Words + Projects + Stuff I Like
Extremely long-term readers of the blog will know I was thinking about a dog before I ended up with Toby. Now that Toby’s gone, I just don’t think another cat can compare with him, so I’m back to dog thoughts.
I’m currently in the phase where I try to list out all the cons of dog ownership to see if this is something I really want to do. I hadn’t really considered eating random stuff? This is a thread from 2019 that I found again, and wow is it vivid:
Of course, cats can be gross too: 
The light in the mornings and evenings is so good these days, the valley like a bowl filling up with clear water. Am I thinking about getting a dog so I can go on more walks to admire the light? Yes, yes I am.
The Light Continues
by Linda Gregg
Every evening, an hour before
the sun goes down, I walk toward
its light, wanting to be altered.
Always in quiet, the air still.
Walking up the straight empty road
and then back. When the sun
is gone, the light continues
high up in the sky for a while.
When I return, the moon is there.
Like a changing of the guard.
I don’t expect the light
to save me, but I do believe
in the ritual. I believe
I am being born a second time
in this very plain way.
I finished my J. Crew-inspired striped rollneck sweater last week and it turned out exactly how I wanted (the highest praise/best possible outcome of any handmade item).
The yarn is Cascade Cantata, a 70% cotton/30% wool Aran weight yarn. The final fabric is lovely–squishy and drapey and cozy but not itchy. I used another Petite Knit pattern (the Cloud Sweater) but added stripes and skipped any ribbing before the bottom hems.
This was knit on bigger needles than my rainbow sweater, but I also stopped knitting socks while I had this going and that might be the trick to a timely sweater? It’s not quite timely enough to wear it this spring, since it’s going to be 85 degrees Monday, but it’ll be ready for fall.
When you get an overcast day in the first flush of spring in the mountains, everything looks the way you imagined the England you read about as a kid did–green and gray and maybe filled with unicorns?
1. A surprisingly interesting look at envelope security patterns–it goes from their history into collections into architecture. (This is the same place that linked me to stick figures in peril a few weeks ago.)
2. Word of the day: Ossicone, “columnar or conical skin-covered bone structures on the heads of giraffes, male okapi, and some of their extinct relatives.”
3. I will always watch old ladies lift heavy weights, because it me, as the kids say. Way to go, Grandmother!
Forget about the Buddhist cycle of samsara, my endless cycle of desire is something new to wear. Good thing I can sew.
Good thing I can spell, too (mostly) (DŮMBÂSS!)
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From my “save this for later when you can’t think of a blog post” archive comes an Outside Magazine piece* on “Japanese walking,” or Interval Walking Training, developed in 2007 at Shinsu University.
IWT itself sounds interesting–“walk fast, then slow, three minutes each, five times per walking session, at least four days each week.”–but what got me is that the modern guideline of 10,000 steps a day is pretty much made up?
Ten thousand steps didn’t come from science. It came from a pedometer ad.
In mid-1960s Japan, amid a national fitness push ahead of the 1964 Tokyo Summer Olympics, exercise physiologist Yoshiro Hatano estimated that doubling the average person’s daily steps—from about 4,000 to 10,000—“would result in an increased energy expenditure of about 300 kcal/day.” There were no clinical trials. No test subjects. Just back-of-the-envelope energy math.
Around the same time, Yamasa, the company known for its delicious soy sauces, released a pedometer called the manpo-kei (万歩計)—which literally translates to “10,000 steps meter.” The number wasn’t precise. But it was motivational, and so it stuck.
(*Reading through the article again, I’m getting all kinds of red flags that the author used AI. It’s got that cadence: Not this, not that. Just this. A statement–with something that sounds deep added to it. A string of phrases, and a weirdly emotional verb. Blech! So take all of this with a grain of salt, I guess.)
We’ve been seeing more sun hoodies on the trail lately and I asked Doc if he wanted one. He said, “You mean a Cornholio hoody?”
I did end up using the LearnMYOG guy’s pattern I was rolling my eyes at back when I made my sun shirt in 2024. His patterns have gotten better in the last 5 years but the order of operations on this still made me mad. But he has the only men’s/straight fit sun hoodie out there right now and I didn’t want to draft something, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. The thumbholes for this are literally just a hole in the sleeve seam (EYE ROLL) so I added two inches to the sleeve length (and an inch to the body; Doc is 6’4″) and they work without pulling.
I used “SunScreen50 Activewear Poly/Spandex” from Rockywoods for this. I’ve sewn a lot of activewear knits over the years but this felt really high quality–I kind of want a version for me in it now, too.
Doc reports it wasn’t too hot to wear. He also immediately said, “Are you threatening me?!” when he tried it on for the first time.
I noticed some bookended purple flowers at the care center where Doc’s mom is getting better…
…and on the trail in Millcreek.
The first flush of green is still in the mountains but it’s already starting to dry out–good thing the violets got a chance to bloom.
1. You want to click through to Train Jazz, a data visualization that sets NYC subway trains to music: “Every dot is a real subway train. Eight hundred of them, give or take, form a small jazz combo (walking bass, piano, sax, vibes, brushes) that has been playing without pause for over a hundred years.”
2. Speaking of jazz, now that I’m an ⋆˙⟡ audiophile.✦ ݁˖ , I’m Howard breaking into scat at any given moment.
@jazzmemesofficial 😏 Do you fear jazz? 😏 Tag a friend that doesn’t like jazz or hasn’t given it a chance 👉🏼😂 How many people say they “hate jazz” when they’ve never even listened to more than a couple minutes of it? 🤔 Comment why you think people fear jazz or have a bad impression of it before they even give it a real chance! 🧐 We are almost at 200 Members in our online jazz guitar academy @chasesguitaracademy ! 🙌 Get the best jazz guitar education, learn from the modern guitar greats, and access over 100 lessons on improvisation, harmony, theory, solo guitar, and more! Check the link in bio to sign up 👍 #themightyboosh #drums #piano #saxophone #drummer #singer #vocals #vocalist #jazz #vibe #musician #college #jazzdrums #jazzmaster #jazz #igers #bass ♬ original sound – Jazz Memes
3. I can’t stop laughing at this. Maybe because of that first comment–“i think the issue is maybe you dont feel good”
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