March 30, 2026
Something I thought about:
- I ended up getting a bit too caught up in town election drama over the past week. I’ve only lived here for 2.5 years, but this is the second School Committee election, and they’re a lot. I’m glad that people care so deeply about local elections, but my goodness the rumors and the pile-ons. I’ll be glad when this is over, and it’s back to work. I started to volunteer on various town committees about a year ago, so I have a much better sense of what’s going on and how things work than I did during the last SC election. This is, as they say, a blessing and a curse. I have reconfirmed that I much prefer working to talking. Back to it.
Something I did:
- I closed a lot of different tabs last week, including final items from the College Fair. I have some ideas for next year and started to write them up.
- I heard a fish crow. What a strange creature.
- I took a couple of walks around the neighborhood — saw neighbors, caught up with folks. The weather is unpredictable, so everyone spends as much time outside as possible on warm and dry days. It’s one of my favorite things about my neighborhood.
- A has nearly completed his rebuild of The Maptool — the system Mapping Bishop runs on. It isn’t ready for release yet, but I tested it last week, and it’s really cool.
- I was supposed to have a couple of meetings last week, but most ended up being catch-ups by text. The one we had was good.
- A & I finally watched H is for Hawk, and I’m glad we didn’t see it in the theater — mostly because we needed to be able to react out loud. They did a pretty good job of portraying Helen, and I really liked that they kept the hawk completely wild. We saw Mabel through Helen’s eyes and via the rest of the world. Christina… well, I can see what they were trying to do, but she’s so much sharper in person, with a brilliance that was missing from the film. She is kind and shows up in real life, but the lines about Julian of Norwich were the only ones that started to get at her mind. Also, the physical differences between the actors and the real people were disconcerting.
- I went to my kid’s school to attend an author talk by one of my former English professors. It was really lovely to get to catch up with her and to have one of my former teachers connect with my child + friends.
Something I read:
- I finished One Man’s Meat by E.B. White. I didn’t love every essay, but I enjoyed many of them.
- I read more of Roots by Alex Haley, which is now my only slow read, so I may add something else in. Or not! My TBR list is long.
- Black Radishes by Susan Lynn Meyer
- Ars Poeticas by Juliana Spahr
- I’ve been sharing this article about AI in education with folks in a lot of different contexts: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-algorithmic-mind/202603/adults-lose-skills-to-ai-children-never-build-them
- And I shared some of these tips with M — there were a couple of new ones for me, but I already use many of these: https://cardcatalogforlife.substack.com/p/google-has-a-secret-reference-desk
