Oct-Dec 2022

 October

1: joining my parents to watch some House
2: Ren's excitement over me having gone to the prison museum
3: asking a patron, upon seeing her stack of Marie Benedict books to check out, how she liked the novel about Rosalind Franklin - and sharing in our outrage over what happened
4: hot air balloons disappearing into the mist
5: dive-bombing toward the cart upon seeing the book I requested, & nearly tripping a coworker
6: Asphalt Meadows on repeat
7: actually fucking vibing to Taylor Swift, ngl // getting my mom hooked on the Junior Baking Show // getting new napkins & dish towels for the house
8: a wild (fictional) ride through Utah's Canyonlands
9: rodeo cowboy photoshoot
10: finding Horseshoe Hill again by following my old map + directions
11: responses to a writing prompt about singlehandedly smuggling illegal coffee
12: ordering more LJ Maas books (including, to Ren's delight, the "lesbian Brokeback Mountain")
13: new gems amidst Minecraft's comforting familiarity
14: an attempt to fix the (ultimately unfixable) tire mishap
15: friendly canine greetings from our therapy-dog volunteers
16: a rain check on a cafe hangout
17: adding to my book list spreadsheet
18: seeing the license plate "KIWI" on a green Kia Soul
19: group effort on the Worldle bonus rounds
20: hitting 90k miles
21: stumbling upon new, unnamed trails (and satisfyingly swoopy mountain-bike dips)
22: joking that my book could be a new genre: food romance/literary mukbang 
23: a cafe hangout after work 
24: sweater weather
25: revision inspo (& writing on the job)
26: a mug of chai at work
27: a Halloween-themed Minecraft build
28: investigating an abandoned structure off Jenkins & Worchester
29: another system crash, six months after the last major one
30: family watching Mare of Easttown
31: all the little children's costumes

November

1: introducing an angel flashback
2: a discussion sparked by seeing a book called "The 12-Hour Walk"
3: catching up with Sarah K
4: a chilly morning crouching on the wet asphalt to get the tires topped up
5: a truly wholesome romance about a soon-to-be divorcée who meets a lovely lesbian lady (& her dog) out in the woods
6: Matt randomly putting on a CD called "Wolf Rune," & being transfixed by the kantele and haunting vocals
7: trying to counteract the force that is a patron insatiable for CDs (& clogging up our racks) by shipping his returns off to other libraries
8: showing some kiddos (& their granny) how to use the self checkout machines 
9: DIAMANTES!
10: wheezing at Booktube reviews
11: a lunch outing at a vegan restaurant (that I shockingly hadn't tried yet)
12: furious outlining/backstory drafting at the NaNoWriMo write-in
13: blazing through a new scene (the improved ending, in fact)
14: some fun on a kid's borrowed scooter
15: pasting up a (found) poem on my cubby wall
16: coloring gnomes for our work's holiday cards
17: the most outlandishly absurd song lyric I've heard to date (hint: it's Nick Cave)
18: cactus fruits & gourds out at the old Jenkins place
19: when the shy, sweet Papillon of the teddy-bear face and soulful eyes chooses me
20: dragging my ass through the end of a terrible book
21: assisting the sweet elderly gentleman from writing group (over the phone & later in person)
22: cholla reverence
23: the adorable ending of Queerly Beloved (& adding to my own WLW tidbit)
24: a minimal Thanksgiving mishap, quickly remedied
25: sneaking a peek at some homes under construction
26: browsing the Vegan Without Borders cookbook with Jeremy
27: learning about toaster oven romances
28: discussing Pitchfork reviews and critic credibility
29: old hippie couple (decked out in their matching "Ugg boots & jeans" 'fit) performing music at the open mic night 
30: finding out that there are Gerri Hill audiobooks available on hoopla

December

1: a cacophony of crows 
2: the halo-glow of horizon ringed under the overcast sky
3: some sketches from Man Stroke Woman series 2
4: catching up with one of the OG writing group attendees (who's been in absentia the past several meetings)
5: Matt's insistence that I should start a "Google Maps vacation" Twitch stream
6: thwarting the man who tried to sneak in with the visiting school kids (not me personally doing said thwarting)
7: when the CD patron's complaint to the city councilor is rewarded with new CD shelving
8: bringing jobs to the villagers
9: photographic tribute to the dead snake
10: a 90+-year-old patron making a dark joke about her mortality
11: outlining the revisions I need to do in a spreadsheet
12: discussing AITA posts
13: Anna turning the meeting into a small-group lesson
14: Jeremy suggesting - and leading me to - the jewelry screwdriver and voilà, clumsily dropped watch fixed
15: delving into The Dodos' discography
16: a plot twist I should have seen coming that's not even really a twist
17: when they pull some of the withdrawn CDs to play in the back & I think that if they'd just waited on one of them, I would have checked it out before it got axed (& it being by Emily Haines & the Soft Skeleton, and not only is that band name epic, she is the lead singer of Metric, which I've also enjoyed listening to without knowing she was part of it)
18: going to the brick-and-mortar restaurant of a vegan place that previously only existed as a food truck
19: taking home tower-garden peppers
20: when two separate couples come in for library cards, and each of them was born on the same day of two different months in the same year (the 10th of __ in 1948, the 21st of __ in 1990)
21: work holiday party (and dipping in & out of the room for snacks)
22: hanging out with my bro & his animals
23: trying some online mattress brands in the flesh
24: collaborative and competitive work on the online jigsaw puzzle
25: everyone excitedly taking a turn on Mom's new typewriter, an early present for her birthday
26: Kwanzaa hype (after a hiatus)
27: making use of a little notepad I collected ages ago to write a bit of the chapter I was working on (the novel journal accidentally left behind at home)
28: getting my clothes back, at least
29: learning that Joan Armatrading is a quiet lesbian icon
30: The Deep (the book & the song it was inspired by)
31: plugging prompts into an AI text generator and cackling at the stories it comes up with 

Jul-Sep 2022

 July

1: paying respects to the rare pigeon
2: trying to uncover the life of the enigmatic (and beloved) author LJ Maas
3: dodging an irrepressible new coworker
4: climbing up the foothills & looking out over the city 
5: the start of Zak George's RV life adventures
6: letting Tim (my native New Mexican coworker) read over my Spanish-language book review
7: taking the pups for a walk in the bosque
8: a quick ice cream sandwich
9: Taco Cabana for lunch 
10: lamenting that someone willfully gave up an autographed LJ Maas book (but amazed I got it for such a steal)
11: digging up some Alan Singley
12: an unconventional book repair (involving many layers of color-matched cardstock)
13: interview practice on my breaks
14: What If You & Me
15: their faces for treats
16: tallying what 501 Must-See movies we've seen & what 501 Must-Read Books we've read
17: Matt finding Yusuf/Cat's TikTok
18: park picnic
19: the (as I'm coming to recognize) signature sarcastic humor of LJ Maas
20: when Inclusive Ninja is still problematic
21: running to escape the sprinklers
22: tidbit writing inspiration 
23: running inside to escape the sudden downpour (with the girls stopping to shake off every three seconds)
24: Matt asking my permission to eat the vegan ice cream 
25: Dora nosing and chewing her way to the treats hidden under the shirt
26: the critique group raising the important question of why my characters are always meeting over food
27: a staff run-through of the escape room my coworker put together
28: encounters with polite men out with their dogs
29: the spooky jazz-sesh journey of 50 Words for Snow
30: "eavesdropping" on a fraught relationship conversation (so, like lurking on relationship_advice irl)
31: nighttime playground hijinks

 August

1: flipping between the audiobook and ebook depending on my work station (or if I'm on break)

2: getting unreasonably riled up about an epilogue (which concludes the stories of all the trilogy's characters)

3: jamming to my brother's newest album, "odyssey"

4: a hike in the eastern Sandias

5: braiding my hair with beads

6: the trilogy not ending as badly as I remembered

7: tracks 4-6 from Pagans in Vegas

8: the slightly entertaining parallels between the neighbors and our old roommates (re: stupid fighting)

9: a coworker fangirling over Bridgerton

10: Tim modeling the squid hat I got in the summer reading staff prize goodie bag

11: the sound of a sudden downpour (& hailstorm)

12: tinkering with the resume 

13: cookout + game night @ Jeremy's (or, hanging out with coworkers outside of work)

14: a walk around a downtown block to pass the time

15: helping pick tomatoes from the free-range library vines

16: generously interpreting a story as "a character study into an unlikable man"

17: journaling by booklight & candle ambiance

18: the... range of talent on Junior Bake Off

19: audiobook while hair styling

20: a skunk standoff (luckily through glass)

21: chatting with my grandma over the phone

22: gold evening light shimmering through rain-studded leaves

23: that the dogs got to have their fun tearing into a trash bag

24: the student loan forgiveness news

25: the gremlin spying on me from down the hall

26: "Misty" & others matching the vibe of a cautious, contemplative drive through a downpour

27: retail therapy at Goodwill & Lowe's

28: sufficiently entertaining distraction, even if the story's pretty meh

29: spending almost $10 to send a debit card through certified mail that will no longer be active by the time it reaches its recipient

30: one year at my current workplace

31: a lunch-break stroll to the Walgreens for some lunch accoutrements (i.e., chips)

 September

1: an unaccounted-for blip of oblivion

2: a well-wishes text from a coworker

3: Walmart skeleton photo edits

4: family Costco outing

5: rewatching The Vicar of Dibley after so many years

6: yet another killer Goodwill work outfit

7: Celeste raving to me about Van Leeuwen vegan ice cream

8: purging yearbooks

9: Paul Giamatti narrating an audiobook

10: staff run-throughs of the '80s trivia

11: some of Matt's writing enthusiasm rubbing off & getting inspired for a new tidbit

12: feeling justified about a DNF (after scouring for negative reviews)

13: taking bets on which patron put 25 volumes of a manga series on hold

14: Jeremy making vegan apple cake

15: recollection of the Beyond coming back to me in spurts of muscle memory

16: dogs leaping through the desert brush

17: being invited back for a cuppa after the end of the 'making masala chai' class

18: crouching before the window, chin on the sill, to take in the night breeze, and the mournful windchime, and to be wrapped in the billowing curtain's soft shroud

19: swapping out the first consonant of different names with "J" (but still loving Jimothy and Jassachusetts most of all)

20: the inevitable last minute packing rush

21: the furthest Izi & I have ever traveled together

22: overlooking the valley of chirping prairie dogs

23: seeing my grandma after seven years

24: hiking up the wooded hill to take in the valley views

25: deer-watching from the deck

26: touches of fall color in the Grand Teton Nat'l Forest

27: a hike autour du lac (the String Lake Loop, to be precise)

28: spooky cool photo-op at the Frontier Prison Museum

29: riding an e-scooter around downtown neighborhoods & along the creek trail

30: return to familiar roadways

Apr-Jun 2022

 April
1: walking around the apartment complex
2: broccoli time with the dongles
3: a wide-brimmed hat on a sunny patrol morning
4: territorially barking at me from inside the laundry basket
5: frustrated gremlin growling
6: "Tap Out" by the Strokes
7: bringing the dogs to the bougie park
8: finishing The Duke and I so I can rewatch season one of Bridgerton 
9: a writer x editor romance set in the publishing world
10: Rebecca's comment that the lullaby renditions of Daft Punk give off the ambiance of a New Age massage parlor
11: when we get Mercedes, the most wholesome of the lot, joyfully repeating Kanye West's "Hurry up with my damn croissant"
12: an anthropomorphic tea bag (in a picture book of humanoid foods)
13: The Ex Talk
14: dog cuddles after a long day in urgent care
15: Dot leading the park explorations
16: foisting lullaby renditions on coworkers and family alike
17: getting back to French lessons (inspired by my coworkers' Duolingo craze)
18: the absurdist, Black Mirror-esque Beautiful You
19: listening to a Spanish podcast
20: browsing someone's extensive CD donation drop-off 
21: trading up for a better weekend read (i.e., not all contemporary romance is created equal)
22: sharing the couch with the dogs & managing to sleep in
23: having gained Dora's trust enough that she gets excited & approaches me for pets
24: our first solo walk (well, as a trio)
25: tracking checkout transactions in a Word document during an internet outage
26: a love story starring socially awkward adults
27: everyone pitching in on check-in
28: bringing the girls to visit a potential adopter (& the fact that they have chunky senior Chihuahua-mixes of their own)
29: some quick French lessons while waiting in line for a food order
30: going through my boyfriend's family's old pictures

 May
1: placing first in the Amethyst league
2: when they trot along behind me even after I let go of their leashes
3: the "Entre deux mondes" episode of the Duolingo French podcast
4: getting them riled up about cookies
5: winding along riparian trails
6: adventures involving arroyo ravines
7: testing Jack's COVID taste blindness
8: wine-gifting for mother's day
9: a WLW contemporary romance
10: "Fourth of July" by Sufjan Stevens
11: fragrant flowers on our walk
12: Les 7 Vies de Léa
13: Kurtis' fushigi video
14: Bad Seeds
15: flipping through a book of instant pot recipes
16: une histoire en français très bizarre
17: Here Today
18: making it to one year (& not doing anything more special than our normal work/store commute)
19: Transatlanticism
20: the visual ASMR quality of Country Life Vlog
21: attempting to speak French in a dream
22: throwing together a taco bowl
23: cake in the car after a bike ride
24: being fluent enough to completely go off on a terrible Spanish book in a Goodreads review
25: little vulnerabilities (between Those Darn Squirrels & him trying to convince me that Sheryl Crow's "Mississippi" is the superior version)
26: Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
27: brunch at an extremely bougie/hipster restaurant
28: Dora getting completely engrossed in a rawhide while Dot, after pacing out her boredom, sits on top of a shoe
29: belated birthday coffee cake
30: a turn (or two, or three) around the grassy park
31: a quick post office visit

 June
1: finishing a well-despised book with gusto
2: restaurant patio-eating with the pups
3: rewatching Kurtis' "Barbie vs. Bratz" video
4: the popularity of the guessing-jar raffle
5: finding another "joule" vanity plate on a Tesla
6: jamming to mid-2000s' The National
7: Long Story Short
8: my mom bringing Thai Vegan to my work for lunch
9: boredom spurring some revision work out on the patio in the stormy afternoon
10: Modern General's bougie carrot-mango smoothie 
11: a crusty-bread-with-soup kind of night
12: left-field escape propositions
13: The Sign for Home
14: Danny's spider story (shared on Kurtis' podcast)
15: Thank You for Today
16: picking out a new summer work outfit from Goodwill
17: return to Sims for some low-level torture
18: hanging out with the fam before they leave for their trip
19: another baby boy in the Sims family tree (in generation 5)
20: my coworker bringing me a (oat)milk tea from her boba run
21: Girl in Ice
22: an obsessive climb to the top to secure first place in the diamond league
23: You Had Me at Hola
24: The Kiss Quotient
25: personal notes left in donated books
26: little pieces of art in the complex's landscaped areas
27: spur-of-the-moment putting that bilingual certification to use
28: feedback about scene-setting and parallel dreams from the critique group
29: finding out my new coworker went to the same school, years earlier
30: homemade smoothie hitting different 

Jan-Mar 2022

 January

1: going to my folks' for a New Year's feast

2: vegetable stew

3: revision work during the last, unbusy hour

4: powerhousing the better part of a near-400-page book

5: learning the "manual" checkout system during a half-hour internet outage

6: return to Minecraft

7: unintentionally ending up in the university area in my southward journey

8: Gregory Alan Isakov's cover of the Lumineers' "Salt and the Sea"

9: listening to tunes while out on patrol

10: transferring my book post-its to a spreadsheet

11: derpy feminist comics

12: In Five Years

13: making a vegan BLT

14: the Riverside trail reminding me so much of the no outlet road along Otter Creek

15: going on a bean spree

16: toying around with my coworker Rebecca's banjolele

17: weird city finds, like Cap'n Crunch inside the fingers of a latex glove

18: my coworker Alysa trash-talking the suburban hellscape that is Rio Rancho

19: pot pie: breakfast, lunch, & dinner

20: a novel about writers doing writer things

21: Tramway biking

22: finding a Polaroid nude in a box of donated books

23: skate shoes & 2013 Monstercat vibes

24: Well Played

25: donated movies with written notes inside the cases about dates watched & impressions

26: coming back to GTA after many months and finally completing a mission I failed half a dozen times

27: when my opinion of a book drops down to 2 stars upon reading reviews from fellow dissatisfied readers

28: Pixar animated shorts (Out, Twenty Something, Far from the Tree)

29: black-eyed pea and collard tacos with apple-avocado salsa (from the cookbook Isa Does It)

30: beans on waffles

31: It Ends With Us

February

1: The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window pilot

2: Izi's first snow (& closing work early)

3: believing it wasn't going to be a murder mystery

4: lounging around the house in oversized sweatpants

5: slammed on a Saturday

6: a vaguely Bronteian horror of madness and magic

7: Matt bringing up the Village Green Preservation Society after seeing the old yearbooks that got donated and getting "People Take Pictures of Each Other" stuck in my head

8: a discussion, prompted by an AskReddit post, on most unattractive male names

9: teaming up against the anti-mask lady (sort of...)

10: riding through Los Ranchos

11: a Regency-era historical romance, full of unnecessary soap-opera drama and cringe

12: juggling with Jeremy

13: playing with a rake and ball found out on patrol

14: a Valentine's night in, listening to Gregory Alan Isakov while I cook myself a meal and read a romance novel

15: childfree representation in romance fiction (shout out to Jen DeLuca + Well Matched)

16: psychological fiction (of the amnesia variety) gone thriller

17: playing fetch with Chop on the beach in GTA V

18: Ammonite

19: wearing my hair in a different style

20: dumb drama on a Netflix dating show

21: open world exploring

22: ideas for character improvement

23: when our most devoted regular returns three times in four hours

24: the "old-timey" language in Tipping the Velvet

25: paved paths flanked by wild brush

26: little bro coming in for a visit + getting a library card

27: online jigsaw puzzles

28: commiserating over the car theft experience

March

1: steadily getting more and more of my coworkers obsessed with the Seterra countries typing test

2: the beautiful, contemplative tracks from Rough and Rowdy Ways

3: family bonding through geography quizzes

4: adding crispy oven-baked tofu atop a noodle stir-fry

5: surprise that some of the Here Comes Science album is an actual vibe

6: TR girls meetup

7: racing each other on the typing tests

8: ---

9: going to the OG with a craving for spring rolls and chow mein

10: renewing my Rio Rancho library card to get some CDs (that ABQ doesn't have)

11: Jarvis posting a video on Love is Blind & me getting it now that I'm involved in the subreddit drama

12: staying up past midnight with Gregorian chants and a text on theology

13: Sunday rush keeping us on our toes

14: "from Zeus to Jezeus" (from the text linked below as "this theology book")

15: coming up with & comparing top 10 favorite albums lists

16: going out to dinner with coworkers

17: lunch & a bosque walk with the grandparents while they're in town

18: Angles by the Strokes

19: agreeing on the... rough quality of a new group member's writing submission

20: a novel about a portal into a parallel life

21: still loving this theology book despite the fact that the author used a quote from Marianne Williamson as an epigraph

22: catching up on Zak George videos

23: a morning winter wonderland that all but disappears by noon

24: feeling decently confident about a cover letter (& my qualifications relative to the job description)

25: return to the Riverside trail (bushwhacking through the bosque & passing Tingley Beach)

26: serving as the guinea pig for the NM trivia quiz

27: the retro-artifacts-in-resin countertops at Anodyne

28: an accessible book on the psychology of bias

29: watching Jarvis and Jordan react to a "race swap" reality TV show

30: a fortuitous meeting with the owner of the animal rescue where I adopted Stanley

31: successfully clipping a dog's toenails for the first time

December

1: making it to Rio Rancho and back just under the wire
2: Captain Fantastic
3: scones & tea
4: deciding our top 5 Beatles songs (if the entire catalog had to be deleted, which 5 would you preserve)
5: giving a thriller a chance despite not being my usual genre
6: belatedly realizing the guy I helped is the dad of an old friend from high school
7: browsing sassy candles
8: absolutely scream-laughing at a character's stupidity
9: Hoarders
10: the sun over the wild mountain grasses
11: poetic and prosaic tidbits capturing the hopelessness
12: going from debating Bob Dylan's "stage voices" to R.E.M.'s album Monster
13: talking about geographical differences in Spanish accents
14: discussing DNR orders and "right to die" ethics
15: lending a hand(s) to the big book shift
16: the fact that Target has Kwanzaa cards
17: revisiting the Hahn Arroyo trail
18: listening to Train again after many years
19: patrol on a cold morning
20: "You can't break until you've taken shape, can't crack until there's a form to shatter"
21: questions of ethics and memory in The Shimmering State
22: the sweetness of making up
23: The Ugly Cry
24: Subnautica
25: rummaging for snacks and playing our separate video games
26: trying and buying pants from Ross
27: laughing at a terrible New Mexico bucket list
28: You're Not Listening
29: the at-work convenience of being able to switch between the physical and the ebook
30: "Midnight" by Coldplay
31: receiving the exclusive CD copy of my brother's new album

November

1: our first time being in the new place together
2: the big (U) haul
3: morning noon & night riding with The Golden Casket
4: getting some dining stools
5: loading up the Fit for the last* leg of moving
6: Matt (joke?) proposing a writing race between me and Anna where the loser has to delete all their story files
7: One Good Dog
8: when he texts about the roasted veggies he made (and raves about them when I get home)
9: my coworkers somehow accidentally thinking it's my birthday (but hey, they brought vegan donuts, so I ain't complaining)
10: thrift couch window-shopping
11: an industrial backwoods stroll
12: getting reinvested in Extant
13: obsession with a new Sims world
14: a dinner meetup with old coworkers
15: Matt saying of a coworker liking Guy Fieri, "She thinks frosted tips and barbecue sauce are the epitome of masculinity"
16: talking Modest Mouse and Pitchfork with Matt
17: hearing of the depravities of Rimworld
18: a video of my brother performing at a very underground venue
19: playing Cards Against Humanity and Scrawl on our "staff training day"
20: Ghosts & the visceral reaction I had to it
21: Happier Than Ever
22: last day of a four-day week before a four-day weekend
23: a critique session in our writing group
24: stocking up + starting some of the food a day early
25: quick thinking in a plumbing crisis
26: a walk around the patio while on the phone
27: watching the new season of F is for Family together
28: recreating the KFC bowl with leftover mash and Gardein chick'n tenders
29: the greater diversity of interactions in the Sims 3
30: the age disparity truly being revealed when I say Pride & Prejudice (2006) was my favorite childhood movie and Matt admits to writing a college paper on it when it came out

October

1: stumbling upon the La Cueva arroyo trail
2: JB getting excited about my juggling ability and showing off the juggling stash he keeps at work
3: Life's Work
4: sudoku at the desk
5: a trail stroll on my break
6: a discussion/debate over exploitation vs representation
7: Jack and Erin's podcast
8: absolutely vibing to Sylvan Esso
9: a Where's Waldo-style book of photos where a border collie is hiding in different landscape images
10: seeing the book I put on hold in the book drop and knowing I'm next in line
11: traversing gravel trails, dirt roads, and arroyo-side paths in the northeastern quadrant of the city
12: almost approaching JB's book tower record (and the stack tumbling and crashing down as soon as I walk away from it)
13: coming to a fuller appreciation of Feist just in time to start listening to another album of hers
14: after hearing "1234" and remembering it somehow, learning that it was buried in my memory from the 2008 Grammy Nominees album
15: a fuzzy-bellied roadrunner trying to catch grasshoppers
16: unexpected skellie in the back office
17: talking about The Lathe of Heaven with MB before his sci-fi book group
18: driving by apartments to scope them out
19: a near-essay of a book review
20: printing out my own staff pick labels
21: first apartment tours
22: following my apartment tour guide around the city
23: trying a script format to break writer's block
24: "TIGUANA" (or, the damn cleverest vanity plate I've seen to date - on a Volkswagen Tiguan)
25: two fairly solid offers after hectic searching
26: my coworker inviting me along to her writing group (& everyone sharing their prompt tidbits)
27: transposing the script format to prose
28: returning to a Sims family full of drama I don't remember instigating
29: Sims 4 binge day two
30: bunny snacking on fallen leaves
31: coworker JTA wearing a very cozy-looking Chewbacca onesie