I listen to Spotify only when I’m working at my job (easy to pop earbuds in and out to avoid ads), so Spotify Wrapped doesn’t account for everything I listen to. But my top song this year was:
Recipe for Truth and Lasting Happiness, by the late S.E. Rogie of Sierra Leone. This was a surprise to me because it’s been awhile… but I guess during the busy season in June, I was listening to it every day to set a good mood.
Top artists were Emeli Sandé and Simi, still love them!
Coming from somewhere where cyclamen are only in pots, during the Christmas season, I continue to be pleased each fall at the ones naturalizing in the yard. They’re spreading along a desire path in the vinca, so maybe I should make more room for them…
I took a couple of days off work last week, mostly because I had promised myself I could in the hectic busy weeks of July, and we had arrived at the time I’d blocked off. On Thursday I continued my very long-term project of riding all the bus lines. Somewhere there’s a one-page zine about line #1, Vermont, and I later rode #4 Division but didn’t write it up. And then the project lay fallow long enough that the routes changed, so now #4 is Fessenden.
Next, though tbd with no immediate plans, is #6 Martin Luther King Jr Blvd. Also a Frequent Service line (every 15 minutes or so), which makes all the difference in a bus line.
Tonight’s plans: make a bean soup with rosemary and lots of the CSA celery, garlic and carrots for next week’s lunches; continue watching season 1 of Orphan Black. Brace for going back to work tomorrow.
I am a feral little sister who must be fended off
(but I got to wear that dress as a hand-me-down a few years later)
unreasonably fond of this photo I took during a friend’s recent move:
I found a list of good things, written in purple ink in an old notebook in 2021.
chocolate milk, the way things get still and luminous after sitting in silence somewhere for awhile, freshwater pearls, my iPhone, dirt paths and the way dirt lies at the base of tree roots, the internet, babies laughing uncontrollably, the sound of sprinklers, mohair sweaters, hot tubs, hot springs, dogs, dog smell, wet dog smell, the happy way Stephen said skunk smells like coffee, traffic signals, gladiolas, oxalis and all edible things in the woods, creeks, rivers, my sleeping bag, overalls and pigtails, Animorphs and Baby-Sitters Club, the smell of hose water and mown grass and petrichor, flicker feathers, washing plates and sweeping steps, roller skating, tennis, cross country skiing, audiobooks, chocolate pudding, poppies, puppies, composition books, cushy socks, soft t-shirts, gel pens, bike paths along water with Canada geese, desert mornings, early mornings on vacation, coffee, coffee shops, friends, Ken’s parties, writing numerals, writing algebra, Sanguinity, leg hair, glass jars, glass beads, honey.
The blog of storyteller and folklorist Dr. Zalka Csenge Virág introduced me to the concept of A to Z blogging– in a 30-day month, you can take one day off per week and still cover the alphabet at one letter per day.
Blog posts are work! But I made some drawings for April, in the medium I find easiest and least intimidating, which is blue non-repro pencil followed by fine-tip Sharpie marker, on 3×5 cards. My favorite was back at letter C, on a day I was busy and tired and dashed it off as quickly as possible:
Yesterday I realized I’m in the middle of six books, and listing them feels less daunting than talking about books I’ve finished– no pressure to pronounce judgment or present a finished analysis. Just a snapshot:
Animorphs #20, The Discovery, by Katherine Applegate (1998). I keep the Animorphs on my phone for comfort…? reading and reading-while-waiting. Apparently this one’s the start of a several-book arc about David, and sanguinity passed on a long tumblr post about this that’s waiting in my email. I’m loving how Animorphs discussion is still low-key humming along while I’m making my way slowly through the series.
Borrowed Summer, by Elizabeth Enright (1946). Short stories with the same avid descriptions of nature and well-tuned dialogue as the Melendy novels and her other children’s books. I mostly got this one because I was trying out our public library’s interlibrary loan services (because someday I won’t have university library privileges!) and Enright was the first author who came to mind who I knew had hard-to-find stuff I’d want to read. Something about the scope and rhythm of the stories reminds me of reading fiction in my mom’s magazines when I was a kid– Ladies Home Journal and Redbook— but maybe with a few more odd corners and less romance.
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo, translated by Isabel Hapgood (1862/1887). Reading this via Les Mis Letters with one installment every day of 2023. I am loving this! The installments are usually long enough to get into something but not so long as to be burdensome. Sometimes I get one or two days behind. Victor Hugo is working his way into my heart.
Victory. Stand! by Tommie Smith, Dawud Anyabwile, and Derrick Barnes (2022). Graphic novel by one of the Black runners who protested on the Olympic podium in 1968 in Mexico City. For some reason I skipped ahead to read the Olympics part, then went back to the beginning. Unadorned prose and grayscale art, a fast and compelling read.
The Summer Place, by Jennifer Weiner, read by Sutton Foster (2022). My current audiobook, soapy and good for extended housework sessions. Tons of secrets all building to a climactic wedding day, so we’ll see how that goes.
Seventeen Syllables and Other Stories, by Hisaye Yamamoto (expanded edition, 2001). The stories are dated from 1948 to 1995. Most are about Nisei families in the U.S. My favorite so far is a short memoir called “Life Among the Oil Fields”– my dad might find it reminiscient of his childhood in a tenant-farming family, and it also calls out to the Valley of Ashes in Gatsby.
The sunrise walks are off-and-on, but overall enhancing my life. Today’s was one of the first with a discernable ~Sunrise~, with lemony clouds and rays, instead of an overcast ~Lightening of the Gloom~. Sunrise is currently around 7:40 a.m.
Two kidlit links have been rattling around my head for a bit:
I’m auditioning a new year’s resolution called “be outdoors at sunrise.” Today’s sunrise was 7:47 a.m. Cloudy, and overnight a thin layer of ice was added on top of the inch or two of sleet/snow already on the ground. This little plastic thing was on top of the snow but under the ice, making an intriguing flower shape.
windshield
Today’s travel plans are suspended due to sleet and forecasted freezing rain; not sure if they’ll resume this weekend or next. For now sanguinity and I are cozy at home, still with electricity (yay), and with a rare feeling of leisure. We started a jigsaw puzzle last night.
bike commute notes:
Anyway, pretty view from my office today.
