Chrome Tabs : 66 → 64
Gmail Inbox : 64 → 43 Unread, 69 → 48 Total
I got some feedback on my food popup app idea from Veronica of A Pie in the Sky (and we had a fun little adventure around Albany as well). That was super helpful, and now I’m planning to talk about another key aspect over Thanksgiving dinner with a friend I know who is into finance, DeFi, etc. (yes, there is a DeFi element 
). So I’m hoping to share more details here after the holiday. Stay tuned!
As I mentioned recently, my passion fruit harvest is in full swing, with 17 now sitting on my counter ripe enough to eat. 
Fortunately I believe I’ve come up with a nice little low-ABV cocktail I can bring to Thanksgiving and share with some folks. It’s rum, ginger liqueur, a dry, piney vermouth (key ingredient!), lemon or lime, simple syrup, and the flesh of one whole (med-sized) passion fruit. If it goes over well with people I’ll post a recipe here soon. If not, you’ll never hear about it again. 
I finished listening to a lecture series on the works of JRR Tolkien, and yes it was a bit dry or esoteric at times, but it got me interested in exploring some of his work more deeply, and using this new context to inform a re-reading of the core Hobbit and LotR novels. I loved them deeply as a kid, and still have the multiple copies of each that I reread numerous times over the years. But it’s been quite a while since I revisited…
I began Internal Family Systems Therapy a couple months ago, and this is only the second therapist I’ve ever worked with (I’m winding down 6 years with the previous one this coming week!). On top of that we’re mid-pandemic and most therapists, including my new IFS practitioner, are not doing in-person sessions again yet. So I’m getting to know this new person entirely through the screen. Given that, I think it’s understandable that I feel like I’m getting comfortable a little slower than I did in the early days working with my previous therapist (and for what it’s worth I do keep notes and have read back through, so I think my sense is fairly accurate here). In any case I bring it up mainly because the most recent session felt like a bit of a shift toward that sense of trust and safety that therapy requires to really get deep and make progress. So that’s exciting to notice.
I enabled Google Oauth and Twitter logins here, so hopefully anyone who might have been annoyed at the prospect of having to sign-up for an account to comment can now do so more easily. You’ll find the new options in the signup flow here.
I think I finally decided what color my new sofa is going to be, along with all the other particulars (size, firmness, etc, etc.). I filled out my order form, and now just waiting on some logistics on their end before it goes in to the manufacturer! 
This is a big deal for me. I know it’s a bit crazy for it to take months to decide on a piece of furniture, but I’m glad I followed my methodical process, and I do think I’ll be happy/happier/happiest this way. I sure hope so anyway. So, drumroll please…
Yep, it’s the lighter teal color! This is a mockup of roughly what it should look like in a brightly lit space in the daytime. The pictures on the wall and the rug are fake, included to hopefully help me make a better decision, hah. Anyway, 6-8 weeks for manufacturing, so I’ll see it in the new year!
One of the philosophies of my coach and his practice is to just try things as much as possible. To experiment, treat everything a little “lighter”, and just see what happens. You often can’t see where something will end up, what exactly will happen, until you try. It’s “emergent”. Over time I’ve come to see this approach as also suggesting that, when doing something feels hard, doing it “a little bit” is still worth doing, if it makes it easier to accomplish something. This week I again saw the value of that as I tackled a few long-procrastinated tasks of various kinds, deciding to engage to the degree I felt able, and I found that even “shallow” engagement has tangible benefit. In particular I was reminded of some content I want to post here while reviewing an old doc I’d been putting off for ages, and I already published a #Seed of some of that. Hopefully you can look forward to more, in the same spirit of “just try it”.
Finally, in my online dating life, I’m the kind of person who - given the chance - will have a pretty lengthy and in-depth profile. I’m seldom given the chance these days as most apps have focused on short profiles and more recently on prompts to focus you further. OKCupid remains the hold out, which is one reason I prefer it. In any case I let my profile stagnate through much of the pandemic, and once I got back to dating again I wanted to really overhaul it completely. There was some obviously out-of-date information due to pandemic particulars and whatnot, but it was also just due for a big update. So I’ve been slowly working on that…
For some reason I was inspired this week by the prompt “A perfect day”, and I ended up writing essentially a short story (I know, I know…) for it in my profile. It’s very self-indulgent and probably rather cheesy, but at the same time I like what came out; when I re-read it I wish I was living that day. So… I guess it’s authentic, too, and for that reason I’m leaving it for now. I’m contemplating whether to share it here for possible feedback, but that does seem super vulnerable. 
The other thing that’s interesting to me about having written it, though, is that it’s a simple form of fiction, and that’s a type of writing I very seldom do. I did it more in school, and perhaps some other times since, but very infrequently. I actually write a fair bit, but it’s almost exclusively for business or personal projects, functional or opinion-oriented writing rather than creative. It made me wonder if it’s something I should explore more in the future though…