I got through a lot of audiobooks and ebooks, which makes the length of a book a total abstraction. This means it is odd to go to a bookstore and see a physical novel that is nearly cube-shaped instead of book shaped. The book is so long the spine is near equal to page width.

Painted an army of goblins this evening. It has been quite a while since I've painted my minis.

When the selkie returned to the beach, a man was holding her sealskin. "Is this yours?" he asked. "May I borrow it?" "You want to be a seal?" "No, but when I take it off, I'll be a woman, right?" "My heart, you already are," the selkie said. "That skin is mine, but I can help you find yours."

The last two artists that I have been desperately wanting to see live are gonna be on tour in Minneapolis in October and I have tickets to both shows and I am squeeing alone in the mead-hall. OMG. OMG. OMG.

God damn it, I love these books.

We get some sort of brownie points at work for using Copilot. It is pretty good at writing summaries that are close, but also so wrong that it does get me to "someone is so wrong on the internet" ragey write that I have actually made some decent progress today.

How the fuck does America fix anything, let alone everything the Supreme Court fucked up in the past 2 years?

Re-listening to a favorite audiobook. This series is an assortment of good, kind, loving people, dealing with a horrible war and a world changing shift and with this much grief there is so much good. It is magic to have both so palpable.

Got to love the mid afternoon summer storms that make it darker inside at 3:45pm than it is at 9:00pm.

I so loathe those Angie's List ads about finding someone for one skilled labor, and insisting they should be responsible for a completely different skilled labor. It lacks consent. It de-skills highly skilled trades. It says my money trumps your autonomy. My opinion trumps you trained knowledge.

I went to a ballet class for the first time in about 4 years. I felt stiff and awkward. It was a bit faster than I wanted. At the end I asked myself, did i have fun if I was a pink elephant. Then I asked was I a pretty allosaurous? The answer to both was yes.

They warn you once you turn 40, birds get way more interesting. They don't warn you that once you turn 40 soup becomes a pretty satisfying lunch. Before 40, soup and a sandwich can be a lunch. After 40 the soup can be enough.

Yay. I finished reading an eyeball book. All it took was to be done with that damn lit search.

I may have started buying vinyl records. I also may have bought a new all in one record player because it was significantly less expensive than the speaker options I was looking at and rated better than the decent midrange 1980s turntable I have.

I am so amused that live music has become a thing I am really into. I am into new bands and indie bands and small venues, so most of these shows have tickets prices under $40. I just splurged for $50 tickets. I have also splurged to travel for a couple of shows. This has become a highlight for me.

OMG!! Paris Paloma is coming to First Ave in October!!!!!! I am so effing excited for this show.

Of all the things one can buy online, shopping for, and pre-paying for parking for an event really is a purchase that makes my day better. Knowing in advance that pulling into the big lot at this gate is $6, and that gate is $10, and that other gate is $18 feels like a massive win.

It is really frustrating to do ethics and confidentiality training in a time of illiberalism and corporate mass surveillance sold to anyone who pays.

I had a really good time at the Edina Art Fair on Saturday. I bought some art and some earrings. I went into a store that I used to get catalogs for, and wanted to check out. I was looking at the sports bras for future reference, and was wyte-woman-splained bra sizes. Still irked.

As a child a container of peach nectar was one of the most decadent drinks one could have. I recently put a can of peaches in my blender for chia seed pudding. This is the recipe for peach nectar without extra sugar or straining. Why has it taken me 40 years to rediscover this delight.

It has been a long time since I've had a sad song on repeat, but finding a tearjerker you can't stop listening to is a strangely wonderful thing.

Note to self: It is summer therefore sleeves are totally for chumps, and I work from home and would rather have the windows open than the AC on, but tank tops do look kind of weird on Teams calls. I need to keep sleeves at my desk and remember to put them on.

Bragging about how someone habitually doesn't sleep is not a good thing. It is not a sign is superiority, but of cognitive decline, possible meth use, and pending death.

Matt Dinniman better be, and remain a good human, and forever be the man Princess Donut expects him to be, because DCC is giving a bit of He Who Cannot Be Named book series fandom vibes and I don't want to need to deal with another crisis of good art/evil artist.

I am starting to think the 3 interactions I need to make with an account to block the account is feeding me more content like what I am blocking than it is helping to remove it.

I just replaced the screen and spline on my front screen door and it looks so good and I am so proud of myself.

I don't do health provider surveys. I just noticed I got 6 email, plus text message and phone calls, from at least 2 different companies to review the exact same visit. Why are there survey harassment about a standard procedure?

Now that pickup trucks have gotten so big and so tall, those weird cars with pickup beds are starting to look almost sane. Loading 10 40lb bags of mulch into a Santa Cruz is easier than the dude moving the same mulch over his head into his modern sized pickup bed.

Damn. Yesteryear is mean. I'm gonna finish it, but 4 chapters in it is so mean.

Got to remember to give the Gen z pop princess stars a listen to. These young women are more independent and alt and talented than the early 2000s ex Micky Mouse Club pop. Gen Alpha tween girls are brilliant too, so if they like it all the more reason to listen.

The musicians canceling all seem to have the same story. They were offered a gig at a State Fair. It was probably pretty well paid, so they were thinking something like the MN State Fair, or the Iowa State Fair. The politics of 4H & cattle judging and the quilting judges. I trust they were lied to

Vulture capitalist bought the vegan mock meat companies several years ago, and the gutted all their offerings while insulting vegetarians and bitching about crazy growth goal. Now beef is stupidly expensive. It would be a great time for the mock meats to be available like they were 4 years ago.

I am a sucker for tragic love songs, and damn did Sophia Isella nail it with Evergreen Soldier. youtu.be/dvyeN4woJsY?...

When on a tour bus from London to Wales the drive told the quip that 100 years ago there were horses that took one through the city and top speed was 15 mph. Now there are cars and due to traffic the speed through the city is 15 mph. 15mph is a normal speed for a bike/ e-bike. Expect bikes.

When I was a tween in the late 80s I rode my bike everywhere in St. Paul. I rode on the streets and it didn't feel like danger. I passenger on a motorcycle in the early 2000s and got my own motorcycle in 2012. Now I am scared to ride my e-bike. I know it is because vehicles are so much bigger.

Time blindness from running early so I have time to do one more task which easily becomes 7 more tasks which means I am now 24 minutes late is so weird. It is embarrassing to be late, but damn I got a lot done in 35 minutes.

I am so mad at the Google replacement of the fitbit app. None of the things I used the fitbit app to track are available as tiles. It has step count and that is it. It doesn't with my other apps at all. It won't stop asking me about AI coaching. It wants me to do a ton of food logging. Nope.

On a whim i added a can of butterbeans to my caprese salad. Turns out this makes one of my favorite summertime i dont want to cook meals even better. Will totally do again.

I camp at group campsites often. This weekend's camping had the absolute best group camp site neighbors. Large groups. Tons of kids. Tons of kids on bikes. Brilliant gentle parenting. Perfect quiet time rule following. A really great holiday weekend camping experience.

It is one thing to have ones nation fall in to dictatorship due to a cunning charismatic conman. There is an unexplainable level of shame to watch ones nation fall into dictatorship by a dying demented old man that shits himself on TV while his syncopant watch and get taken by the shit covered moron

Inspirational lectures delivered by 80 year olds, no matter what their amazing acomplishment that lays claim to the Inspirational pulpit are not cool in 2026. Education means something different now. Focus means something different now. The comic asides are sexist, homophobic, or full of ick.

The fashion model runway strut is peculiar but trained. It makes one wonder why it even matters and why it is so important in runway casting. Then you see Tom Brady bro waddle in leather for Gucci and the need for the graceful runway strut makes so much sense.

Sometimes full circles are weird. Once upon a time digital data storage was so precious that 8 digit dates were avoided. Then data got super cheap it was taken for granted. Now while you might have a terabyte in your laptop, you OS won't allow anything to be save locally. It all goes to the cloud

It is kind of weird just how much 1990s nostalgia I've heard in the past month. A lot has been with strangers in person. Yesterday I had a 20 minute convo with a man who was missing Pop's Arcade and the indoor garden in DT St. Paul, and Dayton's.

A month ago I was on vacation in the UK. My phone maintained a charge all day. I come home. I get an email from the marketing department of my cell carrier that my phone is paid off (which was wrong. I still have payments.) Now my phone doesn't stay charged all day. Use or forced obsolescence?

2026 is doing a stellar job of proving to me that there is no God.

Does the activity that is supposed to keep you young sound bougie? Wine? Art? Leasiure time in general? These things take money, and it is money and the accesses it buys that keeps one young.

So he fell asleep in front of all the women wearing shades of purple, and then he woke up with that really exaggerated facial drooping? That is all the same event right? Did he have a stroke or TIA on TV?

Under-babied means "rich capitalists are running out of potential slaves."

Homeownership is not for the faint of heart or the weak of wallet. $4500 to get rid of the squirrels are living in my roof. And because they entered by eating the soffit around my electrical flag they get to live rent free for 2 more weeks before we can get a scheduled power shut off.