Category: <span>Microblog</span>

Category: Microblog

Short updates as opposed to full-length blog posts.

I’m here, standing before my ending. I’m shooting to use all this month’s NaNoWriMo energy to push through and finish Stars Fall Out.

Since I’ve been going through the draft and tying off loose ends, I thought I’d finally share some short excerpts as I come across them, and as I write them.

This is from a scene in which my character is interrogated for reasons unknown by the Imperial Oneiromancer Master Zanhrori, although she doesn’t realize this at the time–his demeanor doesn’t match his sinister reputation.

“How do you think you did?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I was kind of… baffled by the whole thing.”

“Baffled,” he said, scrawling the word on the paper underneath my name, as though it were a general description of my state of being. “Excellent. Did you know that a baffle is also a type of dessert?”

“No. I did not.”

“There’s a meringue component.” The man sat back in his chair, appearing distant for a moment. As though contemplating dessert, despite the early morning hour.

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I looked up some Charles Darwin quotes for a second Judgmental Advice Column post. Darwin said some wise words in his life, but this is what I found the most relatable:

I have tried lately to read Shakespeare, and found it so intolerably dull that it nauseated me.
Charles Darwin

I’m the only person I know with an English degree who doesn’t enjoy Shakespeare. He’s not my bag. (But, I’ve also realized in hindsight that going to school for English isn’t the best choice I’ve made in my life.)

However, Shakespeare created hundreds of words that we still use, and that’s awesome. I remember learning that he coined “ambiguous.” Athough I haven’t been able to confirm that now, Merriam-Webster does say that the word dates back to the 16th century.

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“…hold on to this box, lest the pumpkin goblins grab them all.”

Thus reads the warning at the end of the side-of-box copy on Trader Joe’s Pumpkin-O’s.

Of course, I wrote a book called Pumpkin Goblins, so this was hilarious to me. My partner and I discussed whether we thought the pumpkin goblins would actually steal someone’s Pumpkin O’s. I said, no, they wouldn’t. They’re professionals. They won’t mistake a cereal for a real pumpkin. Pumpkin sense goes deeper than eyesight.

He said, yes, they would, but not when they’re on duty.

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The Little Engine That Could is female! And so is the red engine who breaks down on her way to bring toys and food to children. I didn’t remember this book well, so I was surprised to find this out when I started reading it to my toddler.

Incidentally, all three engines who refuse to help are self-important dudes. Well, one of them is actually an old, tired dude. His depression-era exhaustion makes me sad.

It makes me wonder if there is an intentional message hidden in the Dude-Engines’ unwillingness to help with the female task of making sure children are taken care of.

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The president of the college where I work and the governor of the state were supposed to come through my office today. One of my first thoughts when I heard they would be coming was basically, “I’d better make sure to have my best playlist on.”

BECAUSE THEY ARE IMPORTANT PEOPLE.

And because they would notice that? Sure. Sure, they would.

They turned out not to be the actual visitors, but I still think putting on your best playlist is good etiquette.

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https://www.missinformationblog.com/neelys-homemade-bbq-sauce/?m

I needed a quick bbq sauce recipe that didn’t involve chopping onions. My eyes have become sensitive to the point that chopping half an onion means I need to flee two rooms away for a ten-minute crying break.

The only change I made to this one was to replace the Tabasco sauce with sambal oolek, and quadruple it.

After I made that change, I looked up both hot sauces’ values on the Scoville heat scale. Since I think of Tabasco as a more vinegary sauce, I was surprised that it has a higher value than sambal oolek.

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“If I listen to a playlist of children’s new wave songs about trucks at work, will anybody notice?” That’s the question my partner and I have been wondering about (more me because of the nature of my job) now that our kid is obsessed with this song about a cement mixer. Like a disease, it has spread to everyone around her. We all have it stuck in our heads. It goes round and round and round and round…

If this had existed when I was in high school, it’s exactly the kind of thing I would’ve binged-watched just because it’s weird.

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You know the scene in Avatar: The Last Airbender when Azula goes to recruit Tai Lee the acrobat for her elite team of fighters by having the ringmaster release all the animals and setting the net on fire?

I think that’s what a 401k is?

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRUUwhrAutY

Another great Tegan and Sara song. They came out with a new album a few days ago, and I’ve been binging on their older songs in anticipation all month. Also because my toddler took a liking to them, and always asks for “Sara” now.

The instrumentals of “Shock to my System” remind me of Depeche Mode.

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As per Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics, I tried imagining the breath as a wave moving in and out.

The wave crashed into my lungs, and I couldn’t imagine it out again. It choked me.

Looks like I’ll be sticking with the sound-based meditation that’s already been working for me.

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“The dreaded clear-your-head myth is responsible for untold numbers of aborted meditation careers.”

–Dan Harris, Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics

That includes me!

But I learned from the book that I’ve been doing mindfulness meditation for four years without realizing it. I just thought of it as “That thing where I focus on the sounds all around me until I can map my place in the world by sound.” I was aware this had a mindfulness component, but it was just something I started doing in my kayak one day. It helped me to feel some peace when my grandma was in her final days.

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