Issue #11 To me you are perfect
My beautiful darlings -- first, time for me to shill! My beautiful friend Steph does a 50 mile walk every year to raise money for MS. Be a dear and donate! My other gorgeous friend Tia does an AIDS bike ride, also every year. Please consider making a small donation to either or both! Thank you!
Second, for the big news I alluded to last week: My job and I have parted ways. On Monday, after the movers grab my things, I'm heading to upper Michigan to the cabin where I'll be staying with TEH for a month and then I'm moving permanently to Louisville. I am never leaving TEH ever again! I'll start job hunting in October when we arrive and I've signed up for Code Louisville's January cohort AND I've also lined up recruiter submissions and doctors appointments to keep me in my drugs. While this experiment has been financially expensive, in a way, I don't regret it happening because it added more experience to my arsenal and allows me to start making better choices for myself and how I handle professional, platonic, and romantic relationships.
I've started writing more over at EPbaB and I've been cross-posting the work over to Medium if turns your crank. You can alternately subscribe to EPbaB's RSS feed if that wets your whistle.
What does it mean to be fearless? [August 20, 2016]
The Art of Sentimentalism [August 23, 2016]
I've kickstarted my writing blog and the most recent post is where I posit "what the hell do I want to write about?" and I give the best advice I've collected over the years:
Read your work out loud
Remove as many "thats" as you can
Use a thesaurus liberally
Watch your "-ings"
Use a thesaurus liberally
Watch your verbs
Just because you're sick of your writing doesn't mean someone else is
It's okay to be scared
Obsessions
This week's obsessions tends to lean towards what I keep discovering about myself as I pack. I obsess over books (no surprise), coats, boots, and my ever standing Chucks. I never think I have enough and viola! Here we are with boxes upon boxes of such things. I may have mentioned somewhere (I can't find the reference) when I started the move in 2014, I was in the realm of 2500+ books, which I gave at least 1000 - 1500 away. When I was at TEH's last year, I gave away another 500 or so. I was left with a total of 500 when I started unpacking here in Connecticut and cataloged what I had left. I gave at least 200 of those away to the local library system. I also ripped and digitally kept 90% of my 100+ DVD collection and also donated those to the local library. Being as it may, all of those titles (split between TBR and collections) are now into their cardboard homes to go into storage. I have one box that I need to have with me at the condo -- mainly woo woo and tech books. So the books and DVDs will go to a good home and that makes me happy. (Fly, little books, fly!)
I almost forgot: newsletters! If you have a newsletter, and seemingly most do, I'll subscribe! I've got everything from news to music to woo woo to personal tidbits. Last count I was at 80+ which I religiously read (most weekly though many are daily).
Books / Movies / TV
Hey! I've been keeping some kind of informal list of my reading habits since 2011 and while if you're curious, check out my list for 2016.
Not much in my reading world has changed since last week. I'm still reading A Discovery of Witches and keeping up with my newsletter obsession as well as checking out zillion ebooks from three library systems (yay internet!) to catch up on.
Since I'm going to be in the throes of packing this weekend, my Sunday Fun Day movie day will be put on hold. A few months ago I started using Netflix DVDs again and that's how I'm keeping up with flicks I missed at the box office. I will be, however, first in line when Bridget Jones' Baby opens up next week! To prepare, I spent last weekend watching Bridget Jones' Diary and Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason. I don't care if you judge.
Also! Guise! Fall tv has finally started kicking in with Halt and Catch Fire and RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars (I'm #teamalaska and #teamadore and maybe a bit #teamroxxxy. Holla.) this week ALSO ALSO, Great British Bake Off season 7 (season 2 in the US) has started! Who knew watching people bake for an hour, with no drama or subterfuge, could be so compelling but IT IS!
Curated Link Love
Timely: I am my things and my things are me [Aeon] and to follow up: Why we need things [PDF]
I posted this question to facebook and got a wide variety of answers: Is sleeping together platonically the same as cheating? [Broadly]
Woman turns 105 and asks for firefighters at her birthday [Z103.5FM]
I laughed when I read this because I've been making cold coffee via the Toddy System for nearly a decade [The Verge]
An essay on why on our differences on making friends and apps that can help us [The Cut]
Top cities for book lovers to explore [Mental Floss]
The consequences, and bullshit reasons, on why and how we start things [Erica Napolentano]
Forming our taste in the digital age [The Guardian]
I'm curious as to why this was listed in the NY Times money section, but hey, I'm not the editor. [The New York Times]
There is actually a thing called "library anxiety" [Atlas Obscura]
As I'm seemingly always on a woo-woo kick: how to build lasting self-esteem [TED]
The value of a $100 in each state [Mental Floss]
A brief history of chairs [The Paris Review]
xoxo,
until next week!
You can find me across the internet as @byshieldmaiden or
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