The Day After: Do We Have a Clue What Happens Now?

The Day After: Do We Have a Clue What Happens Now?

The Day After Election Day 2016: A Brain Dump “What comes next? “Do you know how hard it is to lead? “Do you have a clue what happens now?” The next leader of our country will be someone who has never served in public office before. He has also not yet publicly shown any real grasp of, or even interest in, how public service in American government actually works. NONE OF US has a clue […]

Where Did October Go? Updates and Whatnot

Where Did October Go? Updates and Whatnot

Where did October go? Since I didn’t spend much of it around here, I come today to answer that question. I usually post this kind of thing as “Show and Tell Sunday.” The “preparing blog posts on the weekend” thing hasn’t worked out so well recently, though. Welcome to “Show and Tell Thursday”! There were entire weeks where I got up each day, fully intending to go straight into writing on the book, and instead ended […]

This is How I Vote, 2016

This is How I Vote, 2016

How I Vote If you follow me on social media, you’ve probably noticed that I’ve been sharing a lot of political stuff for the last few months. (And if you haven’t blocked me for doing so, thank you!) Today’s post responds to a query from one of my sharing groups: “What’s your voting plan?  Do you grab Starbucks beforehand?  Take a selfie outside?  Go before work, bring the kids, or get in line towards the […]

Show and Tell Sunday: Currently/Losing My Religion

Show and Tell Sunday: Currently/Losing My Religion

Show and Tell Sunday Went to Church on Friday I took a personal day from work on Friday to take my dad to church. (No, the building didn’t fall down.) My mother passed away on October 8, 1999, and each year at the anniversary, my father has a Mass said for her. My sister usually accompanies him to that church service. This year, she asked me if I would take him because she had a […]

Show and Tell Sunday: Live, From the Back Patio!

Show and Tell Sunday: Live, From the Back Patio!

The heat wave that ushered autumn into Southern California seems to have broken, finally, and I decided to take advantage of it by setting up the laptop on the patio. (Paul’s always reminding me that the thing is actually portable!) I plan to switch over from writing to reading this afternoon, but I intend to spend as much time as possible in my outdoor office today! I finished reading Alexander Hamilton in audiobook earlier this week […]

Sunday Check-in: A Lazy Last Weekend of Summer

Sunday Check-in: A Lazy Last Weekend of Summer

Labor Day notwithstanding, this is the real last weekend of summer. Today’s forecast high is 98 degrees. It would be really nice if it was the last time we had to see that till next summer. I took care of all the errands yesterday and have no real agenda today, other than this: Oh, and we may go get some ice cream later on. Since I’m feeling more like reading than writing lately, it’ll probably […]

A September 11 story: On a day like any other, all things become imaginable

A September 11 story: On a day like any other, all things become imaginable

There are moments that the words don’t reach There is suffering too terrible to name You hold your child as tight as you can And push away the unimaginable —“IIt’s Quiet Uptown,” Lin-Manuel Miranda, Hamilton; An American Musical On September 11, 2001, some things became less unimaginable. And even when we can push them away, we can’t keep them away for long. A day like any other…a day like no other September 11, 2001 started out […]

CURRENTLY: I’ll Make This Quick [September 4, 2016]

CURRENTLY: I’ll Make This Quick [September 4, 2016]

CURRENTLY: I’ll Make This Quick It’s a quiet three-day weekend around here, and there’s not much to tell. It’s also delightfully and unusually cool for early September in Southern California, I’m hoping to spend some time reading out on the patio today and tomorrow. I’ll get back to my audiobook on Tuesday, Reading: Writing/Blogging: If I have the energy and ambition during what remains of this weekend, I’ll write up my thoughts on concluding the […]

Six Things on Sunday [Show and Tell]

Six Things on Sunday [Show and Tell]

Six things on Sunday… …because I couldn’t pull together 10 things at random this week I’ve reluctantly accepted that only way to grok some apps is to just start using them. I’ve been  wading into Litsy during the last few weeks and am finally getting the appeal of “Goodreads and Instagram’s perfect baby.” These are a few of the things I’m doing with it: Cross-posting #bookstagram photos Posting snippets of reviews from the blog (Litsy limits posts to […]

LibraryThings Have Changed: I Still Love You, LT, But It’s Not The Same

LibraryThings Have Changed: I Still Love You, LT, But It’s Not The Same

My love for LibraryThing has been well-documented here in the past. While the flame still burns, things have changed between us. I still appreciate all that LT has done for me, don’t get me wrong. I got a paid, lifetime LibraryThing membership in 2008 to keep track of all the books I owned, whether I’d read them or not. Having my LibraryThing collection on my phone has saved me more than once from buying a book […]

Notes from a Staycation [Show and Tell Sunday]

Notes from a Staycation [Show and Tell Sunday]

Things I haven’t done during my Staycation My Staycation officially ends tomorrow. I didn’t have all that much planned for it, but I haven’t accomplished much of Not Much. Here’s what hasn’t happened: Getting my LibraryThing collections up-to-date for 2016. (There’s always tomorrow to start on that, though, and once I get started on it I’ll have momentum. I think.) Reading books on the patio. (We have had a triple-digit heat wave this week.) Reading […]

10 Things At Random [Show and Tell Sunday)

10 Things At Random [Show and Tell Sunday)

10 Things at Random… If you are hearing the title of this post sung to you along the melody line of “Ten Duel Commandments,” welcome to my brain. I was elected to the board of directors of my condo association a couple of months ago. There’s a lot of emailing involved. I was very tempted to sign off on an exchange yesterday with “I have the honor to be your obedient servant.” I resisted because […]