Culture
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Cruel World Music Festival
A month or so ago, Ted read that one of our favorite bands, ‘Til Tuesday, was reuniting for the Cruel World music festival in Los Angeles. They haven’t played together in decades, and with the all original lineup, it’s been about 35 years I think. We looked at the lineup for the concert, and it looked like a lot of fun, and the price wasn’t horrible, so we decided to go. We drove down on Friday, and came home on Sunday, so it was a quick trip for sure. We considered flying, but couldn’t find any flights that made money sense, especially since we would need to rent a car…
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Memorial Days
Memorial Days ~ Geraldine Brooks Fiction writer Geraldine Brooks was married to non-fiction writer Tony Horwitz for 35 years when, on Memorial Day in 2019, just before his 61st birthday, he suddenly collapsed on a sidewalk in Washington, DC and died in the middle of a tour for his most recent book. Memorial Days is her memoir of his death and the time following, and mostly alternates between the confusing and horrible days just after his death, and a trip she takes in 2023 to a tiny Australian island in order to grieve his loss in her own way, away from Western culture and its constructs. She is heartbroken, tired…
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On Unicorns
Last week I ranted a bit about how unicorns have horns, and do not have wings. I feel strongly about this. Both Maya and Suzanne mentioned the term ‘alicorn’ which I had never heard before, but which I like a lot more than lumping a singular horse god (Pegasus) into a mythical species. It would be like saying ‘a Poseidon’ is a species, or ‘a Zeus’. Anyway, I looked up alicorn, and found these admittedly pretty yet historically problematic examples. I’m working on opening my mind a smidge. I know, I said historically problematic about a mythical creature. I’m ridiculous. I love this statue, the ‘alicorn’ is beautiful and is…
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Playing with ChatGPT
The other day, a friend posted a ChatGPT generated picture of her horse as a human on Facebook. Immediately I wanted to see what Mulder would look like as a human, so I went to ChatGPT and tried to load a photo. You have to have an account (free). So I signed up for an account, but instead of loading a photo, I asked it to show me what a Keeshond would look like as a human. Chat asked me if I wanted male/female/androgynous, and I said androgynous. It asked for personality, and I said kind of loud. This is what I got. I love the grey hair, which matches…
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Spotted Photo Theme – Circles
OK, I’m squeaking in under the deadline here. iHanna has another Spotted Photo challenge, where the idea is that you go through your phone/iPad photos, and find pictures that match the theme she has given. You’re not out looking for that theme, not taking new photos, just curating the pictures you already have. I’m not a photographer by any means, so mine are not going to be gorgeous like some others, but here they are anyway. A lot of them are food. And I snuck in some memes, which is totally cheating and not cool at all. The Rose Window in Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, 2018. I really hope…
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Action is the Antidote to Anxiety
I saw a meme the other day that was 20 things you wish you had heard before, and the first item was this: “Action is the Antidote to Anxiety”. This is definitely true for me, and I think it’s a lot more helpful for my mental health to write postcards, attend rallies and demonstrations, exercise, and listen to music, than it is to doom scroll or listen to the news all day. So that’s what I’ve been doing. I wrote a lot (for me, I know some do more) of postcards to voters this week, for elections in Florida and Wisconsin. There were 2 protests this week in my town,…
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Miscellaneous Monday
This is my favorite thing that Maya has shoved in my face and made me watch recently. We had a good laugh. It starts with ‘my mom with the cat she didn’t want’, and we agreed, that’s Ted with Mulder. If you enjoyed this video, watch the next one, where mom makes kitty a beautiful dress and sings to her. Friday I slept until 7:15!!! I rarely am able to sleep that late, and it was DELICIOUS. I felt so well rested. I had a relaxing day, which included using a reverse vending machine to recycle some cans for CRV (California Redemption Value), which was kind of novel but a…
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Mobility
Mobility ~ Lydia Kiesling The year is 1998, the End of History. The Soviet Union is dissolved, the Cold War is over, and Bunny Glenn is an American teenager in Azerbaijan with her Foreign Service family. Through Bunny’s eyes we watch global interests flock to the former Soviet Union during the rush for Caspian oil and pipeline access, hear rumbles of the expansion of the American security state and the buildup to the War on Terror. We follow Bunny from adolescence to middle age—from Azerbaijan to America—as the entwined idols of capitalism and ambition lead her to a career in the oil industry, and eventually back to the scene of…
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Focus on What You Can Change
In April of 2020, my darling friend Marilee and I were commiserating about the stress of the world. About how suddenly fraught it felt to get groceries. How isolating to be trapped at home. Marilee and her husband Paul have a business, Spotlight Sojourns, which requires them to spend a lot of time traveling around the world. No travel, no leaving the house, was stressful. Paul made the Venn diagram above, and Marilee shared it with me. I was reminded of Paul’s diagram by Anne’s recent post, where she shared a quote that I liked a lot: “Caring about everything is a disaster. Caring about nothing is also a disaster.…
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Wednesday Randomness
YOU GUYS!!! I am HAPPY to report to you that my company has changed their mind and the In Office 2x a Week Mandate has been cancelled. YAY! For those of you who are new here due to NaBloPoMo, I have worked from home since 2006, both at my prior job and my current one. There is an office about 30 miles from here, which can take anywhere from 25 to 90 minutes by car each way, and there is no public transportation that would take less than 100 minutes and involve several transfers. My company decided that it was time to get people ‘back in the office’ 2 days…
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Finding Light
Back when Maya was little, she was a big fan of the singer Jewel. She was a toddler, and would carry pictures of Jewel that we printed from our computer around. She loved her songs, and thought everyone with long blonde hair was Jewel (at the time I had short hair, so no, I did not have Jewel hair.) One of my very favorite Jewel songs is Hands, which gave me support through September 11th, and the many times I have felt helpless since then. I’ve been so angry since the election, and have felt myself pulled toward despair. I am angry and bitter, and I do not want to…
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Annie Bot and Kairos
Annie Bot ~ Sierra Greer Annie and Doug live in New York City. Her singular goal is to keep him happy, which is not always easy. She cooks and cleans, but not to his exacting specifications. She is always ready for sex, eager to please him in any possible way. Eventually he gets tired of the fact that she doesn’t keep the apartment clean enough, so he brings in a maid, with whom he also sometimes has sex. Annie isn’t jealous though. Annie is a robot. Doug has set her into auto-didactic mode, and she is learning about herself and the world in which she lives. She is starting to…
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Friday Randomness
Just a few random things I’m thinking about today. First off, while I appreciate the humor of the joke above, I am a firm believer in the Oxford Comma, so the first line bugs me. Enough of that. On to randomness. Kyria posted about things she has learned, and one of them was about how she uses Feedly. I don’t use Feedly, but my blog does have an option when you comment, that you can get an email if someone replies to your comment. However, I have heard (from Ally I think) that it does not work. Color me pleased to read in Kyria’s comments that you need a plugin…
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Miscellaneous Monday
This is going to be one of those random posts, just things I’m thinking about. (I mean, that is the name of my blog, right?) First I will dip my toes into politics a bit, and say that I am feeling MUCH more hopeful about the possibility of no Trump presidency than I was a couple of weeks ago. Ever since Biden’s horrible debate, I’ve been so stressed out. I think he’s been a very good President, and doesn’t get enough credit for his accomplishments. I honestly doubt that he could put in another 4 years, though, it’s a hell of a job. But we have a whole system set…
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Miscellaneous Monday
Many of you know Elisabeth’s blog, Optimistic Musings of a Pessimist. Elisabeth is such a thoughtful writer, I love her blog and am ever thankful to San for her organized NaBloPoMo for introducing so many of us to each other. Elisabeth sometimes has guest posts, and when she asked me if I would be interested, of course I said, Yes! So pop on over. Speaking of Elisabeth, she recently wrote about ice cream, and mentioned how much she loved the pistachio gelato she had in Spain. I decided I wanted to try some pistachio gelato with whole pistachios included, so I bought the Talanti brand, and it’s delicious! Is it…
