Make it Pleasant
Hi friends,
This week I wrote about a highly effective and often overlooked productivity hack: making what you need or want to do less painful (read: more pleasant).
- I'm really enjoying Bandcamp again recently. It's strange to have had such an on-again off-again relationship with a site - I have downloads from Bandcamp that are over 14 years old and then I swear I didn't touch the site for several five years blocks, before it came roaring back for me over the past year. But somehow I think it's the future of digital music? I like owning music, the streaming landscape doesn't reward most artists, is rife with issues of its own making, and the fundamental economics of the industry might be shaky. All that to say, you should go listen to Los Porcos, Blind Dead Timmy + Lee Baggett, or some Sport.
- Living in the Boulder/Denver area in Colorado gives you access to some of the most incredible skiing on the planet, but to access 90% of it you have to run the dreaded I-70 gauntlet which often turns into a slow mess, and is famous for being a 'parking lot' on weekends. Now as much as I dream of expanded ski rail and great public transit to the slopes, and remind myself that 'I am the traffic' when I'm stuck in it, I have to really give it up to this guy for his lateral thinking to solve this problem. He basically said, hell with all that, I'm gonna ski the slopes and snow that is given to me closer to home, using plastic 'Marquette Backcountry Skis' to access and ski down stuff much closer to home. He loves skiing and hates the ski experience, so built a way around all of that.
- I've started East of Eden finally, after years of being interested in tackling it and reading Steinbeck. I've decided to listen to it because I'd heard it was long and could be halting and slow. What I found while listening to it while painting our bathroom this past weekend was not that at all, and left me thinking: what was I afraid of with this book? Whose impression of this piece did I let inform how my own experience would be?
- We're adopting a 1-year-old half Pyrenees rescue pup today. Her name is Nora and she's perfect - heartworms and all. I do have to admit a little hesitancy leading up to the decision to introduce another dog after we had to say goodbye to Kenzie this fall. Remembering that I often fixate on the knowable downsides instead of the unknowable benefits was the nudge I needed to get my excitement rolling downhill.
- We finally finished The Sopranos this week and I actually really liked the ending. No spoilers but it's famously contentious - I found it a brilliant, dreamlike way to close the page. Look at me providing speedy commentary on relative cultural moments...from 2007.
Joey
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