First Sighting of the Season

Elevator

My new car is slightly shorter than my old car and I'm raised up a little higher.  While I'm not "running around in traffic in a rain poncho" like I would be in a smaller car, I get the feeling of more of a bubble in this car than the last car.  Maybe it's also my stage in life or the realization of how infrequent serendipitous encounters with people are.  

I've found myself thinking a lot of movies where people just encounter others on the street.  But in my world, those streets do not exist.  It's to and from everywhere in our cars with the windows rolled-up, the climate control keeping us comfy and music to cover the silence.

We're in our little bubbles.  And we float from hub to hub.  Home to work to home to work to home to church to home to work to home to work.  And so it goes.

Not Recommended: Gone Girl (Spoilers)

You might wonder why I've got an Amazon link if I say right in the title that I don't recommend this book.  I'm hoping you'll drop by Amazon and maybe buy something else.   That helps me caffeine addition.

Anyhow, I think this must have been another Entertainment Weekly recommendation and I might just have to stop reading EW soon.  Well, all I really read these days are the book reviews in my wife's subscription, but I'm not having great results lately, seems like their taste in books is different than mine.

I will admit, the device in this book, at least in part one is pretty interesting.  It starts on the "day of" for Nick Dunne, which you come to find out is the day his wife disappears.  Or the day Nick killed her.  Or something.  Their fifth wedding anniversary, but this is a deeply unhappy couple.

The next chapter is her diary entry from the first time she met him, over five years prior.  And so you flip back and forth, he moving forward a day or two at a time dealing with her disappearance and navigating suspicion by the police, dealing with his inlaws, etc.  At the same time, you're moving forward in time towards this date, months and years at a time along her timeline through far too detailed journal entries.  (I find it hard to believe anyone would keep journal entries that complex.)

Happy Friday!

Partyin' partyin' partyin' yeah!

Spam

Make your mom proud.  Don't be a spammer.

Tasked

I love the written word. It is my favorite medium for communication. In a book, I can pause, wind it back, read it again and again. I can put it down for weeks, or spend an entire weekend, book in hand.  And then there's Twitter --  challenging you to choose wisely if you want to craft something brilliant in its tiny box.  

And in work, it allows me to be connected to many people while giving me the space and peace I need. Or causes me to work many hours outside the office since email is always at hand. 

I am no brilliant writer, but I have been told I do not fully comprehend how persuasive or influential I can be in my writing, that it's something I need to be careful of since not all of my examples are positive. I love the idea of the pen as a sword, parry, swish, stab, slice, it's all there.  Writing can be as intricate as the footwork of a swashbuckler or as cutting as the heavy blade of a soldier rushing into battle. 

There is the charge that I rely too heavily on email and there are hopefully signs that I'm attempting to practice the other forms of communication, but that's not what this post is about, I've talked about that at length before.

No, today I saw something that bugged me and has stayed with me all day to the point that I finally had to get it out.  In written form, of course..

Resolved

I'm going to make an early new year's resolution - I'm going to try to stop speaking negatively of five things: Tacoma, Pierce County, Portland, Oregon and Washington State University.  I feel like I've gone over the top negatively recently or perhaps it's become too easy or I've had too many opportunities, but I need to take a break.   It's become old, dated, routine and less fun.  So it's time to let it go and move on.  To what, I don't know.  That is to say I'm in no hurry to find new targets of derision (still not a fan of United or Sprint PCS) maybe I just spend less time speaking negatively.

This doesn't come from any course correction or anyone saying anything, just something that's been rattling around in my brain for awhile.

Night On

Why would I want to spend a night on the Hilton Facebook page? (the subject line)