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cygnoir.netFiction, foibles, and fountain pens from a black swan with digital wings. Posts about writing, books, public libraries, community, games, analog delight, and food.cygnoir.net cygnoir.net Fiction, foibles, and fountain pens from a black swan with digital wings. Posts about writing, books, public libraries, community, games, analog delight, and food. Hello About Now Photos Writing Reading Archive Subscribe Oct 28, 2024 ∞ If you’re looking for a NaNoWriMo alternative this year, I recommend TrackBear. No data harvesting, tracking, or AI. I imported my old projects from NaNoWriMo into TrackBear so I haven’t lost any statistics. And if competition’s your thing, you can create leaderboards. Oct 19, 2024 ∞ At today’s Micro.blog Analog Tools meetup we discussed some of the reasons why we choose digital over analog, and vice versa. 🖋️📓🗂️ We’ll meet again in November. Let @jessekelber and me know if you’d like to join us! Oct 13, 2024 ∞ 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 @jessekelber or me know. Oct 1, 2024 ∞ Today is the first day I’ve felt better in over a week. I still can’t taste or smell much, but now have a general sense of “banana” or “tea” while consuming those things. I’m resting whenever possible, and I’m so grateful for a supportive partner and workplace. Sep 24, 2024 ∞ Despite wearing my Flo Mask Pro in airports and on planes, and a KN95 in other public spaces, I now have Covid. Recently boosted, so it’s not as bad as it could be, but I’m still so sick. Starting Paxlovid tonight. Be careful out there. Sep 19, 2024 ∞ 433 miles on the road today. 🚗 Grateful for the ability to travel to be with family; yearning for a high-speed rail system. Sep 18, 2024 ∞ All charms, no luck. Spotted in the local supermarket. (Did not purchase. Was tempted.) Sep 15, 2024 ∞ 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 @jessekelber or me know. Sep 15, 2024 ∞ 2024 Week 37 Notes: R&R Look at this absolutely good girl: my canine sister, Willa. Concentrating on Rest, relaxation, and quality time with loved ones! We’re visiting family in Pennsylvania this week and attending a wedding in Kentucky on Friday. When packing, I restricted myself to three notebooks and three pens because I tend to overpack and then immediately regret as I am schlepping around a stationery store in my backpack. Cultivating ✍🏻 Drafting two (very different) stories. I’m looking forward to time off work to let my creative writing brain percolate. 🥘 Food I made that was yummy: Pork chops in garlic mushroom sauce, with mashed potatoes and salad on the side. I am not a huge fan of pork chops, but I got them in our CSA box, so I looked for a recipe that incorporated other things I am a huge fan of, like garlic and mushrooms. 🇮🇹 When my brain is full of Italian, I switch over to music lessons in Duolingo. It’s fun! 💼 No. Consuming 🖋️ Only three pens means only three inks: De Atramentis Charles Dickens, Sailor Manyo Hinoki, and Robert Oster Sydney Lavender. 🎧 I heard “White Gloves” by Khruangbin for the first time in a while and forgot how much I enjoy their music. 🎙 Recently FunkyPlaid and I tried to watch the show “Kaos” and lasted about ten minutes. I had listened to the Pop Culture Happy Hour episode on the show and thought I might enjoy it. 🎲 No time for games this week. I’m looking forward to some Puzzmo! 📺 We started watching “My Brilliant Friend”, the adaptation of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan quartet, which I read last year and loved. 📚 What I’m reading and quoting: “The Mountain in the Sea” by Ray Nayler: “How we see the world matters — but knowing how the world sees us also matters.” Some links I love Tracy Durnell’s latest weeknotes post. I’m not even mad at how it makes me feel like I’ve done absolutely nothing in comparison. 😂 Neither Elon Musk Nor Anybody Else Will Ever Colonize Mars (Albert Burneko) Firefly Atlas: I’m eager to see fireflies while I’m here, so I’m doing some research. One more thing I was a bit anxious to travel during a COVID surge, so in addition to getting the new vaccine as soon as I could, I invested in a Flo Mask Pro to wear in airports, planes, and any other crowded spaces. I’m so glad I did; it was very comfortable to wear all day, once I got used to how it felt. My glasses didn’t fog up at all, which is a minor miracle. I did get some looks (you know the kind) but that was a small price to pay for a greater chance of avoiding Covid and/or Long Covid. I only saw a handful of other people masked. Sep 8, 2024 ∞ 2024 Week 36 Notes: Planners Gotta Plan The new 2024-25 COVID vaccines are available, so FunkyPlaid and I got ours on Friday. Because we went to a pharmacy, my health insurance didn’t cover them, so I had to use funds from my HRA. (We could have waited until our medical provider had appointments, but that would have been late September or early October — and with travel coming up soon, I was unwilling to wait.) It is bizarre and enraging to see how agencies supposedly dedicated to public health are flailing in this moment. I’m extremely fortunate to have a job that provides health insurance, an HRA, and sick leave, and I can afford KN95 masks and rapid antigen tests. What about people who are uninsured or underinsured? I know it’s a bummer to read this, but it’s a bigger bummer to try to survive during yet another COVID surge. Let’s take care of our health, for ourselves and for our communities. Concentrating on This time of year is Planner Season, when the 2025 planners are released and people like me (and maybe you too) gobble them up and then spend the rest of this year hoping that next year we have lives exciting enough to plan. Ever the optimist, my planner line-up for 2025 is: For my personal planner, daily log, habit tracker, reading journal, and commonplace book, I’ll be trying the Sterling Ink Common Planner in their new N1 size, which fits inside a Traveler’s Notebook. I’m currently using a Hobonichi Weeks, which is 95mm x 186mm; the N1 size is 110mm x 210mm. For my work planner, the Wonderland 222 A5 Weekly Planner has been working well for me this year, so I’ll try it again in 2025. Cultivating ✍🏻 Drafting two stories, one for performance (I hope 🤞🏻) and one for a collection. 🧶 Still knitting that gift for someone. 🥘 Food I made that was yummy: Peperonata with peppers from a coworker’s CSA box, plus peppers from our own CSA box. CSA boxes are great! Gluten-free vegan apple crisp. I am not a huge fan of apples in their primary form; I prefer them as a cinnamon delivery device. So this recipe from Minimalist Baker, apples chopped up and baked with oats and sugar? That works. Sliced heirloom tomatoes on toast spread thinly with mayonnaise. Truffle salt if you’re feeling fancy. (I was.) 🇮🇹 Learning Italian with Duolingo. 💼 The workweek was short because of the holiday on Monday, but also long because of everything. I’m still trying to create better boundaries around that. Consuming 🖋️ One of my planner pals shared a sample of Bungukan Kobayashi’s Yagentoshiro Reflex Violet, a dusky blue with iridescent purple shimmer. 🎧 “girlfriend” by Hemlocke Springs is on repeat on my brain radio. 🎙 You don’t need to be a Rolling Stones fan to enjoy the “I Can’t Get No Legal Action” episode of the Judge John Hodgman podcast. 🎲 Still working my way through the crossword puzzle books I’ve hoarded and enjoying the daily Cross|word on Puzzmo. Also, Minute Cryptic is quite humbling. 📺 One last episode of “Fargo” to go, then we’ll start the latest season of “Slow Horses”. 📚 What I’m reading and quoting: “The Mountain in the Sea” by Ray Nayler: “The great and terrible thing about humankind is simply this: we will always do what we are capable of.” Some links From “What would an adequate COVID response look like?” by Julia Doubleday: Right now, state representatives are deliberately avoiding mention of COVID, while propagandizing the safety of infection and/or the end of the pandemic by refusing to mask. It is hard to imagine how successful a pandemic response might be if public officials were actually trying to end the pandemic. We quite literally have public health and political and media figures working to hide three pieces of critical information: public knowledge of the virus, public knowledge of mitigation measures that would reduce viral spread, and public knowledge of the severity of the virus (which would motivate desire to reduce viral spread). Other links: NaNoWriMo Shits The Bed On Artificial Intelligence (Chuck Wendig) Why Goblin Mode Is the New Self-Care Routine (Cleveland Clinic) 2024 Winners of the 17th Annual iPhone Photography Awards One more thing Today I’m journaling about this quote from Seneca: “Life, if well lived, is long enough.” Sep 7, 2024 ∞ One day I will see this mop bucket and not immediately start singing Ready for the World’s 1985 synth-funk hit. Today is not that day. Sep 4, 2024 ∞ Our first time growing heirloom tomatoes, and the Japanese Black Trifele is a winner. 🍅 Sweet and smoky taste with a silky texture. Sep 2, 2024 ∞ 2024 Week 35 Notes: Gotta Restart Somewhere In an effort to reclaim some of my joy from the gaping maw of existential dread, I’ve restarted my weeknotes. Concentrating on Running (again)! I miss training for and running races, so I’ve revisited the Couch to 5k program to regain that level of fitness. Cultivating ✍🏻 Outlining a short story for a collection I saw and got very excited about. 🧶 I’m knitting a gift for someone. Shh! 🥘 Food I made that went better than I expected: The Best Crispy Roast Potatoes Ever: With a name like that, I expected to be disappointed. I was not. Caprese Salad: With homegrown tomatoes and basil. Yep. Corn Salad with Tomatoes, Feta, and Mint: Our homegrown tomatoes' delicate flavor got lost in the jumble, but it was a magnificent jumble nonetheless. 🇮🇹 On a Duolingo streak, aiming for basic Italian fluency by the end of 2024. 💼 I told someone recently that I haven’t figured out how to fully disengage from my job so I can recover energy for my not-job self. Meredith Farkas has written extensively about the normalization of overwork (her blog is excellent) and I read each of her posts with both vindication and despondency. Consuming 🖋️ Rediscovering my affection for Pilot Iroshizuku Yama-Budo: a bold magenta with gold sheen. 🎧 Chappell Roan’s “Good Luck, Babe” is on repeat on my brain radio. 🎙 I loved the episode about misinformation and disinformation from the “Enthusiastic Encouragement and Dubious Advice” podcast. 🎲 I haven’t spent much time playing boardgames or puzzles lately, but I’ve rediscovered my love of crossword puzzles. I prefer doing them offline, but I also enjoy the daily Cross|word on Puzzmo. 📺 We’re almost caught up with all of “Fargo” now. I enjoyed the second season the most. 📚 Books I’ve finished reading and notable quotes: “Big Time” by Ben H. Winters: “But maybe people trying hard and not worrying so much about the consequences is how things actually change. And, conversely, maybe everybody just doing what they’re supposed to do is how the rich stay rich and the poor stay poor and nothing changes.” “Liars” by Sarah Manguso: “Why are you so angry? My husband frequently asked me why I was so much angrier than other women. It always made me smile. I was exactly as angry as every other woman I knew. It wasn’t that we’d been born angry; we’d become women and ended up angry.” “Rouge” by Mona Awad: “If she did ask, I would say it was grief. The deepest grief. I know she would accept that as an answer. No one knows what’s inside grief. Anything at all can be there.” Some links From This Election Will Determine the Fate of Libraries by Amanda Jones: So let’s tell the truth: Librarians are community helpers who provide resources for all. And the rapid spread of misinformation and hate towards librarians on social media platforms, and by talking heads in the media, is causing chaos in our nation’s libraries. It’s also cause for a rise in anti-library legislation by extremists. Other links: Long Covid Knocked a Million Americans Off Their Career Paths What It’s Like Being COVID-Conscious in 2024 How these local libraries grapple with the cost of safety, amid ongoing security incidents One more thing September is planner season, and I’ll be mixing it up for 2025. No more Hobonichi Weeks! 😱 I plan to write a whole other post about this soon. P.S. This took me ages to finish, and it lifted my mood quite a bit. Time well spent. Sep 2, 2024 ∞ Social media timelines stress me out. One of the best things about Micro.blog is the ability to subscribe to an RSS feed of posts from the people I follow. I don’t have to stay anxious to stay informed. Aug 31, 2024 ∞ Moody grapes. 🍇 I’ve been in quite a mood lately, or set of moods, none of them particularly good. Struggling to meet expectations and responsibilities while not sinking into self-pity. Aug 27, 2024 ∞ During my workday, I try to take short breaks outside away from everyone so I can take my mask off for a minute. I spotted this broken mirror on one of my breaks. Aug 18, 2024 ∞ Finished watching: 📺 The Umbrella Academy (2019) - ★★★☆☆ All in all, a mixed bag with extremely fun moments. I understand why time travel had to be a part of this story, but I can’t shut off the parts of my brain that try to figure it out. Aug 18, 2024 ∞ This feeling of chasing the car of my own life as it speeds away. Slow it down so I can catch up. Aug 18, 2024 ∞ Yesterday’s Micro.blog Analog Tools meetup featured the intersection of analog and digital, archiving for retrieval, and much more! 🖋️📓🗂️ We’ll meet again in September. Let @jessekelber and me know if you’d like to join us! Aug 10, 2024 ∞ The reminder for the next Micro.blog Analog Tools Meetup has been emailed, now co-hosted by @jessekelber! 🖋️📓🗂️ If you’re not on this list and would like to join us, let Jesse or me know. Older Posts → Copyright © 1998-2024 Halsted M. Bernard · ☑️ Hosted by Micro.blog. Powered by Tiny Theme. Designed with ♥ by Matt Langford.enen1730442181https://cygnoir.net

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