1. Reading
2. Writing
3. Arithmetic
I. Reading
My ebook reader — iRiver Story HD, now discontinued, but quite functional — is cluttered.
I’m currently rereading Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash, which I first encountered during a book exchange at a Romanian (Transylvanian) youth hostel in 1996. In the year-plus since I bought the device I’ve read several dozen books on it, only a couple of them re-reads. Some were one-and-done trash. Some are like comfort food. But less filling.
At the same time, comfort reads like comfort food pose a dilemma: life is short, even with decades ahead, and with so many possible dishes and so many books out there, why return to the known? Is it returning or retreating?
My ebook reader is cluttered. I need to log what’s on it and clear it out, start fresh.
II. Writing
Noon brunch prompts. Three prompts, ten minutes each, a total of 1,300 words. It’s all first-draft material, but it’s therapeutic and somewhat creative.
And once you start writing you get other ideas. I’m not writing what I should be writing right now — strictly academic stuff — but I do have critique and criticism in mind, ER-diagrams and coments on data modeling, and interface design and programming notes to jot down before they flee. I’d rather have too many things to write and not enough time than the other way around.
III. Arithmetic
Take one pound of kidney beans, first sautee an onion and carrot in a couple teaspoons of olive oil, and divide into 11 servings, you get about 150-160 calories per serving. Instead cut the olive oil to half a teaspoon; eliminate the carrot but use several stalks of celery; add a goodly amount of bay leaf, thyme, and parsley; and divide into 14 servings, and you get about 116 calories (as well as four grams of fiber and six and a half grams of protein) per serving.
About a teaspoon of loose tea. 212F water for black, only around 170 for green, and 3-5 minutes or 2-3, respectively. I bought a pound each of earl grey and gunpowder green some time ago and they’re locked away in canisters. I did not forget about them, but I locked them away in peripheral memory. Ms. S. had a box of loose teas, a mere sampler, really — English Breakfast, Lady Brit, Earl Grey –, that I decided to open up and use because she won’t, now that she’s basically off caffeine. And two of the three have been finished. But it led me back to loose tea vs. bags.
