The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein

I read The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein the first time I was in college. I looked it up recently, to see if its first sentence appealed to me for analysis.

This one is a blunt instrument. It's a straight-forward statement, in the form that has started many autobiographies. There aren't many words to suggest extra meanings. I thought I'd give this one a pass.

Yet I kept thinking about it.

It's a simple sentence on its own. "I was born" – of course you were, or you wouldn't be writing. "In San Francisco, California" – that has a little more interest to it. Even by 1933, when Gertrude Stein published this book, San Francisco had a reputation. The Gold Rush and the earthquake and fire of 1906, and Mark Twain's writings had all spread news of San Francisco. It was a large city, already, and known for wild and wooly frontier behavior and more diverse than most American cities. Still, born in SF, CA is not as strong a setup for action as "saw San Francisco for the first time," as mentioned in my previous post. When born, we are not yet ready to take action, and don't yet know if we will conform or rebel to the place of our birth.

There is something a little old-fashioned and formal about writing out San Francisco, California, instead of abbreviating either one. So the sentence has established person (I), place (SF, CA), and a little tone. Without conflict, it is not a hook – it is beginning to open a window. Would this draw me on to read more? Probably not – unless I already knew more than this first sentence holds.

In college, I came to this book with a lot of context. The professor set the book in its time and set Gertrude Stein's place in the literary scene she anchored. We looked at the playfulness of claiming to write someone else's autobiography. We compared the voice here to Stein writing in her own voice. Stein is deliberately writing simply, directly, and factually, as a reflection – or affectionate ribbing – of her lover's voice. With such context, "I was born in San Francisco, California" changes from basic to nuanced, and a literature student might continue to read to see what a gifted writer will do with the conceit of writing as a plain speaker.

How much context would a writer want to assume their audience had for the writing? Gertrude Stein sold the first copies to friends and acquaintances. She could assume they knew a lot. A first time novelist might want to assume all their readers will know is the genre... or the language, English... or the great events of the novel's period....

Writers and readers collaborate. We need a shared language to reach each other. How much a shared language contains – only the 600 words of Basic English? acquaintance with Alice B. Toklas? – can vary widely for different books. If you have a first sentence that isn't grabbing interest, it's worth checking how much you expect your readers to already know.

(I apologize that I do not remember which of my literature teachers introduced this book to me. I hope, if they discover this, that they will enlighten me and take some comfort that I remember the book.)

Days of Anna Madrigal

Armistead Maupin's book, The Days of Anna Madrigal, is deep in his series about connected characters in San Francisco. That means that many readers will come to this first sentence already trusting the author, already connected to the characters, already eager to read.

Did that allow the author to open the door to his story with less urgency? This I cannot know. However, I will note that the first sentence of the first book of the series, Tales of the City, contains a person and their circumstance in more classic first sentence form: "Mary Ann Singleton was twenty-five years old when she saw San Francisco for the first time."

So Maupin knew the form and chose to do something else here.

Let's see what we have here. He starts with the weather! He makes the bold choice to start with the most widely shared topic of conversation. Weather is a polite topic. Everyone experiences it, everyone has some interest, and yet no one becomes exercised over it. So we can kindly exchange a few words about it, extending a social interaction, at very little risk of acrimony.

Weather, in other words, unless extreme, is the opposite of dramatic.

The words up to the comma are common. Summer temperatures do vary, and, as averages have been trending hotter, there's nothing unusual about a summer that's warmer than usual. This is an ordinary observation, that any acquaintance might express to another.

Do we feel bored by that? Or do we feel at ease with it?

After the comma, the language becomes stronger. "Heat" is more than "warmth" and "throbbed" is more intense than either. It's a distinctive word, seldom applied to weather. I'm quite a bit less likely to tell my neighbor "Throbbing day today, isn't it?" Throb is a word associated with pain or passion – my neighbor might find that question odd or laden with innuendo.

Then there's the poetic phrase "coaxing pale fingers of fog." That's four uncommon words in a set of five. "Coaxing" is normally something people do, as "fingers" are something people have – this makes it as if both the East Bay and the fog are human. At this point, we've left the direct, commonplace language of the first clause entirely.

Any self-assured city might be "the city" to those who live in its orbit. Adding summer fog and "the East Bay" outlines San Francisco.

Altogether, this sentence gives us a location, starts conversational, and moves into poetry. It's promising the pleasures of company and language. Instead of grabbing, it seduces.

Red, White & Royal Blue

Another term for the first sentence is the hook. The idea here is that a first sentence must capture the reader and draw them in. The most obvious hook is a person facing a high-stakes conflict. There's none of that here.

Nonetheless, Casey McQuiston has written an intriguing sentence, and Red, White & Royal Blue was a bestseller, won a Goodreads award, and appeared on multiple best-of-the-year lists.

There's more than one way to draw in a reader, and problems are not the only pleasure of fiction.

What this sentence does have is narrative, description – we might even call it world-building – and music. Authors of previous centuries could more often capitalize words. Whenever they did, that word gains an emphasis. Three terms gain that stress here: White House, Promenade, Solarium. The last two fall at the end of their phrases, and White House near the end of its phrase, creating three sections ending in heavier beats. It's a lovely waltz.

The White House is a potent symbol. Knowing that the story takes place there adds some intrigue. Then, there are carefully chosen details in savory words to bring that location into brighter focus. Notice how specific "tucked" and "loose paneling" are. Plus, I didn't even know the White House had a Promenade and a Solarium. These facets of the scene add the pleasure of vicarious travel.

Finally, there's a small contrast between "White House" and "loose paneling." There's a bit of mystery in why the most prestigious address in the nation would need a small repair. That might imply someone who loosened the panel or someone who needs to fix it – and bring in the person with conflict – but those possibilities remain in the background.

I'm hooked. I want to read more pleasurable sentences and discover what else I will see in this powerful location.

Photo credit: Peter Griffin, CC0

Miranda in Milan

Katharine Duckett has laid the strongest word at the end of this first sentence, giving it extra emphasis. Monster carries danger and wrongness. It's interesting here to have someone find herself to be a monster. Why did Miranda not know until she came to Milan? Or was it only the gaze of the Milanese who found her monstrous, when she had been innocent before? The conflict here is Miranda versus Milan – and perhaps Miranda versus herself, as, now that she's found she is a monster, she must choose whether to embrace that or try to stop being one.

For those who are familiar with Shakespeare, the three words "Miranda," "Milan," and "monster" will strongly recall his play The Tempest. All of these words are uncommon, and important in the play, so finding the three of them in close company here is enough to tie this work to the play. Duckett further ties her story to The Tempest by including two quotes from it before the story begins. The play ends with Miranda expecting to go to Milan. So the author is also placing this book after and responding to Shakespeare's play.

The sentence has one intriguing meaning without knowing the play, and adds another level when connected to the previous work. Duckett has offered the drama of "monster" to draw the reader in and the promise of reflecting on Shakespeare to attract those who dabble in literature as a conversation over the centuries.

Angel's Island

Walter Mosley is most known for his detective fiction. He also ventures into science fiction, and this first sentence comes from one of the stories in his collection, Futureland.

The main driver of this first sentence is subtle wrongness. At first take, this is a straight-forward description. Then, wait – in what circumstances would six naked men walk in together? That's not a feature of most homes or workplaces or public venues. Nakedness, in our society, is mostly reserved to private rooms with only one or two people in them.

Next, there's a weak circle of light. To see a weak circle of light, we need a very dark background. The circle would disappear without contrast. On a stage, we see very bright circles show up against moderate lighting. Is this a stage? If so, why isn't there more light around the circle? What does it mean that the light is weak and surrounded by darkness?

Then there's "a corner of the great chamber." This weak circle is part of a large room. Many eyes could be hidden in the rest of the large chamber. These naked men are subject to the view of others they can't see. This is a subtle placing of them at the bottom of a hierarchy. They don't have the protection and celebration of standing on a stage. They can't see who might be watching them. And they are unshielded by clothing.

Look at the three adjectives: naked, weak, great. That progression, too, shows the men as unprotected and powerless and surrounded by something large and unknown. This sentence begins to outline a conflict between individuals and the system around them.

Finally, the sentence has lovely grammar. The basic subject and verb elements which create a sentence are complete in the first four words: Six naked men walked. Then, a series of phrases, each starting with a preposition, adds rhythm and motion. I'll divide the remainder of the sentence with dashes to show those breaks: into the weak circle – of light – in a corner – of the great chamber.

Walter Mosley can break the rules of grammar when he wants to. This sentence shows that he knows them and can take advantage of them as well.

The Lake

If I had been imagining the textbook form of a first sentence, it might have come out like this.

At its core, a story is a character with a problem. Tananarive Due establishes both character and problem in a single sentence here, and adds a location as well.

We have Abbie LaFleur. The name tells us a little already. She's young enough to prefer the -ie ending to the -y ending. That's a mark of informality. LaFleur has me wondering – is she of French descent? Or is the author signaling that she is in someway like or unlike a flower?

Next, we learn her family has been in Boston for three generations, and she is newly arrived in Graceville. Graceville sounds like the southern U.S. to me – possibly due to echoes of Graceland and Louisville – it's a place different from Boston, and clannish enough that the people there see the new arrival as an outsider.

The hyphen in third-generation shows some thought. It's a small detail, and makes the grouping of those words with "Bostonian" easier to follow. As an editor, I appreciated the effort. These bits of craft add up.

Finally, there's the word "warned." It points to a danger that someone should have warned Abbie LaFleur about, and didn't. Since we are working within the genre of horror, failing to warn could have been a sin – the type of moral failing that leads to someone dying gruesomely. Abbie has a problem, and she doesn't know it yet.

In one sentence, the story is wound up and ready to spring.

"The Lake" is one of the stories within The Monster's Corner, edited by Christopher Golden, as well as the first story in Due's own collection, Ghost Summer, and available online at tor.com.

Go Tell It on the Mountain

This time, I'm looking at a first sentence without having read the rest of the book. That's just what a potential reader would do! What has James Baldwin already set up, in one sentence?

We have a person, John. He hasn't grown up yet. John is a common name, and the name of one of Jesus' apostles, so it fits as the name for the son of a preacher. (James, the author's name, shares the first letter, the popularity, and the connection to an apostle as well.)

We also have the people who surround him. The narrator calls them "everyone" and they share a single opinion; the word "always" implies a long history and no breaks; "preacher" places him in a religious community; and finally, we hear his heritage: "just like his father."

That's one John against the full weight community, history, and family. James Baldwin is already promising me the story of how John rebels or finds himself against these forces. I'm interested.

I like the rhythm of this one, too. Try reading it aloud. It rolls.

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Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand

I read Samuel R. Delany's Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand in college, and I remembered it as a wash of gorgeous language with interstellar travel and struggles with one's own desires. Today, looking for a strong first sentence, I reopened it and found this absolutely chilling line.

Delany clearly knows the extra weight a word gains at the end of a sentence. This entire opening hinges on the word "slave." Almost all the other words are simple, work-a-day, single syllable words that we use in many contexts until they are worn to neutrality. "Honesty" is a little less common, and usually refers to a virtue. "Of course" is a relaxed way to say something is normal. So here we have normality and virtue hitting the appalling concept of "slave." All the apparent banality suddenly turns into horror.

And now we have questions. Who could so casually tell someone they will be a slave? Does the person called "you" have any choice here? Why would that person find themselves at this bleak point? What happens next?

I was drawn to reading on, and continued several pages before I remembered I only came for the first sentence.

Fifth Season First

Here's the sentence that starts the first trilogy ever to win the Hugo for all three books. N. K. Jemisin had several series completed before she began this one. That's good news – more books to read if you are newly discovering her.

What does a first sentence need to do? Set the scene, make a promise, open a door into a story, entice the reader to continue. This sentence rocks it. "End of the world" raises the stakes to the top of the scale. We know this is an apocalyptic situation – this story will take place at the end and with enough scope to cover the entire world – a strong setting, a strong promise, and a strong draw to see what happens next.

But the end of the world on its own could seem overdone. Look at how the narrator undercuts that. "Let's start" – what could be after the end of the world? That creates more curiosity and drive to continue. Then "why don't we?" – a phrase that shows a certain attitude from the narrator to the audience, a little archness or playfulness, an assumption of familiarity.

Yes, I definitely want to read on after this sentence. The combination of high stakes and defined voice, in just a few words, shows writing craft at a very high level.

First Sentences – Something New

Let's play with words!

The first sentence of a book is critically important. It can be a writer's only chance to gain a reader. It sets the tone for the book and makes a promise that the following pages must deliver on.

Writing teachers call the first sentence "the hook." They recommend that authors lavish attention on it. Here, if anywhere, an author needs to be enticing.

That's quite a burden to bear!

I've been thinking about first sentences. How better to understand them than to gather some examples and take a closer look at them? As I was considering the project, I found this lovely sentence in Eloisa James' historical romance When Beauty Tamed the Beast, and I couldn't resist making it the first sentence to observe. Will it be the first of many? Time will tell.

I love this first sentence. It has rhythm – try it aloud, and it falls into these divisions: Beautiful girls / in fairy stories / are as common as / pebbles on the beach. Each of those, at least in my reading, has two strong syllables. It's a very breathable, rolling rhythm, with enough variation to sound natural and enough form to sound polished.

Then, the meanings: beautiful girls – ah, yes, that's what we come to read about in a romance; in fairy stories – oh! will this be a fairy tale then? Or will it show us how it is _not_ a fairy tale?; are as common as – a little self-awareness here, and an interesting tension – surely we would not be as interested in beauty if it was common; and finally, as pebbles on a beach – not the expected grains of sand on a beach, but pebbles – something fresher and also less comfortable. Look at how the earthy details of common pebbles contrast against the ethereal beautiful tales. There's a tension here, and I want to see how it resolves – all without directly mentioning any character who has a problem.

This is a subtle, beautiful example of a sentence that draws me in. Kudos to Eloisa James!

At the Foot of a Waterfall, a Still Pool

We are in the midst of a pandemic and many activities we took for granted are suddenly off the table. My husband had a stroke, and all the rituals we practiced together each day are on hold. Suddenly, I found myself driven to gather pictures of waterfalls on Pinterest. 

You'd think the chute of water would symbolize how out-of-control my life had proven to be. There might be something to that interpretation of why I found myself drawn to waterfalls. Yet, when I gathered them, I felt relief. As I found more examples, I started being more discriminating about the ones I kept. Slowly, I told myself what I was doing. 

The pictures of waterfalls I loved gave me a feeling of peace. 

I have a long history with rivers. The modest and lovely Chewaucan river runs through the town I grew up in. In July and August, particularly, many of us would go to The Falls, the favorite swimming hole another mile upstream from the mill. The drop where water rolled over tall stones was only a couple feet. We could scramble up, if we wished, or swim against the current to create minutes of play in a tight space. We could wade a little farther downstream, cooling off on hot afternoons, or drape ourselves on rocks to gather sun. 

The only area deep enough to swim was just past the waterfall. That small chute had dug out a deep pool. 

I feel like this is truth: great force leads to great stillness. The fastest moving, strongest currents create the deep, still pools. Activity and rest alternate, however much we resist one or the other. 

Doug is doing very well for someone who had a stroke. I called the ambulance for him on April 30th. He went to rehab on May 18th, no longer needing constant monitoring and ready to rebuild himself for new challenges. Is everything happening on the schedule I'd wish? No. Yet the new pool built by this cascade will have its depth, its loveliness, and its peace. 

Thirty Next Sentences: A Writing Exercise

I've been thinking about how in a conversation, there are actually many paths leading from each sentence.

Combine that with an idea from Lois McMaster Bujold that she may throw away her first three ideas for what happens next, and I realized I had a writing exercise on my hands. I'm going to try it here. My plan is to write one line of a conversation – a somewhat banal one – and then see if I can come up with at least thirty different next lines.

Here's the starting line, "I really like your dress."

All these lines are different choices for what the next line might be.

"Thanks, I made it myself."
"It's a Siriano, don't you love him?"
"What, this old thing?"
"Hold on, I'll just change and give it to you."
"You should have seen the one that didn't fit."
"I wanted the original, but this knockoff isn't bad."
"Do you like the shoes?"
"You're just saying that because you want to take it off."
"I'm not sure this color really works for me."
"My mom chose it."
"I like yours, too!"
"I'm trying a new style."
"Please take my card."
"Buy me a drink?"
"It's a sample of a new line. Here's our website."
"Look at the time. I really must be going."
"It's lovely, but it will dissolve at midnight. Truly fast fashion, you know?"
"The Renaissance Fair always gives me a good chance to express myself."
"The shoes are killing me."
"It took me four hours just to close the corset."
"I did want to wear something special to our anniversary dinner."
"Only the best for you."
"Only the best for me."
"Wait until you see my jacket."
"I borrowed it from my sister. Good thing we are the same size."
"Thank you."
"Silk, it's always perfect for evenings."
"Did you know that witches prefer pockets?"
"If only I lost a few more pounds, it'd hang better."
"Ah! Only my true love sees a dress instead of these prison swabs."

That's 30!

What's cool about this is that other writers would create a different list. Some of these might be in anyone's list. Some are likely to be in very few lists, whether from the particular words I chose or the relationships and stories that come to my mind when I brainstorm like this. I like how the second speaker can have a variety of attitudes. There's a big difference between replies that accept the compliment and replies that brush it off. The speaker could be happy, or defensive, or take many other stances. In even one line, I can start to imply a world other than our own. And the next line might not really relate. People do talk past each other sometimes. For story, that seems to need more context to work.

I also like how much difference a single word can make. I find the changed slant between "Only the best for you," and "Only the best for me," tasty. What if the speaker borrowed her dress from her grandmother, roommate, or brother instead?

All in all, I like this exercise. Help yourself if you want to do it, too! What other starting line might you choose?

People Who Aren't Getting Anything Done Are Helping Me Out

I'm always alert for my sister paradoxes. And here's a lively one: people who aren't getting anything done are helping me out.

First off, of course, staying home has been of major assistance in reducing the intensity of the coronavirus pandemic. It looks like a good portion of regions have started flattening the curve. Here in Washington state, we may yet keep acute cases from overwhelming our hospitals and especially our supply of respirators. May it be so! We'll need to continue the efforts and we might just assure that everyone who needs intensive care can get it. Other well-governed regions are managing as well. This massive achievement comes largely from not getting anything done: not going out, not meeting up, not traveling, not doing the work and play we usually do within coughing distance of each other.

Second, while staying home has made a hit to my productivity, a number of generous souls have also admitted they aren't getting anything done. I particularly liked this tweet from author and book reviewer Gabino Iglesias:

"Everyone has a book in them, but it takes a special kind of freak to leave the Land of Laziness, cross the Plains of Procrastination & Insecurity Mountain, kill the fear demons, find the Blade of No One Made You Do This, & use it to slice their chest open and yank that book out."

He's new to me, and his Twitter feed shows a rich way with words.

Then there's Neil Gaiman, long one of my favorite authors, talking about failing to write a book, failing to write a screenplay, and failing to identify chickens. He looks a bit down, and as usual, he's giving gifts: https://twitter.com/neilhimself/status/1247477244332654595?s=20

At first, I was underwhelmed by this offering, and it continued to grow on me. If one of the world's most celebrated authors can not act... so can I.

I began to feel better as others told their stories of not getting anything done.

Third, when I do need to go out, empty streets, clean air, and half-filled supermarkets have all made it easier to gather food and pick up prescriptions. Thank you to everyone who wasn't driving or shopping at those times.

I could extend this list indefinitely. I'm getting less junk mail, and I appreciate those who aren't sending it. I'm liking seeing more hobbies in my social media. I'm glad emissions are down, if only temporarily, and we have pretty pictures of cities without smog. Let me finish up with the most consequential reason people who aren't getting anything done are helping me out.

Fourth, I and we are getting a look at how much we do that we don't really need. It has been easy for me and us to pile up activities and push for more, and more, and more. Because I was doing them, I didn't stop to think if I needed to do them. And, partly due to the current slowdown, I discovered I was fatigued and overextended and not enjoying this lifestyle very much. Maybe others are seeing that now, too.

I'd really like for us to continue doing fewer things in favor of making sure everyone has the basics. We are ambitious – we'll probably continue to extend what "the basics" are over time. Even so, this has been a great sanity check on what we really need. And that might just be the enlightenment we need to refocus on making sure everyone has it.

A Change of Pace

I'm reading quite a bit of Twitter posts and articles about the novel coronavirus pandemic. It's a riveting story, the more so as I'm part of it. So far, my family is well. Narrowing my daily activities has worn on me some. For some reason, I felt particularly anxious when the new advice to wear masks came out. Still, we have made some at home and are doing our best.

I lost track of who called this The Great Pause. I like that name for our time of staying home more and slowing the economy. My own work has fallen quite a bit. I work from home normally. I connect with clients through email and video calls – much like more people are doing now. I did have one company that was sending me a significant portion of my work end the project I was working on. So I have fewer hours and reduced income.

My slower schedule is a good time to review my direction. Do I like the work I've been doing? Yes – I have been helping authors complete better books, both by helping them organize the work of writing and by editing. Authors are among my favorite people to work with. Most of the ones I work with want to help other people. They write books that offer wisdom and tips and hard-won experience. Or if they aim to entertain, our current situation is showing how very important good art is. Stories and images give me my most pleasant moments. Food and water and shelter and utilities are necessary; art makes dreary days bright.

When I support these authors, I help their audiences indirectly. I like spreading those ripples of help. I might like to do more directly.

On a larger scale, our society also has a chance to review our systems. A lot of them are letting us down now. We are particularly falling down on taking care of people who live in more polluted and poorer neighborhoods, people who work at minimum wage, people whose health care depends on their job – and these people are disproportionately people of color. Their extra vulnerability shows in sharp contrast right now. We rely on minimum wage workers to harvest, shelve, and ring up our food. We are closely connected to them, and to the homeless people in our neighborhoods. COVID-19 doesn't respect bank balances, and if we want food, we need the people who work to bring it. We urgently need to see that everyone in our community has a living wage and quality health care. Our diseases will be common even if our resources aren't.

I am hoping that we'll take this chance to notice our interconnection and work for a more equal society. I'm hoping that we will let go of rigid systems that we thought we couldn't do without until the pandemic came.

I don't know how high the chances are for my hopes.

On a small scale, Doug and I are living well. We are healthy, we enjoy our cats, we are eating well, we have shelter. I wish that much at least to all of you.

The Common Endeavor

I no longer remember in what book the narrator's father used the phrase "the common endeavor." I remember wondering what he meant by that. He used it to explain why he chose an action – something about being part of or contributing to the common endeavor.

What threw me, I think, is that I seldom see everyone working on the same project. Here we have people teaching classes, and there we have people stocking groceries, and here we have people refining oil, and there we have massage therapists, and here we have science fiction authors, and there we have baseball coaches. What single project could we all be working on?

Still, the phrase stuck with me.

It has something of the flavor of the phrase "a more perfect union" in the US constitution, or "member of a civilization" in the discussions of David Brin. There's an idea that we are all part of something, or, even more, we are all working to create something.

So the words "the common endeavor" kept working on me, and eventually, I realized that civilization is the common endeavor. All our own projects affect this larger entity that we are a part of. In fact, the common endeavor may be more than that – it could be our efforts to create a better civilization.

There's something old-fashioned about "the common endeavor." It comes to me with the rustle of tweed jackets and the smell of pipe tobacco. It resonates with a time, perhaps mythical, when people had a broad agreement on what a better civilization would be – when we joined together to build highways and go to the Moon. Maybe it's those broad vowels and open syllables. I often take abstract words like these and recommend making them more specific, making sure the concepts are tied to their objects. Common to who? Endeavor to what? How could he say "the common endeavor" as if we all knew who all was working on it and what they were working for?

It sounds like a phrase from a less partisan, more idealistic time. It sounds like the speaker could take for granted that all of us were working together, and we all aimed at the same goal.

What does it take to believe all people work to the same end? Trust? Blindness? Faith?

Humans have done amazing things when we have a common goal. I think it might be time to emphasize again the work that makes the world better for all of us.

How I End up with Stashes

Today I felt the urge to go shopping for yarn. Doug and I recently started taking a free local crochet class together. We like the company, the activity is peaceful and potentially useful, and it's something we can do together.

At this point, my actual production is half of a scarf, a decorative heart, most of a rose, and the first few rounds of a hat. In other words, I haven't done a lot and most of my projects are unfinished. I have been reading every crochet book that appeals at the library, and a good number additional from Kindle unlimited, plus I have a few that I found very inexpensively at thrift stores. I'm beginning to grok how crochet works.

I'm also beginning to look at projects and say, "Ooh!"

So today I noticed that this is an action pattern for me. I love to have ideas and make plans. In our civilization, it is almost as easy to shop as to imagine.

(Plus, I have a reading superpower. So it's not unusual that I have read more than a dozen books about crochet in the two months since we first took a class.)

The part of completing a project that takes more effort and traction begins after shopping. It's easy for me to imagine a project, purchase the materials, and then bog down before completing the project. Voila! Stash!

I have stashes for reading (of course, the unread book pile, even with my superpower), origami (somewhat trimmed before our last move), and jewelry-making (including a variety of rings for chainmaille and a wide selection of beads, especially in the seed bead categories). All of this is perfectly normal for someone who likes imagining and planning and lives in a civilization like ours that provides a beautiful abundance of materials.

I have the power of walking to my bead stash and selecting from one hundred and fifty shades of Delicas to make a harmonious colorway for a kaleidocycle! Can you imagine how much more freedom that gives me than someone who has to make their own beads? Or can only trade for perhaps six different colors, twice a year when the merchant comes to town?

I do love the abundance our creative, diverse, and vast markets have given us. I also recognize that my time will limit how many projects I complete, and my enjoyment of an orderly home will limit how much I can stash for the support of future projects.

So for the moment, I'm resisting swelling up a stash of yarn.

I tell you, though, that book of crochet flowers is mighty tempting, and would also require about 8 colors of yarn in each of three different weights to complete. We'll see how I manage.

Kisses, Drama, Politics

Back when we lived in Portland, I had a romance writer as a next-door neighbor for a while. She loaned me a copy of her latest, and when we went to discuss it, she asked if I'd noticed what was missing.

No? We had a hero, a heroine, some obstacles which they overcame, and a happy ending. I didn't see what was missing.

There was no kiss, she said.

That was my first introduction to the idea that a kiss could be an important turning point.

In my usual leisurely fashion, I noted other kisses over the last two decades and let that thought germinate.

Last fall, I read Alice Archer's male/male romance Executive Decision (available free here) and something clicked. The kiss is very often the moment when a relationship moves from platonic to romantic. And the more social pressure there is against that change, the more fraught the kiss is. In our society, a kiss between men can mean crossing not only the boundary from friendship to eros, but also from socially expected (depending on the milieu) to lightly, moderately, or extremely censored.

Right now, the danger of two men showing affection in public varies. In some areas of the US, any people around you will smile – in others, gay men risk a violent response. We have made progress on accepting that love is love, and I hope we will continue to. No one should be in danger because of who they love. (And no one's desire should be forced on someone else.)

But lingering attitudes can raise the stakes on a kiss – not only a kiss between two male lovers, but for interracial loves, other LBGTQIA pairings, intercultural loves, and other categories. With the rise of supernatural romance, there are a large number of interesting possibilities.

Here's where my political desires and my writing needs diverge. I want the world to let all love be acceptable. Yet to make compelling stories, the more fraught the kiss, the better!

I also don't like a plot that feels contrived – which in this case, would be one where the kiss was made dangerous for reasons that feel forced or unbelievable.

Fortunately for telling interesting stories, we still have situations where a kiss can have high stakes. And we have historical, fantasy, and science fiction scenarios to play with. A kiss can have weight and meaning because of who the characters are, what they mean to each other, because of burdens they may bring from their past, and in many other ways.

I've gained a new perspective on what a kiss can mean, and for that, I thank my previous neighbor, the love is love activists I've known, and Alice Archer!

We Can Be Heroes

What needs to happen to make the United States carbon neutral within ten years?

Every vehicle needs to run on carbon-free energy. This means replacing every gas or diesel fueled car and truck in the entire nation within the next ten years.

Every appliance needs to be electric. This means replacing every gas and oil appliance with an electric appliance within the next ten years.

To provide the electricity for those new vehicles and appliances, we also need to supply enough carbon-neutral energy to power them. This means building solar, wind, hydroelectric, geothermal, wave-powered, and whatever other sources of energy we can create to replace all current gas, oil, and coal plants within the next ten years. It also means improving the electric distribution systems to handle the new sources and storage systems to match the load to the generation within the next ten years.

All agriculture needs to be regenerative rather than carbon-emitting. This means changing our farming techniques to add carbon to the soil rather than release it, and taking care of run-off. It means reducing livestock methane emissions.

This is a huge project. It is a mobilization on the scale of World War II.

Of course, we have mobilized that way before. And how do we think of the Americans who went to work to win that war? They are heroes. They faced the truth – that lives and liberty were at stake – and set out to do what needed to be done.

Lives and liberty are at stake now. Climate change is already killing people, and the people displaced by drought and the war it brings are hardly free. It's not liberty to face a vastly reduced future from the one we have now. We owe it to future generations to leave them as rich and habitable a planet as we have now.

(And by the way, our neighbors are not asking us to save them. Indigenous people know how to keep the land and water healthy. People of color see the pollution we've created in their backyards. Youth know that we are leaving them less than we had. They want us to listen, help them, and clean up our own messes.)

It's time for us to take on the climate crisis with the energy and scope and creativity we used to beat Hitler. We can be heroes, like the Greatest Generation, who stepped up to take on the challenge of their time.

(This truly would make America great again. No one needs to be unemployed or doing meaningless work. We need all hands on deck.)

(And when we brought everyone into the effort, and worked for the good of other nations as well as our own, we gained decades of prosperity and international respect.)

What can we do?

Envision the future and take steps to match it.

Vote for candidates who will face the climate crisis and act on it.

Take the carbon out of our own households, transportation, and food.

Divest and withdraw our money and energy from organizations that don't join the fight.

Speak up. March, rally, write, talk to family and neighbors.

Give our money and labor and creativity to creating a carbon-neutral or carbon-storing economy.

The race is on. Let's win it.

My Next Round of Vegan Efforts

I picked up a couple used vegan cookbooks recently. More inspiration, more examples, more normalizing of a plant-based diet are all useful. I started reading The Vegan Table by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau.

I had actually encountered quite a few jokes about rude, in-your-face vegans without meeting such a person. Unfortunately, this cookbook author has broken my streak. She has a disparaging tone that irritates me.

Topically, Seth Godin wrote about taking learnings from people who rub you the wrong way today. I was already planning to sift the cookbook for useful info before I read Seth's post, but it was nice to have some support for that plan. I have found a number of the recipes attractive. There are lots of appetizing pictures. And then I found some ideas for making vegan dishes satisfy the urge to have a main dish – which is exactly what I was seeking in a previous blog post.

This list of ways to make a dish more of a focal point is inspired by her list, and adapted to my own needs:

Present it: stuffed into a vegetable or in individual serving dishes
Raise the protein level: choose ingredients high in protein, such as beans, greens, tofu, tempeh, seitan
Wrap it: in a crust, leaf, tortilla, or bun
Make it richer: add sauce or garnishes for more eye appeal
Form it: make loaves or patties to give it shape

I can't recommend the book. I think the language is more likely to turn people off than help them. But I'll grind through it for what I can salvage before I pass it on.

An Interview from the Future

Today we are talking with Jheri Nyongo, who recently completed their 20th year in the Civilian Conservation Corps. Jheri was the architect of the Every Home a Garden initiative and rose from installer to executive director of the northeast region.

Anna: Jheri, thank you for coming today.

Jheri: Thanks, Anna, I'm glad to be here.

A: Tell us about your first year in the Civilian Conservation Corps.

J: We started with a mandate to install solar panels. At that time, I was going wherever they sent me. We were climbing on roofs and fitting panels and explaining about choosing exposures. About six months in, I'd heard several homeowners complaining about the electric utility of the time. The company kept delaying on connecting the panel systems to the electric grid. So I talked to the team, and we went to talk to the utility board. Turns out, they were worried about live wires from the panels. That's when the team decided we needed to work on the electric grid, too.

A: I spoke to your coworker Gordo Finnegan, and he said you were the leader on that.

J: If he says so. It took a team.

A: Did you like the electrical work?

J: It was interesting. We had a new set of safety procedures to worry about. I studied up on power lines and transformers and all that.

A: Eventually receiving a doctor's degree in electrical engineering.

J: Yes, that. I had some useful problems to work into my dissertation, so the work and the studies helped each other. We were dividing the grid into little sections. When everything went well, power would pass between them. When one section had a problem, it would isolate. The grid had to be smart, to handle all those power plants on roofs, which is what our solar panels were.

A: How long did you work on making the grid smarter?

J: That was my main concern for the next eight or nine years. Other teams took it up, worked in other areas. We traded what we learned between regions and made good progress.

A: Did anyone oppose the work?

J: (chuckles) There were some. One man I won't dignify by naming spent a year following us around with signs claiming that our smart connection points were the devil's surveillance plan. He had a few folks worked with him for a while. I kept my head down and worked and that blew over. We had some funding fights, too. Our first budget came in with the Green New Deal, and was up for reconsideration two years later. We saw some stink in congress. But by then, we'd given a lot of folks free solar panels, and more people wanted them. So the budget held. Most of that happened above my pay grade.

A: Why did you stop working on the grid?

J: We were mostly done by then. There were remote areas that still needed work. We'd sorted out the fun questions. I started looking around for the next problem.

A: Was that insulation?

J: No, another branch of the CCC began work on insulation while our team was working on the grid. The two approaches helped each other – insulation lowered energy use, which made the grid work better, and the better grid made areas that needed help pop right out. Insulation, appliances, light bulbs – the home team had all of that under control. So I started looking for another area we could work on.

A: What were some of the options you considered?

J: The CCC's first tagline had been "Solar panels for every home" with a little asterisk to cover those cases where they'd never pay off. As we finished up with that, and expanded into improving the grid and making homes more efficient, we needed a new line. The public relations team tried a few that no one liked. Finally, we had a big conference. Those who couldn't fly to Cincinnati joined by video call. Everyone put their thoughts in the big bucket of ideas. It took a week. Finally, we came up with the line we still use now.

A: It broadened your aim quite a bit.

J: At that point, anything that would reduce carbon, reduce other greenhouse gases, make any product or service use less energy or create less waste became fair game. I had a lot to think about. I considered home battery systems, universal broadband, transportation. I wanted to work outside, and I saw that we hadn't made much progress on lowering methane from garbage collection. What would encourage people to keep food waste out of their garbage? If they could compost it and use the compost at home. Plus, gardening calms a place. So we came up with Every Home a Garden.

A: Lots of people have had gardens. How was this different?

J: We wanted everyone to have a garden. Didn't matter if you lived on the eighth floor, or couldn't walk. We were looking at gardens that could be part of your roof, your walls, gardens for people who had no yard or no sunlight.

A: Wouldn't that raise electricity use?

J: It was a whole new set of problems to solve. Sometimes, we did need some artificial light. We worked to make that as efficient as possible. Lots of times we could choose the right plants or bring sunlight through pipes. We had some misfires where the compost was chasing people out of their homes before we found a few good systems for that, too.

A: How many homes have you reached?

J: We estimate about 30%. That's enough that we've found solutions for most home types.

A: Does that mean you are looking for your next interesting problem?

J: (chuckles) I'm not ready to talk about that.

A: Can you tell us anything about what you plan to do next?

J: I expect I can do good work for the CCC for another decade or more. We've taken care of some of the big areas of waste, and we can keep finding ways to do better.

A: Thanks very much for your time, Jheri. And thanks for your service.

J: It was a pleasure talking to you.

Finding Our Part

The world is in crisis. The climate crisis is really just one part of it. We are reaching a place where the joint action of billions of humans can have huge, horrible consequences even if those actions, undertaken by a single human, wouldn't do any noticeable harm.

We've dealt with some similar problems before. We created treaties to cut CFCs when they were damaging the ozone layer and reduced the impact of acid rain. Earlier, we learned sewer systems when having people in a city toss their waste into the street wasn't working. We have found some techniques for managing hunting and fishing rights, although fisheries need more help. We developed property to help avoid the tragedy of the commons. There are strong social norms to control excess noise and public nakedness and other activities that benefit you but annoy your neighbors. So we have successfully dealt with some conflicts of private versus public interest.

The climate crisis impacts the entire world. Also, it is often a conflict of groups versus the globe instead of an individual versus their neighbors. This larger scale may be part of why we are finding it intractable.

The groups who are benefiting from emitting carbon that harms the entire world are large and powerful. We have types of power now that were unimaginable even two centuries ago. Monarchs might control the output of an entire country – but they couldn't launch global advertising campaigns or cross the world in a day or field the labor-hours or security forces of modern multinational corporations and nations – there weren't that many people yet! Nor was there the sheer economic leverage we have now.

And we have been using fossils fuels to create a lot of that technological and economic power. Many of us are invested in it – literally, because we have shares of oil and coal companies, figuratively, because we enjoy the freedom of our cars and the warmth of our furnaces, and systematically, because we have learned to live in a way deeply interdependent with many others who are also using fossil fuels. Our lights come on from fossil fuel power plants. Our stores hold food grown with them, plastics made from them, everything transported with them. When we go to rally against climate change, we still may have no choice but to burn them to arrive. Our customers and neighbors use them, take their livelihoods from them, need them to live. Suppose all fossil fuel companies stopped paying their employees immediately. The resulting slowdown in the economy would match the Great Recession, with blackouts, and might rise to the level of the Great Depression.

Humans are scared of change and they are scared to lose income, which is how we survive within civilization. It's no wonder that many resist taking on the climate crisis.

So what can we do?

Start disentangling ourselves as we can, how we can.

Individual action may be your part: reducing fuel burned, divesting from fossil fuels, making your home more energy efficient, purchasing renewable energy and installing solar or wind power, and so on.

Or, your part might be joint action: money or time given to organizations fighting climate change, speaking out, voting and organizing for climate candidates and measures. You could be creating systems and products that disentangle us, and working with your neighbors to help them join the efforts.

I have more in my book Carbon Reset, which I give away here: www.carbonreset.com

One of my parts is to imagine how the zero carbon future could be more satisfying than our present.

What matters most is that you find your part and keep taking the steps. As James Clear recently said, "Rome wasn't built in a day, but they were laying bricks every hour."

Dispatches from the Green Future

"I was there, at the last miner's march. When they said they were going to close all the mines, we decided to stand together. First, we picketed the mines. Then, word came around that we would walk to Richmond. I had nothing to lose. I took a roll and a pack and we walked along the highways. Ten thousand, twenty thousand men, coming by twenty or fifty to fill the grass in front of the capital. We were there two nights before the president came, told us the mines would close and we would all have jobs. Didn't believe it. Some social workers lined us up and took our names. They even wrote us checks. Thought it was just cheaper than arresting us, but I took my check back home so I could pay rent and buy some groceries." Ronald Black shakes his head. "Thought that was the end. But a couple weeks later, here come more social workers, with another check. I go up now instead of down." He gazes at the towering windmill behind him. "Pay's good, kids are fed, that little cough I had, just in the evenings, it's gone now. It's not what my father did, but it'll do."

Maria Estancia Lopez walks along the acequia at the edge of her small farm. "We have good water this year. My father thought the water was gone. At the end of the twentieth century, and into this one, every year we had less. My brothers and sisters moved to Albuquerque, except Adam, who moved to Taos to paint. When it started to cool again, more snow fell in the Rockies, and it filled the Rio Grande, melting in the spring and flowing out of Colorado. I am planting corn and chiles like my grandfather did, some melons. The soil is hard, because for twenty years it baked and we had no water. Bit by bit, I am bringing it back."

Fred Ma waves at the busy bike lane in front of him. "This is the part I'm proudest of. All our city planning was paying off. We had offices near apartments so people could walk. We had the buses running every five minutes, and they were full. Any time you needed to move something heavy or travel in a group, you could get an electric cargo car in ten minutes. So these four lane roads – we just didn't need them any more. Owning a car – not too many people wanted the hassle, the expense, the smell. Really, two lanes was plenty for the traffic. So we give full lanes each way to bicycles, wide as the lanes for cars. The problem was, how do buses reach the curb without interfering with all those bikes? Well, wrong question. We set up islands for pedestrians, raised the crosswalks like they do in Amsterdam, and the buses pick people up from the center now. Easy peasy."

Kaleidocycle Diagram

I have worked back and forth from the pictures and made this diagram. Very important: This layout applies when you roll the jellyfish into tetrahedra in the same direction I used.

No doubt a graphic artist could make this much more attractive! It captures the basic information I need to place the triangles so as to assemble them into pictures. For colors and movement, see the previous post.

Here is an interesting pattern. Each triangle has one vertical edge. The two points on that edge are the two that will be central in the two faces made of those triangles that the kaleidocycle can display. Imagine that all the triangles in the first column have the number one on them, and that all the triangles in the second column have the number two on them. Then the lower points will be central when 2 follows 1 in a clockwise direction, and the upper points will be central when 2 follows 1 in a counterclockwise direction.

There! More fun with geometry.

Kaleidocycle!

I completed my second kaleidocycle last night, and that exclamation point is very well justified, because I have been bouncing happily ever since.

What is a kaleidocycle, you ask? The short, denotative answer is: a turning toy composed of six or more tetrahedra. Much better: A kaleidocycle is a bundle of joyful awesomesauce rotating colorful patterns.

Pictures and movies will help. Words are my main mode, and this was a clear case for visuals. So I documented the process. I was interested in how to place a triangle exactly where I wanted it on the final form. Now I have a model and a procedure so I can make pictures on my next kaleidocycle (already in process).

This kaleidocycle started with 24 triangles. Here I have completed the triangles and am preparing for the next step:

Next, I assembled the triangles into jellyfish nets, or jellyfish for short. A kaleidocycle need not be made of beads – the form exists regardless of the materials. However, creating one from beads is amazing! I learned to make kaleidocycles from Kate McKinnon and her Contemporary Geometric Beadwork project. She has a YouTube channel, and here's a great video to start on kaleidocycles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04Gb_CwdW_k. CGB also has a bead diagram guide to kaleidocycles here: https://beadmobile.wordpress.com/cgb-free-pattern-library/basic-kaleidocycle-pattern/. Betsy Ramsey of www.redpandabeads.com designed the color palette, Macaw Monday. This is a teaching kaleidocycle – I added counting beads to make each triangle distinct – so a bright, primary palette matched my purpose.

It matters which side of the triangle is up and how the triangle is rotated.

It also matters which way you roll the jellyfish. On my first kaleidocycle, I rolled one half-jellyfish a different way from the others and had to separate it and try again. It's good to stop and check alignment before closing the edges of each tetrahedron. 

And complete! 

Here are pictures of the jellyfish and the faces of the kaleidocycle they became. I made this kaleidocycle to have this map! On my next kaleidocycle, there will be two faces that have pictures spread across their six triangles.

That was fun! And now I have a kaleidocycle!

A Thought Experiment

Earth can absorb a defined amount of carbon every year. What if everyone on Earth had equity in that carbon? Each person could use their share or sell their share. If someone wanted to use more than their share, they would have to find someone willing to sell their carbon equity. Let's dream a few lives.

Letsha lives in Lesotho in a traditional one-room hut. When people first approached to buy her unused carbon equity, she couldn't believe it. It took several weeks for the strange foreigners to show their good faith. Now she shows visitors the solar panel that lets her charge her phone and do a little reading at night. She has a new stove, too, that takes less wood to cook. She and her neighbors record and share traditional songs and download new ones to sing together.

"Always I have been part of the earth, and now other people see it. My heart is full," she says. Besides the improvements to her home, she has sent her daughter and her son to school.

Carl and Livia have a large house in the suburbs of Phoenix, Arizona. As we watches a team installing solar panels on his roof, Carl grumbles, "The carbon payments are killing me. It's actually cheaper to put up these panels than to keep buying credit." Livia chimes in, "They are very ugly, but it's just good sense. At least we aren't the only house in the neighborhood with them." In fact, almost half the homes have added panels since the equity plan went in, and another team is working to install more down the block.

Magali and Guiseppe run a small family vineyard in southern France. "The equity payment, bien sûr, it was expensive to start. Year by year, we make improvements. Now is not so bad." They have added a windmill on the slope above the vines. Parts of the home date to the 1500s, so the walls are thick and naturally insulated. They replaced the oil furnace with a heat pump and have revived traditional methods of crushing the grapes and returning the pressings to the soil. "A little slower and our neighbors help. And the wine, you taste the feet in it. Is so rich." They offer you a glass, and sit with you to watch the shadows of the vines lengthen. You have a delicious and abundant evening.

I believe we are all in this together and that we can live well on a neutral carbon budget.

Why Don't I Eat More Vegan Food?

I talked a few posts back about the reasons I'd like to eat more vegan food: health, environment, flavor, adventure. When I wrote about systems for eating, that implied that one reason I wasn't eating more vegan food is that I didn't have a vegan cooking system.

I'm still mulling and brainstorming on that.

Meanwhile, let's look at some of the other reasons I don't eat all vegan meals for clues to eating more of them.

Some reasons are other facets of needing a system: inconvenience, lack of knowledge, old habits. If I had a system, it would include making some vegan meals easily, knowing their recipes by heart, and having the habit of including vegan meals on a regular basis.

Then there are health concerns. Doug, my husband, is diabetic. I like to cook food that helps him regulate his blood sugar. Our best results so far have been with a low-glycemic diet that tightly limits grains, potatoes, and other starchy vegetables. This makes a lot of vegan recipes problematic. When I read vegan recipes for rice bowls, polenta dishes, pasta, stuffed potatoes and shepherd's pies, or even sandwiches, they frequently look far too glycemic to serve to him. Our experiments have seen him doing well with spaghetti squash or broccoli as a pasta substitute. Small amounts of homemade, whole-grain bread also seem fine for him.

We are accustomed to generous quantities of protein, and "not enough protein" can be a concern with vegetarian or vegan diets. Although we are in no danger of kwashiorkor, we feel better with protein in our meals. How much of that is biologically optimal and how much of it is custom and changeable, I don't know. We made a large batch of lobia (with olive oil rather than ghee) from Urvashi Pitre, and ate it lunch and dinner for several days, along with our usual vegan breakfasts. After the last meal, I said, "It doesn't feel like we've been eating vegan." Aha! A clue. This is a fairly high protein vegan dish, with both the black-eyed peas and spinach contributing. So it's possible that the feeling of eating vegan comes from getting less protein than I am used to, and if so, keeping the protein up could help vegan food feel more sustaining. Our experiments around Doug's blood sugar led us to meals with about 30% calories from protein in them for him. Vegan meals run lower than that on average. It's easy to include enough protein to avoid protein deficiency. There is not yet a consensus on how much protein an optimal diet includes, and there is some evidence that the optimal diet varies widely from person to person. So we might be able to adapt our diet to run higher in protein, like the lobia recipe does, or we might be able to adapt to less protein, as some very healthy traditional diets contain.

Another reason is comfort: eating the food I grew up with feels supportive. If I feel ill or stressed, I often crave my childhood favorites. I've made some progress on leaving the ground beef and cheese out of the burritos from our family table. I gave up cheese with few pangs when I stopped digesting milk well. We spent some years mixing half TVP into our taco meat, and trying ground chicken, pork, or turkey instead of beef, and it tastes better to us now that way. The burrito recipe always contained refried beans, and the vegan ones taste better to me. On the last version, I tried adding corn kernels and sunflower seeds to the refried bean filling to round out the protein and add some fat to satisfy my expectations for a burrito. With plenty of seasoning and salsa, I found that comforting. Adding avocado makes any burrito more appealing, too! Matching the protein and fat content I'm accustomed to may make vegan food more comforting as well as less glycemic.

Typing out these thoughts has given me some good ideas. I can see why people want paleo vegan recipes. Their high-protein emphasis might solve some problems for us.

A System for Vegan Eating

At last writing, I was looking forward to the release of I Can Cook Vegan. It's here! I've read it, but haven't yet made any recipes.

The recipes look great and Isa's writing is entertaining as always. Still, I realized there was something I was hoping for from it that I didn't get: a system for composing vegan meals.

I've had, since I was very young, a guideline for composing dinner. It's my mom's ideal, and it is practically reflexive with me: a protein, a starch, a hot vegetable, and a cold vegetable. I've expanded what fits in those categories over the years. The great carb controversies have left me often using beans as the starch where in previous decades that slot went to potatoes, rice, bread, and other grain dishes. Cold vegetable usually means salad. And some meals bring all these pieces together, such as my lentil stew which has lentils in quantity to cover both the protein and the starch, and vegetables enough to cover both servings.

Even with the flexing I've done to that formula over the years, it shapes most of the meals I make. And it causes me to stumble sometimes when I want to plan a vegan meal.

Look at that lentil stew! It's a lovely, warm, filling meal, and it's also an awkward fit to protein-starch-veg-veg.

Time to throw out protein-starch-veg-veg? Time to make a different archetype for my meals? I'm not sure yet.

But my mind is on systems, and I have a feeling something tasty is on its way.

What Do We Eat?

Around three times a day, I decide to eat something. That's a lot of decisions! And that means I have several chances to make a difference with my food choices each day.

There are lots of reasons to choose among food options. Isa Chandra Moskowitz has a new book coming out. I read the preview, and in it she has a list of people who might like the book. The list includes new cooks, farmer's market fans, and people who want to improve their health or be kind to animals among others. One category she didn't include, which is an important concern for me, is people who want their food choices to reduce climate change.

Just that list shows how complex eating can be! That's why Michael Pollan wrote an entire book called The Omnivore's Dilemma. What to eat when you could eat a wide variety of foods does pose a confusing set of questions.

One way we deal with complex choices is to follow a default. Changing a daily action from something we debate over into a habit saves a lot of energy. So we may eat as our mothers fed us, or fall into a routine of restaurants and convenience food, or have a weekly menu that determines we have curry on Mondays and tacos on Tuesdays and so on.

But, if we are taking a look at our eating and making a new plan for it, how do we choose?

In essence, what are our food values?

That's a beautiful question, and one I could spend an entire book answering. Quickly, I know that I value food that I enjoy, that improves my health, that grows sustainably and contributes to my mission of helping the human game continue.

Meanwhile, I have ordered I Can Cook Vegan, as I order most of Isa's books, because she is an entertaining writer and creative cook whose recipes help me eat better. I'm looking forward to its release!

Defining Mastery

Have you been following the debate about mastery?

It isn't trending on Twitter or broadcast on CNN. In his 2008 book, Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell proposed that those who excel have spent 10,000 hours on deliberate practice. That means that anyone can achieve mastery if they spend about ten years attentively improving a skill twenty hours per week.

What an exciting result! He had data and put it together in memorable, surprising words. It's a beautiful insight into human progress. If you ever start thinking we aren't getting any wiser, spend a little while considering that the 10,000 hour concept arrived only 11 years ago, has spread well, and lays out a path for becoming much better at any chosen skill. That means that we now know how to create better results for anyone — which meets my definition of us becoming wiser.

Since then, people have been testing the 10,000 hour concept. They haven't disproved it so much as refined it, finding situations where it might take more or less time, looking for exceptions, and so on. (More advances in wisdom!)

On my own part, I've had mixed feelings about mastery. On the one hand, how lovely it would be to master a skill! On the other hand, I am broadly curious and enjoy spreading my attention between many subjects and pursuits — which means any single one may not receive enough of my time for me to reach mastery in it. When is it worth immersion in a single activity to bring it to mastery? What other uses of my time would I give up to gain mastery? These are worthwhile questions.

In the meantime, I needed to understand what mastery was. So I've been working on a definition, checking the words and rolling it around in my mind, and settling on this:

Mastery is fast, nuanced response to specific situations.

For example, suppose it's the guitar you want to master. Then a sign of mastery would be playing quickly, with variety in tone, volume, technique, matching the particular song and group you are playing with.

In martial arts, it's reflexive attacks, parries, and dodges that meet a particular opponent and their moves with the appropriate amount of force.

In coaching, it is seeing the person before you and choosing in the moment from a wide variety of responses to help that person move ahead.

A master doesn't always have to respond quickly, carefully adjusted for the current circumstances. But if someone can't, they are not showing mastery in that moment.

I'm open to debate on this! And one part is that I needed something more specific than "performing well."

Bonus definition, extracted from dictionary.com: Wisdom is "knowledge of what is true or right, coupled with just judgment as to action." I'd say wisdom is both knowing how to do something and choosing well what to do. And the 10,000 hour concept helps someone both know how to gain mastery and choose whether gaining mastery is worth it.

I Will Mess Up

Today I was watching a thread where John Scalzi commented on the Hugo for An Archive of Our Own and then apologized.

He's one of the good guys. He's a little younger than I am, far more engaged in public discussion of how to treat women and people of color well in the community of science fiction than I have ever been, and has a lot of experience with being a public figure. If he's going to misspeak at times, I definitely am too. Unless I stop speaking altogether, and that isn't good for me or likely to make the world better.

It is better than I engage and try than sit silent to avoid error. So I am going to mess up.

It's quite a relief to accept that, actually. It's also a relief to see Cory Doctorow arguing that neither our good actions nor our bad actions cancel out the others. We are imperfect. We act from what we know now. Some of it will be mistakes, or perhaps ignorant errors that will make future generations or even more alert contemporaries cringe.

I, in particular, have come with blind spots and upbringing and imperfect knowledge and I will mess up.

I'm human. The game is to keep trying to do better.

Creating a Better Self

Atomic Habits is an outstanding book. It is clearly written, inspiring, actionable, and insightful. It contains information that is new to me – and I have read many books on self-development over many years – and states those ideas in a way that feels like I could do something with them. I want to do something with them! I very highly recommend it.

I'm restarting it, to incorporate more of the suggestions, and today I was struck by the identity concepts. "Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become." Isn't that beautifully stated? And it's central: who do I want to become? What goals would that person have? What habits would she practice to reach those goals and to express the person she is?

One of my very first posts here was that I am more of a net than an arrow. That was an identity statement. I believe I am a generalist. I like to spread my efforts among multiple goals. I enjoy having more than one focus for my attention, over the course of a day, over the course of a week, over the course of months or years, or over the course of a lifetime. However, all these statements are identities, and I could change them.

Here's another meta-belief: I believe that the likeliest way to change a value is to adhere more strongly to a higher value. In a class recently, someone asked me if my values had changed. It's an excellent question. I stopped and reviewed my history.

There is a bias for humans to think we thought the same way in the past that we think now. We don't remember how we thought before we changed our minds without an extra effort to do so. Knowing this, I looked first at how my behavior had changed, which is easier to observe. And I could see: I used to have a much stronger belief in having everyone follow the same rules than I have now. I've gained a value for diversity that now ranks higher than what I might previously have called a value for equal application of the rules.

That may be because I have a higher value for kindness, for treating humans well, than I have for fairness. Or it may be because I now spend more time around people who value diversity than people who value lawfulness.

When I made a mission statement, that was a clarifying effort to discover and enhance what is most important to me. In many ways, it was a discovery or creation or strengthening of identity.

James Clear, in Atomic Habits, inspired me to take the next step and ask, "What frequent actions would someone who valued this mission take?" I can think of a few. And I'll write more about them another day.

Building up Practices

While it irritates me to have too many practices dictated to me, especially when they are all supposed to happen "first thing in the morning," there are things I'd like to get done. So I've been trying to improve my habits.

One hack in the kit is to chain practices. Only one can happen first thing, but it could lead to another, and another, and another. Then another could happen, say, just after breakfast, and it could lead into another.

I had a few good days of chaining four practices before breakfast, then breakfast leading into three more daily practices – four if I count brushing my teeth.

Then I had a horrible backlash.

This is normal.

With all these practices in rubble around me, I have a good chance to review them, decide what is really important to me, and which ones were really helping.

I feel some urgency. I've had a couple minor but continuing health concerns that would yield to better self-care. And with Doug and I both out of work, I see a date when our savings will run out that gives me a deadline that feels heavy. So it does feel like very slow addition of practices, which I would normally recommend, isn't sufficient to meet current needs.

Slow additions would reduce those backlashes.

Nonetheless, here I go again.

I Feel Better about Myself When I Write

I've been working on re-establishing some of the good work procedures I had in place before we moved. It's surprising how many of them were made easier by the surroundings I had carefully set up in my home, which was also my office. I've set my laptop up in a smaller, less central place (as Stephen King mentions doing in On Writing) and made a variety of other adjustments to my space and schedule, and I've been getting into the book and making progress on it much more regularly than I was two weeks ago.

That feels better. I say kinder words to myself when I am writing, and say fewer unkind things. I feel in accordance with my work in the world, and feel like I am serving. I have a sense of accomplishment upon completing even a paragraph that outweighs the accomplishment of spending hours on more laborious actions like massive housecleaning or someone else's editing.

While he was writing Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (a work which has my highest recommendation), Eliezar Yudkowsky talked about how writing an immense fanfic might seem a quixotic use of his skills. Then he sent us to a comic of which the punchline was, "I tried not doing it, and that didn't work." There we go. I've tried not writing. It doesn't work.

Whether that's because writing itself is the necessary action or because my current writing project is on the critical path to the difference I want to make in the world remains to be seen.

Marcus Buckingham gives a revisionist definition of strengths and weaknesses. He says that a strength is what strengthens you and a weakness is what weakens you. This is an interesting change of perspective on the more usual understanding that a strength is what you are good at and a weakness is what you find difficult. His definition is completely uncorrelated, at least to start, with the standard definition. Over time, it seems likely that practicing what strengthens you will also give you skill in it.

In either definition, writing is one of my strengths.

Deep Frying

French fries. Doughnuts. Fried chicken. Some of the most crave-able, iconically American foods are deep-fried.

When we lived in Bend, there was a man who was an absolute artist with a deep fryer. I just checked reviews and Hardy is still making wings and burgers. Deep-frying is an art, and it can create wonderfully hot food with rich flavor.

And at some point I decided I would not deep-fry at home. It takes a lot of oil, a deep pan, a thermometer or the experience to judge the heat of the oil, and it spatters grease. I could trim a set of equipment and a body of learning and an extra cleaning project from my life and lean into someone else's skills. When I have a relatively infrequent desire for deep-fried food, I let someone else make it.

In miniature, this is an example of what it looks like to specialize. Others deep-fry well. I let them. I buy their art when I want it. We are both better off.

I'm glad to be a member of a civilization where someone else can do the deep-frying.

The Treasure Hour

Here's a partial list of actions that various authorities have recommended I do first thing in the morning:

• Meditate
• Check blood sugar
• Drink a quart of water
• Write down my dreams
• Write a morning pages brain dump
• Practice yoga or stretch
• Visualize a safe zone
• Practice gratitude
• Drink water with lemon or vinegar
• Make the bed
• Eat 
• Fast
• Sing
• Step into the sunlight
• Blog
• Work on a book
• Check my to-do list
• Write my to-do list
• Look myself in the eyes in the mirror and say, "I love you."

My cats, of course, think my first action should be to feed them.

Only one action can be my first. The high competition among the possibilities suggests there is a lot of power in that first action. It's the one most likely to happen. It comes when I have willpower available and it sets the tone for the day. I have chosen several of these and continued them for months or years – sometimes, I've even set up a series of first actions arranged into a morning routine and continued that an extended period without a break.

I broke the string of my daily first actions when we moved. Since then, I haven't re-established a consistent first-in-the-morning priority. I do better when I have one. The feeling of accomplishment, and the molding of my life into a chosen form, gives me a boost. I start each day as a success, and that helps in many ways, some more obvious than others.

At this point, it seems rude to me for anyone else to decide what I do with that treasured first hour of my morning. I've heard a lot of arguments for competing priorities. Now it's mine to judge and feel my way into the choice that is best for me.

So I offer the same consideration to you. It may improve your life to choose and stick to one practice as the first action of the morning. To keep it for one week is a good foot in the water and for three months is a very solid trial.

What would you like to be the first thing you do each morning?