Just re-arranged the desk. It’ll probably change in six months.

Today:

• Rich people building analog spaces

Status: Tough getting up this morning, really only wanted to stay in bed and snoozing the alarm for 20 minutes probably made it worse. Long ago realized just getting up, even when I don’t want to, is far more productive for the rest of the day than snoozing. Alas I gave into the demon and feel it now.

Reading: Martyr!, Kaveh Akbar

Listening: Letting Apple Music play whatever it songs it wants to when the playlist I had going ended.

Spent some time last night mediating in a rest stop parking lot (the bus broke down).

Today: A rare Thursday trip to the office, which increasingly feels incredibly quiet and abandoned.

Status: I bought a new office chair a year or two ago to replace the one that was starting to lean. The new(ish) chair is far more comfortable than a $35 sale chair from Walmart has any business being, but it is still a $35 sale chair from Walmart. That fact really hits home the longer you sit in it, so

Reading: “If A Tree Falls,” Rosa Lyster

Listening:

It has it’s moments, but when it comes to modern protest songs from Bruce, 41 Shots is still at the top.

The problem with snow days is you always want more of them. You basically get a taste of retirement and then get slapped back to reality. It was nice while it lasted though.

Today: The shuttle lot was moved due to icy conditions expect that wasn’t communicated minus a small sign at the normal departure lot, so everyone, myself included, were scrambling far too early this morning.

Status: The beast of getting older has shown up for others around me and it’s a frustrating experience to confront it.

Reading: Martyr!, Kaveh Akbar. I checked this out as an ebook from the library and got a chapter in and quit. Checked it out as a physical book from the library’s new self-serve vending machine and it’s been a much more engaging book.

Listening:

Last Watched: Game of Thrones. I’ve promised for years that I’d watch GoT and never committed to it, mostly because I always found it kind of off-putting. I don’t mind the nudity or sex but a lot of it seems both unnecessary and problematic. I get it, we’re set in a fictional past and gender norms were far different, but I still find it deeply unsettling to have an older male writing about teenage marriages, rapes, and everything else. That being said…having finally seen the red wedding, I can see why people were so engaged by it.

The winter snow event turned out to be less than they were predicting right before it started, but it’s still enough to quiet the city for a few days.

Today: Organizing, cleaning, and the various small things I’ve had on lists for a while now. In particular wrangling Obsidian into something more functional and streamlined in a top priority.

Status: Shoveled the driveway yesterday so it doesn’t turn into an evolving ice sheet and now I’m feeling it today. With the move I stopped going to the gym and it’s days like this that it makes me regret it.

Reading: I’ve now finished both Blood in Winter and Gales of November, so I’m off the naughty list at the library. Both were good in their own ways. I will say, calling Gales of November the “untold story” of the Edmund Fitzgerald is a bit much. But it’s always a good marketing title.

Listening: Lots of Bob Weir, the Wolf Bros live recordings with Bobby’s gravelly voice meshes nicely with the coldness outside.

Last Watched: We were supposed to see Lord of the Rings in theaters for the 25th anniversary screenings, and while we saw Fellowship last week, we had to delay Two Towers and Return of the King until this weekend, which became watching them at home. Both were enjoyable, a fact really enhanced by the blu-rays of both being broken up in two. We watched the first half of both in the morning each day and the second half after lunch. Bring back intermissions is what I’m saying.

The winds made the bus feel like a ship at sea this morning. We’ve got cold and snow warnings everywhere, just need to get home before anything else hits.

Today:

• Vermont’s general stores
• Taming the Demon - Article from 2019 linked to in a recent Know Your Enemy podcast

Status: I spent yesterday cleaning up the email newsletter subscriptions. Feedbin helpfully allows you to subscribe to newsletters with custom addresses so I updated subscriptions to use one of six addresses (Substack, non-Substack paid subscriptions, NYT, Guardian, Guardian Sports, and General). Just need to make sure nothing got lost in the changes.

Reading: Gales of November, a history of the Edmund Fitzgerald sinking in a storm of the century is kind of apt right now.

Last Watched: The Testament of Ann Lee. I really wanted to love this movie and it has so much going for it. The costuming, the scenes, yet it falls so flat. It’s too long and too much of the movie cuts to either the same basic dance sequence or scene setting that could’ve been cut. By the third act all I could think about was the movie ending.