annie's microblog

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.

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.

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

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 📚

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

2024!

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

We have a cute (reseller) Lego store in our downtown area. I learned you can rent the entire store out for a couple of hours, reasonable price. I wasn’t thinking about hosting a holiday party but I might have to throw a Lego party now for me and my friends. Maybe I’ll let my kids come too.

2 good reminders from my boss, on a team call yesterday:

“What we don’t do matters as much as what we do.”

“Often what helps isn’t adding more but really using what we already have.”

Related: In September, after 20+ years of freelancing, I went full-time with a longtime + favorite client (Teamup Calendar). I’m loving it. It’s really nice to focus. It still feels funny to say I have a “boss.”

Also also. There was a wrestler on an opposing team who didn’t have legs. No legs. Amazing to watch him holding his own, wrestling these kids with all their limbs. Then he won a match and the place exploded. His absolute roar of accomplishment and his team’s joy. Something I will not forget.