watching Sims 4 speed-builds

i like to watch youtubers build and interior-design homes in The Sims 4.

the endless cycling through of color swatches, the just-so placement of ottomans at jaunty angles… i find it all so soothing. and indeed, the habit was born in the early days of the pandemic.

my current favorite creator to watch is DevonBumpkin. not only are his builds stunning, but his sparkling personality is infectious.

even if you’ve never heard of The Sims before, try out this recent vid—part of his #DesignMeDevon series—in which he takes a fan-submitted build of crumbling church ruins and converts it into a modern mansion.

shady fortunes

a good measure of your current mental state is how much the fortune cookie fortune reads like a personal attack.

i’ve been pasting these into my notebook lately, but i’ve always held onto fortunes in one form or another.

years ago, when i found a bunch taped to the cardboard backing of a spiral notebook, i memorialized my favorites in an instagram post…

… and then marie kondo’d the keepsake out of my life. to make room for all of those new opportunities, i guess.

more like Febru-weary, amiright?

having referenced my calendar just now, i see that February only contained 28 days. so why, pray tell, did it feel like it lasted approximately five yearssssssshfhjqukq7rbffbrbf???

the ideal litter box

as a day job, i conduct virtual adoption interviews for the NYC cat cafe Meow Parlour. the other night, i got to sit in on a zoom workshop with cat behavior specialist Beth Adelman.

topics ranged from how to discourage nipping to the efficacy of time-outs, but my favorite topic was (and always will be) —

THE IDEAL LITTER BOX:

1. big. Beth suggested something akin to those long, shallow under-the-bed storage bins.

2. uncovered. despite how trendy and aesthetically-pleasing contained litter box units are right now (and how helpful they can be in odor-control), covered boxes might contribute to a cat feeling trapped.

3. filled with soft-grain litter. basically, litter that mimics what they would use in the wild (soft dirt or sand). not necessarily those eco-friendly pellets, unfortunately.

4. scooped twice a day. because if given a choice between a rancid, visibly ‘used’ port-a-potty and a clean, quiet, private spot in the woods, which would you choose? (now, just swap in ‘a dirty litter box’ and ‘the soft patch of carpet behind the sofa.’)

5. located in a low foot-traffic area. cats are vulnerable when using the bathroom. a quiet corner can be a great spot for the box because it offers both the safety of walls and the option of escape.

obviously, your cat’s mileage may vary. but according to the research, this is what resonates with feline behavior. helpful guidelines to remember, especially when a cat is having litter box issues in a new home.

not your problem

on my walk today, i passed a woman walking her golden retriever down the opposite sidewalk.

a neighbor’s dog up the street started barking up a storm, which got the retriever’s attention, got him all riled up and tugging on the leash to go investigate.

but the woman just kept walking, reminding her dog, “not your problem … that’s not your problem …”

another pair of eyes

i’ve been sitting on a first(-ish) draft of a short story for a few months now, knowing i needed to revise, but generally daunted by the task.

to light a fire under my ass, i set the goal of sending it to a friend for critique by the end of February. but since stubbornness is my s p e c i a l t y, i continued to resist revising.

even up to the point where i told my friend yesterday that i was just going to send him the unrevised rough draft, warts and all (and with a boatload of caveats, no doubt, to assuage my ego).

that did the trick. i ticked through my list of revisions today, clearing up plot inconsistencies and refining the prose.

i think just knowing another pair of eyes would be reading my work imminently was motivation enough.

taking Notes

i use the Notes app on my phone to keep lists.

‘to be read’ lists and ‘have already read’ lists. shopping lists and to-do lists, but also a list for quotes (my newest) and a list for potential cat names (my oldest).

i also keep Notes for each of the projects i’m working on. they serve as drop zones for any stray story impulses i might get throughout the day.

here’s an idea for a short story i had on my (morbid, i guess??) walk earlier:

i’m a pen-and-paper diehard. the plan for the remainder of my life is to slowly transform into a thirteenth-century monk.

but in the meantime, there’s pretty much always a phone in my pocket, for better or worse. so i might as well use it to keep Notes.

Mason Currey on post-project depression

in his latest advice column, writer and editor Mason Currey responds to a message from a writer with post-project depression, who describes it as:

“I sit around for much too long, worried I’ll never make anything again, fearful that there is nothing left in my creative brain, terrified I’m a failure.”

having just completed a big writing goal in December before swiftly falling into a confused, January-flavored fog, i’m all ears.

Currey curates a range of advice from painter Helen Frankenthaler to psychiatrist Carl Jung to actor Daniel Day-Lewis. which is so great because, arguably, the most reassuring advice you can give someone is: “you are not alone in this.”

(it’s also reminiscent of the work he does in his spectacular book Daily Rituals, which catalogues the routines of inspired minds throughout history, highlighting their idiosyncrasies and drawing out the universal themes.)

in the end, i love what Currey says about the impulse to label these fallow periods “self-indulgent angst:”

“That’s like telling someone who just finished a marathon, and who’s standing on the side of the road huddled in one of those reflective silver space blankets, sipping from a paper cup of water and eating a sad little banana, ‘Hey, bud, stop slacking off and get started on your next race already, will ya?!?!’”

read past advice columns or sign up for Mason Currey’s newsletter!

what is songwriting?

look no further than this tweet by @JasonIsbell:

Shirley Jackson and rising dread

i delved into the The New Yorker: Fiction podcast with the May 1, 2020 episode, “Kristen Roupenian Reads Shirley Jackson.”

the short story being discussed is Jackson’s 1943 “Afternoon in Linen” and i was intrigued by Roupenian’s assertion that, based on one word towards the end, it is indeed a horror story.

like a lot of people, my introduction to Shirley Jackson was “The Lottery” in high school english. (quite the introduction, to be fair.) but last fall, i read “The Summer People” and now want to read everything she’s ever written.

i love the way Jackson does rising dread. you’re drawn in by the domestic and the familiar so matter-of-factly, and then… oh, something’s not quite right. or as Roupenian puts it:

“The feeling that I have when reading a Shirley Jackson story is that things feel flat and a little overly simple, and then they open up in this really kind of wrenching way and then you feel kind of like you're in a free fall…”