Things I Love
my local library
freshly picked summer corn
knitting
the Nero Wolfe mysteries
frogs and toads
kit houses
West Virginia glassware
Etruscan art
old Virginia roads
Myrna Loy and William Powell
farm-made goat cheese
going barefoot
volvelles and moving charts
hot chocolate
old time radio
maps
my critter cam
summer thunderstorms
small town independent hardware stores
birch trees
the cat dynamics of this neighborhood
octopodoi
pomegranates
road trips
oranges
freshly sharpened pencils
cookie cutters
unpasteurized cider
heist movies
& books I don't want to throw at the wall
Music I Can't Stop Listening To
- Etta James
- Solomon Burke
- Kacey Musgraves
- Ashley Monroe
- Aretha's The Delta Meets Detroit
- Brandy Clark
- Nina Simone
- Lyle Lovett
- Kirsty MacColl
Books I Really Liked
- The Riddle of the Labyrinth (Margalit Fox)
- My Life in France (Julia Child, with Alex Prud'homme)
- Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944-56 (Anne Appelbaum)
- No Idle Hands: A Social History of American Knitting (Anne MacDonald)
On social media
I have, like many of my contemporaries, mixed feelings about social media, and yet I use the most common varieties regularly. I do sometimes fear I'm going to suddenly start ordering these neighborhood kids off my lawn. Until that happens, here's a quick guide to me and social media.
There's up-to-date local nattering and non sequiturs on twitter. I very occassionally solicit book recommendations and post pictures from my critter cam and roadtrips to facebook (I prefer to have a context for folks on facebook - family, classmates, former coworkers, friends, witty internet pals, as opposed to total strangers.) I do have a g+ account, but come on! I never check it because I don't work at Google and I have no need for hangouts.
Personal Heroes and Role Models
- Lady Catherine DeBurgh
- Arnold Horshack
- Zsa-Zsa Gabor
- Livia
- Bill MacNeil
- Ted Baxter
- GOB
Jane Austen Novels Ranked by Preference
- Persuasion
- Pride and Prejudice
- Emma
- Sense and Sensibility
- Mansfield Park
- Northanger Abbey
Best Pie Flavors
- Apple Pie
- Lemon Meringue Pie
- Key Lime Pie
- Pear & Cranberry Almond Pie
- Strawberry Rhubarb Pie
Five Facts About Me
- I was once stranded on a desert island.
- I need my own Archie Goodwin. Or Sol Panzer. Either'd be good.
- My favorite place in Australia is the rock reefs in front of the town center of Colloroy Beach.
- I once painted my primary bathroom bright bright orange.
- My first email address was a bitnet address.
What are You Going to Do With Your Life?
Working. A lot. For Now. It will calm down any monhth now. Other than that, I'm planning road trips, making time for books, involved in high-level feline negotiations, resisting buying myself any number of art tools that I do not have time for (like kilns or an antique letterpress or forge or ...), and working on several unnamed projects. I think that's good enough for now.
Oft-visited Destinations
This list dates back at least 8 years and many of the links have ossified or gone away or otherwise disappointed me; I am tempted to make some sweeping statements about the nature of the modern web, but my tea is just about ready.
- AskMe and the rest
- News Search
- Ravelry
- Yard Sale Bloodbath
- Pop Candy
- LJ Friends
- Smithie Blogs
- Vintage Rescue Squad
- Kottke
- Not Martha
- LJC
- Crazy Aunt Purl
- Heart of Glass
- Real Crozet
- The Hook
- C-ville
- Babble
- Lines
- An Exquisite Corpse: New and old
- Virginia Craigslists
- ebay
- etsy
- AuctionZip
- Woot!
- Froogle