Michael

2019 October1

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Welcome to October! In September I set out to do 30 Days of Ukulele. Which went, well, um, it went nowhere. I played less in September than I did in August. Count that as a big fail. What did I learn? Not to sign on to something that is more than I could handle. I’m not yet up to the level needed for the class. Which lead to my sidestepping on the entire thing. I also seem to do better with a thing I can do on my own. August had daily blogging. The point was to do a “something” each day. Donot set out to do something defined by someone else. Like July with a watercolor course it did not work out.

I’ve got a couple of things in mind for October. Check back in four weeks to see how that works out

Notebooks

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If you are reading this you are familiar with one way I track my life. It’s a journal of sorts. I have others.

Morning Pages in which I start (almost) every day with four pages of longhand. Part of the idea is to not reread it for at least a month or so. I’ve extended that to not rereading it at all. Well, at bit once in a while. It is approaching the completion of its twentieth book. See Daily DOs for morn information.

Sketch Journal, from Lynda Barry. I have all sorts of stuff in it. With the intent of going back and finding things later. It is actually a fun thing to keep. I’m currently rereading Syllabus with the intent of injecting some of Barry’s suggestions into it. I also have more of her instructional books.

Cooked a part cookbook, part food diary, it’s what I write down what I cook so I’ll have my own cookbook someday. This is not the kind of cookbook you see wherever. Ruth Reichl is kinda sorta a hero for me. Even if my Mom cooks well.

Uke, a ahem, book on learning Ukulele. This one is pretty lame. Hopefully I’ll pull it out of the bin.

Exercise in which I keep track of what I do. Well sorta. It is also lame. But I have aspirations and hopes.

Weekbook a progression of single pages that touch on what happened each week. Well, until I lost the book. When I find it, it will resume.

There are a couple of other books on the way. Watch for updates Real Soon Now.

Reading Romeo & Juliet

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While strolling through YouTube I came across the Crash Source Literature section. It starts with How and Why We Read: Crash Course English Literature #1. At the end, they invite you to join them starting with Romeo & Juliet. I don’t have a copy, at least one I could find. So it is off to the library. And I reserved a copy.

Romeo & Juliet, Library Copy

Notice anything? Anything that would set this apart from what you’d get in The Complete Works of William Shakespeare like you might have had in college? Cute cover, isn’t it? Because it is Manga. Like Japanese comic books. So read it backward, with the page orientatin being somewhat disorienting and you’ll have it. A little tough to follow the iambic pentameter, but there’s lots of great visuals.

And then I wondered what was amiss with me. I have a Kindle. Shakespeare is public domain. I could read a copy there for free. And off to it I went. And yes, they have a copy. And also copies in Spanish, French, Polish, German, and more. It’s a handsome copy. And in English, they also have it in HTML for easy web reading.

Front Piece for Gutenberg version.

And,, of course, I can get plain text copies, PDF copies, and more. Why did I go to the library? Because it’s nice, I guess. But I just did it out of laziness. Or a habit. Just like going to Gutenberg for a free electronic copy of a book. For that matter, Amazon offers 100,000 free books. Including a copy of Romeo & Juliet

Daily Don’ts

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Yesterday I posted on my daily habits. Today what I don’t

Exercising that thing I think I should do but I don’t. Even after the years of bicycle commuting, after a few months of walking in the morning, after it all I just don’t. Now, I do exercise. But not every day, most of them. I also have a tracker on my phone so I know when I get less than ten minutes in. I am working up to a half marathon, 13.1 miles. I walk it. I will walk it. Sometime in October.

I’m sure there is more that I want to do on a daily basis. I’ll add them in here as I remember.