You're Doing It Wrong

May all your Christmas wishes come true.

A couple of weeks ago I saw this article in the NYT: OMG The Hyperbole of Internet Speak.

Choice quote:

R.I.P. to the understatement. Welcome to death by Internet hyperbole, the latest example of the overly dramatic, forcibly emotive, truncated, simplistic and frequently absurd ways chosen to express emotion in the Internet age (or sometimes feign it).

I have been collecting notes on this topic although my complaint is about the media in general.

Everything that’s been around for more than 15 minutes is iconic. Minor developments are game changing. Even the most mundane stories are jaw dropping, gut wrenching, astonishing. Poor weather is horrific or unimaginable. A dispute is described as the most divisive and threatening to tear a community apart. Accomplishments “change the way America [does something] forever.” A restaurant opening is the most hotly anticipated. It goes on and on. I saw a woman describe making a routine decision as soul searching.

My favorite was an article about a venerable eating establishment that was closing after 8 months. I went and looked up the word venerable thinking I must have misunderstood its meaning. I did not.

I have no conclusion other than these developments will destroy our way of life forever.

I’ve had notes here for a post and I had grand plans for this evening but I didn’t sleep so great last night and I don’t have the energy. I tried to do a clever photo and this is as far as I got. This the Salmon River in August under extreme drought conditions. Also fires. You can feel the syrup in the air just looking at it.

I’m sorry the weather is causing my traveling plans grief but if it means snow in the mountains, I won’t complain. Too much.

There was no post for the 27th.

I thought I must have left it in drafts but nope. I guess I didn’t even save it. I remember writing it and for sure remember doing that photo because I was so proud of myself that I could paste the two photos side-by-side in less than half of an hour.

It’s a mystery.

Here is the early failure of my great fixing project. The phone and strap worked great at the match. It felt very secure.

Later I threw the whole thing in my backpack and I didn’t even notice the strap had fallen off. I took the strap out of the bag to put it in a safe place and realized that the Sugru and grommet (fastener? ringlet?) were floating right along with it.

I haven’t given up. Next fixing things day I’m going to try again.

There’s your 30 posts!

I looked it up and 2006 was the first time I posted every day in November for National Blog Posting Month. Here’s the beginning of that month.

I didn’t read through all my posts but skimmed them. So many things have changed. For one thing, I think my photos have gotten better

It feels like time goes by fast but 10 years ago was a long time. Well, technically, 9 years.

Since 06 I’ve started my current job, I went to the Clarion West Writer’s Workshop, and I fell in love with the Portland Timbers. I love my job. I’ve written a ton of stuff and still keep in touch with my Clarion friends. I still love the Timbers.

Book goes live on Thursday. Links are here. I’m working on a bunch of new stuff so more of something in the future.

I also have to link to this post from Nov 2006 because in it I complain about the Woo! girl who is the person who ends up behind us at every concert in history and screams Woo! all night long. We went to see Patti Smith last weekend although it was not a real concert, it was a book reading and she performed a few songs. This time the Woo! girl was in front of us. She’s aged really well and I appreciated her devotion to Patti and felt a lot of affection for her this time around. Later I saw her bum a cigarette off of someone outside The Hilton.

You guys can’t even fathom what a mess my photos are. They’re organized by year and general topic (“garden” “Timbers” “random”) but after that the system breaks down fast. Plus I take a million pictures of one thing, for example going after the perfect shot of a pumpkin, and then I never want to delete any unless they’re super blurry.

Like there may be some point in the future that I haven’t imagined where I need a selection of 700 pumpkin photos. I keep promising myself I’m going to sit down and prune the file and then organize better but I get so overwhelmed.

I periodically take photos of products I like so I can write about them and then never get around to writing about them.

This is the only one I could find. It’s a kitchen scrubber called a Dobie. I love Dobies. If we ever have less than 2 boxes (I buy the boxes of 3) I get anxious and have to buy a new box the next time I’m at the market. The Dobie is great for scrubbing your icky stuff off your dishes.

I don’t mind washing dishes. I don’t mind washing dishes at other people’s houses. But they must have a Dobie or at least a scrubber brush. I’m mystified sometimes how people scrub their dishes when there is nothing in the sink area for scrubbing. Then I do mind doing dishes.

I should have taken one out of the box for better illustration.

I will add that I’m not sure what my husband does when I’m not around but sometimes I will put a fresh Dobie out (Celebrate new Dobie day!) and only a few days later it will look like it was used to clean up an accident scene. That’s why I like to have so many on hand.

I keep mistyping that as blubs and not wanting to change it.

I pulled myself together and did some yard clean up yesterday. I barely made a dent in the work. I decided to go ahead and dig up couple of the bulb wads that looked like they were out of control.

This is just 2 but they kinda came apart when I pulled them out and then I made one big pile with them.

I needed something for scale. Does the bucket work?

After these photos I used the sprayer to get the worst of the mud off of them and then dragged them into the shop. I’m sure they will become moldy and/or freeze and die but I’m not really set up to dismantle bulb wads the size of compact cars. Plus I was wet and my hands were ice cubes and I wanted to be finished.

It’s supposed to be “warm” today – maybe 50 degrees and there’s plenty more to do so I’m going to try to clean up some other stuff.