If you’ve read this blog for longer than, let’s say, a week, you know that I often write about my extreme fear of forgetting or losing things.  For the last few years, I’ve found a work-around with bullet journalling.  I write down everything from books I want to read to a name from high school that randomly popped into my head to things I must accomplish.

My bullet journal also contains a monthly page where I write the stuff that I know will make me anxious if I ever forget it or can’t find the information quickly.  For instance, at this time last year, I was apparently very concerned that there would one day come a time when I would not remember my favourite Key and Peele sketches, so I wrote down the names of each sketch along with Google-able terms in case I wanted to find them in the future.  I also listed the twins’ MAP-M and MAP-R scores because I always liked to have quick access to those numbers when they brought home the next set.  And I apparently wanted to remember, forever, that I like backgammon.

Don’t judge.  The system works.  At the very least, it calms me down.  Moderately.

Anyway, I was very intrigued by Wonder Bot, which is a bot that can remember anything you tell it and then recall that information when you need it.  For instance, every time you meet someone new, you could tell it to remember some details about the person.  And then years down the road when you bump into someone and can’t remember how you know them, you could ask Wonder Bot and it would spit back out the results.  I love my notebooks, but they aren’t searchable.  When I’m trying to remember something that I know was once written down, I have to flip back through every page.  The Daily Dot calls Wonder Bot a “text-based memory bank.”  Which sounds like the most amazing thing in the world.

You know, except for all the security issues.

Because right now I’m working with pen and paper.  Sure, someone could steal my notebook if they really wanted to know where we went on that walking tour in London. (Clerkenwell!  I always forget the name of the neighbourhood, so I wrote it down so I could remember.)  But that somehow seems less likely than hackers breaking into cloud data or a computer.  And while I would use Wonder Bot to remember things such as the name of the restaurant we hung out at in high school (Booeymongers!), I’m going to bet that others would use it for sensitive information.

Though it’s really really really tempting when you think about how easy it would be to send what amounts to a text message and know that information could be recalled for eternity.

What do you think of Wonder Bot?  Would you use it?

The twins and I are always reading a book together, but the ChickieNob and I also have a side book going at the same time.  We currently started reading The Fault in Our Stars because she had picked it up at a bookstore and read the first few pages and laughed over Hazel’s sarcasm.

We were a few chapters into the book when she asked about the title, and I explained its ties to Julius Caesar and the idea of fate and the stars determining the length and quality and events of your life.  Cassius is telling Brutus the fault is not in their stars but their own personalities, and this idea is played with in John Green’s book: Who gets a long life and who gets a short life and who gets remembered and who gets forgotten… it’s all mostly a matter of chance.  And the odds were definitely not in these characters’ favour.

I decided to read her my favourite post by Susan Niebur, Toddler Planet, who died a few years back.  I bookmarked this post and return to it often because it is probably the most profound, important thing I have ever read on the Internet.  A big claim, yes, but I think if you read the whole post, you’ll agree.

She explains with a story:

Life is given to each of us.  We each get one shot at this sucker, and we are never really told that it will be fair.  We each get one life, one daily wage, and that’s it.  The guy next door gets one life to live.  The mom down the street gets one too.  No one ever promised us the same life, the same opportunities, the same blessings, or the same time to live.

If we look at it that way, we are all treated fairly by the universe.  Even when it doesn’t feel as if we are being treated fairly by the universe.  Can we really argue?  I mean, we’re given exactly what we were promised: A single life.  And what we do with that life, and the circumstances that we encounter while living it, are both in and out of our hands.

It has been hard to read this book aloud.  There are a lot of times when I need to pause and cry because it is so true, and so heartbreaking in its stark truth.  And I cried when I reached these lines in Susan’s post, now reading them after the fact and knowing she is gone:

I have everything I ever wanted.  Am I sometimes envious of others, who may get forty-plus more years on this Earth than I?  Sure.  But I was never promised 80 years. I was promised a life.  And boy, have I had a pretty incredible life.

I hope we all live incredible lives, too.  When I think that I’m not, I come back to this post and re-read it again and think, “Yes, that’s it.  I only have control over certain portions of my life, and the rest of chance.  So do what I can in the places I can.”  I aspire to one day have as much grace and wisdom and intelligence as Susan.  I may never be a NASA scientist like she was, but I will always be grateful that she placed down a path of words for us to walk down and glimpse inside that brilliant brain and see the world in a different way.

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

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I recently learned about a phenomenon in South Korea called muk-bang, where people livestream themselves eating enormous amounts of food.  I misunderstood the idea at first because I couldn’t imagine anyone would want to see someone else chew.  But, no, it’s pretty much just watching someone else consume food.

What I thought it was, at first, was that people were turning on their camera and livestreaming their meal at the same time every night, so you could pull them on your screen while you ate your meal, and you felt as if you were eating with someone.  You know, except for the fact that they couldn’t hear you.  Which would personally make me feel even lonelier than being completely alone, but that’s just me.  And maybe for some people that is the draw, but for others, it’s just about watching someone else slurp noodles.

It made me wonder why I don’t get together for FaceTime meals with friends since we could sit in front of our computers with our respective meals and sort of feel like we’re in a restaurant with each other.  How else am I going to get dinner with Lori?

Have you ever had a FaceTime (Skype) meal with another person?  Would it appeal to you?

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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 posts.

ChickieNob loves ghosts.  Like if ghosts ever want a liaison in the living world, she would be a great hire.  She doesn’t find ghosts scary; instead, she likes to point out that when ghosts interact with the living world, they aren’t trying to scare us.  They just want to be acknowledged.  Exactly, she points out, what humans want while they’re living, too.

So going on a ghost tour seemed like the perfect activity.  We drove out to Frederick, which has a particularly ghost-y historic district.  Also, the website for the tour stated that Frederick is Maryland’s most haunted city, and websites never lie.  Why would we bother with Baltimore or Annapolis if they were the second or third most haunted cities when we could go straight to the creme de la creme and get the deluxe ghost experience?

You buy the tickets in a dessert bakery called Cakes to Die For with a hearse parked in front of the building.  (Chickie was enamoured with the black, glittery skull near the front window of the shop.)  Afterward, we joined the tour guide, Matthew, who started leading the group toward the old city hall.

Where he properly freaked us out.

The tour started out with a drawn and quartering story from around the time of the Revolutionary War, and then Matthew casually pointed out that the little, brick walkway we were standing on — one of four little, brick walkways — marked the path the horses took when they SNAPPED THE MAN’S BODY INTO FOUR PIECES.  While I was trying not to throw up in my mouth, the ChickieNob pointed that a light had mysteriously just gone on in the empty building.

Just the ghosts, trying to be acknowledged.

It was actually the most fun I’ve had with a history lesson.  The guide was a great storyteller, and he took us from building to building, telling us really cool tales about the old inhabitants or strange ghost sightings.  We talked about Barbara Fritchie (the flag waver… or non-flag waver) and spite houses and the Baltimore cotillion.  And ghosts ghosts ghosts ghosts ghosts.  Ghosts who trash bathrooms, ghosts who sit at the foot of your bed, ghosts who move your stuff around because YOU AREN’T ACKNOWLEDGING THEM.

We would not be so foolish.

It was such a fun evening, despite sweating like the Airplane! pilot.

Have you ever been on a ghost tour?

So a few weeks ago, Josh and I had a date night.  After we ate really good sushi, we sat in the parked car and I outlined all the ways I was unhappy with things in life.  I had pushed myself out of my comfort zone, trying too many new things at once, and I was not only longing to get back into my comfort zone, but to also finish reading a freakin’ book.  Usually summer is a time that I tear through books, but we had gotten lazy and usually watched television in the evening.  As a result, the number of books I read this year was embarrassingly low.

I am slowly returning to writing fiction, but I’m also returning to reading fiction.  Every night, we’ve declared screens off at a set time, no exceptions.  The twins need to have screens off by 8:30 pm.  We need to have screens off by 10:45 pm.  In both cases, we read before bed.

Not only are we all sleeping 20 times better (the twins used to stay up until 11 pm stating they couldn’t fall asleep), but I’m actually getting through books again.  I’m really excited to look at my TBR list rather than feel suffocated by it.  It’s a nice feeling.

I’m going to trim a bunch of news sites out of my RSS reader so I only have personal blogs to read.  I’m trying to get back to what really matters to me so my screen time is used well.  Wish me luck.

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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 in order 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.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “Dialectic” (The Empress and the Fool)
• “Thinking About Blogging” (No Kidding in NZ)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Baby, Borneo, or Bust has a post about being unable to sleep because she has a lot on her mind.  She writes, “I am trying to figure out what is bothering me, what problem, what stress, I am holding too near.  But I can’t put my finger on it.  It’s everything.  It’s nothing in particular.”  But I also love the release at the end; that realization that sometimes simply writing it down and taking it out of your head makes the difference.

Every once in a while, Infertile Fantasies pops up with a post, and they’re always good.  This week she wrote about closure, about waiting for closure or creating closure.  This part of the post made me weepy: “I want to thank you all for helping to be our closure. I can’t say that enough. And I include in that the wise woman whose words I’ve discussed here. Truly, you guys are my stars and you’ve aligned for us.”  Me, too.

Lastly, River Runs Dry has a really scary story about witnessing a car accident.  I had chills run down both arms reading these words: “I work really hard at staying alive. I exercise every day, prepare healthy foods for my family and eat very little junk food … It could have been me yesterday, and I could have walked away from it like the guy did, or I could have been really, really hurt. Or I could have died.”  It’s a sobering post about the things outside our control.

The roundup to the Roundup: Screens off at night means I’m reading books again and sleeping better. 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 August 26th and September 2nd) 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.