Book Reviews – February 2019 – “It is the product of an unimaginative girl, preoccupied with herself, and continually splashing about in the shallow waters of her own narrow psyche.”

By | February 11, 2019
13 Comments

Three to get married by Fulton J. Sheen A play about three daughters getting married. A comedy, I think. Their father is a priest and marries them off quickly and rather absurdly.  I don’t read many plays. This one doesn’t convince me to try more. I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the… Read More »

Colombia Bucket List

By | February 4, 2019
30 Comments

I had this idea to give up my apartment in Denver and go meander around South America because it started to snow in Denver and I hate the snow. Some friends from the States were hanging out in Colombia for a while and I finagled an invitation to join them. I texted friends who live… Read More »

Updating my Chart – 2018

By | January 15, 2019
32 Comments

The year ended! 2018 retired and it’s time to update my chart! But, first, if you don’t mind, a stroll through history. History lesson I was reading through my old journals and I came across some fun stuff I think you’ll like seeing. Or maybe you won’t. I don’t know what you like anymore. How… Read More »

Dahee Vada recipe

By | January 4, 2019
8 Comments

I’m still alive.* I’m visiting my parents in Illinois and I wrote down a recipe that I’m never going to use because it involves deep frying and that’s scary. But maybe you’ll use it. And I still like the idea of knowing theoretically how to make it. Dahee is just yogurt in Hindi. I don’t… Read More »

Book Reviews – December 2018 – “Some days I think I’m not going to make it. I will have a hot flash, a car crash. I will have a heart attack. I will jump out the window.”

By | December 3, 2018
13 Comments

Nanowrimo is over. How’d you do? I wrote 28,000 words, which is not an entire book, but it’s more than half a book and I’m going to keep writing until I create something I don’t hate. Fiction is hard. Papillon by Henri Charriere Autobiography of a French guy sent to prison on the northern coast of South… Read More »

Book Reviews – November 2018 “If you don’t know how much you need, the default easily becomes: more.”

By | November 2, 2018
16 Comments

The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason So boring. Spend less than you earn. Invest the difference. Learn to money. Blah blah blah. You know all this stuff already. The writing was painful and I don’t understand why everyone likes this book. Invisible Countries: Journeys to the Edge of Nationhood by Joshua Keating The author… Read More »

On meditation

By | October 25, 2018
42 Comments

Every single self-help book that I’ve ever read recommends meditation. Oh, I guess mine doesn’t. Dammit. But anyway, I finally took everyone’s advice a couple of months ago and started meditating daily for 24 minutes. Yeah, 24 minutes is an odd amount of time, but I read that suggestion in a book and the number spoke… Read More »

Vote

By | October 18, 2018
31 Comments

Confession you already know: I haven’t paid much mind to the news for the last two years. Reality is scary. We live in a terrifying place full of horrible people doing awful things and a universe governed by chance that doesn’t know me from a rock from an electron from Ursa Major. I don’t like spending my time in… Read More »

Anyone doing NaNoWriMo?

By | October 11, 2018
22 Comments

Have you heard of National Novel Writing Month? The idea is to write a 50,000-word book in the thirty days of November. You do it as the same time as a bunch of people to give yourself some accountability. That’s the National bit of the title. The resultant novel doesn’t have to win an Oscar.… Read More »

‘Book Reviews – September 2018: Part II – “a story is a letter the author writes to himself, to tell himself things that he would be unable to discover otherwise.”

By | September 21, 2018
11 Comments

Ever notice that you can fly through a 500-page fiction novel in two days, but it can take over a month to read a 200-page nonfiction novel? Fiction is easy because you don’t take a lot of notes and can just enjoy the story. Maybe that approach is why I can’t write fiction. Thanks for… Read More »