Hey 'skis. Tell me what's good. There's plenty of bad news out there. What's making you happy? For me, it's the rain. It is wet and dreary and raining and windy in Seattle today. And it's wonderful. The smoke has cleared. The air smells fresh. The plants are happy. It feels like Seattle again... And, because I'm a Seattleite, I love the rain. So that makes me happy today.
I installed new smoke alarms on all levels of the my house and put a fire extinguisher on each level. I suppose that is doing good, not a laugh riot but it could save my home or a life. I built a school desk for my daughter last week, which she really liked but wanted a little taller. Today I built a 2nd school desk that is a little taller and I suppose I'll give away the first one. I might make a similar desk for myself on which to play Dungeons and Dragons (we play on line now, which I hate but it's better than nothing). I put a few splashes of fish sauce in some chicken noodle soup that I'm making, it was the right choice.
I bought a new bike, and I'm picking it up this afternoon. The weather looks great this weekend, so I should be able to get some nice rides in.
Pedal powered. It's a BMC Roadmachine road bike. It's my first bike with disc brakes, and they're amazing. It's a significant improvement over my old bike in a lot of ways but especially in fit. My old bike was a little too big for me, but this one seems perfect. 
I've been really enjoying my last couple evenings listening to some music recs from cgod. It's late in life, but I'm happy I finally realized that when it comes to effortless weekday evening meals, boneless chicken thighs are one order of magnitude better than boneless chicken breasts, which are totally for basic bitches. I actually feel a bit foolish for not knowing this important truth years earlier but whatever I'm good now.
A good friend of mine is a sculptural artist and got interested in Tandoor ovens. So he started building them and refining the design. Which lead to him making Naan bread. And then a full Indian food menu. He's been extremely successful at it. He now makes almost all his money from catering traditional Indian weddings... which is an incredibly profitable business, it turns out. Everything changed when he moved from making his tandoori chicken with breasts, to thighs. Yeah, the meat is weird shaped and harder to put on the skewer, but OH MY GOD it is delish!!! Chicken thighs are da bomb.
That's awesome. You never know where not terribly idle curiosity will lead you. On the list of simple pleasures, good Naan and Tandoori are near the top I think. TBH I should build a tandoor next Spring. When it isn't winter, 80%+ of my meals are on my grill anyway.
writing is making me happy these days. written quite a few shorts in the past year, working on a novel. going to do some writing tonight.
I had the surprising experience of sitting in a garden with Rita Golden Gelman the other day. She's a famous children's author with more than 70 books to her name, and is also now well-known as a travel writer on women's nomadic travel. She knew I was a writer too, and asked me about my writing... the only published books I have are practical technology books written in the 1990's about technologies that nobody remembers anymore... So I told her about my children's book I wrote, but have never published. It is very illustration-heavy (think Dr Seuss) and therefore far too costly for me to produce myself. (40 illustrations at about $1000 each is a seriously big risk.) She brought out several of her books and showed me how she works. How her agent and publishers take her words and turn them into amazing books. The whole inside works... And INSISTED I get a children's/YA literary agent RIGHT NOW. And send them my story. So I am. Last time I opened the files was 2010. I polished up the stories. Found three local agents that are looking for work like this. Going to get everything ready this weekend, and send the agents my work next week. Fingers crossed!
I bet the market for kids books is hot because everyone is stuck at home and libraries and schools are also down. So instead of a classroom for 30 kids each kid needs a classroom worth of books. I honestly don’t see how we don’t get two tier schooling after this mess
Interesting thought... maybe so! Looking at agent profiles the other day, there are clearly far more agents who are "full" and not taking on any more clients, than there are agents who are open to looking at new work. Probably a 70/30 split, in my research.
I have landed a full-time job within a month of graduating, (slowly) reading up on investing plus opened a self-directed retirement account. I’m planning on getting back to the town of my most recent group of friends within the next couple weeks thanks to the huge help of my knowledgeable S/O who lives there, too. This is a net neutral, but the whole of my nuclear family lives in our hometown for the first time since grade school. Moving away now feels odd since I’m enjoying the time spent with some of my favorite people amidst a pandemic. Buuuuut, I want to see where life goes elsewhere knowing my hometown may call me back in the future.