February 26
Two brilliant ideas in 24 hours! (Also probably some video games)
1965
Went to "The Potting Shed" tonight. It was good. Bobby, one of my counselors, was there. K, a real hood, was in it, and she was pretty good.
Tomorrow afternoon I'm going after a pattern for M. And tomorrow night - PERHAPS. I did a lot today. I did 1/2 the kitchen floor and 2 bathrooms, cleaned the kitchen fixtures and my room and read more of my book. See you tomorrow night - either in ecstasy or in tears.
1985
It’s dawning on me that 2 semesters out of four, this is my normal pace. Even-numbered years are light. Odd numbered years are heavy. In heavy years, all I can do it course stuff and some research, but little or no writing. The historic costume collection is manageable when a grad assistant is available, but is too much for me to do alone.
1997
Well [yesterday’s] list is pretty funny. 5 things to do and I didn’t do any of them. (Though the Baltimore van did take care of itself.) How does my life need to change? I need to resist the compulsion to play addictive games (Solitaire, Rayman) . That’s how I spent 3 hours yesterday!
2005
Two brilliant ideas in 24 hours!
1) The material culture course and the intro to American Studies should focus on the 150th anniversary of UM.
2) And upper level research methods course based on a single year in the past.
Comment 2024
I didn’t do the first, but I did three iterations of the second (2015-2017), focusing on 1975, 1976, and 1977. Good times.
2023
Our kitchen floor and both bathrooms could use fifteen year old Jo’s attention.
But let me tell you about games and puzzles! Now that my tablet helpfully (?) tells me how long I spend on various apps, it is clear that my addiction has only shifted from game to game to game. It also did not start with computer games. Before Pong (1972), I never met a pinball game I could resist. We bought ourselves an Atari console for Christmas in 1977 and played endless Breakout. Our Apple IIe (1983) brought the wonders of Solitaire and text adventures (ZORK!!!). The kids arrived in the 80s, and by 1997 we had a Playstation, along with Rayman and Crash Bandicoot.
Today I played games on my tablet for 90 minutes or so as I enjoyed my morning coffee, bagel and gjetost. Two games on a free puzzle app, a couple of match 3 games, Wordle (oh yeah), and the Washington Post mini and meta crosswords. Tried a new game, but will probably delete it as it is too addictive. I know the tricks they play to keep users playing “just one more”, and I prefer games that serve up a single “daily” engagement. Know thyself, as the sage advised.
Also: I miss Rayman and Crash, but know myself better than to go looking for them.
2024
I did an online drawing workshop yesterday with Nishant Jain (https://substack.com/@sneakyart). It’s been a very long time since I did visual art on a regular basis, though I have been trying to get back into it. The focus of the workshop was drawing tiny people very quickly. Here are some of my drawings.
Thanks to Substack and to Nishan for making the connection.
Well done on the tiny people! I am hoping to join one of these sessions sometime.
Love these!