detail here. But while I waited for the new crown I had only a nubbin for that tooth.

I missed having back teeth. Try eating a carrot without back teeth.

If you’ve ever read Joe Abercrombie, The Blade Itself there is a character San Glotka who was tortured and they pulled every other tooth so he can’t eat anything but soup and soft things. That’s not a spoiler. He’s in that condition when the story opens.

I had more appreciation for his problem and it was just two bottom back teeth.

I am getting an implant. Also, I’m not sure what dental insurance covers but so far it seems like nothing that I am doing with teeth.

The good news is: I figured out how to upload pictures again. The bad news is that it took all the time I had set aside to write some catch-up posts. I have pictures and all kinds of notes sitting here.

Here’s a quickie:

This is one of my rhododendrons. It was looking kinda peaked in the spring but I thought it would bounce back. After those few days over 100 degrees it said good-bye and now looks sad and withered and brown. I am in the process of cutting it down and will plant a native tree in that general area.

A similar thing happened to the one if the front of the house. I asked the landscaper if he could help me get it out and he pushed it back and forth and it broke right off. It took some work but I dug out most of the stump. I hope this one is the same.

ALSO UPDATE: my story, Loss Prevention, is not available yet. It will come out on August 15th and I will remind you then.

The ads that show up on social media make me so mad: especially when they are things that I actually can use. I guess in this case it was an influencer.

She had a little bit different set up but the gist was using this yellow sticky paper to attract little insects in the house.

I have a couple of plants on the window sill that have little flies and I haven’t had any luck getting rid of them.

Then I saw her video and hopped, skipped, and jumped over to Fred Meyer where I found these little yellow sticky strips and you fold them and fasten into a little plastic stick and put in the plant, and look! They really work! This was about a week’s worth. I’m bringing them to the office, too.

Recently I was talking with some people about young people no longer learning cursive writing. I don’t know if it’s everywhere or just some places. I have no strong feelings about it. They don’t need it. Make it optional.

I’m much less concerned about the loss of cursive than I am about the loss of capitalization and punctuation. But then: old lady shakes fist at clouds. The world moves on.

I wanted to look at my writing over the years so I pulled out my notebooks. The above isn’t the complete set.

I’m wondering what to do with all of these. I hate to throw them away. There’s no reason to keep them. No one is going to want to look at them. Just today looking for cursive samples — there are all kinds of notes inserted and little doodles. I’ll have to think about it.

Look at this adorable cursive for my “creative writing” assignment in seventh grade! (1977).

I really struggled to find writing samples that I could take a picture of. I wrote lots and lots and lots of weepy, angsty, damp-eyed teen garbage that even now, I am too embarrassed to show.

This is from a trip in 2002. There is a lot of 90s writing in the notebooks but see above. I had a lot of feelings that I never got tired writing about.

This is from the Hawaii trip we took at the end of last year. I don’t really write cursive anymore. It’s more of a hybrid of cursive and printing but more heavily on the printing. Every once in a while I try to slow down and write true cursive. It doesn’t come naturally at all.