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Sat, 30 Dec 2023

🎄 December 29th. Rainy and warm. Very grateful for holiday vacation time. As Eileen and I drove to pick up the kids from a sleepover we discussed definitions of done for our quarterly goals, then I time-blocked the calendar when I got back to my iPad. Listened to Rick Rubin on Huberman. Revisited Rick’s book The Creative Act and highlighted many sections.

Read a stack of books with my 6yo, including some Elephant and Piggie and a few pages of her new Highlights puzzle book. Finished reading the first Warrior Cats novel because my 11yo insisted. It was a fun read, and fun to discuss with her, though I still have trouble remembering the many characters’ names (which change repeatedly).

Played Ravine with my older girls, a cooperative board game they got for Christmas that involves foraging and crafting for survival after a plane crash. Our party died several times from storms, animals, and poisoned mushrooms, but then we lucked out by finding permanent shelter in a cave.

To finish the day we had a candlelit dinner of pasta/quinoa with family-recipe homemade sauce and opened bottles of Montepulciano and sparkling cider.

Sat, 30 Dec 2023

Rick Rubin, interviewing Arnold Schwarzenegger:

RR: When you list the great directors that you worked with, if you think of each of them, would you say there are any qualities that they all shared? What made those people so great, from your perspective?

AS: All of them had vision. When they tell you the movie that they want to do, they will look out into emptiness and tell you of what the movie will be about. And what’s important in this movie, and how you should play the role in this movie, and what they’re trying to get across. So they were visionaries ... all of them had a vision. They had the guts to do it. They didn’t think small, they thought big. And they didn’t listen to the naysayers.

Listened to this yesterday, and it was just what I needed to hear. What an inspiring interview! An early Christmas present from two legends. I appreciate Rick’s deep curiosity and Arnold’s forthright guidance.

Sat, 23 Dec 2023

Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami. Entertaining dual stories, linked psychologically. I didn’t understand all the connections. “Inklings” seemed unnecessary, but maybe that was the point? Was the real world also psychological? In any case it had the Murakami effect of making me want to grocery shop, listen to music, and drink whiskey. (Via Talin Wadsworth.)

Fri, 22 Dec 2023

Thanks to Veronica Lewis for tips on alt text for comics.

Thu, 21 Dec 2023