I get what you mean. I have recently started the habit of measuring my blood pressure every week. N am considering whether I should drink that can of beer tonight haha

Hope you recover soonest!

I agree that being active on SN takes me in directions I haven’t envisioned.

As a writer, don’t you wanna bring those thought experiments from neural pathways to printed form, though? I know that if I were you, those thoughts would keep swirling in my mind until I put them to form

Thanks for letting me know

This put a huge grin on my face. I hope he turns out this way haha

I’m sure you have a parenting tale (and then some) to share with us too

It must be amusing to witness her switch her mental gears to find the language that resonates with you

Do you still remember the Eureka! moment when everything just clicked for you in regard to Linux?

The part about squeezing sponges is a nice analogy. I will remember it!

Haha will keep at it then

<The Lover’s Dictionary>

The school year is winding down, which frees up the mental space required to fully appreciate books like “The Lover’s Dictionary”.

But it isn’t that David Levithan has written something dense and complicated. He executes an innovative idea awesomely - map out the trajectory of a relationship from the male’s perspective in the form of dictionary entries. Each entry begins with a word and proceeds with several sentences or paragraphs linking it to his relationship. Most of his entries are short and sweet - shorter than my book reviews, in fact. So, they are quite easy to read through.

Most of these entries are written in an understated way. They typically end with a punch to the heart - and reverberate through the arteries. I needed to allow the emotions to surface and bubble up and make themselves felt. I needed to think about the things left unsaid. A process that I was willing to undergo because from the looks of it, he was crazily in love with her but she couldn’t reciprocate, perhaps due to her unresolved family trauma or inability to hold her liquor. We’re unsure as to why their relationship fell apart. Literature enthusiasts would have a whale of a time dissecting all the metaphors and rhetorical questions Levithan used.

One thing’s for sure. The female character cheated on the protagonist. And boy, did he pour out his raw anger forcefully in the entry “livid”. That’s the only entry in which I don’t have to play detective at unravelling his emotions.

I love that some dictionary entries build on previous entries but come with an additional sentence, letting me know sequentially how that pivotal conversation exactly went. Really smart of Levithan to introduce layers to the story.

I also realise that all authors are great at using punctuation marks as analogies to make salient points about something else. David Levithan has some good writing about commas and exclamation marks. So does Matt Haig, another author I enjoyed this year.

I voted none because I feel that people will be prompted to look at other posts within one of these four overarching themes. If we define the topic too finely, I fear that a lot of posts on the less popular subs will get missed out. My 2 sats’ worth

Honestly I expect the approval of the first spot BTC ETF to create a greater stir to the market than the BTC Halving

Well I use the sats I accumulate here and store in Muun to buy gift cards from Bitrefill. Maybe it isn’t as fancy as using nodes and custodial wallet, but if no fiat is ever involved, I’d like to think that I’m an adopter too haha

Thanks for the answer. I learn something new here every day

Great question!

First day of the school holidays, and I’m off to my parents-in-law’s place in the Land of the Rising Sun. Hope to learn more and write better next month!

What was the greatest unanticipated challenge when developing the ShockWallet and how did you overcome it?

Well said. I think the greatest lesson I learnt here is to make my son fall in love with reading so that he won’t be zombified by digital devices. I immediately stopped my habit of feeding him my iPhone so as to gain some moments of peace lol

I did. Hope it was worth your time.