A Cornucopia of Updateness

Tea Time

I'm not even sure where to begin, so this may be a bit all over the place.

Books

I did tell you a while back that I was going to recommend a few books from my 2019 Reading Challenge. Those books are:

1. Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder - the forming of charitable organization Partners In Health
2. We Crossed A Bridge And It Trembled by Wendy Pearlman - the Syrian conflict in refugees' own words
3. Psychology In Plain English by Dean Richards, MD - an entertaining introduction to Psychology
4. Unfu*k Yourself by Gary John Bishop - tough love from a cursing Scotsman
5. Nimona by Noelle Stevenson - a comic graphic novel that I loved

A very nice person on Twitter signed me up to a book club, which is where I found the first two books on that list. I'm glad I read them. Most of the books, I did not care for. A couple of them had too much rape and murder, and I abandoned the club altogether because I just didn't enjoy it. It turns out I don't like being told what to read; I guess I'm picky (I don't guess, actually, I know I'm picky). I thanked her for her thoughtfulness and moved on.

My Goodreads 2020 Reading Challenge is only 24 books. I intend to read several large ones that are the size of encyclopedias, which is why the number is lower than usual. What I can say, and I am somewhat proud of, is that I have read 100 books in two years. That's more books than I had read in the previous twenty years. It is a big change I wanted to make in my life, so I did.

Art

I have joined Twitter Art Exhibit 2020 and I am still trying to figure out what to paint. I'll keep you posted. I also want to pursue typography, and create a few more acrylic pours this year.

Cooking

I will be doing much less of it. My body is a wreck. I'm just trying to survive over here. You'll probably see an occasional dish on Instagram, but don't hold your breath.

Therapy

I haven't been talking about this, and it will probably be a little while before I do. But I do plan to bring awareness and try to help reduce stigma and anxiety about mental health care. Talk to you soon.

AskFM

Holy implosion, Batman, my experience there has changed dramatically. They started a points and rank system, and that resulted in many people befriending each other to climb up the ladder. In just a short time, I went from having 40-something followers to almost 200. I was awarded VIP status today, which issued over 32,000 points and launched me into the top ten.

It was a shocker. The ranking fluctuates constantly, so don't expect me to stay there, but it sure is different to be noticed. I'm overwhelmed. As for that "Ask Yourself" button, I have never used it and it honestly makes me uncomfortable. I hope they'll ditch that feature someday, like other popular Q&A sites have. I only answer legit questions, and I screen them pretty heavily for decency. I've blocked plenty of trolls, but for the most part, it has remained an acceptable distraction.

I figured I would give y'all a laugh.

I went to the park and got caught in a flash flood.

I was catching a Pokemon. 😂

That's all for now, I think. I need to get my thoughts together before sharing more.

Thanks for still hanging in there with me!