changes

Some things I’m working on and thinking about now…

Now

• making a little progress on activating and functionalizing this website again - I’ve set up my reading and listening logs for 2024, and I have them propagating to the main ‘now’ page

• inspired into reading kidlit and yalit again after the ALA Youth Media Awards, book talks to librarians from King’s English booksellers, and otherwise finding a lot of intriguing titles while doing collection development work for Sora

• focusing on collection development work for Sora, and also carving out space for myself to actually do some catalog improvement work

• laundry, dishes, grocery shopping, cooking, &c.

• taking baby steps towards being more deliberate and thoughtful about food and shopping choices in terms of quality, variety, supporting local businesses, paying in cash at local businesses, sustainable and fair trade products, &c.

Next

• a bunch of movies I want to see in the theaters, award nominees coming back, etc, but I haven’t gone once yet

• Plan and prep the garden and yard for spring

• cook a bunch of stuff

• compile and share ‘top titles’ in the school libraries for 2023

• research and plan my cataloging breakout for UCET/UELMA conference in March

• get doing stuff outside - hiking, snowshoeing, or at the least yardwork and taking Luna on walks

• honest writing

Visit the main ‘now’ page to see my growing library of dynamically generated activity logs and links to my past ‘now’ updates.

Credit for the ‘now’ page concept goes to Derek Sivers. I tend to get aspirational when I update it, so I’ve decided to embrace that by adding a ‘next’ section.

Standalone post link: Now and Next (January 28, 2024)

Below is a running list of books I’ve read in 2022, with my current reads listed at the top.

You can find a list of links to articles, essays, poems, and other shorter works I’m reading [here], and you can find all of my reading updates [here].

—–

Grow Now [73%]

by Emily Murphy

[currently reading - started on 2022.10.02]

A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers [60%]

by Henry David Thoreau

[currently reading - started reading on 2022.06.01]

Poetry [July/August 2022] [35ish%]

Various Authors

[currently reading - started reading on 2022.10.09]

Poetry [October 2022]

Various Authors

[read from 2022.10.06 to 2022.10.08]

Successful Gardening in Utah

by Caleb Warnock

[read 2022.10.05]

The Words in My Hands

by Asphyxia

[read from 2022.10.01 to 2022.10.02]

Moonwalking

by Zetta Elliot and Lyn Miller-Lachmann

[read from 2022.09.09 to 2022.09.12]

Poetry [September 2022]

Various Authors

[read from 2022.09.03 to 2022.09.05]

The Hobbit

by J.R.R. Tolkien

[read with my son from 2022.06.unknown to 2022.08.29]

Nightcrawling

by Leila Mottley

[read from 2022.08.18 to 2022.08.23]

ttyl

by Lauren Myracle

[read from 2022.08.17 to 2022.08.18]

Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out

by Susan Kuklin

[read from 2022.08.15 to 2022.08.16]

—–

Impulse

by Ellen Hopkins

[read from 2022.08.12 to 2022.08.14]

—–

The Black Flamingo

by Dean Atta

[read from 2022.07.29 to 2022.07.31]

33⅓. 9, Unknown Pleasures

by Chris Ott

[read from 2022.07.10 to 2022.07.11]

ain’t burned all the bright

written by jason reynolds, artwork by jason griffin

[read on 2022.07.09]

Loveless

by Alice Oseman

[read from 2022.06.29 to 2022.07.09]

Heartstopper. Volume 4

written and illustrated by Alice Oseman

[read on 2022.07.07]

The Beatryce Prophecy

written by Kate DiCamillo, illustrated by Sophie Blackall

[read the first half to both of my children, the second half to only my son after they got separate rooms - read from 2022.unknown - 2022.06.04]

Melissa (formerly published as George)

by Alex Gino

[read on 2022.05.22]

Seek You: A Journey Through American Loneliness

written and illustrated by Kristen Radtke

[read from 2022.05.12 - 2022.05.14]

Heartstopper. Volume 3

written and illustrated by Alice Oseman

[read on 2022.05.unknown]

Heartstopper. Volume 2

written and illustrated by Alice Oseman

[read on 2022.04.unknown]

Last Night at the Telegraph Club

by Malinda Lo

[read on 2022.03.28]

Heartstopper. Volume 1

written and illustrated by Alice Oseman

[read on 2022.03.28]

Moon Witch, Spider King

by Marlon James

[read from 2022.02.16 - 2022.03.05]

A Snake Falls to Earth

by Darcie Little Badger

[read from 2022.02.02 - 2022.02.11]

Beyond the Mapped Stars

by Rosalyn Eves

[read from 2021.12.27 - 2022.12.29]

Me (Moth)

by Amber McBride

[read from 2021.12.unknown - 2022.12.27]

[A gallery and history of stand-alone reading updates and notes follows.]

[I’m also going to start messing around with Goodreads again because I actually know people there.]

Standalone post link: My Reading in 2022 (reading updates)

Standalone post link: My 2023 Reading Log

the birds this morning when I opened the bathroom window - I took a video but mainly for the sounds - forgot birds would do that in the winter morning rain, I associate this with spring - our little creekside backyard and neighborhood is a stopover for migrators - I should pay more attention

Standalone post link: Morning Birds Winter Rain Window

A new year, a new arbitrary occasion to start up this website again and think about sharing things and engaging with people on the internet again.

Let’s do it!

I’m going to first practice sharing daily or frequent notes and status updates exclusively here on my own website, and see how it feels.

I’m going to continue to read and lurk and learn in some places and from some people who inspire me and are doing the types of things I want and hope to do on the internet; I’m going to try not to be parasocial or toxic about it. Maybe awkward and a little bit weird about it, though. I can’t really help that.

If my practice here feels right I’ll start engaging with more blogs/networks/platforms directly, and possibly start a syndication process.

I’ve been meaning to do this for a while - I’m just using the new year designation (not to mention the impending end of my holiday work break) as an occasion to act.

Standalone post link: New Year's Day 2024 Website Note

Front yard perennial pollinator native sustainable grass replacement project - Update 2024-01-01

I planted seeds as the sun set on the first evening of the new year. (Not to be overly dramatic about it or anything, this is just what happened.)

Continuing my belligerent contrarianism to neighborhood lawn and garden norms by planting pollinator-friendly native drought-resistant perennial wildflower seeds all over my front yard. The yard that I didn’t once water in 2023, and that I woodchipped over a couple of months ago. The yard where this summer I let a volunteer/“weed” yarrow grow large and bloom in the middle of the “grass” rather than mow it down. That yarrow showed me what the yard actually wanted to do, so I am helping it actualize that now. (Note to self: I should have gotten some yarrow seeds to give it companions; I wonder if I can find some today…)

I feel like I probably shouldn’t be able to do this in January, but it’s 40 degrees, the ground is bare of snow, the chips are not frozen together. It is supposed to get colder any day now, and snow significantly, so this won’t last. These are seeds that can/should be planted in fall so that they can cold stratify over the winter, then sprout in spring and summer. Seems much better to have them do this in the ground than in a moist paper towel in a freezer bag or something, since I still can.

My method is digging holes in the chips (which have started composting beneath the surface but after just a month or two aren’t there yet), filling each hole with two scoops of organic planting soil I purchased, then planting a recommended group of seeds in that soil. My thought is that I’m basically mimicking seed starters or pots, but while the seeds are stratifying the composting chips will at the same time be improving the soil under and around their immediate little soil spot. Or the composting could burn up the seeds, too, I guess.

Have no idea if this will work or at what scale, but I feel it’s worth a try. I don’t have much to lose but an afternoon’s time and the cost of some seed packets and soil. And the earth is maybe going to burn us off anyway if more people don’t start doing more stuff like this, so might as well try.

Types of seeds planted or that I will plant soon:

From seed packets purchased at Millcreek Gardens a month or two ago:

• Showy Milkweed
• Butterfly Flower Milkweed
• Echinacea (Coneflowers)

From a seed packet purchased via mail from Plants of the Southwest a couple of years ago

• Rocky Mountain Penstemon
• Chokecherries

From paper and plastic bags of seeds I harvested from sheep ranch and national forest land around my wife’s family’s cabin in upper Weber Canyon:

• Arrow leaf Balsamroot and/or Mules Ears Wyethia (I harvested these in the same bag)
• some kind of lavender fleabane daisies or asters that I really like
• shrubby cinquefoil
• two kinds of sagebrush

Standalone post link: Planting Seeds on New Year's Day

☑ I have obtained a copy of Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You, the latest album by Big Thief.

☑ My copy of Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You features two 180 gram recycled vinyl LPs, one marbled red-orange and the other marbled turquoise-grey, housed in a heavy gatefold sleeve with an accompanying lyric booklet. The sound of this vinyl is amazing and is one of the best and only vinyl sets I have picked up in a while.

☑ I have played three-and-a-half of the four sides of Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You on my living room stereo, in the presence of my children and our dog. (It was bedtime before we’d quite finished, and unfortunately, due to deteriorating behavioral fidelity, the sounds of Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You needed to be terminated prematurely before the final tracks played.)

☑ Prior to this inaugural listening of the Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You vinyl in my house, I did force a premature mid-episode termination of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, all the while recognizing that the phrase “Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You” sounds more than anything like it could have been lifted from dialogue or song in an episode of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.

☑ I have created a ‘Collections’ section on this website, and In that section I have created a ‘My Favorite Music of 2022’ collection page, and on that page I have added Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You as the first album in that collection.

☑ I have declared (here, right now) that Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You is my frontrunner and album to beat for the prestigious honor of being my ‘AOTY’ (album of the year) in 2022.

☑ I have now included the title and phrase Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You at least eight times in this post, and, in addition, have included the title and phrase My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic at least three times.

Standalone post link: Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You - Achievement Unlocked!

This is a placeholder for an essay I hope to finish and publish here someday exploring my thoughts on this topic.

Standalone post link: Why He/They?

Some things I’m working on and thinking about now…

Now

• I’ve started up this website again.

Next

• Winter break is almost gone - I’m returning to work later this week.

• Taking up snowshoeing.

• Might still actually plant perennial/wildflower seeds in my front garden on New Year’s Day in hopes they will cold stratify in the ground and sprout in the coming spring and summer.

• Create and update activity logs on this website and on topic-specific social media platforms such as AllTrails, Goodreads, Last.fm, and Letterboxd.

• Cultivate a more consistent writing and learning practice through notemaking and zettelkasten-ish methods, and share some of the results on this website.

This page was last updated on January 1, 2024. See my prior ‘now’ updates here.

Credit for the ‘now’ page concept goes to Derek Sivers. I tend to get aspirational when I update it, so I’ve decided to embrace that by calling it ‘now and next.’ +

Standalone post link: Now and Next (January 1, 2024)

Cleaning up a bit to begin actively using and sharing this site in 2024.

• Home page:
  • slightly modified introductory blurb
  • created a placeholder for my unfinished “Why he/they?” essay
  • created a “Featured Note” section on the home page and populated it using a new taxonomic parameter
  • temporarily reduced numbers of ‘recent updates’ displayed so that only updates that are actually recent are displayed
  • temporarily hid gallery images until I share more recent images in future updates
  • temporarily hid the “Featured / Longer Things” links as I evaluate whether I want to feature those things going forward.
• Updated the menu, clearing out “digital garden references”
• Updated the header to display differently on all pages except the home page
• Updated the title and blurb for the taxonomy tree page
• Updated the ‘Now’ page, making it a ‘Now and Next’ page

Standalone post link: joshuawxyz changelog 20240101