Still feeling fine about deleting my Twitter accounts.

Had our new microwave installed, replacing the old one (older than the dude!) which the handle had broken off of.

Finished reading Blitz by Daniel O’Malley. I didn’t think I was in the mood for the occasional bits of zaniness, but I think they lightened the story enough to keep it from collapsing in self-seriousness. Slow to start but quick to finish.

Meghan and I watched Knives Out last night and thoroughly enjoyed it — kind of like an Agatha Christie story filmed by an alternate-universe Wes Anderson.

Meghan and I left the kids at home and spent a couple days up on Whidbey Island, to celebrate our 20th anniversary (!). (Billie came to our house on the second day to hang out with the kids.) We had a great time.

Current earworm: a medley of songs from Dig Me Out by Sleater-Kinney, I suppose mostly the title track.

Hm: Somebody has tried to reset the password of my main Twitter account. (It’s not fully deleted until a month has passed, I guess in case I have second thoughts.)

As I described dinner plans for the next few days, the dude described it as “a comfort food speedrun”.

As I was walking home from the bus stop, power went out across the neighborhood.

Had dinner and drinks with Steve and Jonathan; Steve is moving out of town next week.

Finished reading City of Miracles by Robert Jackson Bennett, the final book of a trilogy. In a way, I wish the series hadn’t kept getting better — even though the first book was good, it’s awkward to recommend a book by saying that its sequels are even better. (This one was about regret and repentance and, eventually, making a good decision even if you haven’t always in the past. And aging, as a kind of sub-theme.)

On Saturday, we went to Amy’s farm for their open house; met people, saw old acquaintances, and encouraged some kids who were pressing apples for cider. Nathan looked sharp wearing my peacoat.

Deleted my eight Twitter accounts.

Finished reading The Lola Quartet by Emily St. John Mandel, another book featuring an obsessive, helplessly-passive (up to a certain part of the book) man-child. (To be clear, I enjoyed this, as I have her other books so far, and there’s a clear progression from Last Night in Montreal through The Singer’s Gun to here.) It might be interesting to reread Station Eleven at this point, her next book in publication order, but I probably won’t.

I almost quit the book early on, as the main character’s particular form of self-destruction made me incredibly anxious, but I managed to power through.

The air has been smoky more days than not for the last five weeks or so, but today is the worst yet — barely a hint of blue behind the beige sky. It’s supposed to clear out this weekend, but they’ve been wrong about that several times already.