🎙️ Listened to the “If Books Could Kill” podcast re-release of the episode on “Hillbilly Elegy”. I read parts of the book when it came out, and couldn’t understand why it was so popular, so this was an interesting listen. | Continue reading
Project 2025 isn’t theoretical. Those of us working in libraries, schools, and universities have been under attack for years. Get informed and fight back. Moms For Liberty now has more power than actual librarians or educators to decide what is or is not appropriate for classroom … | Continue reading
The next Micro.blog Analog Tools Meetup has been canceled because I won’t be able to host it. 🖋️📓🗂️ If you’d like to be a backup host for future meetups, please reply and let me know. See you in August! | Continue reading
Day two of the PNW Pen Show was calmer, shorter, and over far too soon. 🖋️ The lesson of the weekend is how much I need to have a life outside of work that includes creativity and joy. | Continue reading
First day of the PNW Pen Show was wonderful. 🖋️ It was such a bubble of shared joy (and my phone notifications are so curated) that I missed all of the day’s news until I arrived home. | Continue reading
Halloumi with corn, cherry tomatoes, and basil, a quick and easy vegetarian dish for a summer weeknight. 🥘 I love the teeth-squeakiness of halloumi. When combined, everything together tastes like it was drenched in butter. | Continue reading
Raspberry-almond clafoutis. 🧑🏻🍳 Not pictured: raspberry freezer jam. I’m trying to keep up with the canes this year! | Continue reading
Portraits of the Bottlebrush Brothers, our smiling sweethearts. 😺😺 | Continue reading
Finished reading: The Future by Naomi Alderman 📚 If you dream of a world free of the rampant, unchecked greed of tech behemoths, this is the novel for you. Wonderfully complex characters and a thrilling plot. I loved it! | Continue reading
Today’s reading: “What Juneteenth Means on a President’s Plantation” by Crystal A. deGregory, PhD. Thanks to Anti-Racism Daily for the link. | Continue reading
Finished reading: The Good Enough Job: Reclaiming Life from Work by Simone Stolzoff 📚 This was an important read for me, in a phase of my career marked by overwork. Especially resonant: the chapter featuring Fobazi Ettarh. | Continue reading
Today’s Micro.blog Analog Tools meetup featured notebooks, both blank and pre-printed, of all sizes. Quite an array of types and purposes! 🖋️📓🗂️ We’ll meet again in July. Let me know if you’d like to join us! | Continue reading
The reminder for the next Micro.blog Analog Tools Meetup has been emailed. 🖋️📓🗂️ If you’re not on this list and would like to join us, let me know! | Continue reading
One-bowl apple, yogurt, and maple cake, another gorgeous gluten-free recipe from Cannelle et Vanille Bakes Simple. 🍰 I’m ready to make it again right now! | Continue reading
My first attempt at a “strata”. 🥘 If you have a bunch of people to feed for breakfast, and some time the night before to assemble it, it’s a good recipe. | Continue reading
Last night, heading for a quiet night inside, alone, when I heard the neighbors laughing and playing in the street. I stepped out of my front door and was invited over: dinner outside in the waning sunshine, bug bites, silliness, a bit of night-gardening. Practicing saying yes. | Continue reading
☕ This morning’s cuppa: Cascadia Breakfast from The Jasmine Pearl Tea Company, black and puerh teas with whole coffee beans, carob, and chicory. | Continue reading
Today’s Micro.blog Analog Tools meetup featured bags of all sizes, shapes, and purposes. 🎒 All the better to carry our analog tools! 🖋️📓🗂️ We’ll meet again in June. Let me know if you’d like to join us! | Continue reading
☕ This morning's cuppa: Golden Assam from The Jasmine Pearl Tea Company here in Portland. It's lighter than our usual Scottish Blend, and it's growing on me. | Continue reading
Twenty-six years of writing online! 🎉 The “on this day” plugin isn’t surfacing my first post, so here it is. In it, I recount my first bout with depression and internet addiction. It feels both dated and prescient. But hey, I’m still here. | Continue reading
My second attempt at gluten-free rosemary focaccia had better results texturally, but still wasn’t the taste experience I wanted. 🍞 I’m looking for a better recipe. Any gluten-free bakers out there willing to share theirs? | Continue reading
Today’s baking project was the rosemary focaccia recipe from America’s Test Kitchen. 🍞 Results were poor. I learned not to use yeast too far past its best-by date, and also to use the specific all-purpose gluten-free flour blend ATK specifies, or else. | Continue reading
The reminder for the next Micro.blog Analog Tools Meetup has been emailed. 🖋️📓🗂️ If you’re not on this list and would like to join us, let me know! | Continue reading
After some deliberation, I replaced the battery in my iPhone 12 Pro. 📱 Its battery capacity had degraded so much over the past three years that I had to carry a backup battery everywhere I went. Now I won’t feel rushed to upgrade to a new phone. | Continue reading
Finished two drop-stitch scarves recently. 🧶 I love Malabrigo yarn. | Continue reading
Today’s Micro.blog Analog Tools meetup was an entertaining show-and-tell session of our favorite pens. 🖋️📓🗂️ We ran out of time, so part two will be next month. Let me know if you’d like to join us! | Continue reading
My friend and I, seated outside with half-melted hazelnut lattes. Bees start buzzing around us. Smiles across the table: we love bees. One alights on my labradorite ring, crawls into the dark cool space between thumb and forefinger, tiny footsteps tickling my palm. | Continue reading
The reminder for the next Micro.blog Analog Tools Meetup has been emailed. 🖋️📓🗂️ If you’re not on this list and would like to join us, let me know! | Continue reading
Some days the gap between the leader I want to be and the leader I currently am is so wide, and it hurts. This is also true for the gap between the writer I want to be and the writer I currently am. And pretty much everything else in my life. | Continue reading
Mandy Patinkin in concert last night! 🎵 This musical theatre nerd’s heart is full. His interpretation of “Wandering Boy” by Randy Newman moved me to tears. And more tears when he sang Lyle Lovett’s “If I Had a Boat”, a song I love dearly. | Continue reading
After @bapsi mentioned Jillian Hess' “Re-Noted: 6 Ways to Use a Diary”, I got completely stuck on Lynda Barry’s basic quick diary format. I grabbed my copy of “Syllabus: Notes from an Accidental Professor” and I’m adapting this format in my Hobonichi Weeks. | Continue reading
Another interesting, thoughtful, and fun Micro.blog Analog Tools meetup this morning! 🖋️📓🗂️ We talked about hybrid analog/digital tools and processes, how friction can help slow thoughts down, and much more. | Continue reading
Saturday nosh on yesterday’s baking project. 🍞 FunkyPlaid served the soda bread with two excellent condiments: maple orange cranberry spread and ube (purple yam) spread, both from Trader Joe’s, the ultimate snackiverse. | Continue reading
Today’s baking project: Fig and Caramelized Onion Soda Bread from Cannelle et Vanille Bakes Simple by Aran Goyoaga 📚 I don’t recall making soda bread before today, but this turned out great! 🍞 I appreciate how it’s basically a giant scone. | Continue reading
Four years ago today, I made the difficult and necessary call to shut the library. I had been the director for just over eight months. I went home, drained yet resolved, and had no idea what would happen next. And then everything else happened. | Continue reading
Currently reading: Molly by Blake Butler I’m used to being upset by what I read; I prefer it to indifference. But this … I can’t decide if I’m feeling the “good” upset or the upset I felt when I watched “Funny Games”, complicit in witnessing a horrible inevitable. | Continue reading
Recently I backslid into my hyperfocused “quantified self” ways and started tracking various metrics with apps again. As a result, my anxiety has ramped up considerably, and I feel like I’m doing more tracking than living. Time to delete some apps. | Continue reading
The real question on everyone’s minds after watching “Death and Other Details”: Was Rufus Cotesworth writing in a brown passport-size Traveler’s Notebook with an extra-wide elastic? (Yes, I am super-fun to watch TV shows with.) | Continue reading
After eight years in Portland, I finally made it onto the Portland Spirit for a river cruise. | Continue reading
The reminder for the next Micro.blog Analog Tools Meetup has been emailed. ️️ If you’re not on this list and would like to join us, let me know! | Continue reading
While walking to dinner tonight, a friend and I were screamed at repeatedly by someone walking behind us. Before I started working in public libraries, this would have thrown me. Tonight it wasn’t even a footnote (aside from this, of course). | Continue reading
Victory! I gave blood tonight with no issues. I hydrated all day, ate leafy greens, and took an iron supplement. | Continue reading
From the Chasing Fifty podcast: “You define what has molded you. Let’s not allow others to dictate how we heal and share our stories.” Wise words from my friend Shawn. | Continue reading
Loud, but I blame that on IMAX. Unnecessarily confusing, but I blame that on Nolan. The action scenes were absolutely worth my irritation at Nolan's refusal to write characters of any depth. Also, the casting of Robert Pattinson was inspired! | Continue reading
One last mug of Campfire S’mores tea, which we found at Crimson Cove in Poulsbo, WA. ☕️ This tea is no longer made. Enjoying it was a contemplative start to my birthday weekend. | Continue reading
Finished reading: Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin It was the heartwarming, heartbreaking story about friendship and video games I needed. I highly recommend it. | Continue reading
Lunar New Year lantern viewing at Lan Su Chinese Garden. We enjoyed the tea tasting in the newly reopened teahouse. | Continue reading