PINE & MERRIMAC (Starks / Galán; Boom Studios, 2024)

in

(***+ / *****): Would’ve easily been a 5/5 had the plane not skidded off the runway into a fiery inferno in the final issue. While Starks’s writing in the first four issues and Galán’s art across the board saved it, it’s maddening that the fifth and final issue was so unworthy of the previous four. That said, P&M is well worth reading (and was at the top of the stack each month) – though prepare to be heartbroken for more than the reasons in the story.

PINE & MERRIMAC shock
in

Day two of giving the reMarkable 2 another go: seems that the latency issue which caused me to switch back to paper NBs is gone (probably just crap from my hand that I couldn't see and I, as is my way, made a mountain out of a hillmole) but the main reason is that my hands hurt all the time now and I've found that the digital Lamy Safari + rM2 is (literally) less painful for me to use, a pleasant textural mix of fountain pen and Papermate Flair in digital form. Kinda nice to (again) include a PDF of the page in my Obsidian Daily notes without need for duplicates and rewriting; makes the daily notes significantly more useful.

a third place

in

Intrigued by Oldenburg’s concept of the "third place" and cognizant that, as I've been working from home for 95% of my "career," I don't even have a second place, except The Paintshop, nevermind alone a place possessed of the communal / conversational features of Oldenburg's characteristics. Online and virtual doesn't count (in my mind). Maybe I need to work on readjusting my mindset to The Paintshop being both the second and third places? – though given that I haven't felt at home at any place save my grandparents' house on the lake and my shoebox apartment in Boston (perhaps that’s why I loved the city so much: an abundance of potential third places?), one could argue that I barely have a first place. Note that this isn't a lament, necessarily, but perhaps a framework for making my spaces feel more like a home. Added Oldenburg's book to the Kindle, as seems to be my wont for most non-fiction works of late. Food / thought, etc etc.