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📺 Fargo - Season 1 A goddamn delight.

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what am I missing here… preview looks fine, published post is all [[[()()([][][]

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January reading:

  1. Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
  2. White Tears/Brown Scars by Ruby Hamad
  3. Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver
  4. The Internet Con by Cory Doctorow
  5. On Bullshit by Harry G. Frankfurt / h/t miljko
  6. Railsea by China Miéville
  7. When Your Lover Is a Liar by Susan Forward
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R (16yo): Mom lemme hook you up with some sick pants. Try these on.

Heavy wide leg too-big denim taking me right back to the 90s.

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Lately my youngest has expressed an interest in religion, which is fine. But I gotta say it’s a little weird when she brings home church info from a friend. I’ve talked to the Mom of this friend before and I think there’s a bit of (attempted) proselytizing in play. I don’t mind at all if my kiddo wants to go to church with a friend but it’s funny/weird to be in this position, being a recipient of “outreach” from the religion I grew up in.

A business card that says “join us Sunday! Expansion Church” rests on a wooden table
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From the last few hikes 🥾

A stream flows through the woods, brown leaves covering the ground A view of the ground in the woods with flat rocks, crushed leaves, and blue juniper berries A gray blue sky background with looming trees, bare branches, leaning together
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WUT

Screenshot of a Temu product description: a pet wig, with a photo of a gray and white cat wearing an awkwardly perched bob-style wig with a middle part
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Finished reading: A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin 📚
Somehow I read Tombs of Atuan several years ago, but skipped this one, the first in the Earthsea series. As always, I love Le Guin’s writing, her focus on characters (i.e. character development is not central to the plot, but IS the plot), and her particular way of balancing specificity, detail, with trusting the reader to fill in the blanks. I think she gets it right every time.

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Finished reading: White Tears/Brown Scars by Ruby Hamad 📚
Everything I might say about this book seems inadequate, so I’ll just say this: If you, like me, are a white woman, you should read it.

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who’s doing newsletters via microblog? one of my projects for january is to move my newsletter. it’s either buttondown or microblog.

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We’ve tried making Big Tech into better tech for decades. That project has been an abject failure. To make tech better, we have to make it smaller—small enough that the bad ideas, carelessness and blind spots of individual tech leaders are their problems, not everyone else’s. We need lots of tech, run by lots of different kinds of people and organizations, and we need to make it as close to costless as possible to switch from one to the other.

Currently reading: The Internet Con by Cory Doctorow 📚

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Year in books for 2023

Trying this post again. Here are the books I finished reading in 2023. More than I realized.

Overall Favorites: Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow - all about love - The Wall - Debt - Remarkably Bright Creatures - The Bean Trees.

Haunting: Ghost Wall - Uncultured - I Am Nujood

Dumbest: The Silent Patient - Childhood’s End

Coziest: The Great Alone - Hobb’s Assassin books - The Cat Who Saved Books

The Silent Patient The World That We Knew Crystal Singer For the Wolf Lady Tan's Circle of Women Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk Binti I Am Pilgrim How to Read a Book The Great Alone All About Love Tiny Habits The Women's War Uncultured The Midwich Cuckoos The Obesity Code: Unlocking the Secrets of Weight Loss Leviathan Wakes (The Expanse Book 1) I Am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced Assassin's Quest (Farseer Trilogy, #3) The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate Royal Assassin Assassin's Apprentice The Color of Magic (Discworld, #1) The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership Shogun Childhood's End Station 11 Atomic Habits Bird Box Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less Girl, Interrupted Exile (Forgotten Realms: The Dark Elf Trilogy, #2; Legend of Drizzt, #2) Plum Island (John Corey Book 1) The Tombs of Atuan (2) (Earthsea Cycle) The House in the Cerulean Sea The Rook The Space Between Worlds Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore The Expert System's Brother Remarkably Bright Creatures East Wind: West Wind I Capture the Castle Cage of Souls The Nature of Fragile Things Fifty Words for Rain The Cat Who Saved Books Verity The Tethering The Bonesetter's Daughter The Glass Castle Star Eater City of Girls: A Novel The Bean Trees F*ck Feelings: One Shrink's Practical Advice for Managing All Life's Impossible Problems Star Mother The Girl in the Green Silk Gown Five Quarters of the Orange The Wall The Last of the Moon Girls The Priory of the Orange Tree The Desert and the Sea Do The Work! Stone of Tears Observer Scythe (Arc of a Scythe, #1) The Locked Door The One Ghost Wall Women, Food, And Hormones Keto-Green 16 The Book of Koli The Parrot and the Igloo: Climate and the Science of Denial Debt, Updated and Expanded The Clan of the Cave Bear (Earth's Children, #1) Lost Under Two Moons The Bell Jar The Ghost Files Ship of Magic Quicksilver
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I’m not usually ever excited about laundry but today I am. The laundry facilities in our apartment complex are finally working. After 5 months of hauling laundry across town I AM ECSTATIC to do laundry in my own building.

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Finished reading: Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver 📚
First book of 2024, and what a great one to start the year. Kingsolver has such a gift for creating a voice that pulls you in and will not let you go. This one was a really tough read in some parts, intense, unflinching. But I’m never sorry to go wherever Kingsolver is taking me.

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Great finds from favorite authors at my last used bookstore visit.

Stack of books on a desk including titles from Barbara Kingsolver, China Miéville, and Jeanette Walls
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🥾Haven’t posted photos from hikes lately, but they’re ongoing. I really enjoy cold weather hikes.

Orange mushrooms growing from a fallen log with a dusting of snow and a backdrop of brown leaves A close-up look at orange mushrooms growing out of a fallen log dusted with snow
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Last year I got an external monitor (after working exclusively on a laptop for 20 years, what was I thinking??) which changed my life honestly. For Christmas I got myself an EVEN BIGGER monitor. I cannot be stopped.

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Christopher Butler, The View from Here:

I have noticed that I am most happy — with myself, with my circumstances, with the world — when I am most withdrawn. That’s just me. I’m an introvert. But there’s a principle there for everyone, which is that when you are alone, you get to provide your primary sources for what matters. It’s not someone else’s voice that moves you, it’s yours.
Engaging online, for me, is an activity. It’s not a default.
…If I want to stay me, I can’t be there all the time. But if I want to grow, I can’t be disconnected forever. The balance has to be right.

Yup.

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2024!

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3 options when dealing with a problem:

  • Accept it. It is what it is. Out of your control. Quit resisting it, then. You’re wasting energy.
  • Take action. Make a decision. Do something. Quit waiting for someone else to fix it.
  • Be anxious. This is where you always land if you don’t choose 1 (or both) of the other 2 options