Taking Stock

I got this Taking Stock list from a charming site called Meet Me at Mike's, and if there is one thing I will take it's 1. stock and if there are two things I will take it's 2. A structure for some NaBloBlahBlah. 

Making: A few abandoned cross-stitch projects. I love it so much and my time has been nonexistent (for good reasons, it's really good to have work) but still. 
Cooking: Hello Fresh meals, more often than not. I have been using the service since the spring off and on and i'm into it. The meals are pretty good most of the time, and having the full meal arranged for me is a good way to guarantee that I'll want to use the ingredients up before they spoil. It's been mentally healthy to have an organized cooking plan again, because if I didn't I'd just stay on the laptop and eat whatever after I was already too hungry to make good choices. Now I feel healthier about mealtime, I can listen to podcasts while I cook, and I have leftovers for lunch the next day. It's been a good experiment. (This is where I should say something self-deprecating like "this is my life now" but it totally is. I dig it.) 
Drinking: Never not coffee, also Polar vanilla seltzer, which I am in an invisible fight with another vanilla seltzer fan over at my Harris Teeter. Whichever one of us gets their first cleans out the shelf. First rule of fight club, so I won't go into any more details. Just know it's worth it. 
Reading: Hi Anxiety, Kat Kinsman. Everything I can find that will help me wade through our current political morass that either makes me feel, depending on the piece and the time of day that we're going be just fine or that this is the death of the republic, so you know, just go on and eat your Hello Fresh chicken and potatoes and deal with it. 
Wanting: To find my Kindle so I can stop reading on my tiny phone at night. It's somewhere around here. Can someone please find it? 

Looking: At leaves. I am a leaf gawker, even though they're not as glorious as some years. Still so pretty. It's one of the coolest things nature does, among many. 
Playing: Spotify playlists all the time all day. I pay for the premium/no ads/do whatever the hell you want with your tunes version because it's a cheap investment in my mental health. I know I'm not using the platform to its utmost (like Spotify and I are not doing the most, as it were) but I try. I listen to Bob Schneider almost every day. Another playlist called "Good Songs for Bad Days" that has evolved into just every song that makes me happy. 
Deciding: Where to focus my energy all day is a full-time job. 
Wishing: I was the kind of person who enjoyed the shift to cold weather. I am not and I wish I was because it's a completely unchangeable thing about the world and complaining about it is so boring. Also to go see Book of Mormon. 
Enjoying: Everything R. Eric Thomas writes at Elle. He is one of the funniest people on the internet and he makes me laugh every day. 
Waiting: To eat again, really, let's be real. 
Liking: My bed. I really really love my bed. 
Wondering: What's next, honestly. I try not to do that too much but it's been on my mind a lot lately. 

Loving: My dog. I love my dog a lot. 
Pondering: Online community in the nerdiest, most obsessive way. How to use it for good. If people really get how important it is and the power it has. This is totally why you should invite me to your parties. Non-stop entertainment. 
Considering: Everyone coming forward about being abused by powerful people to be really courageous and hoping this is an important societal shift. 
Buying: I just bought a dark green coat on a big old sale and I love it. 
Watching:  I just finished this season of Grace & Frankie, a show that charms me entirely, although I admit that any time Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda are not onscreen is dicey. Just started The Good Place. Next up is the the Joan Didion documentary on Netflix.  
Hoping: Not to fall asleep until March after we turn the clocks back this weekend. 
Marvelling: Time. The passage of time is something I marvel at constantly. It's a pretty basic thing but I'm always thinking about it in a way that suggests "marvelling"—spelled the better, British, way—so that's my best answer. 
Cringing: The news. Pretty much all of it. 
Needing: I think I need better shoes for winter. I feel like I have terrible shoes. Like I make poor shoe choices. I mostly want to throw them all away and start over. 
Questioning: Haha everything always god my mind is so tired. 
Smelling: I have a tiny portable Thierry Mugler Angel perfume that I mostly wear a bit of when I'm home because I don't like to bludgeon people, including myself, with perfume when I'm out. I enjoy it so much. 
Wearing: The most slovenly combo of a flannel and jeans I could possibly compile. I know people who dress up to work at home. I am not one of those people. 
Following: The last two accounts I followed on Twitter were NASA social media. The more ridiculous things become in my newsfeeds the more I try to fill my head with smart things. 
Knowing: I have no idea how everything is going to turn out and that's probably better. 
Thinking: A lot about coverage of "the opioid epidemic" and how stories stop being about real, hurting people in our minds when they turn into buzzy concepts like "the opioid epidemic" and how to be a part of the solution there because when people die of painkiller or heroin overdoses I find it really upsetting in a way that isn't adequately expressed in most of the coverage I see. 
Admiring: New York. I hadn't been up there in awhile and whenever I go I fall in love with it all over again. Best place, as far as I'm concerned. 
Sorting: Not really anything, really. 
Getting: Not enough sleep and concurrently deeply aware that it's crucial to get more than enough sleep. 
Bookmarking: Everything I bookmark is going on the Pocket app these days. My Facebook save hand is so strong, and I feel like I'm not getting back to read anything. Everywhereist.  
Coveting: A vacation. But I don't want anyone else's vacation so it's not really coveting...just wanting one. 
Disliking: The political situation in this country is depressing every day. 
Opening: I would have to get much more existential than I feel to answer this question. I guess I could say "files". Because I open and save and close a ton of files every day. Also apps. 
Giggling: Puggle Instagram makes me smile on at least the verge of giggling every day. My friends. I know some funny people. 
Feeling: Tired today. A little scattered. Okay though. 
Snacking: Far too many fun-sized Snickers so they will be gone and then I won't have to eat them anymore. Logic. 
Hearing: Binge-listening Modern Love podcast all the way back to the beginning. 

NaBloPoMo Day 2 Means I Show You Some Photos

This is where I practice telling the truth, which is that I have nothing much to say in this blank box tonight after one exhausting day of NaBlo, so I'll toss you a few photos I took this week that I like, instead. 

Maybe I should do PhoMo, and not Blo. 

Northeast DC on my way to Union Station the other morning. 

There is probably a very good reason why these steps are numbered, but I enjoy treating it like a random, mysterious thing. 

Air BnB in Brooklyn. It was a fine place to stay but the exterior was my favorite part. 

NaBloPoMo 2017 or Hey, It's My Annual November 1st Post

I am contractually obligated to post on my blog -- the old one and now apparently this one -- every year on November 1 in a hopeful stab at the notion that I will complete NaBloPoMo. 

I don't remember when NaBloPoMo started or how many times I completed this bite-sized version of NaNoWriMo. I'm going to be generous and say twice. And probably at least one of those times I did a little creative scheduling on the back end to make sure I "posted every day" but let's not revisit that because there was so much emotional energy tied up in NaBloPo'ing at the time that I can almost rationalize it. Also probably it wasn't midnight on the West Coast the night (s) I did it, which means it's not the next day over here either technically because what are we on the internet if not one time zoneless community? Anyway I'm not going to lie about it anymore. I hope. 

NaBlo is really just an excuse for me to make a terrible version of this joke every day for 30 days, which is just the kind of cheap thrill I need to get by. 

It's a jump to CONCLUSIONS mat. 

What I have learned in the 20 minutes I've been hard at work back at this blogging thing—and I need to tell you that I am already exhausted—is that I still don't understand SquareSpace at all. I don't know why, either. I'm a visual person. I like blocks. I just...I don't know. 

I did put together this post over at Mom2 on how to write every day in November without losing your mind, because I do know that there are methods to this time + pressure = creativity and maybe even a thing or two you like in the process. I just haven't really figured them out in a decade of Novembers. I should also be taking a stab at NaNoWriMo and totally no BloMo, but I can't even think about that, because I had a good day and why dwell on this other thing that I'm not going to do in a month like write a whole book. Not this month anyway. 

Also today? I was in New York for a thing I had a lot of fun doing with some people I really enjoy working with that I'll write about later! And after we were done I got a full one hour reflexology treatment on my feet and calves on the lower East Side and I think it tripped some endorphin cord because after one hour of this guy Jae with power hands from heaven kneading the bottoms of my feet and my calves into oblivion? I was standing on a New York street corner with  my friend Natasha lol'ing like I haven't lol'd since a certain day in November LAST YEAR.

Maybe this year's NaBlo is a nice way to avenge that lost month. Or maybe not. 

Before the laughing happened, I think Jae must have thought I was a robot because of all of the phone and laptop cords connected to every single possible device and charger I had popping out of my laptop bag that I had with me in the somewhat cramped reflexology chair. I could have explained to him that I had just come from an event where I had to do a bunch of recording and social media'ing and just, you know, living the weird little electronic boogie woogie life that I lead and that's why I was clutching all of these dying phones and chargers to me but any time people talked in that shop someone in the reflexology bliss zone went SHHHHHHH very un-blissfully so I was afraid to. Also because I was a little embarrassed by the way he was looking at me, like, you poor thing, should we just plug you into the outlet? Skip the phone/charger middle man? Just jam your neurons right in there, really give it a go. It's 2017 and you've been on the internet for double digit years now so it might be time? After you take your feet out of this nice tub of water anyway so we all don't go up in flames with you anyway. The thing is that he didn't speak English really at all and I did not speak his language at all at all, so we had to rely on non-verbals to process all of this discourse that I KNOW was going down, and his non-verbals in my direction were overwhelmingly of the head-shaking/wry smiling variety.  

I totally deserved them, by the way. I'm not here to argue this point. It's a strange little life but somebody has to document the things, I guess. Mostly I recommend you find a foot reflexology place with a person like Jae because he put muscles in my feet right that I didn't know I had, and it was clean and cheap. I think the whole entire world could use one right about now, honestly. 

DNC scenes

This summer, I got to help run the photography team at the Democratic National Convention. It was one of the most interesting, fun, and exhilarating experiences of my life. I got to work with some extremely talented young photographers, help get their work seen, and work with the DNC social media team to get images posted in real time on their platforms and in other publications. 

Long story short, I would go back and do it again tomorrow.