G A R O

I thought I would do something a little lighter today, so I’m sharing some of the other takes on using the internet to facilitate communications. I kind of enjoy some of these different interpretations, anti-gamified in a way, of social media. Maybe “alt-social media”?

• Pony messenger, like email but it delivers only once per day at the same time for everyone. → @garo is me, feel free to write.
• Minus.social gives you only 100 posts, ever. That’s my profile on the link there. But what if I waste a post and regret it? So I haven’t written even one yet.
• Slowsocial.us is about focusing on connection. Not much else to go on here. I don’t remember when I made the account, and signing up didn’t help figure out what it is any better. Maybe it’s a scam?
• Slowly distance based delay of message delivery. It’s like pen pals but on your phone.

Know of any other good ones?

I mean a different type of inbox in this post, not the email inbox. Well, not always.

I am still struggling to get a consistent “in-tray” for my captured notes. I basically mean fleeting notes, the notes that you capture while not distracting from your work in the moment, and then deal with later. Since I’ve been homebrewing my own Johnny.Decimal+Commonplace book+Zettelkasten system in Obsidian, so that’s where I put my in-tray. ⊕ Yeah, I know that’s a lot. Most of it is working, just not really the zettelkasten part so much yet.

• It’s not always convenient or smooth to get every fleeting note into Obsidian. There are several failure modes: syncing is slow, capture from webpages is clunky.
• A pocket paper notebook is fun to use sometimes. Nothing beats an inactive surface (paper) at being almost completely unable to interrupt you or distract you like an active screen does.
• Captio has been really great for a low distraction digital interface, on both my phone and ipad. But it sends the output to my email, not Obsidian. And it’s not available on laptops.
• What about marginalia? Literally those notes in books. I set a reminder to go back those notes a month after finishing the book to grab the ones that still resonate. Is that in the in-tray?
• I don’t use Obsidian to manage those reminders. Instead I just use the stock reminders app.
• For other reasons, I’m starting to explore pinboard.in, and I used raindrop.io before that, and del.icio.us I won’t link to it, it seems to be unsafe! before that. I’m not satisfied with Obsidian for bookmark management.

I have been trying to reduce friction here, but as Bob Doto points out ⊕ Just found Bob. Bob seems to be talking directly to some of my questions. frictionless can be its own trap too.

I’ve considered using drafts. It’s available in all the places. It’s clean and fast and pretty distraction free. But it’s another system to invest in, it might not be worth the effort. I like simple things.

Maybe some friction is necessary to get a grip on things. Having a few-but-not-one inboxes maybe is okay. The point is to be intentional about handling those notes while taking them out of the in-tray. The point is not focusing on getting it into one perfectly beautifuly simple elegant system, but to have something that works for me and captures most of my notes.

Anybody out there got any thoughts or suggestions on this particular aspect?

A couple of years ago I noticed that I actually wasn’t the owner of my email inbox. My email inbox owned me. I just archived the emails that it presented to me, from meaningless mailing lists, from old camera clubs, or irrelevant advertisements that started coming after some purchase or other. So I unsubscribed from these obviously useless emails.

But it wasn’t enough. A year or more later I noticed that I was still getting more than 10 irrelevant or uninteresting emails for every one that mattered to me. But some of these had sentimental value or some reason for keeping them coming.

1. I had bought something from this company once, and I thought I might buy something else from them again some day.
2. I agree with this cause.
3. This mailing list at one time sent me some stuff that was useful, and I hope that it will do that again.
4. I attended a lecture from these people once and hope that someday they will offer another one that I would like to attend.

The list goes on. One un-critically thought through excuse after another. They are easy to break. I’ll do these ones real quick.

1. Refuted: I don’t need to be reminded daily. I have that thing I bought to remember. Or if I don’t remember, maybe it wasn’t that special after all. These emails aren’t going to make up for that.
2. Refuted: Receiving an email, or a lot of emails, is not really that much of a commitment to a cause. Do something more impactful if you really care.
3. Refuted: By the 3rd or 4th un-useful email, it’s ok to unsubscribe. There is a rule on the internet somewhere about that.
4. Refuted: If there is another interesting lecture you’ll probably hear about it from some community you actively participate in. There are probably dozens and dozens of lectures that you don’t hear about and missing those has turned out ok so far.

I suspect that keeping all these emails was a reasoning breakdown at the intersection of a) free stuff, b) Gmail adding tools for managing more useless junk, and c) the mirage of Gmail’s archive and search features. “Just archive everything” is a trap in general. It’s been said that archiving is just throwing things away for the uncommitted. I am hardly ever able find something that I know is in my email with search. At least not without putting in some real effort.

Upon recognizing all this, I did an even more severe clean out, and I was left with some real breathing room. I think I got only one or two automated emails a week. It was great, so great that I subscribed to The Sample to find some better newsletters. But I think I’ve reached some new maximum amount of suffering midly useless emails again and I’ll probably unsubscribe from about half of those. At least those emails are ones I intentionally signed up for. I know who’s fault that is, and I can just as easily undo it.

Join me in unsubscribing from useless email!

Sometime last fall I made the effort stop multitasking at work. Rapidly switching context had reached its limit and my role was changing. It was hard at first, but it’s gotten easier.

Over a few months after that, I found interruptions increasingly unpleasant. What was once a necessary function of my role had become a frustrating experience that just happened to me without my control while I was trying to do other things.

So I have steadily turned off more and more of these notifications of chats, emails, some meetings even. At first I was reluctant. Being resonsive to others, helping to unblock them, was something that I was proud of. But as space opened up for thought and focused work, I have become increasingly protective of that time.

A lot of other notifications had to go too. They were preventing me from being able to focus, just think uninterrupted, or recover from an intense discussion. I also noticed that a lot of notifications where coming from apps or businesses, and they just weren’t useful, relevant, or interesting to me. So I muted, unsubscribed, or in rare cases scheduled the notifications for only a couple of times per day. An ever expanding list of apps and systems have been banned from ever notifying me.

It feels good to have some space, some breathing room. Some time to think and decide what’s next.

Not the finish I was expecting

There was startlingly less remarkable things on the road today, the last of our journey. We covered 384 miles (618 km), and only saw two things to remark on.

1. Mount Shasta had surprisingly less snow than when we drove past going north 10 days ago. Partly because I suspect it had a fresh dusting from the winter-in-May storm, and also because it was clouded in and hard to see. But still, Lake Shasta is low, and not much snow on the mountain. This is worrying.
2. The colored trucks, also near Mount Shasta, which I did see on the way up also. But, since I’ve seen them for years and years, I didn’t really think they were remarkable until I reflected on it. This is kind of stretching it.

This meager haul is far below expection. But I think that’s just part of small numbers.

See all the other parts: part 1, part 2, and part 3.

Today’s drive was the reverse trip of part 2, Portland to Ashland, 285 miles (460 km).

Here is what we noticed:

• A big (person sized) “Nature Pride” graffito. Only in Oregon, I guess.
• A large house fire south of Salem. I hope everyone is ok.
• Saw 5 separate people walking south, or resting, on the shoulder of I-5. I feel like times are more desperate than I’ve ever seen in my life. I’m trying to figure out what it means and what to do.
• I was really noticing the planer nature of the scattered fluffy cloud strata. It was very 3-d as we drove over the hills and through the valleys; moving nearer and farer from the cloud layer quite noticable shifted the perspective.
• Mount McLoughlin was very pretty, a perfect cone.

That’s 5 remarkable things. Going north, it was 4, and based on the first day we expected 6. I think this is all fairly consistent. Does it say more about the rate of remarkable things on the road, or about the noticer?

As an aside, I learned that there is a complement to metropolitan statistical area: micropolitan statistical area. Neat. Found this while reading about Roseburg, Oregon.

In which another mask is described.

The second mask is similar in overall structure to the first. But, there are some significant differences.

There is the domed forehead, but this time the transition to the eyes is smooth. The mouth is still rounded into an “o”, and it is still at the chin, but it faces forward instead of down.

The mask is carved from one piece of wood, it is smooth with some sparce lines inscribed in the surface and inlaid with white. The wood is dark color, perhaps ebony. Starting at the top, the forehead is domed and protrudes forward beyond the nose even. The eyes, at first looking lidded, are in fact rendered with some different, more reddish pieces that have pupils cut in them. The slits below are for the wearer to see out. The nose gives a triagular appearance, even though the tip is rounded, and the bottom, where the nostrils would be is a flat plane. There is a long space between the bottom of the nose and the mouth, at the chin. The cheeks and upper lip area are smooth and rounded to flat. The lines cover all the surface and have a bisecting line down the center of the face to the mouth. The round inside of the mouth, the nose, and the eyes are the only area not touched by the lines. Lines continue under the chin. There are not ears.

It is a true mask that could be worn. Overall the feeling of the mask is friendly to neutral.

Spoiler Warning.

Here’s a recap of the last few days.

We met Mina and her friend Lucy. Based on literary reasoning, I assume that Lucy’s fiancee Holmwood, and one Dr. Seward, will feature in the story’s future.

Unfortunately for Harker, he went exploring further into the castle during the Count’s absence, and willfully fell asleep. While on the cusp of sleep three Ladies approach, but are stopped by the Count who says Harker is his alone. The Count returns Harker to his rooms. Later, when he checks the door where it happened, it’s shut tight.

‘til next time!

The house I am staying in has a few masks decorating the walls. There are 8 masks in 3 rooms, I believe. I thought it would be interesting to describe them. Here is the first one.

This is likely the first mask you would see. As you enter the house it is directly facing the front door. The mask is near the center of the wall of the dining area next to the door to the kitchen. It is placed at the height of top of the kitchen doorway. There is a bit of space around it, separating it from the other pieces on this wall. Also, there is another mask to the right of it near the corner. I’ll describe that mask another day.

This mask is carved from a single piece of wood, and it is old and worn. Most of its surface is rough wood, with some evidence that it was once painted or perhaps scorched or burned to darken it. The forehead is domed, almost a quarter of a sphere, and there are raised rings at the temples. Where the ears would be are two small holes on each side. Perhaps for ears, or perhaps for straps. I don’t know because I haven’t seen the back. The eyebrow is formed by a hard right angle cut that goes back to the plane of the face, where the eyes are. These are two circular bore holes close to the nose. The nose is narrow acute triangle that reaches to a rounded point. The nose also has a single small hole bored through, as though pierced. The lower part of the face descends and narrows smoothly to the chin. A small mouth is at the point of the chin below, forming an “o”. The mouth itself is chipped, no longer having a perfectly smooth o. Overall the mask is a fairly calm one with smooth lines and soft edges.

Brunch at home is such a good meal. Even if home this week is a rental in the next state. Overnight french toast bake, crispy hash browns, eggs sunny side up or over easy, coffee, tea, juice. Fruit salad, with oranges from a neighbors tree back home. It’s not a complicated or fussy event, at least not where I come from. One thing that made it special today is having all the family together here, even us out of towners, to celebrate a late Mother’s day.

In the afternoon I got to solve a technical TV issue for my parents so they can enjoy a baseball game without the spinning baseball of your-connection-has-been-interrupted. That’s the hope, anyway.

More miles more smiles. Or, in our case, less miles less weird stuff.

During the drive today, I saw a bit fewer things than expected but not anything out of statistical expectation based on yesterday’s observation.

Very succintly, yesteday the drive was 383 miles, and today it was 285 miles. Since there were 8 interesting things seen yesterday, if the rate is the same, we expect to see 6 today. I like error bars, so 6 ± sqrt(6) or 3-9 remarkable things expected.

Without further delay, here’s the report.

• The Human Bean, which in this instance is a coffee shop. That’s not the remarkable part. I distinctly recall someone on MB recently using the term, I think in some identifyably Oregon context. ⊕ Maybe I made that up. I can’t find where I saw it. Before that it was a phrase sometimes heard in my house growing up. Not much heard by me after leaving there. Maybe it’s an Oregon thing? Hard to back that up.
• “Fish Viewing Area.” This has got to be about the most Oregon (or pacific northwest) thing ever. You don’t notice these things until you’ve been away for a while and realize that you didn’t see anything like that anywhere else in all the other places that you’ve been.
• The adult shops. I was in Portland a month ago and there were quite a few. My recollection is that is actually usual. I was expecting to see some similar number on the drive this time, but there were only few, in the places I remember them being. I think I have enough to do, but I suppose I could do some counting to estimate the prevalence here vs other places.
• A whole lot of rain. Very on-brand for Oregon, but also kind of unusual for mid-May. Thank goodness for Rain-X!

Seeing 4 remarkable things is a little low, but maybe 8 was a bit high yesterday. Small numbers are trickly like that. I’ll get another shot in a couple of weeks when traveling in the reverse direction back south.

The road is a great place see things.

• A “sheisty” little train. CFNR was so maligned I think because of some graffiti on the cars?
• Shasta “Lake” looking maybe the lowest I’ve ever seen it. At the overpass just before the 705 N exit, I could see the Sacremanto river in its channel that is often under up to 50 feet of water (just eyeball guessing the high waterline depth from a speeding car). I wonder what we would get if we sized the Southwest water system today, after an additional ~80 years of weather observations?
• Mt. Shasta covered in powdered sugar, looking very nice.
• The roadside political commentary: state of Jefferson (been there for years), Biden is Weak (new one to me). Personally don’t particularly want to draw any more attention to either of those, but great big road side signage is hard to not comment on.
• And the roadside statuary: cow with calf, and the dragon. Both have been there for quite a few years now.
• Saw three small airplanes taking off in a row. The last being the slowest, but probably has the best view from a huge panoramic dome windshield.
• The huge burn scar north of Redding, it seemed to go on for miles. Not sure which fire or year that was from.
• Someone wearing what looked like an animal skin print rug, poncho style, and maybe it was a large Ikea grocery bag balanced and draped over their head? I couldn’t even see the person walking inside this getup.

Stay tuned for a similar update tomorrow from the rest of the journey.

I’ll be road tripping north today, and on past trips I noticed that some towns feel faster to get out of than others. I’m finally taking a moment here to notice it a bit more.

On past road trips I’ve noticed that different places have different departures times, and its route dependant. Some shorter, some longer. The exit tomorrow is longer, one of the longest I know. The other “longest exit” is getting off Long Island to head back upstate. Takes forever.I don’t feel like I’ve really gotten out the door until I’m on I-5 Interstate 5, USA. That’s about 1.5 hours drive from where I start when there isn’t any traffic. There is always traffic.

Something peculiar about it is that this particular exit is the fast one, even though it adds 30 minutes (according to the maps) to the total time vs another faster-in-total route. The other faster overall route takes 30 more minutes to feel like I’ve “left”, bringing it to about 2 hours. Feels like an eternity.

In looking for patterns in this, I noticed that both places I mentioned already, the Bay Area and Long Island / NYC, are very large metropolitan areas. Maybe it’s that I don’t feel that I’ve left until I’ve crossed some frontier of the metro area. That sounds like a natural thing to think. And it holds up when I think about different size places I’ve lived. It also survives the test of exiting town via the nearest frontier; in my case a southerly exit is the quickest.

But the journey began when I left my house, so what does the city have to do with it?

📝 In Writing Life Stories: How To Make Memories Into Memoirs, Ideas Into Essays And Life Into Literature by Bill Roorbach there is an exercise from chapter 1 about first sentences. These aren’t limited to the very first sentence in the piece, it could be the beginning sentence in the chapter or segment too. The goal is to look at a bunch of them, pick some personal favorites, and determine why they work.

I won’t reproduce my list in entire. These aren’t even my favorites, just ones that I wanted to comment on.

I wonder what is the speaker’s true name. Why are we using this name instead of that one? Ishmael is an exotic feeling name today, whether that was true or not in the 1850s I don’t know. It’s such a short sentence to contain all that. I think it’s a great success. My spouse disagrees.

This is a very odd place to bring our focus when the title character is such a mythically great monster. Why is he concerned about goats at all? It has a bit of whimsy. I feel like I am seeing the old ram through someone else’s eyes, with some of their thougts about it. There is background here, judgementalness and prior history with this goat in particular.

This is a very unusual wording given that we are purportedly reading a manuscript written in 1327, translated into French. And why is this what the author, a monk, is bringing our attention to? Seems very unusual, personal, a memory.

After examining first sentences more than I had before, opening sentences need a couple of things to really succeed. They need a bit of crunchy specificity (thanks Tim!). A good opening sentence has a touch of mystery. It opens the door a bit further, maybe in a surprising way on what you already know about the story. There should be a noticeable question in your mind when you read it: why is this the aspect that the author chose? It should illicit a response of curiosity, and a desire for resolution. It launches (or re-launches) the “story” in the direction that it eventually goes. The shorter the better the sentence, often times the better.

There is a companion exercise to take a similar look at my own first sentences. I still have to do that one.

The events of the book so far are summarized and discussed. Spoiler Warning.

The events so far (from memory, going forward I will keep my own running summary notes): ⊕ For other posts in the series, see here.

1. We meet Harker on his first night in the Carpathian mountains of Romania. It is the eve of the final leg of his jouney.
2. Harker departs the hotel with a quite singular scene of the hotelier and townfolk trying to pusuade him from finishing the journey. I have never seen, heard, witnessed, experienced, nor participated in such an event in all of my travels or life.
3. The transfer from the coach to the carriage is quite strange, and the ride to the castle is also beyond experience, and harrowing. I find it troubling that Harker is so matter of fact about what he witnessed. Perhaps he is questioning what he truly saw, or perhaps at this time over a century ago there was more credibility about this type of thing.
4. Harker meets the Count. They talk to the morning.
5. They discuss the Count’s new London property. Evidently the Count is planning to move.
6. Harker determines that the Count is without servants.
7. Harker understands that he is captive.

There we have it, things have gone quite badly for Harker it would seem. A few things are worth it to me to note about this reading.

First, the immediacy and intimacy of the writing is quite successful. The food, the experience of travel, the scenery. The layer of reading it on the same day as it was written helps to build the connection with the character. I noticed that upon entering the castle, discussion of the particulars of the food stop being listed. It makes sense to drop that sort of trivia given other factors.

Second, Harker seems oddly lucid and accepting about these experiences that he is having. Even upon noticing that he is imprisoned, he doesn’t list his options for escape. Maybe Stoker thinks readers will accept that all the avenues are in fact closed. Maybe readers in that day did. I am not satisfied with the short discussion of cliffs and locked doors.

Third, I am quite satisfied with my own interest and engagement level. Of course having never been interested in horror as a genre, or in Dracula in particular, I was quite surprised at my own interest level. Glad to see it hasn’t waned yet. It’s quite possible that the novelty of real time reading is keeping my engangement level up.