Hello Friday: FaN Notes [Week 10 of 2011]

I’m still behind on my big secret side project, which I can’t tell you about yet. But I promise, I will start hacking away at these emails as soon as I can. Meanwhile check out my thoughts on this (rather fantastic) week at FaN.

1. Kelli, I’m actually really good at keeping my physical clutter to a minimum. I regularly scour my closet and I try not to accumulate too many things that mess up the flow of our house. My main problem is actually electronic clutter. I’m forever having to clean up my harddrive before I can do simple things like update my iPhone or run system upgrades. I’m adoring organizing websites right now, but I wish there was a book about how to keep your hard drive organized. I’d buy that in a hot second! [Fierce in Seattle: The crap that holds you back]

Mmm, cobbler! Click on the pic for Roya's meditation on yummy cobblers.

2. My husband pretty much had to give up his romantic vision of being in a hiking couple when he met me and I informed him, “I don’t hike.” Actually that’s not true. I have hiked and I don’t see much point in it. The other problem is that if I do hike, I prefer to hike alone, and I still don’t see any point in it, so this means I don’t hike much. But really the biggest problem is that when I’m hiking I’m either thinking, “This sucks and is pointless” the entire time or — and this is a big OR — I get hit with the hugest of epiphanies. I don’t mean little plot point epiphanies — I love those — but completely life-changing epiphanies. I might still be living abroad if I hadn’t hiked a dead volcano in New Zealand and realized that I was running away from my future in America by continuing to live abroad. Let me restate that. I quit a teaching job in Taiwan that I had just gotten, and for which I had already bought plane tickets for, in order to come back to the states, and basically starve career-wise for the next five years — because I hiked a volcano. So now I refuse to hike for fear of another completely life-altering epiphany. I mean that one worked out … eventually. But for like five years straight, I was cursing myself for coming back to the states, and I’m not sure I ever want to see things that clearly ever again. Anyway, this is all to say that Amy Robinson feels the exact opposite of me on this subject. [Tall Drink of Nerd: The Mullygrubs Pt. 2 — Take a Hike]

3. I’m trying to think of a delicate way to say that single ladies with thin walls and/or floors should definitely read this week’s Dr. Miro blogumn [Ask Dr. Miro: Sex Through the Floorboards]

4. I have no interest in seeing SPIDER-MAN: TURN OFF THE DARK. I’ve always found it hard to watch a trainwreck. I can’t even look at pictures of Charlie Sheen anymore. [The Ryan Dixon Line: Flopocalypse Now]

5. I agree with Joe. We SO don’t need DST. [On the Contrary: Does Daylight Need Saving?]

6. Oh Gudrun, that’s the demons, honey. You’re finishing up a project, so of course they’re all like, “Don’t you want to do something else? Go somewhere else?” In general, if any fantastic new ideas or angsty itches come up near the end of the project, assume that it is a writing demon trick to get your eye off the finishing ball. Always finish what you’re doing now, b/c 9 times out of 10, that shiny new idea, travel bug, or vague itch will be gone when you look up from THE END. It’s seriously like that, dude. Though, if you do decide to take up parkour — mad respect.  [Secret Life of an Expat: Sticking the Landing]

7.  Ugh, Kelly Lett is making me feel bad. I bought a new bike last year and have used it exactly once. But now that the weather’s warmer I should definitely break it out… [Nerd in Transition: Falling in Love Again]