Antisocial Media

I've spent the past week dreading a conversation that I'm going to have to have tomorrow with a member of my team. Doing the actual work of managing is definitely my weak spot as a manager - I would much prefer that everyone on my team simply function optimally without my having to exercise any power to make it so.  Then again, I remember Douglas Adam's insight about power, that those who are the most motivated to seek out power are those who are least suited to use it, and at least I know I'm on the right side of the equation there. At any rate, my overarching Good Thing tonight is that by lunch tomorrow I'll have at least had that conversation, and be done with dreading it. On to the more granular good things: 1. The Shitty Camera Challenge Sweatshop. My friend Adam created The Shitty Camera Challenge (a contest whose main mandate was the use of a camera that was cheaper than the roll of film inside it) on Twitter some years back as a way of exploring photography

It snuck up on me that today was the Vernal Equinox. Usually we try to recognize the equinoxes and solstices but nobody had the gusto. I sure didn't - I've got a Dreaded Task on Friday looming over me, and had to clean up both a cat puke and a cat carpet-poo tonight, so am feeling at my very least reverent.  In spite of the extra work and the occasional grossness, these two guys are pretty swell. Look, they're learning to snuggle! Okay, that was the 1st thing, on to the rest. 2. Rosemary Mosco. Rosemary is an artist, writer, and speaker whose passion for the natural world is evident in her (often ornithological) cartoons from her website https://www.birdandmoon.com . Her father died last month, and today on Facebook she posted a beautiful and heartbreaking comic about her grief:  https://www.facebook.com/share/p/9WqspK6q1ZaumMoe/?mibextid=oFDknk . Grief is so universal and at the same time so horribly particular, and it can be hard to capture or communicate. Embracing the f

1. The Leprechaun Brothers. St Patrick's Day doesn't have the same resonance for me that it did in college, when it was a great excuse to drink all day. Being sober definitely takes the gloss off the major drinking holidays, and I've also always felt resentful about holidays that come with a dress code and enforcement mechanism. Excuse me, you want to pinch me on what basis?!? That said, I do love the yearly excuse to revisit three of my favorite Muppets: https://youtu.be/OCbuRA_D3KU?feature=shared 2. Stringsfest. Yesterday the two older kids participated in the annual Stringsfest, in which the students in the strings programs of every elementary school and middle school that feed into the high schools in town perform a concert in the high school gym. This means close to a thousand kids and probably thrice that many family members and teachers filing an entire giant-ass gym to capacity.  When I played in this as a kid, my dad described the sound of it (unbeknownst to me) as