A poem:

– Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching (tr. Ursula K. Le Guin)

How much we love to classify, to tease apart. But: “If you know when to stop / you’re in no danger.” Yes, precisely this.

A passage:

– Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

I’m currently profiling Jean Kayira, who is faculty and Program Director of Antioch’s PhD in Environmental Studies. She grew up in Malawi, and she says that Freire’s explanation of this concept of education really captured the system and attitudes under which she was taught.

Myself, I grew up in Northern California, but I don’t think my education was always so different from this, either. And when I found myself in college, certain teachers presented themselves as real J.P. Morgans, deigning to share some crumbs with me, the pauper.

Why do some of us accept this and even embrace it as an educational model?

In a clumsy attempt to get more caffeine into myself, I have begun drinking a cup of tea between my two cups of coffee. Sacrilegiously (at least for my personal religion), I have been adding some milk. From a tiny pitcher. Sometimes midway through my cup.

My question: do I actually enjoy this? Or am I just in it for the squat little pitcher, with its red rim and drawing of a blue hen?

My obsession with trying new software continues. The thrill of a new interface. The promise that it will help me “accomplish” something. The frustration when it doesn’t.

12:27am. In the kitchen, the cat carefully opens a cabinet drawer. Stands there, head inside. Considers crawling in. Turns away.

For me, who just got my first smart watch, the killer feature is—unexpectedly—the moon phase complication on the watch face. How cool is that?!

Pumpkin, shadow, prism.

A few days ago, in the early morning, as I held my newborn son, I happened to look out the window to see a man and his adult son each cut a mature agave attenuata from the succulent forest out front of the next door apartment building. Flora in hand, the men ran, guiltily, to their idling truck. They nestled the poached agaves amid landscaper tools and sped off. How strange to witness so small a crime, and how normal to wonder, Would I have done it too? My son stared intensely at the window frame, the delicious chiaroschurro.

Quit Twitter. While logging out I whispered, “Thank you.” It no longer sparked joy.

Gotta admit, I am curious how 10x my content production.

This is what I mean when I say I miss smoking cigarettes.

I will never understand why album art is almost impossible to see up close in Apple Music / Spotify. Take desktop: wouldn’t it be better to have less blank space in the table of song titles and more of the art? Took five minutes to make this look… 5x better?

Say the horse rapture actually happens. Seems inevitable we’ll pin manes and tails on cows and call it a horse show. “Did you go to the horse show? So fun. Such grace.”

When have the Republicans ever fielded so many compelling candidates?

10-year anniversary of finding this impromptu shopping list.

✅ bank

✅ lettuce

✅ condoms

Things looking dicey for E-David

Acne Elf: My chosen family aren’t ‘Orcs.’ We call ourselves ‘Orucs.’

Pretty Elf: I am going to kill every Orc. Full genocide.

Acne Elf (aside): I wish there was a giant erupting volcano right now.

Pretty Elf (aside): I am so gonna kiss that hot human guy later.

“The Creation of Man(nequin)”

SPOOKY SEASON

Two weeks ago I found Dropbox had downloaded 350GB of shared team projects to my comp. Today, found Apple Music downloaded over 100GB of music on my phone. Each time basically bricking the device. There has to be a better way.

This is a real horse-mill definition for what should be an exciting word.

Twitter—a haiku

contest in a middle school.

‘No, mine is better!’

Life with electric kettle. Learning its sounds. The cymballine tremble as it gets going. A long grumble. Then gathering quiet as it nears boiling. The abrupt, oceanic roar of a rolling boil—further crescendo—fortissimo—and, snick, the switch flicks off—decrescendo—silence.

Today, I “went for a run” but really jogged—first time since injuring my calf weeks ago. While out, I realized that jogging, with its trademark bounciness, is much harder on the calf than a kind of flat, hard run. So did that instead. Alas, it seems to be hard on the KNEES.

After a few weeks of posting daily, I find myself suddenly skeptical of microblogging. Who is this performance for, really? Are my talents at all suited to a form that feels more like stand-up than like writing? I’ll keep at it, I guess—but skeptically, skeptically.