The daylight hours felt like they’re getting shorter even though they weren’t. But that’s because I’d lose huge chunks of my day to having to nap or passing out. I kept bandying about fiction ideas but didn’t really want to pursue any of them right now because frankly my heart wasn’t in it.  Everything I’ve…

Word of the day: “Senescence is a formal and technical word that refers to the state of being old or the process of becoming old.” Emily and I have been thinking a lot about senescence as it turns out. Not that either of us even knew that word existed. But as for “getting old” it’s…

Today’s word of the day is “retrospective.” The only happy thing to say about really anything at this point is I’m glad Sabrina had the best year of her life. Even though Taylor literally got her catalog back and had major commercial success, she’s still watching Sabrina get all the attention. And funny enough she…

Today’s Merriam Webster word: “Charisma refers to a special magnetic charm or appeal that causes people to feel attracted and excited by someone. A person with charisma is captivating and often admired.” Interestingly, the word charisma used to be used specifically to refer to divine grace, not social grace. I always think of it as…

I’m going to turn to some random page of Walden, and see what catches my eye… I opened to page 195, and this is a passage I remember reading and probably noting before, but it bears repeating. “We are conscious of an animal in us, which awakens in proportion as our higher nature slumber. It…

From the moleskine: Maria of the YouTube channel Strange Lucidity made a video about the book Stolen Focus by Johann Hari. People haven’t actually stopped reading; it’s just we’re reading more on screens than from books. And our brains read them differently. Really important point. From that book, Hari says: “The more novels you read,…

“Human nature is not a machine to be built after a model, and set to do exactly the work prescribed for it, but a tree, which requires to grow and develop itself on all sides, according to the tendency of the inward forces which make it a living thing.” – John Stuart Mill I had…

In Vermont, we have a lot of crows here in particular, although we get chickadees, blue jays, and all kinds of other little songbirds. When I was talking to Gemini about the wildlife here on our farm, she spat out the term, Pastoral Realism. I love that phrase. I’m actually kind of a shut-in during…

When I found out that Sabrina Carpenter is both starring in and producing a new Alice in Wonderland movie, I immediately was thinking this film may outperform even Wicked at the box office. My thinking is that, as amazing as Ariana Grande is, Sabrina is at such crazy heights of fame at the moment AND…