Month: October 2021
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Tools of the moment
It’s been a minute since the last time I took stock of my notetaking/productivity apps, so here’s where I stand currently: I still use paper. The reporter’s notebook I got last Christmas is good for my occasional work-based bullet journaling. Feedly has been my RSS reader of choice for years now. To further declutter my…
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The art of ‘90s photo envelopes
While going through my library’s bevy of old staff and event photos, I encountered lots of what used to be commonplace but are now practically ancient artifacts: photo envelopes. Most of them were from the 1990s and early 2000s, which you can probably guess from the designs. (See also: groovy ’70s library brochures.)
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A friendly birthday typewriter
This cross-stitch was a belated birthday gift from my mom, who said she used the color of my Olympia SM7 as inspiration. As I don’t have a display room or even nook for my typewriters, I’m not sure where to put it yet. But it’ll brighten up whichever wall it lands on.
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Four Thousand Weeks in the Midnight Library
Matt Haig’s novel The Midnight Library asks: What if you could explore every what-if of your life, specifically those that turned into regrets? How many of your other lives would actually turn out better than your real one? It’s an intriguing philosophical question that quickly turns personal for the book’s protagonist, Nora Seed, who comes…
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Learning fictions
I’ve been on a fiction reading tear recently. In the last fortnight I’ve finished The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai, The Great Glorious Goddamn of It All by Josh Ritter, and The Midnight Library by Matt Haig—all with a mix of print and audiobook. I just started The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller on…