Category: General

One last time, with feeling

General

My team lead called me today. He wanted to know if I’d be willing to take another tech’s on-call rotation next week, since they’d be on vacation.

“I would love to, and I’d be able to during the week, but that weekend I’m volunteering for a conference so I’d be really distracted.”

“Oh, that’s understandable,” he said. He’s very reasonable and very much about work-life balance, so I knew it wasn’t a big deal. “We’ll make it work somehow, no problem.” He paused. “On another note, though, what’s this convention about?”

“It’s called the XOXO Festival. It’s… kind of an indie-artist tech conference? There are multiple tracks for music, for games, and for videos and podcasts, and art of all kinds.”

I shared the website with him and he browsed it while I tried to shorthand a quick description.

XOXO is sort of hard to explain. It’s got a vibe unlike so many other conferences out there. It’s definitely not tech-bro territory, and it’s not wild and pagan like Burning Man, and it’s not techically nerdy like DefCon. Its attitude is sharing, curious, talented, and kind.

The festival takes the best parts of Portland, and none of the worst parts. XOXO is a product of the Portland I love, created by two friends, Andy B. and Andy M., who are perhaps the most curious, talented, and kind people I know. I’m happy to have been even a small part of XOXO, even though I have never felt my imposter syndrome as strongly as I have among the staff, volunteers, guests, and attendees at any of these festivals.

And I’m sad that it’s ending. Did I mention that? Andy and Andy have spent a lot of time and energy creating and curating this thing, and they want to put a bow on it, make one final statement, and move on to other projects. So 2024 is the last XOXO. I had to be there. I missed the last one, in 2019, because I was in a depressed headspace.

But I’ve stayed in the community — oh did I mention there’s a community? The XOXO spirit begat a private Slack that has been operating for as long as Slack has been a thing, I think? I’d have to go look. I’ve stayed in the community and it has been, for me, the Best Place on the Internet. I try to give back to the XOXO family as much as they’ve given me.

I’ve always been a volunteer, helping to staff and run the past events, and this year is no different. Tonight was the volunteer orientation and it was amazing to be in-person with people I’ve only mostly interacted with online for so long. Andy and Andy stood up in front of us, talked about the vibe, and reminded us all of what our expectations should be.

“But you know all this,” Andy M. said. “Everyone here has either worked, or attended, a past XOXO. We couldn’t do this without you.”

The feeling is reciprocated.

Good days, good posts

General

If I sit and wait for inspiration, chances are it is not going to show up. Inspiration is great but it is not reliable. Not for me, at least. I don’t have a muse. The gods did not gift me. I don’t even believe in gods and even if I did, it would be the height of ego to assume they would grant me anything.

No, I do what I do, which parenthetically, right now is writing, because I am stubborn as the mule-iest mule what ever did mule. I don’t give up. I might take breaks sometimes, but if I intend to do something I will always come back to it and I will always complete that task. To call me bull-headed is to say you might be surprised I don’t have long pointy horns. Oh maybe that metaphor got away from me.

No, I have a duty to show up, except that duty is for the silliest things, like having exactly the same breakfast for years in a row, or trying to reach 500 days survived on one save in The Long Dark. Or driving my car into the ground because it’s easier than shopping for a new one.

Or for writing at least 500 words a day and posting it on my blog, like I’m doing now.

Many times I don’t have an idea about what to write. I joke about it with Tracy. I’ll send her a message “I don’t know what to write about tonight” and then 20 minutes later I’ll send her a link to the post I wrote.

And it’s true that lately I have been going very meta, writing about how I don’t know what to write about, or musing about motivation vs. habit. I didn’t promise that every post would be award-winning. No, my promise is to just keep going, to get into the habit, so that if and when I am inspired by something, I can channel it and put that inspiration to words, hopefully capturing some of the essence of random ideas with good foundations.

Every author I’ve ever admired could be described as prolific, because they just don’t stop writing. I shouldn’t compare my output to their drafted and re-drafted, vetted, edited, and published works, though. I don’t get the privilege of seeing any of the earlier versions of those stories. So I won’t.

Me, I’m the obstinate fucker who puts it all out here for anyone to see, the good, the bad, and the boring. You can trace the tensions and joys of the past 4 months by my daily output. Sometimes I do have a good idea and the right frame of mind to share that idea in the best sentences I can muster. Those are the good days. Good ideas, good days. Bad ideas, still an okay day as long as I post something. No ideas, still have to write and post something. It’s all about the posting something.

Ain’t no destination. It’s entirely the journey, y’all.

Driving home from work

General

Hey dad, want me to pick anything up for you on the way home?

Yes a pack of cigs

Just one?

Yeah I've got to go to savmor for meds tomorrow and I'll stock up

KK
Can do

I pulled out onto NE Fremont to make my way home. I knew the route. I’ve driven it daily, Monday through Friday, for several months now. My tiny piece of shit Accord wasn’t tall enough to see over the SUVs parked on the side of the road so I tried my best to see through their greenhouses, and took my best guess at an opening. Fremont is narrow here, lined with bars, shops, and coffee shops, and pedestrian traffic on the sidewalks. It was a cool, cloudy, warm summer day, the kind native Portlanders think of as normal warm weather.

Not for us, blue skies and hot temperatures. And I mean that we don’t like those days. Too hot. It needs to be a bit cooler so we can be active. Portlanders, by and large, are active. We run, we bike, we walk, and the rule of thumb I’ve learned is to dress for about 20 degrees warmer than it is, if you’re going to be active. 70-ish degrees is good. 50-ish degrees is better.

My car’s air conditioning has been broken all summer so I rolled the two front windows down, and cracked the back two, to get some air flowing past me. My phone played podcasts for me as I zoned out and drove automagically. David Chen, Jessie Earl, and Kim Renfro were discussing the House of the Dragons show, largely positively.

My senses perked up at the possible smell of burning oil. I should check the oil level soon, top it up if I need to. I wondered if my car would pass the DEQ test this year; I’d never had trouble before but the car is getting older and slowly falling apart slightly faster.

The drive home was mindless. I don’t remember any details specific to the drive, just the random images from every time I’ve ever driven this route. There’s the bar that looks like a great place for happy hour; laughing people with beers sitting on picnic tables outside. There’s the cheap gas station that always seemed busy. I passed the old empty sheriff’s building, surrounded by temporary chain-link fencing as it has been for months. What do they plan to do with that place, I wondered?

The organic produce market advertised Oregon strawberries but not marionberries. Marionberrys are, to me, the royalty of berries. Dark, tart, sweet, all in equal measure. They were developed at University of Oregon, and named for Marion County, a rural place far from the big small town of Portland. When I try to type “marionberries” on my phone, the autocorrect tries to make it Marion Berry, the former mayor of Washington D.C. who was caught in an FBI sting, I think. I should look that up at some point. Hey, I’m rambling here, don’t take this for fact.

I’m reasonably sure about the marionberries, though. I’m, like, 83% sure.

I pull into the Plaid Pantry parking lot, and wander the convenient aisles. OK, I’ll get some chocolate. Dad likes chocolate with almonds so I get a giant bar so I can split it with him. I wonder what the cashier thinks of an old white guy buying a pack of Marlboro Gold 100s and a giant chocolate bar. He seems friendly enough, though.

It’s another few blocks up the avenue until I can turn onto my street, then turn again into the parking lot. I slow down and take the transition into the lot at an angle to avoid scraping the bottom of my car on the hump. I back into my parking spot as I always do, for no particular reason, collect my things (laptop bag, cigs, candy bar), apply the Club to the steering wheel, take the faceplate off my head unit, unplug my phone and pull it out of the holder, and heave myself out of the car. My short legs, heavy weight, and armload of stuff make it a chore.

Front screen door was locked. I’d locked it this morning. Had dad not left the apartment all day? He does go outside to smoke but normally on the back porch so he could chat with Glasses, my next door neighbor, if she’s out there.

Home again, home again. Higgedy jig.

Unvaccinated, caffeinated

General

Dad was standing by the Starbucks counter. A tan Venti iced soy chai stood there; dad had the impatient look of someone waiting for their dose of caffeine. I walked up and picked up my soy chai.

“So… they don’t have any vaccines for us.” I nodded over my right shoulder toward the CVS counter. We were inside a Target store and in late early 21st Century America, brands exist inside other brands. It’s a nesting doll of brands, or layers of an onion. This Target is supporting a symbiotic CVS and a symbiotic Starbucks. I’m unsure if there were other brands dotted around the floor.

Dad gave me the grumpy side-eye that means he’s annoyed; not with me, with living in a world of corporate brands. “What?”

“Apparently there’s a newer Covid vaccine coming in September, so they don’t have any of the current vaccine.”

“Then why the fuck did they let us make an appointment?” The barista had placed dad’s dark iced mocha with whipped cream in front of him. He picked it up and fished a straw down the straw-hole.

“Yeah. That’s my question, too.” Next weekend I’m playing D&D with my friends in-person after two years of playing online through Discord, and the weekend after that I’m a volunteer at an art-tech festival called XOXO. I intended to get vaccinated because I don’t want to give, or get, the incredibly contagious disease that we’ve all decided is as normal as the weather.

Dad wandered over to a table. “Let’s grab a table for these.”

This was actually the second appointment I’d made, for me and dad, today. The earlier one, at a different CVS invasively inside a different Target, had been canceled almost as soon as I’d made it because, and I swear I am not making this up, the pharmacist said they had contracted Covid so were barred from giving vaccinations for Covid, or, really, anything, probably.

“He said it was a ‘bug in the system,” I said, laughing. “Except it’s not a bug in the system, it’s a human error. The computers don’t consult with the people.”

“They have to know if they have the shots in stock,” dad grumbled.

“Right!? They clearly have the ability to cancel an appointment. The other pharmacist did it.” I sipped my chai. “So annoying.”

Dad smiled. “I’d asked for an extra shot, and I overheard them mention an extra shot of chocolate syrup…”

His right hand twitched slightly on the table.

“Oh did you get the wrong order?”

“No, that’s what I’m saying. I got more chocolate.” His hand pointed at my drink. “Is that what you wanted?”

“Yup!” I sipped again.

Dad’s hand moved toward my drink. “You mind if I have a taste?”

I pushed it across the table at him. “Nope!”

His hand twitched again. I gently reached out and put my hand on top of his. His skin was papery, dry, warm. Dad looked puzzled at my hand, then at me.

“Do you notice that? I see your hand twitch sometimes.”

“Oh, no, sometimes.”

I felt empathy bloom inside me. I kept my face as neutral as I could but my heart ached to see his body, once strong, now failing, slowly, with age.

In the background, one of the baristas, short with blonde and black hair, was going on break. The other one, tall with black and blonde hair, was telling the first one to get something to eat.

Dad smiled after the sip, nodded. “That’s good!”

“It’s kind of sweet. Sometimes I add a shot of espresso, cuts the sweetness a bit. But it’s a good drink.”

I slurpped up the bottom of the cup with the straw. “Mom always hated that sound, but…”

“But how else are you going to get every last drop!” dad, laughing, finished my thought.

98 years since

General

Today was my mom’s birthday, although she isn’t around anymore to celebrate. She passed away in June of 2001 from lung cancer. Today marks the 98th year since her birth, an immeasurably long time. The years since she passed are also long but in a different way. My memories of her are fragmented. I see her in flashes, from many different situations.

The first memory that flashes up are of the most recent time I spoke to her. She was in her bed, and we were watching TV. I don’t remember what was playing. I just sat there on the bed next to her, holding her hand. I’d come over straight after work. The urge to spend as much time as possible with her was so strong, I felt guilty for going home that evening, and going to work.

Mom was still lucid. This was a few days before the hospice nurse had started upping her dose of morphine. Understandably mom was coughing, a lot. She was always thin and frail; we would tease her about her bird legs (it seems mean now but that’s how our family talked; just stating facts.) But with the cancerous cells choking off her ability to breath, replacing her good cells, she had shrunken even more.

We still had conversations, though. I did not, and do not, believe that any part of us survives death, so when death is on the line I know I need to be present. And, reader, death is nearly always on the line. I would ask mom about her favorite movies, or favorite songs. I’d ask her where she learned to cook. I’d ask about her dreams, and her regrets.

With hindsight it is easy to see that mom was almost certainly neurodivergent, since my dad, my sister, and I am. At the time, however, I just knew that her personality had a mixture of crankyness and silliness in almost a two-to-one mixture. The crankiness never bothered me much; I tuned it out. It was just mom. It was never biting, not when she turned it toward me. But the silliness was special. She’d make an odd joke. Suddenly break into a huge grin. It was like being dazzled by an oncoming headlight after driving on a dark highway.

I can’t keep one image in mind; I see her as she was throughout my life. She’s young, dressed up in her best, and we’re going over to Aunt Phyllis’ house for the Hayner Family Christmas. All the cousins my age would hang out and find some side room to conspire, gossip, and play; the adults would wander around, or sit in the living room, and talk and laugh. My mom was one of 13 children, giving me plenty of uncles and aunts and cousins, so the house would be full of people, spilling out into the yard, the driveway, the backyard. Mom was the second-oldest and she wore her Oldest Sister role well, praising her siblings’ new jobs, or the food they’d brought to the potluck. I can see her sitting on the couch, cigarette held like a magic wand, wreathed in nicotine smoke.

I swear, these are the good memories. Maybe I’m not explaining myself well?

I wanted this post to be full of stories but this draft appears to just be me reminiscing. I do miss mom. I wonder how she’d react to things today. Happy birthday, mom. The world is lesser without you in it.

Edited to add: The original draft of this post said mom, my dad, my sister, and me were neurotypical. I meant neurodivergent. I regret the error. – BAM 28 October 2024

A stream-of-consciousness prayer

General

Getting started is almost always the hardest part. I am certain I’ve said that on this blog before. I’ve said it before because it’s true, at least for me and the way my brain works. Once I get going in earnest on a task, distractions fade away. Honestly I only get distracted when I don’t have an interesting or urgent project I am working on. My attention span is all or nothing, it seems.

If I am distracted, in a distractable state, I bounce between sources of that sweet sweet dopamine; music, games, social media, around and around I go. If there’s something I should be working on that does not immediately fit into the categories of interesting or urgent, and I’m able to muster a shred of duty, engaging my executive function feels like I am dragging a recalcitrant dog on a leash toward home.

Right now, as I write this, I’m having to pull that pup hard. On one screen I have this app into which I am tapping out words. On the left screen I have a video going, just to have another human voice as background. The video is of Jawoodle, a YouTuber, playing my current obsession, 7 Days to Die, the zombie horror survival multiplayer online crafting game. Did I squeeze in anough descriptors to that?

I really enjoy that game. Jawoodle is Australian and his boisterous and friendly voice is fun to listen to. And I don’t need to pay close attention. He can ramble as he wanders the wasteland and if something amazing happens I can turn away from my writing, and rewind to watch.

Something amazing might be a close call with zombies, some choice piece of loot, or an interesting new place to raid. I need to write but my eyes and attention wander over to the left to stop and watch the moving pictures. Come on, pup, we need to get back to the task at hand. I know you don’t want to, but we have to. As much as I’d love to let you have a free run, I have a streak to keep going. Gotta keep writing.

Nope, lost focus briefly. Jawoodle found a bunch of legendary parts in a clothing store; I zoned out to his count and joy. This dog (my brain) wants to hunt (do nothing at all). I am burning all my attention fuel trying to keep writing this post. I think I was going somewhere with all this but the light at the end of the tunnel is fading. I’m writing but I feel lost in the darkness. My feet feel the train tracks but my eyes are useless in this pitch black.

The ending is coming up soon. Is my stream of consciousness writing lately at all of interest? As I’ve said before, I’m just putting in the time, building the habit, so that when inspiration and the muse find me again, I am ready to receive the blessings. My writing these days is more like a prayer. A hope for a better day when I am able to turn my interior feelings into words that can transmit those feelings to another person. That’s you, the reader. Hope you stay tuned.

Write and see

General

Even though I’ve been posting daily, my normal at-least-500-words post, I haven’t been writing daily. Not for the whole weekend. I posted stories I had already written for other things. Which is fine, the idea is to steadily increase my posting streak. But my other commitment, that I must write daily, has become a little rusty. So here I go, showing up again, trying to write and get back into the habit.

Two days might not seem long enough to fall out of a habit but I can feel the resistance to writing building up even in that short of a time. The main reason I stopped writing is because of the complaint I always start out with: “I don’t have anything to write about.” Look back over this blog, over the recent long streak, or even farther back, and you will see me write over and over again, I don’t know what to write about, nearly always in the first paragraph of a post longer than the 500 word goal.

And sometimes those posts are about something real. If I just sit down and start writing, I can pull out the most amazing interior feelings and turn them into a story or a thoughtful ramble with a point to make. The complaint shouldn’t be “I don’t have anything to write about”, it should be “I don’t want to start writing.” Because just the act of starting will almost alwasy transition into real writing. I just have to begin and the charge, the flow, the creativity, will flow from whereever it exists in my body and mind and animate my fingers into touch-typing out and filling my screen with an interesting post.

Interesting to me, anyway. I am as much a witness and reader of this blog as I am a writer and creator. I don’t always know where an idea will go if I just sit back, open the tap, and follow the path that opens up before me.

I’m still going but this doesn’t feel like one of those posts. Not yet. I’m three-fifths of the way to my goal and it doesn’t feel profound. That’s fine, that’s okay. I just have to show up. There are several posts on this blog about that, too. Showing up is the most important part. I need to write even when I think I have nothing to say. I need to write just to see. I need to demonstrate to myself that I don’t have to censor myself. I can draft, I can free-form. It’s all good and valid.

Maybe this isn’t the best for SEO or traffic. I don’t really care about that. I can tell that about 80-100 of you stop by every week to see what’s here. I can tell you read the most recent posts but you also poke around in the backlog. I don’t see a lot of search engine traffic so I can only assume you’re here because you like what I write, or you like me. We have a connection, reader, you and I. And I appreciate that so much. More than I can express. Thank you.

The pause is over, back to writing regularly.

The only last day of July 2024 I’ll get

General

Content warning: philosophical thoughts about the end of life

It is the last day in July as I write this. The sun is sinking in the sky, and it looks like there’s some color to the sunset; the tree tops I can see from my office window are the bright green of summer but tinged with orange. If I were more concerned with beauty and aesthetics I’d get up, go outside, and watch the sunset. Who knows when the next one will be? We are never promised more than this moment, no matter how much we wish for more tomorrows. This could be the final moment, the last sunset, the final day.

Intellectually I understand that. Though like many people, most people I think, I have to redirect my attention to the idea that my end will happen, ain’t no two ways about it. My brain doesn’t like to think about it; it requires effort to bring it to mind. I have to push the idea into frame. OK, sorry, I know these metaphors are all over the place; this is a first draft. I would shape these metaphors and images better if I allowed myself a second draft.

Funny how I tried to write about being in the moment and facing death and somehow, my brain slid the idea of second chances into the conversation. Hey, my mind says to me, as if it were a separate person, what about trying again? Taking a mulligan, starting over? Re-writing what was already written, polishing it, making it shine. Cutting out the boring bits, adding new exciting bits. Tightening up the flow of ideas. Making the whole into a cohesive story. Beginning, middle, end, amen.

I would say to my mind, ain’t no such thing as second chances when it comes to life. I get this moment, and this next one, and the next one, until I get no more moments at all. I can’t go back and do one over again. I can worry about past moments, and future moments, but all the worry in the world won’t change what happened and won’t make something new happen. Once we’ve acted, the results stand; and only actions can change the outcome of the arrow of time.

So this is the first 31st of July in 2024 that I’ve ever had, and it will be the last one. There are only possible, potential future 31sts of July from here on out. Where will I be, assuming I make it to those future 31sts of July? Will I be the same person? Will the world be much the same, just one year farther along? Or will it all change? I don’t know, and if someone else tells you that they know, reader, they are lying to you.

What do I want future Brian to know about this particular day? Future Brian, today was a good day at work. My coworkers are kind and thoughtful; Andy, knowing I would have to work through my lunch, offered me a granola bar from his stash so I would have a snack to tide me over. Hunter typed a message to me in Teams so sarcastic it made me laugh out loud. Jim gave me praise for how I handle tough calls at work in front of everyone else.

My dad offered me ice cream tonight; he stopped at the Dairy Queen on his walk back from the bar.

Tracy, ever present, kept me company by text, as always. A comforting electronic presence.

My friend Christi needed help, and I could help her, so of course I did. I know that if the situation were reversed, she would help me, no questions asked.

And the sunset was pretty, even the small part of it I could see.

I finished my ice cream (Cherry Bordeaux), I finished this post, and I know that I did my best today.

Overdeveloped Danger Sense

General

The only thing keeping me awake right now is the need to keep my streak of posting at least 500 words every day to my blog. I’d have to check when this particular streak started but it’s been a couple of months, if I could hazard a guess. I’m not going to stop writing to go check, though, because the main thing right now is momentum. Just gotta keep going. I’ll insert a sentence as an update at the end when this run began, and won’t count it toward my 500 words for the post.1

The reason I’m so sleepy is, and head’s up this is about body functions, my stomach has been mad at me since about 3 AM this morning. I woke up with a pain in the right side of my abdomen which immediately made me think my appendix was about to burst because my mind, like many minds, drifts toward disaster. I come from a long line of creatures who were able to survive long enough to breed by avoiding death and serious injury. I am sadly going to be the last of that line, not because I don’t avoid death and serious injury, but because despite many opportunities, I have not bred. There will be no generation after me.

I have no comment on the rightness or wrongness of that. Just a fact. I’m just stating a fact.

Unfortunately that just leaves me with avoiding danger, which is then turned into seeing danger around me at all times, which leads to lots of “That’s dangerous and you’re gonna die!” false positives. Like immediately thinking that pain in the vague area of my right side is an inflamed, infected appendix that is going to burst and kill me before I can get myself to emergency care.

I got out of bed long enough to stumble into the bathroom, where I did what ever I could think of to clear the pain from my stomach. While also googling the symptoms of appendicitis. Quite the relief to find out that appendicitis pain is lower down, more near the top of the hip. Aha, it wasn’t a killer vestigial organ, it was just, wow, a really sharp pain that makes it hard to take a deep breath. What the Hell is going on down there?

I’ve had this pain before, and in the past, after ruling out the worst case scenario of appedicitis, made me think it was that condition where a pit in the intestine becomes infected and explodes and causes the person with the condition to die. Lots of ways to die. Or maybe that’s just what my ancestors are telling me.

I took some pain meds (ibuprofren) and drank some water and went back to bed. When I woke up it was morning and a half-hour until my alarm was supposed to go off. I got up, took my temperature (no fever), got a shower, made and drank some coffee, and decided to go to work anyway. I figured it was a stomach thing not something contagious.

Work was distracting enough that I hardly noticed the pain most of the day. I even felt productive. I was honest about the way I felt to my coworkers and they were OK with me being there. I ate a salad for lunch because by that time I had decided this was a thing I could fix with fiber.

The fiber worked. By quitting time, I was about 80% better. I treated myself to a raspberry shake from Burgerville (because solid food still didn’t sound like fun) when dad wanted me to bring him a burger and fries for dinner, and now I’m ready to go to bed.

  1. My Day One post that started my current streak was posted on 2 April 2024, 113 days ago. ↩︎

Mercury has Astroglide

General

Yesterday I was anxious, cranky, brittle. I had an idea why, and I did my best to not let it affect me or the people around me, although I may have telegraphed that and might have come close to the line or crossed it one or two times, and I did apologize to them for that. But it was a knot in my chest, a scribbled black cloud in my brain. I couldn’t escape it. I could only acknowledge it and move on.

This morning, I woke up and… that chaos had shifted. I was still janky, I was still anxious. My nerves were dancing like beads of water on a hot skillet. But it was… laughing. The negative scratches in my head had flipped and become positive giggles. What had changed overnight? There’s no way to tell. A manic, must-take-action devil had perched itself on my shoulder, urging me to action.

I channeled that feeling into Doing Projects™.

Before dad moved in my Kona Smoke 2-9 lived downstairs, leaned against the wall in the pathway from living room to kitchen/back door. It was in plain sight but out of the way, unless I needed to put something in the closet it blocked, which was rare. I put nothing important in that closet because it was blocked. QED.

When dad moved in, though, because of his mobility issues, I moved the bike upstairs to my computer room, my office. There wasn’t a good spot for it, so it leaned against my second desk, making that desk essentially useless. I used that desk for drawing and other projects; my computer desk is smaller and only big enough for my computer and the monitors. As long as I can get to the compute desk, things are OK.

Today, the gremlin inside me seized on getting that desk clear and finding a good spot for the bike, one that would be out of the way but still visible, so I don’t forget about it and maybe am encouraged to ride it again. Probably when the summer heat goes away, aye? Also, clearing that desk means when I start working from home I’ll be able to put my work computer there instead of working downstairs on the dining room table, or perched awkwardly on my computer desk.

A hook. I needed a hook, from which to hang the bike. There were a few good locations, a couple in the computer room, one or two downstairs, that would be perfect. Except I needed to make sure any hook I put up would be going into a stud.

My dad has always been handy; men of his generation nearly always were. So I asked him for advice. He suggested that a stud-finder is the best way to do that. So I went to the hardware store with my dad on a Sunday, which is a whole thing. At the store, we bought: the hook, the stud-finder, a replacement three-way LED light bulb for the downstairs lamp, a magnetic knife rack so I can finally get my knives out of the silverware drawer, and a whetstone for the knives.

The project list was a short one but I did every one. The manic pixie dream devil on my shoulder was appeased. Still don’t know where the energy had come from. Mercury must have Astroglide or somethin’.