I’m still thinking about Ina Garten’s commentary on doing less. We’re all clearly feeling it, though it feels like a lot of the grace we were feeling toward ourselves and each other at the beginning of the pandemic has dried up.

There was a great piece in the Atlantic recently on productive leisure.

“On the scourge of “productive leisure” and the very American conviction that even our free time should generate — at the minimum! — an enviable Instagram.”

Free time doesn’t feel very free when it costs a lot of mental and emotional energy.

And yet life is short. And there are so many things I want to try. So many things I want to learn. If this all ended tomorrow, would I be happy with the time spent staring at the ceiling? Scrolling through GoodReads? Going down random Googling rabbit holes such as: “How long does it take to get from New Zealand to Antarctica?”

[7 days. I was thinking Mali was so lucky to live close-ish to Antarctica. It turns out that it’s not that close. But still.]

Maybe I should turn off the computer. Pick back up my book.

There is this man who worked at the post office, who watched my kids grow up and always chatted with me while I mailed a package. I didn’t know him well — for instance, until this week, I didn’t know he had a kid a little older than the twins — but I saw him every time I got the mail.

He died this week; a heart attack a few months before his retirement. I read about it on a town listserv; following the story from his hospitalization to the funeral announcement.

I told Josh that I felt unreasonably sad. Why unreasonably? Because he wasn’t a close friend or really any friend at all. He was just someone I liked. Someone who added to my day. Who was amused by the twins when they were little and calmed my fears when my passport went missing in the mail. He was just a good person, and the world was a little colder without him in it.

I felt it would be unreasonable to ask for time off to watch the livestream of the funeral. Again, how do you say that you want an hour to watch the funeral of a town member? I could imagine the question: “Oh, were you close?” And then the answer is no. We weren’t close. I just cared.

I will have the funeral playing on mute; off to the side of my computer, known only to me. I would like to say goodbye, even if I can’t hear the speeches. I kind of know what they’re going to say. That he was a kind guy, full of patience, who made the world better. And now he’s gone.

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

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I have never watched a football game, and I don’t plan on starting, but I really like the name DC chose for the football team — the Commanders. It fits. I will likely call them the Commies. And like Josh, I will always think of Commander Salamander — a now-defunct DC institution of my childhood.

The naming sent us down a rabbit hole of Commander Salamander memories. The Manic Panic. The stud bracelets. The racks of leather pants. I miss that store so much.

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Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts that are connected to businesses or are sponsored post.

There seems to be an explosion of fun games at the moment. Some are inspired by Wordle. Others are their own thing. This first one is one of the latter.

You have to put events pulled from Wikipedia into a timeline. Put three things out of order and the game ends. I’ve gotten to seven points. Which is probably not that great, but I’m pretty proud of my score because it is pulling from every. single. wikipedia. event. From Juan Perón’s birth to the Serbian empire established in 1346. It is tough.

If you are still loving Wordle but are more numbers-oriented, you should try Nerdle. There is a daily equation, and it’s delightful.

Consider this my weekly game PSA.

I am happy for the Wordle guy — not just because his desire to entertain his partner brought him over a million dollars but because he sounded overwhelmed by the success of the game, and the purchase means that someone else (or, something else) will take over the maintenance of it. I’m hoping for a smooth transition over to the New York Times, and I trust that they will treat it like their mini — free for anyone to play once a day.

But moreover, it’s nice to hear a happy story right now. The world feels so heavy and overwhelming. I like hearing about a person who made something just because and everyone loved it and they lived happily ever after.

And I’ve gotten 78+ rounds out of it so far. For free. How can I complain?

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Speaking of creating things, Life from Scratch is on sale. Just 99 cents. Tell your friends, tell your family, tell your neighbours. Buy a copy for everyone you know and love.

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Stop procrastinating. Go make your backups. Don’t have regrets.

Seriously. Stop what you’re doing for a moment. It will take you fifteen minutes, tops. But you will have peace of mind for days and days. It’s the gift to yourself that keeps on giving.

As always, add any new thoughts to the Friday Backup post and peruse new comments to find out about methods, plug-ins, and devices that help you quickly back up your data and accounts.

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week. To read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• None… sniff.

Okay, now my choices this week.

A Half Baked Life has a post about friends and health and reaching out. I related to this: “The other morning, seeing a photo post from one of those friends of a group of women eating and being silly and just enjoying each others’ company, I confess I felt sad and lonely. I don’t have a group like this, a group that I hang out with or go on adventures with or even eat a meal with when I’m not with my family.” And I think a lot of people will relate to it because group friendship is a different beast and (likely) not as effortless as people make it seem from the outside.

Res Cogitatae has a post about burnout, and while I was holding her in my heart, I also had to comment on this brilliant analogy about the impulse to stop testing and tracking COVID cases: “E. called the premier’s office to explain to them that stopping testing was ‘just like if you told everyone not to call the fire department. It wouldn’t keep any houses from being on fire, it would just mean that no one would know which ones were burning’.” It is so hard right now. The mental load is too heavy right now. But hang in there and vent it out.

Lastly, Grief Is the Word has a post about waking up to loneliness and fear. She writes, “Sometimes I feel like a different species – my life has veered off course so dramatically. I can’t even imagine what it must be like to have the kind of life most of my friends and family are leading.” Sometimes we need to feel arms around us. Humans need to feel anchored.

The roundup to the Roundup: Good on you, Wordle Guy. Life from Scratch is on sale. Your weekly backup nudge. And lots of great posts to read. So what did you find this week? Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between January 28 – February 4) and not the blog’s main URL. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week? Read the original open thread post here.