I had my motivation handed to me this evening as soon as I got a microphone on my hand. A lovely song was all I needed to hear. Sadly, it was first sung by someone I hadn’t thought about in years, and who I’d only learned a day or so ago had passed away quite recently. What would that leave? An opening, empty space, and one of many things left behind to revisit. #mbnov
For the third straight night, it’s mall restaurant takeaway: a couple of orders of chicken boti kabob for me, and a Tandoori chicken leg and some chicken kabobs for A., which she finds spicier than ones she sometimes gets at one of her lunch spots. Commitment can be tasty. #mbnov
We spent Black Friday as one does: questioning colonialism, debating war and disease and nation-state folly and thinking about grievance as fuel for grudges instead of justice. After a possible second viewing, there’ll be further fodder to interrogate social ritual roles. #mbnov
Working on a holiday meant staying in until we finally got too hungry. All the local eateries were closed, except the Pakistani-Indian restaurant at the mall a few blocks away. On my way there, closed doors at our nearby strip mall’s venues managed to retain their charm. #mbnov
I’m behind on time but still in time, more than ready to take a few days off work but still signing up for an extra shift when the opportunity presents. I’m a few days behind on journaling too. Most importantly, I’m thinking hard about how to update my tools and platforms. #mbnov
These days, ice isn’t something I put in my drinks to cool them. More often than not, it comes to mind as initials: the internal communication engine, or the Inter-City Express high-speed trains between German cities. “Der ICE ist auf gleis zwei,” as Duolingo keeps saying #mbnov
Some things I do because I don’t mind, it’s no imposition. Some things I do with the ease of knowing they mean danger I can’t see, but also protection for others. I may never get used to their strangeness, their uncanny reflections of our world, so long as I repeat them. #mbnov
Today’s expensive lesson was grabbing a paid-for bottle by the flimsy cardboard box it came in. That means the bottle left the box at high speed and landed at my feet on the garage concrete floor. In the course of human events, I tire of gravity, consequence, finding out. #mbnov
One way I described how my job feels sometimes is: you climb into a big wooden barrel surrounded by baseball bats, and wait for anyone who wants to take swings. Lately, working from home means the barrel feels flimsier than before. Then: throw in a hair trigger fire alarm! #mbnov
Last week, I filled out a mail-in ballot and planned to walk it over to this dropbox installed outside city hall. As it turned out, our county library on the way there was hosting a polling place, so I wound up slipping my ballot into a soft blue padded bag. Franchise: exercised!
