6060-842

The B-52s – 6060-842

I bought myself a new phone on the way home from work today. Very uncharacteristically, I only spent an hour or so of research time before buying this phone. Usually I spend way too much time agonizing over the various options and then I just find the result kind of mediocre anyway.

Partly this is because I have always had an Android phone. I got my first smartphone (it sounds so weird to call them that now) when we were building a mobile site at work (another dated relic) and I didn’t have a phone to test it out on. My coworker had an iPhone so I figured it would be good to be able to cover both platforms, and work would pay for it. In all of these years, I think I had two phones that I really liked, the others have all been fine but nothing to get excited about.

Starting next year, though, I am porting my number out of the work account so I need a new phone, and for once I am not bound by the options that the corporate account deems acceptable. This means I am also going to be paying for it, which I haven’t had to do, so I am sticking with Android.

My current phone is a Samsung, some recent but not top of the line model, and it’s fine. The thing I like best about it is that it still has a headphone jack. I don’t have airpods, I don’t want airpods, and I want to be able to use the aux cord in my car and charge my phone at the same time. Finding phones that still have headphone jacks really limits your choices.

To cut to the chase, I bought a OnePlus Nord N30. A bunch of my friends in Sweden adore their OnePlus phones and work would only let me choose between the big flagships. It’s unlocked so I can use it with any carrier, and it was on a big Black Friday sale. I won’t have it function as a phone yet but I went ahead and transferred over all the apps and have been playing around with it. So far, it seems pretty nice. I haven’t tested out the camera yet, which used to be the thing I cared most about, but it does have a headphone jack! I decided that I am never really going to get great pictures at shows and I do use the headphone jack all the time so I may be sacrificing on photo quality a little but I will still be able to play music in the car and talk with my headphones.

I got so wrapped up in going through all the apps that I totally lost track of time and almost didn’t remember, the last day of NaBloPoMo! I did it! All 30 days! Thank you all for following along. Perhaps in my empty nest life, I will be able to make a post now and then outside of this November marathon. Here’s hoping!

Khmerica

No-No Boy – Khmerica

"Some kids move because their parents take new jobs
Some kids move ‘cause of napalm"

I am not a heaven and hell believing person but man, I would like to think Henry Kissinger is reaping in death what he sowed in life. Eternal torment, pain, and horror, motherfucker!

So Cool

Las Robertas – So Cool

I was scrolling through my Shazam tracks playlist and came across a song by Las Robertas. I needed something more to jog my memory so I clicked over to their artist page and was reminded that they are from Costa Rica. I listened to a couple of other songs from this album and have made a mental note to listen to the whole thing when I am next driving up to the office.

I was talking to my best friend this morning and she was telling me about this typewriter store in Philadelphia. They repair, restore, and sell typewriters, and have tons of typewriters of all ages. It sounded so cool. Against my wishes, my husband has started collecting typewriters. I am a fan of typewriters and I think some of them are so beautiful, but we don’t have space for three or four typewriters, let alone more. I wouldn’t mind going to check out this store though! I was looking at some of the pictures and smiling, remembering the spinning ball era of electric typewriters. Click on over to check out Philly Typewriter.

Watching the Credits

The Beth’s – Watching the Credits

Thanksgiving break is over. I dropped my son off at his college and made my way into the office for the afternoon. That first day back from a holiday is always kind of a shock to the system but today was a little extra.

So it was nice to get home and have it be quiet. It was lovely having my son home and seeing my daughter over the break but it is not like they are far away or I haven’t seen them in months. I like talking with them and hearing about their jobs and classes, friends, etc., but I also like quiet.

I know people who really struggled to find their place once their kids went off to college. That empty nest hit them hard. I think partly because I was not home during after school hours for their whole lives, and as teenagers they would be busy in the evenings with friends, clubs, or homework, I didn’t feel like I was suddenly missing something. Also, after all of those years of working all day, driving for over an hour, then getting home and having to fix dinner and attend to whatever things the kids’ needed in those few remaining hours, I am glad that I no longer need to be constantly on. I can sit quietly and just read a book, or watch something, zone out, whatever I feel like doing. It’s not bad.

I feel like this fall has seen a lot of transitions for my family: son off to college, daughter starting a job, my husband also got a part time gig, so things were shifting around for all of us. I think the new year will be when it all starts to fall into place a bit, fingers crossed.

The History of the World

Gang of Four – The History of the World

I am about half way through Patrick Stewart’s memoir. As someone who first became aware of him through watching reruns of Star Trek: The Next Generation, I am learning a lot about his early life. I am also learning about life in Yorkshire in the mid-20th century and am really pleased to see his humble roots make him a proud union supporter and hater of Margaret Thatcher and the havoc she wrought on unions and the arts. That reminded me of the Gang of Four, hailing from Leeds, very near Patrick Stewart’s hometown.

Back when I was watching those reruns in the early 90s, it felt like a real guilty pleasure. Once I found out Patrick Stewart had already had a successful career as a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, I felt a little less guilty about it. I’d had an interview for a job at the Folger Shakespeare Library and was imagining being able to meet all of these famous actors when they would come through DC for some reason. The job wasn’t going to pay me enough though so I didn’t end up living that dream. In truth there probably would have been very few of those kind of chance encounters.

But I was smitten. I got the CD of his one-man performance of A Christmas Carol, which gave me a whole new appreciation for the book. Then my real moment of glory, for Christmas one year my Brooklyn sister and her husband took me to see him play Prospero in The Tempest on Broadway. We were so close, the second row I think, and he was fabulous.

When I think about it, I really have not seen much of his work. I think I will probably start chipping away at that once I finish the book.

10 Breaths

Liz Lawrence – 10 Breaths

Somehow it is already Saturday. I wouldn’t say I’ve done nothing during the last two days but I didn’t do much. I’ve been mostly running errands for/with my son so that he has what he needs for the last couple of weeks of the semester. Tomorrow will be spent making sure he is packed up to go back.

Today also means it is just one month until Christmas. I have a lot going on that isn’t even holiday related, plus all of the shopping to do, and now there are only four weeks to go. Oof. Everything will get done, it is just a little daunting to think about.

I am not a list-maker. Many people I know are in love with to-do lists of various kinds. They derive great satisfaction out of having an ordered list and then checking things off. I might make a list to go to the grocery store but that’s about it. Sometimes I think maybe I should make a list of all the things I need to do, but I pretty easily talk myself out of it because the whole thing sounds more, instead of less, stressful. That kind of visual reminder is rarely something I want to see, and I don’t get any kind of joy or thrill from crossing things out so why take the time to write it down? If I’ve finished whatever task I had to do then it’s out of my hair and I don’t need to think about it anymore. That is good enough.

However, packing up might be a good time to make a list. I will admit that I forgot to take the meat thermometer with us up to my daughter’s for Thanksgiving and maybe if I’d had a list, I wouldn’t have forgotten it. We didn’t really need it though since I just got one of those turkey breasts that cooks in the bag and you kind of can’t screw it up. It was a low stakes situation. What I am eager to avoid is having to swing by my son’s college “on the way” home from work one day because he needs something he forgot. It is not on the way, and I sure don’t need that added to that list I won’t make of things I need to do.

Desire Lines

Deerhunter – Desire Lines

Not sure what it is about this song that has me hitting the repeat button. It’s closing in on seven minutes long, when I usually find that to be much too long.

It’s been nice having my son home but it means I am staying up later than I want to and unlike him, I can no longer sleep all that late in the morning. So this is all you get today.

Stick Season

Noah Kahan – Stick Season

My husband, son, and I drove up to my daughter’s for Thanksgiving today. She is cat sitting and didn’t want to leave the cat overnight so it just made more sense for the three of us to go up there. We brought most of the food with us and cooked it there, which worked out fine. I did have a new appreciation for my mom during all those years when we would drive an hour and a half up to my grandma’s and then my mom would get busy cooking for the giant crowd. My grandma might peel and chop potatoes but she was not a great cook and I think it was just an unspoken arrangement that my mom took over when we got there.

We had a storm blow through on Tuesday night. The wind was so strong that the sound woke me up in the early hours on Wednesday. There are two pine trees in our neighbor’s yard that hang over our driveway and there were hundreds of pine cones (and the pine needles, a never-ending battle) littering the driveway and the street. The street sweeper even came by and made several passes to try and get them off the road. Before the storm there were still leaves on some of the trees but as we got on the road today it was clear that stick season is upon us. It’s just gray-brown barren branches, with some pine trees sprinkled here and there, as far as the eye can see.

My daughter is a huge Noah Kahan fan. I went with her to his concert back in September because she needed a ride. She had been playing his music in the car pretty much anytime we were driving together so I was already very familiar with it all. She had first described him to me as this guy who writes songs about living in New England, which is certainly true. But the more you listen, the more you come to learn that it’s also depressed, heartbroken guy who is suffering from Seasonal Affective Disorder because he’s living in northern New England songs. My daughter used my phone to stream her playlists while driving and now Spotify suggests playlists to me with titles like, Sad Girl Indie. It’s not really my jam but I appreciate the scene he paints with this song. There’s another one called “Northern Attitude” (now with Hozier joining in to the delight of all the sad indie girls) where he sings about being raised out in the cold and on little light, and I find myself nodding along.

At the end of September, tickets for the two Noah Kahan shows at Fenway Park next July sold out as soon as they went on sale. My daughter had one in her cart but when she went to purchase it, it disappeared. She was crushed and was sure she had screwed up somehow but someone I know at work had the same thing happen to her. I think the Red Sox site was not really set up to handle the kind of demand it got that day. I felt sorry for her and did my usual thing of looking for other cities where he might not be as well known and where tickets might still be available. It basically came down to some places in Canada. She is only half joking when she talks about going to Quebec in April to see him. I would love to go to Quebec again but in April? That is still stick season for sure.

At Pace

Cola – At Pace

I almost forgot about posting tonight since my son wanted to watch TV with us. The show ended and I was just about to say, welp, I’m going to bed, then I remembered.

All day it has felt like Saturday since I had the day off. I’m so glad it is only Wednesday and, aside from tomorrow’s cooking, it will be a pretty low-key day. Then there will still be three more days before work comes knocking. I should probably try to accomplish some household task but I also might just read Patrick Stewart’s memoir, Making It So, which I borrowed from the library this afternoon.

Long Holiday

Flyying Colours – Long Holiday

While I was at work today, my husband went to pick up our son from college for Thanksgiving vacation. I got home expecting to see him but he was already out with a friend. Ah, the freshman home for the first long holiday weekend.

It is looking like it will be a pretty low-key visit. The friend he was out with earlier is working at a big box store and consequently has to work tomorrow and Black Friday, and I’m guessing Saturday too.

I am ready for Thanksgiving but I am not ready for it to be Christmas shopping season. Thanksgiving is early this year but it feels like it was just Halloween. There is so much that needs to be done before Christmas and it seems unlikely it will all happen.

For now, I am going to delight in not setting an alarm for the next few days and spending time with the kids.