§ Our company holiday party was on Monday. My team won the gingerbread house building contest and then I watched my coworkers sing karaoke. The weather was significantly better than last year. I still haven’t used the rock climbing gym passes I won at last year’s holiday party, by the way. Oops.
§ Ever since first getting into sourdough back in February I’ve been consistently baking a loaf of bread each Sunday morning. I settled on a recipe pretty quickly and then for most of the year did very little by way of experimentation: occasionally I’d add some rye flour to the mix, change the ratio of white and whole wheat flour, that kind of thing. Well this week I finally branched out and baked a cranberry walnut loaf. Wow, what took me so long?
§ I read ten books this year—quite a big jump up from last year.
- Annihilation
- Where the Axe Is Buried
- Brother Brontë
- The Road
- The Morning Star
- The Wolves of Eternity
- The Third Realm
- A Time For Everything
- A Death in the Family
- A Man in Love
I rediscovered the joy of reading paperbacks which I credit a lot of this increase towards. Of these, Brother Brontë was the most interesting/creative, The Road was the most impactful, and The Morning Star was my overall favorite.
§ I discovered Kiran Leonard’s new album “Small Brown Bed/With You Waltz” thanks to Said the Gramophone’s excellent recap of music from this past year. What a great album. It makes for entirely pleasant background music while active listening reveals song after song that is creative, multilayered, and just a little bizarre. It is an album that works best as a contiguous album but U/L (II) is a good song to start with if you want a sample.
§ Another album recommendation from the same list: “Caveman Wakes Up” by Friendship keeps growing on me the more I listen to it. Artex is the standout track—it might just be the closest thing to a new Songs:Ohia tune I’ll ever get.
§ That’s all for now. One more full week of work before a nice long break for the holidays. I can’t wait.
