The Raven's Roost

Why I Am Deleting GoodReads, and Maybe You Should, Too.

I've had several "social reading" accounts over the decades, including LibraryThing, which I still have but don't use anymore. I ditched GoodReads over the winter, and picked up The Storygraph while it was in beta, but I signed out of it recently with no intention of using it anymore.

LibraryThing is great for simply cataloging my books, and I have significantly fewer than I used to, so even that's no as much of an issue now. But the element of social media and sharing has really had an effect on my reading, and not necessarily for the better.

Right now, it feels nice to just be reading stuff and not worrying if people will think I'm slow because of how long I spent reading a 300-page book. Not worrying about making my $number-books-this-year challenge. Not wondering if people are going to think less of me for reading something controversial, or something frivolous. I'm back to just reading books for the fuck of it and I like it.

Right now I'm still reading A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy, and To Green Angel Tower Part 1. This Tad Williams series is really engrossing and I'm definitely going to seek out the other volumes he's written for this world. I also picked up Beastars volume 6 (and I used to worry about logging manga, as people might think I was cheating on my 'read so many books a year' goal,) Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes, because nothing seems to get a certain sector of the population all worked up like a discussion of nutrition, and Consolations of the Forest: Alone in a Cabin in the Middle Taiga, by Sylavain Tesson, which is about the joys of not being around other people. And I don't mind sharing that with anyone here, because we have good interactions about reading. Some of you are writers, some poets, or other creative types, and we like a well-written book.

I'm still keeping my physical reading journal, though. I've kept it since 1993 - not in the same notebook, of course. The actual book itself was acquired in around 2002, and I copied all the old info out of a battered spiral-bound I'd been using through high school and college.

I think it's somewhat like my recent purge of the shelves I did in 2019. Why keep a book around if I'm not going to read it? Books are meant to be read, so if I'm not going to read or refer to it, I should get it back out into the world so someone else can. I realized I was just keeping certain volumes because if someone came over, they might think a certain way about me when they see that particular book, and who the hell am I trying to impress? Since then I've gotten into a habit of boxing books I finish to either donate to the Friends of the Library for their book sale, or to go to Chamblin Book Mine to (hopefully) be converted into store credit so I can acquire different books. I only keep ones I feel that I'm likely to read again, or that make good reference works. I have a lot shelved in my studio that I may not read cover to cover again, but are good for world-building. I have a lot of nature and animal books shelved in the living room - bird guides, books on gardening, and things like mammals of Florida and "know your trees." (The Larch.) And of course I have my small collection of vintage cookbooks.

Plus I feel like it was becoming more of a chore to log books, make sure the edition is right, did I really start on the 12th, or should I put the 11th because I read some in the car... blah blah blah.

 Starting Tuesday afternoon and continuing into right now I've been dealing with some sort of infection and have felt like Ass. Mostly I have muscle aches and weakness, sore joints, and exhaustion, along with some minor GI problems that are mostly "don't wanna eat." My resting heart rate really reflects what's been going on - it hasn't been this high in a long time. I've skipped my runs this week and missed a strength training workout, but I am planning to do some easier strength work today. I feel better. Not 100% but a lot better than Wednesday when I spent most of the day asleep.

My garden isn't really doing anything spectacular and I think it's because this sandy Florida soil is awful. I'm letting what's already growing just continue with what it's doing but, depending on how I feel this weekend, I may plow under the other two beds and start directly composting them. I found a new to me method of composting that makes utter and complete sense when you think about it. In nature, when something dies, it falls on the ground, and then it rots, put very simply. So ... why not just put stuff on the ground. I'm trying this in one of the beds that only has a few plants growing now (all the tomatoes died for some reason) and while I haven't been doing it long enough to see a result yet, I haven't had any of the problems you're told you will have if you don't compost the "right" way. It smells? Not really. I haven't put any animal bones or meat in it, but this pile doesn't really smell different from anything else in Florida - which is to say it smells like rotting vegetation. Raccoons and cats digging in it? Yay, they're turning the soil for me. Otherwise I don't care. The more I think about it, the simpler composting seems, but we've allowed all these rules and procedures to take over a very basic natural process. Maybe people prefer to pretty it up instead of allowing it to remind them that hey, one of these days this is going to happen to you, too.

For whatever reason, my neighbors were setting off fireworks last night. Someone please tell me what's to celebrate on July 18. Also fireworks are awful for more reasons than just that I woke up thinking someone was shooting guns at the house.

I went down an interesting rabbit hole the other day as I searched for examples of Moira's Web Jewels - remember her and her amazing sets of nav buttons, bars, and backgrounds? Some of them are still out there on other sites, usually archived, but I found a more or less live Angelfire page using a full set of her stuff. And it was a Pern/Dragonriders fan page, so also a rarity in the Anne McCaffery apparently hadn't sued them. I never did find the set I was looking for - I remembered that she rendered a metallic gold surface in a really unique and beautiful way and I wanted to steal the color palette. But digging around and seeing screenshots of old GeoCities pages, or having a page FULL of animated gifs come up was very Web 2000 and a lot of fun. 

 Not that I want to engage in gatekeeping, but...

Today I have become a Real Runner, for today I have lost a toenail.

My pinkie nail came off. I think it had been slightly loose but the whole thing came off. There was a small amount of blood but it doesn't even look that bad. I just need to remember to bandage up before tomorrow's run. SO! How's your day?

Here in Florida we're having our first "tropical" weather of the season, with a depression or possibly just a "low pressure area" moving in from the Atlantic. By around three or four here it should be pissing rain. We kind of need that at the moment since this is also wildfire season, so any extra rain is welcome, but then again there's ground saturation and the upcoming hurricane season. Anyway it's a pretty quiet day without even a lot of bird and animal activity outside, so I'm doing some weekly chores, making a pot of black beans for Taco Night, and doing my nails. Woohoo! I just noticed the barometer is at 29.7 so something is definitely on the way.

I have never actually eaten at Chipotle, but the black beans I make are supposedly "Chipotle style," and they are pretty simple, with just salt & pepper, garlic, cilantro, and lime juice. But they pair up well with spicy roast cauliflower, and hell they're just good on their own with some cooked rice. Honestly, if I never made anything else with it, it would have been worth buying an Instant Pot just to make beans on the spur of the moment. Not that thinking, "I'd like to have beans" and soaking them in advance is exactly the most arduous thing ever, but it's nice to be able to just throw beans and water into the pot whenever you want. Red kidney beans excepted, of course. 

I haven't been online or on Instagram much lately because I am trying to curtail my mindless web surfing. I feel like I spend too much time farting around on Reddit and shit that I could be using to work on my comics, do yoga, or literally anything else besides argue with a stranger about kale. And I need to trim my Insta account again and get rid of the accounts that seemed real but have turned into selling accounts. I mainly post there to share gardening and cat pics, so I don't want to buy t-shirts and I don't need other peoples' drama, yanno? I like looking at pics of my friends' and family members' pets and yards and stuff. I'm even somewhat into Outfit Of The Day posts, even though my OOTD usually consists of yoga pants and tank tops, and I do like nail polish blogs. But no, I don't want to buy shakes, pills, or a coaching program.

My decluttering and minimalism project stalled a little but I'm getting back on track. I have another load of books to take to Chamblin's, some donation goods, and a bunch of old comforters and blankets & etc. to get rid of. Not sure if I want to put those in a clothes recycling bin or just take them to the dump. I mean, what can they do with gross old pillows? But anyway, I think I'm doing good at the other part of decluttering that people often seem to get tripped up on.

I recently read an interesting think-piece on Marie Kondo, and unfortunately I didn't bookmark it so I can't share. But the writer pointed out that as much as Americans like to declutter, spring clean, and get organized, we often wind up back in the very same situation because once we see all the empty space and realize we've gotten rid of so many old things, we feel like we now have permission to acquire new ones. So a major part of my 2019 Minimalism is "don't go and buy a bunch of new shit." This doesn't apply to obvious things we use like food, pet supplies, or other consumable goods that are meant to be used up. It does mean that I give a lot of thought to new purchases now, even at a relatively low level like clothing and books. If I can get it from the library or get it used, I don't buy it. I don't just buy clothing because I like it or it's a nice color, or it has a kitty on it. Don't just buy $thing because you can. 

And I'm going to leave you with this - Respect Your Elders (Scandinavia and the World)