Overzealous Recycling 013: Lighten up, Francis

I’ve been wound really tight through most of the past week. This probably won’t surprise those who know me well. I tend to be a seether, to swallow irritation and annoyance until the kettle finally boils and shrieks to let that heat out.

— If you missed the last Overzealous Recycling, you can read it here 

It’s not one of my better character traits; I know that. I constantly need to do a better job of addressing things in the moment or shortly thereafter, rather than letting them build up. I feel like I’m better than I used to be, but when I do finally air my grievances, it can come across as a surprise to the recipient. I didn’t let on that I was feeling that way.

I always think I’m letting displeasure be known, but it probably gets lost under my default surly setting. So there I go, like Anger in Inside Out or Yosemite Sam with guns a-blazin’, if you’ll indulge a much older reference.

Continue reading

Overzealous Recycling 001: OK, this might be a newsletter

bullock_readingIf you’ve taken the time to scroll through this blog’s archives — and truly, thank you if you’ve actually done so — you’ve walked a path largely littered with neglect and failed ambitions. Trying to maintain my version of a newsletter here definitely fell victim to that.

I enjoy newsletters a lot (although I’m trying to pare my subscriptions down during the new year) and would like to take a swing at one myself. (In a future post, maybe I’ll list some of my favorites.) But I doubt that I’d attract enough subscribers to make the venture worthwhile. If I’m wrong about that, please let me know and I’ll activate the MailChimp (“mail… kimp?“) signal.

However, I have no business running a newsletter unless I can produce content regularly. There’s a writing resolution for 2019. And if I want to actually create a newsletter, calling it “Not a Newsletter” while it’s in blog form probably sends the wrong message. After tripping over the phrase “overzealous recycling” a couple of months ago, I thought it could be a good title for a newsletter. So here we are.

These sorts of posts largely began as collections of links to my writing and articles I enjoyed. I haven’t written anything that I’d care to link to in recent months, but hope to change that. And I still find plenty of stuff that I think might interest you. Yet a newsletter should include much more than that. There should be some original writing, mixing in other content like video, photography, audio, and… recipes. (Those seem to be popular!)

Continue reading