I think that was a weekend, but I’m not sure. It was kinda fast and blurry. I blinked at the wrong time, and suddenly it’s Monday. When coming to work is a moment to relax and look forward to, you know you’re doing something wrong. We’re trying to slow it down, but it’s a bit of an inexorable force.
Packing has commenced, along with the attendant de-cluttering and attempt to reduce the amount being packed. We haven’t yet found a house, but there are things (like the library) that we can pack and do without for a month or too. Both the First Reader and I are anticipating that we will be tired and stressed, so the more I can do to prepare us, the better. We’d moved into the rental slowly, but moving out I’d rather not take a month as we did then. So we’re planning ahead.
I’d asked on facebook about how best to go about the whole process of thinning and minimizing stuff, and it was fascinating to see how people approach it – some are all about the slow and gradual process to keep up with it, others wait until it’s annoying them, then purge and binge on getting rid of it all. Universally, they want to keep books – although many, like me, are converting their library to ebooks and pitching the paper versions. I love my library, but when it comes time to move it all, I have to wonder about my commitment to collecting heavy things.
I haven’t been reading much. Any spare time I’ve had has been… um. Well, ok, I can’t remember spare time recently. The First Reader and I did take a lovely country drive on Saturday, winding our way down and back through the far side out Southwestern Ohio. We chatted while we drove, and he’d commented that he’d been working on reading a short story collection because it fit the reading time he had – ten or fifteen minutes at a time. Me, I listen to podcasts at work while my hands are busy, and when I have to drive alone in the car I hook the phone to the radio and play them that way.
This morning I woke up early and searched for podcasts to subscribe to a few new ones – if you enjoy true crime, Dark Poutine is a dry Canadian take with two narrators who have lovely accents and a very understated take on macabre matters. I listen to a lot of true crime, but not the ‘big’ stories, since this is one way I can gather fodder for my own fiction. Only there are cases I’d have to rewrite, because reality can be far too insane for a fiction reader to accept. I also listen to some happier stuff mixed in there, to keep it from making me gloomy. Ofttimes, I’ll subscribe, and then unsubscribe – like I have done with Lore, because the narrator made me nuts. He covered interesting legends and myths, but the way. he. talked. was. so. so. annoying. (the periods are not a typo. He really talks like that.)
In no particular order, the shows I’m most likely to listen to and not delete a lot of episodes are:
- Stuff You missed in History Class
- The Dave Ramsey Show
- Freakonomics Radio
- Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe
- True Crime Garage
- The Ken Coleman Show
- Stuff You Should Know
- A Gobbet ‘O Pus
- The Way I Heard It (Mike Rowe telling stories! Honestly, these are short and sweet and wonderful)
- Once Upon a Crime
- The History of the Cold War
- Sisyphus Speaks
- Casefile
So when you have some time to kill, can’t read, can’t make art, but you can listen, these are good ways to keep the brain engaged. I’ll be going through a lot of them this coming week with all the driving I’ll be doing!
Comments
9 responses to “Don’t Blink”
I’m a history nut, so he might be an acquired taste, but Dan Carlin, has some damn good podcasts out. He narrates them himself, and is conversational, animated, and entertaining. I’ve listened to all of these multiple times without the slightest hint of boredom. I’d tout:
“King of Kings’ (the classic era Persian Empire)
“Blueprint for Armageddon” (A FASCINATING account of WWI, a subject that had previously bored me to tears)
“Wrath of the Khans” (I had TAUGHT Mongol History, and these podcasts taught me more about them than I’d known when I taught them)
“Prophets of Doom” (a retelling of the religious violence of the Thirty Years War – might make you nauseous in some parts, as may the WWI stuff)
“The American Peril” (colonialist America without all the SJW blabber)
All available for free on YouTube, but you might wanna hit his tipjar. I did. Disclaimer: In NO WAY am I affiliated or compensated for pimping him.
That’s just to START. He has more.
https://www.dancarlin.com/
I had subscribed to him, but the ‘casts I’d listened to were all SO long, it was daunting. Some days it would take me longer than a day to get through them, and I more enjoy shorter ones so I’m changing subjects and there’s more mental movement. But I should try to see if he’s got some that are about an hour or so – the ones I’d initially looked at were six hours! That would be better for me broken out into episodes.
I rarely listen to an entire podcast in one bite. Many times I “listen” to him in the background as I work/write. Hence my predilection to listen to stuff like “Blueprint for Armageddon” multiple times. To make sure I “got” it all. When I can recite some passages. or at least know what he is about to say, I figure I have absorbed the lesson he has attempted to impart. (Pardon the delayed reply; I try to be more prompt. This time I have an excuse. I am an idiot. I forgot to check the “notify me” box.”)
I’ve had a few shows where I paused and came back to it because I’d had enough for that session. But often I’m gloved up and stuck with what is on!
You scientists. Make me laugh, and reinforce my decision to NEVER be a lab person, one arrived at in college chem classes.
Well, as I told a colleague yesterday, I love this job. We get to stab stuff (sampling), set it on fire (several tests, and sterilization), and much more.
Horse for courses. We all have different interests and abilities.
Exactly!
I had a ditch my paper books 20 yrs ago. Boy was I scrambling until ebooks got going.