The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Bay Area

I sometimes say that I live and die by routines. If I have a routine for doing something, then it gets done. If I don't have a routine (or I depart from one) then anything could happen. This means there are things I do more often than I need to (like checking blood pressure or recording weight) because if I don't fit them into a daily routine, I don't get around to it. But it means that things that need a less frequent routine are sometimes tricky (like theoretically once-a-month housekeeping tasks, such as cleaning the cat waterer).

The daily bike-coffeeshop-write-bike routine is solid (even though there are two days when it's coffeeshop-write-gym instead), but if I need to do something substantial before biking--especially if it involves putting on normal clothes--then it's hard for me to shift myself back to it later in the day.

So on a day like today when I started off with an online podcast interview to record, I probably won't get the bike out. Knowing that, I plan to do yardwork and housecleaning. But there's always the temptation to say, "I make my own rules; I could just take a day off." Except I bought some Alpine strawberry sets a few days ago and they really need to get in the ground...

I prefer not to duplicate content on multiple platforms, largely through laziness. And I tend to assume that if people are interested in the content I post on a particular platform, they'll follow me on that platform.

That said, I'm posting a couple of multi-part long-form essays over at my Alpennia.com blog that people might possibly be interested in.

One is an 8-part series presenting and analyzing the primary source material on 18th century pirates Anne Bonny and Mary Read, in addition to presenting and analyzing the narratives about them in the General History of the Pirates. This is part of my usual Lesbian Historic Motif Project blog.

The other will be a 16-part series entitled The Theory of Related-ivity: A History and Analysis of the Best Related Work Hugo Category. If you were the sort of fannish data nerd who enjoy the article Charting the Cliff that Camestros Felapton and I wrote a couple years ago, this may also be your thing. Related-ivity will also be mirrored on File 770. (I haven't started posting this one yet.)

So you have several ways of reading, if that's something you want to do. I'd love it if you read (and commented) at the Alpennia.com blog. The blog also has a RSS feed here at Dreamwidth but I have no way of being notified about comments on it. And, as noted, Related-ivity will also appear on File 770 (where you can also comment) but obviously the LHMP series won't appear there. It occurs to me that, given that the RSS feed on Dreamwidth doesn't like image files, it's probably a poor choice for Related-ivity, since you won't be able to see the figures and tables.

Why is life so complicated?

Having made a resolution to try to get more engaged with local politics (on a more-than-just-voting level), I followed up on an email inviting me to meet up with a couple of county and state level representatives. The email clearly stated 4:30 PM today. I just double-checked the original email. But when I arrived at the venue and asked about the event, they said it had been held at 10:30 AM this morning.

The previous time I tried to go to a local meet-up held at a coffee shop, I hung out in the coffee shop all morning (a normal thing for me to do anyway, so not a problem) and the rep never showed. I commented on it to the barista who said, "Oh, yeah, I saw them poke their heads in and look around then they left again."

Contemplating whether to make it 0-for-3 in a couple weeks at a different town hall meet-up I've put on my calendar.

Is it me? Is this a strategy and somehow I need to get on the super-secret "we'll tell you when and where it really is" email list? I mean, this is super-blue California so I don't think my reps are chickening out. But I'm not feeling the love.