What I’m Doing Now

Updated December 21, 2025

I’ve been my Mom’s caregiver since 2017. Mom’s 100+. She broke her hip in 2020 and taking care of her has of necessity been my primary activity since.

In Progress

Converting my sites from WordPress to static sites or to newer, simpler platforms.

Projects

• Planning for 2026 and changes.
• I’m going to be more deliberate about logging birds in 2026.
• Mom has expressed a desire to track-and-sticker birds in her own notebook.
• Making slow, steady progress clearing “stuff,” so Mom can enjoy giving things to people now.

Technology

I am learning to use Alfred on my Mac via the MacSparky Alfred Field Guide online class, and lots of reading and experimenting.

I bought a cheap Instax Mini 3 printer, designed to print credit-card sized low-resolution photos from smart phones. My plan is to use it for analog journaling.

Current Media

• Still enjoying Celtic music Internet radio Thistle Radio with Fiona Ritchie via Soma FM. I’m streaming via Apple Music and iHeart Radio by telling/typing to Siri: Play radio station Soma FM Thistle radio.
• Also enjoying the new-to-me human-curated Celtic music channels on AccuRadio.
• Still missing Archie Fisher, but grateful for his music.
• In terms of holiday music, I’m particularly enjoying Sting’s If On a Winter’s Night and Kate Rusby’s Sweet Bells, and The Complete Traditional Christmas Carols Collection from The Sixteen.

Reading

• I am re-reading the previous three J. P. Mallory books before reading Mallory’s recently released The Indo-Europeans Rediscovered: How a Scientific Revolution is Rewriting Their Story. Mallory is the only archaeologist I know of with a solid background in Celtic and other early I. E. languages.
• I am taking a break from reading productivity books until 2026. I mostly hate productivity books. I was reading about productivity as research for my own book (not about productivity).
• Still reading lots about Stoicism, and finding reflections in pre-1700 British literature. In addition to the primary Stoic sources (Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, and Seneca) I’ve read:
1. Brian Inwood’s Stoicism: A Very Short Introduction. ISBN: 978-0198786665. Of necessity, a brief overview but very thorough given its scope, with useful bibliography.
2. Donald J. Robertson’s How to Think Like a Roman Emperor, ISBN: 978-1250621436.
3. Some might find Robertson’s Stoic-inspired CBT-influenced workbook Stoicism and the Art of Happiness: Practical Wisdom for Everyday Life helpful. ISBN: 978-1473674783. It’s both very structured and very simplified. I suspect that Stoic Week owes quite a lot pedagogically to Robertson’s Stoicism and the Art of Happiness.
4. Epictetus is a bit of a dick. Some of his rhetorical techniques are very similar to those of cults. His point is clear, and better expressed in the Enchiridion. This is not surprising.
5. Massimo Pigliucci. How to Be a Stoic: Using Ancient Philosophy to Live a Modern Life. ISBN: 978-1541644533. Pigliucci offers a decent overview and introduction to Stoicism, and suggestions about practicing Stoicism in a practical and mindful/intentional way. But, much as Donald Robertson annoys me with his novelistic biographic narrative of Marcus Aurelius, Pigliucci annoys me by recounting his imagined conversations with Epictetus.
• I am very much looking forward to reading Michael D.C. Drout’s The Tower and the Ruin: J.R.R. Tolkien’s Creation. ISBN: 1324093889. Can't read the print, so also bought the ebook.

Current Obsessive Passions

• Stationery, particularly notebooks, fountain pens, and ink, and both woodcase and mechanical pencils.
• It’s been crazy cold for Maine, for as much as a week at a time, with very little snow. Birds have been abysmally scarce.
• Tried using a smart extension cord for the heated bird bath, hoping to avoid the icy patch of the patio by the outlet. The community network is the wrong Ghz.

My Now page was inspired by David Sparks’ Now page, itself inspired by Derek Sivers.

Previous Now pages, AKA then.

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