Five things I encountered today that were interesting, educational, beautiful, edifying or that I otherwise found to be…well, good. None of these are promotions and I do not receive any benefit from sharing them. I just like them.
It’s time for the annual end-of-year onset anxiety, complete with a constant nervous feeling, too much work to do, and even more disrupted sleep than usual. I’m going to try to keep up at least with a daily links post, but I don’t know how much else I will get done until the New Year. Then everything will be shiny and new and different and I’ll sleep like a baby and find keeping up with work and writing a total breeze… right? Oh well, till then, enjoy some awesomeness from the internet.
1) Rare Exports might be my new favorite Christmas movie. I don’t want to say too much and spoil anything, but it’s a Finnish horror movie about the horrors experienced in a small town when the real Santa Claus is unearthed from his tomb. Hilarious, scary, and just plan weird if you haven’t experienced it, you need to.
2) PBS has a video of a live from Lincoln Center performance of some of Danny Elfman’s most memorable music scores, including some from the Nightmare Before Christmas, featuring Elfman singing. It’s a great retrospective on a long, iconic career, and so much fun to hear Jack Skellington come to life.
1) Without a doubt, Octavia Butler’s sci-fi masterpiece, the 
2) The Mary Sue has 
1) The Washington Post has a great article and interview 
2) Buzzfeed has 
3) As I was listening to a friend help her son with his spelling homework yesterday, I was once again struck by what a weird, messy language English is. Aeon magazine 
4) The Atlantic has a great run down of 
5) The journal Nature offers some ideas for what to do about the fact that there are 
1) I love sushi, but I am definitely used to more Americanized versions both in type and how it is served. There’s a lot of etiquette surrounding the correct way to eat sushi in Japan. Thankfully, 
2) I just finished reading Margaret Atwood’s latest novel, 
3) Jemaine Clement (of Flight of the Conchords and What We Do in the Shadows fame) has a new movie, available on Netflix, called 
My best friend goes to Thanksgiving dinner at her in-laws’ each year, and this year they decided that dinner conversation needed to be more even more awkward than normal. So they sent out discussion topics ahead of time that everyone would “get” to share with the group. My best friend has an acerbic wit behind an angel’s face, so she passed them on to me, along with the answer she would like to give her in-laws. These included such gems as “How is your life different than it was last year?” (“I have a lot less sex”) and “Tell us about a vacation you went on this year.” (“We’re just trying to make rent but I can’t wait to hear about your six week trip to Spain”).
But really, it’s not like you can actually be honest with that one either. You have to be thankful for the right things. Acceptable subjects of gratitude include family, significant other, friends, health, basic necessities, and a job. Full stop. Try mentioning at dinner that you’re thankful for your vibrator and see how quickly conversation grinds to a halt.
1) Spatchcocked turkey. To be fair, I’m only trying this for the first time this year but I’m excited and 
2) 
1) Horseback riding and fishing may not seem like related activities, except maybe if you ride a horse to your favorite fishing spot. But these 
2) Arrested Development might be the funniest sitcom ever made and is certainly queen of the running gag. The gags are so on-going and complex, in fact, that you might despair of ever catching all of them. NPR has a solution for this – they’ve developed 
Well, we made it to the end of another work week. And next week is Thanksgiving, believe it or not. I happen to love Thanksgiving, mostly because I like to cook big meals, have people give me compliments, and then live off leftovers for a week. And also because I never have to travel for it. I’ve got my turkey ordered and have planned way too much food considering there will probably only be four of us. Saturday is our winter farm market, so I’ll be heading there to get my local ingredients and then off to see Mockingjay, Part 2. What are your weekend plans?
I Lack Focus 