Pertinent to my Interests

Documentary reviews, body neutrality, parenting, Jupiter, piano, cats, European history, ghosts, rodents, the collapse of civilization, and if this goes on long enough I'll probably end up cataloguing my entire smushed penny collection.

Month: January 2024

  • Poetry 101

    Despite the content of my previous post, I actually do not like poetry. Poetry annoys me. Use full sentences, damnit! Paragraphs and punctuation are here to serve us, not constrain us. I often read poetry with my eyes narrowed in skepticism; smushing random words together with no structure does not make you insightful. But… Every…

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  • Poetry 1

    Yesterday, a new experience:a painting made me cry.Three vibrant, precious blue eggssurrounded by a nest of chaos,grey, brown, jagged. My instinct to protect those little eggsbecause I always find them on the ground in the summer,broken,alone. Art doesn’t usually make me cry (or want to write poetry)but lately it’s all right there at the surface:joy,…

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  • Updates on my previous post

    OneI went roller skating with my youngest son on Saturday and went on a short winter hike/walk with my oldest son on Sunday. The roller rink was absolutely packed, busier than I’ve ever seen it. We had a great time, and after about a half hour with the skate-mate my youngest was ready to go…

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  • Odds & Ends

    Post-college, I often sent emails to my friends in order to keep in touch. It was a nice way to dig deeper than social media, and texting was not as easy in 2006 as it is now. I found myself spending too much time agonizing over transition words and flow, so I started just sending…

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  • Documentary Review/ Buried: The 1982 Alpine Meadows Avalanche

    Disclaimer: I went into this documentary with no prior knowledge of the topic. If you are similarly clueless and would like to watch this film with fresh eyes, I suggest you do the same and stop reading after this paragraph. Although…I would rate this documentary as just okay. You might enjoy reading this post just…

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  • Godzilla & the attempted all-nighter

    I want to remind my six readers that you can follow this blog on Instagram! My youngest kid turned nine recently and requested a sleepover with his favorite cousin to celebrate. He also requested that I buy Mountain Dew for them, telling me that they needed the caffeine because they were going to “pull an…

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  • The Queen of Winter

    A few weeks ago, a friend referred to me in a group chat as the “Queen of Winter” and I swelled with pride. I am the queen of winter. I love winter. Or at least I used to. We’ve had a weird winter here in Minnesota this year. The weather has been warm (above freezing)…

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  • Meanwhile, in the real world… (vol 2)

    Both of my kids went to school this morning, the first time in three weeks that this has happened. I had expected to feel relief, but now I have to turn my attention to righting the chaos in my house. I need to clean the bathroom. I need to get back to the gym. Worst…

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  • Tragedy, Undefeated

    I mentioned a few posts back that I had a college friend on hospice due to cancer. He died yesterday, on his oldest son’s seventh birthday. My friend’s son woke up on his birthday yesterday morning having had a living father for 7 out of his 7 years on this planet, 100% of his life.…

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  • Still reading books in the year of our lord 2023

    Every year my friend gently bullies me into setting a “reading challenge” goal on Goodreads. This year I did not achieve my goal of 50 books, landing hard at 47 (prime number!) instead. The shortest book (144 pages) I read this year was All Systems Red by Martha Wells, the first book in the Murderbot…

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