Sometimes, when a baby tree grows a lot of branches all over and you want to guide its shape, you have to cut off some perfectly healthy ones to yield better results down the road. Right now, this blog is a healthy branch of my tree of projects. As it turns out, time is finite. … Read more
“Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity.” or “If you want different results, take different actions.” I understand the point of these. But also, when I’m learning to play a new song, I’m doing the same thing over and over with the intention of getting … Read more
Like many urban areas, the price of houses in metro Phoenix has skyrocketed in the last couple of years, and the price of rent has followed suit. Before the current spike, minimum wage wasn’t a living wage and a lot of people were working multiple jobs to make ends meet. Given all of this, it’s … Read more
I was challenged recently to see anger as a positive thing, a flow of energy, a necessary force. This was … different. I have no or very few positive role models for or experiences with anger. The only options offered were exploding or being passive-aggressive. Anger is something bad, something to be avoided whenever possible, … Read more
In a podcasting workshop I took, the half-joke was that you’re not a real podcaster until you forget to hit record. I half-joke with my guests that I hope never to be a real podcaster. For the past few weeks, I’ve been trail running for the first time. (Typically, I’ve saved running for smoother surfaces … Read more
Because very little if anything in life is completely binary, I felt myself needing to qualify many of these thoughts as I wrote. Instead, I’m just going to say here at the beginning that yes, there are exceptions to these generalizations, and since they’re exceptions, their incidence is low. If you’re feeling like you’re the … Read more
For my final blog post of 2021—the year in review. It was a wild year, deeply creative, with a lot of output. This time last year, I’d just finished writing a book (first round writing, not editing and such), quit my job due to COVID concerns, and was going to see what I could do … Read more
<waves tiny fist> Back in the day when searches were all done in the library, after card catalogs were made electronic and before the internet, we could limit or expand search results using AND, OR, and NOT. Nearly every time I do a search in a retail setting or a search engine setting, there are … Read more
I’ve read and talked and written and lived a lot of “it’s the little things that matter”—in general, in creating and maintaining habits, in relationships with partners, friends, coworkers, kids. There’s so much truth in it. If we only focus on the big things, we miss so much opportunity, growth, love. So many delightful details … Read more
Whenever I come into contact with sirens of police, fire, or ambulance, I have a moment of gratitude that whatever they are racing to does not involve me. We live close enough to a few main roads that sirens are not that uncommon. Eating dinner on the back porch and hear them in the distance. … Read more