Author: Jay the Ent-Larch

nonbinary they/them mystical forest cryptid & merwrangler with Orange Cat Energy INGREDIENTS: coffee, books, music, podcasts, NPR, cats, movies, the Oxford comma, and comfort shows - - - WARNING: may contain nuts

Teaser Tuesday: Republic of Pirates

We interrupt Photography 101 to bring you a feature new to Running In My Head:

Teaser Tuesday

What is Teaser Tuesday? I’m glad you asked!

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by Should Be Reading A Daily Rhythm. Anyone can play along! All you have to do is grab the book you’re currently reading, open to a random page and share two sentences from that page. But make sure you don’t share any spoilers!*

*I wish I could take credit for this introduction, but I shamelessly stole it from Heather over at bitsnbooks. To help me make amends, you should go check out her blog.

Anyway, of the books I’m currently reading, Republic of Pirates by Colin Woodard is closest at hand, so here are two random sentences:

By some accounts, she lost her mind during her 
incarceration, and (with the possible assistance of 
the Devil) escaped to live a hermit's life on the 
stark tablelands above the Atlantic beach. 

There she roamed, scaring children, searching for 
Bellamy, and bringing nasty storms down on
passing mariners, hobbies that earned her the 
epithet Sea Witch of Billingsgate . . .

If you want to know more, follow my Goodreads account and get notified when I give it a rating or review!

Teaser Tuesday

The Word of the Week is . . .

Discovery seems to be the Word of the Week.

First, photoblogger consistentrelent gave RIMH its 1,000th like!

1k Likes

Then I decided to take the plunge and join my first MOOC: Irish Lives in War and Revolution. After listening to NPR review MOOCs and doing a little independent research, I hit upon this course thanks to OpenCulture. Seriously, if you’re not following them on Twitter, you should be. I find something worth reading, saving, and sharing several times a week.

Speaking of Twitter, another good Twitter account is Bibliophilia. I find myself saving their shared images daily. Images like this one:

Muses

Oh, and speaking of images, I’ve been taking WordPress’ Photography 101 course and found it extremely inspirational. I’ve discovered that I can, indeed, take and edit good pictures with my iPhone 4s (I highly recommend the Afterlight app). I’ve also discovered some apps to manually adjust the ISO and shutter speed and some tips on taking iPhone photos with a telescope; given the time change – is that today? It is! – I’m going to attempt some “morning moon” pictures this coming Thursday or Friday. Stay tuned! In the meantime, here’s a gallery to get you caught up:

Day 1: Home
Day 3: Water
Day 4: Bliss

Was I talking about apps earlier? I think I was. Another good app I discovered this week is InstaQuote (thanks, Gus Sanchez!). I had some iTunes money left from Christmas, so I went ahead to bought the full package. The app lets me do things like this:

FM Quote 1
Bonus Points if you know where it comes from 🙂

Look for a weekly feature to being next week highlighting a quote or random text from a book I’m currently reading or a song lyric that’s been stuck in my head. Want to know what I’m reading? Check out the bottom widgets! Want to know what I’m listening to? Sometimes I share it on Twitter!

And then there’s that moment when an author you follow on Twitter retweets you.

Twice!

Amanda Palmer Retweeted Me

With so much going on this week, I’m certain I forgot something.

Look for an update if I remember anything!

End of Season

Day Five: Solitary

A natural introvert, I find solitude both refreshing and inspirational. It’s one of the reasons I come to work early: to enjoy some time in my classroom before my students arrive. I took this photograph when I arrived this morning:

 

Empty Valleyball Court

The cold winds of winter blow across the empty field
  where we once practiced: where we refused to yield
    to oncoming storms, driven inside only when
      the dying light overcame our fortitude. 

The grass has grown longer & the lines worn away;  
  the court now sits empty awaiting the day
    when the sun will shine & the team will return, 
      but for now, the ball sits alone:

                     in solitude.

Photo101

Cup Runneth Over

Day Four: Bliss

With each photography prompt I find myself pondering what things mean to people rather than their dictionary definitions.

The last few days had me considering home, street, and water.

Today’s assignment was far easier:

Bliss Definition

I’m well aware of the irony in using a dictionary definition considering what I just said.

Bliss. Definitely not a simple word.

Some say that ignorance is bliss, or that bliss is a state of mind.

Google claims I can find bliss in cupcakes.

Now, I’ve had some good cupcakes, but not that good.

So what brings me perfect happiness or great joy?

Being with my wife.

But since both she and I are quite particular about sharing personal information – especially images – you’ll just have to settle for the second-most blissful thing in my life.

Or rather, a collection of things:

Bliss
Coffee and Books = Instant Gratification
Moxie = Future Gratification

Photo101

Won’t Run in the Wash

Day Three: Water (Horizontal) 
Water, water, every where, 
 And all the boards did shrink; 
Water, water, every where, 
 Nor any drop to drink.

Or so said Samuel Taylor Coleridge in Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

Here , we’ve had a bit more water than we want . . . and they’re predicting more.

Today, though, is a different story.

Today is nearly perfect.

Riverside Horizontal

 

 

Riverside Vertical

Looking back, I’m not really sure where the title of this post came from.

I’m too lazy to think of another; we’re going with it.

Photo101

Street View

Day Two: Street

Let’s play some word association:

Street Sign 1

If you’re like me, you immediately thought of a song:

Where The Streets Have No Name

Our House

Sunset Boulevard

Boulevard of Broken Dreams

Maybe street conjures images of your childhood: learning to ride a bike, playing ball, mowing grass, raking leaves, shoveling snow.

Street brings to mind my first real job: working at our local animal shelter; it’s the job that helped me love running.

Down our 2/10 mile unpaved driveway.

Well, it was unpaved. Paved previously yet at that point cracked into near oblivion, it has since been repaved. But when I ran that stretch it was one huge undulating mass of broken asphalt and dirt.

Onto the paved road for 3/4 of a mile or so – avoiding the trucks and tractors and cars that seemed to veer closer to the edge of the road as they neared me. As bad as it was in summer, it was worse in the winter.

Turn onto the tar-and-chip road for another half-mile, passing the old Woolworth Mansion, run-down hay barns, and the old state bridge with its metal marker still visible in the abutment.

That was then.

Ten years later and six hundred miles away, I have a slightly – but not much – different view:

Street View

Photo101

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