Bryce Moore's Blog, page 131

Movie Review: A Quiet Place

To celebrate our anniversary yesterday, Denisa and I went out to the movies. And nothing says “romantic celebration” like watching people try to stay as quiet as possible to avoid getting eaten by monsters, right? That’s what we thought, at least. (Hey. It was between that and Chappaquiddick. So it’s not like we had great options.)

I’d heard good things about the movie, though, so better to watch a good, scary movie than a bad romantic one, right? That’s what we figured. And all in all, it was a good movie, as advertised. But perhaps because I’d heard such good things about it, I ended up disappointed. (So often it comes down to expectations, you know?)

The plot is straightforward: monsters have invaded the earth. They hunt by sound, and are blind other than that. So if you don’t want to get eaten, don’t make a sound. We follow the course of a family struggling to stay alive. They’ve got things down to a science: sand on paths to soften their footfalls, padded rooms to muffle noise, sign language to communicate, etc. But the mom is pregnant, and as soon as you see that, you know there’s going to come a point in time when making no noise is going to be . . . difficult at best.

The film plays out from there. There are a lot of very tense scenes, and it definitely doesn’t shy away from employing cheap scares, with jump cuts and “gotcha!” music cues aplenty. Which I found a bit disappointing, honestly. I feel like that’s a sort of commodity that works best when used with a light touch. This movie did it often enough you just came to expect it.

The way the plot unfurled also left a good bit to desire. Too often things happened because of coincidence. Again, that’s something you can get away with now and then, but when the plot is one thing after another, with each one unlikelier than the next, at some point you just doubt it would all happen that way. And doubt, in a scary movie (or any movie), is killer. There was a key sequence that I didn’t buy at all, because the noise of the scene would have given it away in real life. I have to imagine that was due to a sloppy edit. Something got cut from the film that would have explained it better, but we were left with the plot hole.

The ultimate resolution also left a fair bit desired, for me. I pretty much guessed it from early on, and I was proven right.

So all in all, a fine way to spend an evening, but nothing much more than that. I will say I thought the acting was quite good, particularly on the part of the deaf girl, Millicent Simmonds. I also was impressed Krasinski wrote the movie and directed it. Not bad for Jim from the Office. Still, I gave it a 6.5/10.

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve been posting my book ICHABOD in installments, as well as chapters from UTOPIA. Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

17 Years

[image error]Denisa and I have been married 17 years today. And with a bit of searching online, I discover that means I should be getting her a piece of furniture. Lucky for me, we’re in the middle of renovations, and we ordered some porch swings that should be arriving today. So it looks like I’ve got that “furniture” thing off the list. See how devoted I am?

One of the problems of writing a regular blog is that I continue to feel like I need to say something new and exciting about events as they roll around in my life. And April is packed with them, between MC’s birthday, Tomas’s birthday, and my anniversary. At some point in time, it begins to feel like there’s nothing more I can really write about something. That I’ve said all there is to say about it, and writing a new post is really just a rehashing of the old one.

But at the same time, perhaps that’s the most important time to continue to write those posts. After 17 years of marriage, it can be all too easy to take something for granted. To just assume it will always be there. Kind of like how I’m coming up on my 15,000 day anniversary of breathing successfully for every day. Breathing might not make a big splash most of the time, but when it goes away, you certainly wish it would come back. Soon.

And marriage isn’t static. Not from a long perspective, at least. The first few years we were without kids, both of us going to school, living in apartments and basements. Compare that life to what things look like today, with three children, multiple jobs, taking care of a house, and everything else. If our lives were a television show, you’d think they were two entirely different series.

As all those extras get added, it can be difficult to maintain a solid relationship. To continue to make time for each other. It’s been a busy end of the semester, for sure. Denisa has a lot of late nights, and I’m up early most days. We still get to spend some time together each evening to watch a show and talk about what’s coming up in our lives. (And there’s plenty of time to talk when you’re sealing grout. Just saying.) But add enough stress to a life, and things can get downright trudgy.

Which is why it’s great to have these yearly celebrations. To remind yourself of what you’ve been through, and to make sure you’re still headed where you both want.

I’ve had 17 years to see other people’s marriages at work now. 17 years to make different friends and see how people interact with each other. And I have never met anyone I would want to be spend the rest of eternity with as much as Denisa. In fact, the vast majority of people I think I’d go crazy if I were stuck with them for longer than a few days. Whether it’s exploring the back streets of Paris, planning out the logistics of a busy school week, or trying to come to an agreement on just which kind of mirror we should have in the bathroom, I’m continually grateful that I somehow stumbled into such a great relationship.

I know many people choose only the best parts of their lives to show to the world. I’m not going to say that Denisa and I never argue. (We both have strong opinions, and we’re both not afraid to make those opinions known in detail. Even about things as simple as which mirror to choose for the bathroom.) But we really are a team. Our strengths are complementary, and that makes things ever so much easier.

So happy anniversary, Denisa.

(And for the record, the brushed nickel, fog-free model really is the best one.)

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve been posting my book ICHABOD in installments, as well as chapters from UTOPIA. Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Sealing Grout is About as Much Fun as It Sounds

[image error]The new bathroom is practically finished now. All that’s left is to put up the mirror, some hooks, the toilet paper holder, and . . . seal the grout?

There are some things required in construction that I had no idea were required. Grout sealing is one of those things. To the best of my knowledge, you do it so you don’t stain the grout with wine or food or something. I wasn’t really planning on drinking in my shower, or eating for that matter, but last night I found myself standing in the shower, grout sealer in hand, trying to figure out how best to get the blasted stuff onto the grout.

I had bought a specialty tool for the job. A squirt bottle with a little roller attached that’s supposed to make it easy for you to get everything just right. It made sense in theory, but in practice it left much to be desired. For one thing, you’re not supposed to get the sealer on the tile, or else you risk discoloring your tile for life.

(So riddle me this: why in the world was I standing there risking staining my tile accidentally by putting stuff on the grout to make sure the grout didn’t stain? Why not just embrace the fact that my grout might stain at some point, but my tile would be fine? Best not to ask crazy questions like that. Best just to stick to the prescribed technique of grout finishing.)

The roller was too wide for some areas and too thin for others. Worse yet, the grout sealer didn’t want to go on most of the grout at all. I tried different angles. No dice. (And don’t get me started on how long it took me staring at different grout sealers at Home Depot to decide which one I really needed.)

In the end, I gave up on the specialty bottle. Instead I went and borrowed a water color brush from DC. One of the basic little cheap brushes that comes with pretty much every water color set. I put the sealer into a plastic container and stood there getting my Michelangelo on for the next while, painting the grout by hand.

It doesn’t look like it should take that long. There’s not that much grout, after all. The tiles we got are two feet wide by a foot tall, so it should have been a piece of cake. Except when you’re using a little water color brush to get the job done . . . things take longer.

I got the first coat done for the shower. I was sick of doing it by then, so I haven’t started the floor yet at all. Tonight I’ll try to take care of both coats on the floor and the second coat on the shower. And then I’m going to do my best to forget that grout needs to be sealed ever again.

Yes, it’s supposed to be redone once a year or something. I think I might just live dangerously and put it to the test. After all, the odds of me drinking wine in my shower are pretty low . . .

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve been posting my book ICHABOD in installments, as well as chapters from UTOPIA. Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Tomas is Fourteen

[image error]It’s official. Tomas is fourteen years old today. He’s also a regular reader of this blog, so I have to be much more careful what I say and how I say it. (Always remember who your audience is, especially when it might include your son’s peers.)

It’s always interesting to see how his changes have morphed over the years. These days he’s all about Rubik’s Cube. He’s got multiple models of the classic three by three, he has a two by two, a four by four, a pyramid, and some even more complicated models. He’ll happily sit there timing himself to see how good he’s getting. I believe right now he can regularly solve a normal model in under 30 seconds.

When he’s not practicing his cube skillz, he’s playing Fortnite, a game that’s basically Hunger Games. You and 99 other people are placed on an island. You have to hunt for weapons and then go around taking out the competition one by one. Last person standing wins. That’s a big favorite of his.

He hasn’t been doing as many videos these days, as Minecraft has begun to gather virtual dust. But that happens. School has taken up more and more of his time, as has chores around the house.

But he remains his bright, inquisitive self. Always up to learn something new just for the sake of knowing it. Here’s hoping he has a good birthday. Up on the agenda for the evening is homemade pizza, followed by a black and white checkered cake. Something tells me a Rubiks cube or two might lie in his future after that . . .

Happy birthday, Tomas!

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve been posting my book ICHABOD in installments, as well as chapters from UTOPIA. Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Fighting Burnout

[image error]It’s been a busy winter. Between work on the house, Denisa’s classes, my job, my writing, my church calling, kid wrangling, skiing, and countless other things, I feel like I’ve been pulled in a thousand directions at once. The good news is that there’s an end in sight. Denisa will be done with her classes this semester in just two more weeks. Once that happy day arrives, my own schedule doesn’t get any less hectic (I’ve got trips to DC and all over Maine coming up, then New Orleans, followed by Europe), but hers gets a lot lighter, which hopefully means it’s easier for us to stay on top of all the things we’ve got going on.

Not like all of this stuff is a pain. A lot of it is fun stuff we want to do. But the only way to get things done you want to do sometimes is to force yourself to do them, even when you don’t have time for it. And I’ve found that if I don’t force myself to do some of those things, they just don’t happen. At that point, what exactly is it that I’m doing? Running through life doing the things I have to get done and ignoring the things I wish I could do.

I’ve found when I look back at a time, I remember best those things I really wanted to do. All the busy slips away in memory, and I’m left with playing with the family, getting writing done, having snow days, watching movies, going on trips to cool places, etc. I’d much rather have that to look back on than a sea of tasks completed at work, chores done around the house, and life just lived, not relished.

So I press forward. But I have to take time now and then to breathe. To calm down some and just enjoy some time off. Typically I handle that by goofing around, playing video games and watching movies for a space of time most days, so I can recharge my batteries. Perhaps the reason I’m feeling so stressed at the moment is that I haven’t had the time to even do that the last while.

Having my house be a disaster doesn’t help. The bathroom renovation project (finished at last!) has put a big chunk of my living space in disarray. While I don’t mind a bit of clutter, I prefer it to be the right kind. My own clutter, where I know where it all came from, and I’m just too lazy to put it away. That’s the sort of clutter I can handle in an hour or two and feel good about myself. Power tools and construction materials in the middle of where I park my car or walk to get to my bedroom . . . is the wrong kind of clutter. It leaves me feeling unsettled, and I have a hard time really enjoying any relaxation.

It always feels like there’s something I should be doing instead.

But as I said: the end is nigh. Just a few more weeks, and things should get better. Right?

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve been posting my book ICHABOD in installments, as well as chapters from UTOPIA. Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Crunching the School Budget Numbers (Again)

Like many of you locals (I assume), I read the latest round of budget proposals and felt a fair degree of shock. After all was said and done, the final proposed school budget ended up being $35.5 million, up $200,000 or so from the figure I used for my last round of analysis. And you’ll recall at that point that I cited how yes, the budget was going up, but it was more or less a return to where things had been back in 2015, and that the last two years had seen budget decreases for area towns.

Still, $200,000 is far from nothing, and the article in the Bulldog paints a bleak picture:

The budget would result in a 6.25 percent increase in local assessments. Specifically, Chesterville would see a $116,428 increase to $1.05 million, or 12.4 percent; Farmington would see a $248,819 increase to $4.77 million, or 5.5 percent; Industry would see a $104,147 increase to $924,000, or 12.7 percent; New Sharon would see a $48,311 increase to $1.05 million, or 4.8 percent; New Vineyard would see a $42,515 increase to $743,000, or 6.1 percent; Starks would see an $83,029 increase to $463,000, or 21.8 percent; Temple would see a $6,129 increase to $425,000, or 1.5 percent; Vienna would see a $36,470 increase to $722,000, or 5.3 percent; Weld would see a $60,815 increase to $524,000, or 13.1 percent; and Wilton would see a $46,227 increase to $2.82 million, or 1.7 percent.

Some towns are seeing increases of up to 21.8%? That’s steep by any definition of the word. True, some of that is out of the school district’s hands. It rests on how the state values each town, which goes up or down each year, depending on a number of factors. But I really began to wonder if the school board hadn’t finally gone too far.

And yet I recalled from earlier research that our district is very much on the low end of how much we spend per pupil. The school board was saying this new budget is bringing vitally needed services to our district. Could it be this is simply just taking us back to where we need to be?

So I crunched some numbers, my favorite school budget pastime. And I found what the per pupil spending was for our school district as of December 1, 2017, and I compared it to all the neighboring school districts (since budget hawks often cite the poor economy of our area as the reason for why our budget should be low). Here’s what I found:

School District
State Ranking (240 total)
Per Pupil Spending


RSU 78 (Rangeley)
35th
$16,325


RSU 10 (Rumford)
44th
$15,290


RSU 59 (Madison)
93rd
$12,659


RSU 74 (New Portland)
112th
$12,135


RSU 58 (Phillips)
116th
$12,000


RSU 38 (Mount Vernon)
119th
$11,984


RSU 54 (Skowhegan)
130th
$11,715


RSU 73 (Jay)
159th
$11,041


Fayette
169th
$10,876


RSU 18 (Rome)
170th
$10,846


RSU 9 (Farmington)
177th
$10,711

That, my friends, is pitiful. Our school district was dead last among all its immediate neighbors. It’s a sign of the budget crunch we’ve been under for the last several years, as a group in the district has expressed outrage at the current cost of educating students in our society.

So what will the new budget do to these numbers? Shoot us straight to the top, right? With all that unbridled spending? Well, I crunched those numbers, too. Assuming our per pupil spending is increased 5.68% (the total increase of the budget), we end up at $11,319, which would shoot us up to just above Jay, if Jay didn’t increase its budget one penny this year.

But actually, it’s worse than that. As I noted last time, we’ve added 75 students this year, so the money we’re putting into the district gets split among more students. Taking that into account, our per pupil spending will end up at $10,959. Just above Fayette. (Again, assuming Fayette and RSU 18 don’t increase their budgets at all.) I would not be surprised at all if we’re still dead last, even after this budget increase.

I’m not trying to say this budget increase is nothing. But the cost to educate students has gone up across the board in our country, for a variety of reasons. Some like to say, “We did just fine with a piece of chalk and a chalkboard in my day.” Sure, but little things like the internet change all that. Compare the environment our children face today, from smart phones to school shootings, and trying to insist things still be done as they were fifty years ago is foolhardy.

Our students deserve better, and that’s why I’ll be voting to support this school budget, and I hope you do too. The budget meeting to vote to approve this budget is May 7th at 7pm at the high school. That’s where we’ll need to show up and vote in person. It’s where budget hawks have tried to pack the meeting before to slash the budget, and it’s vital we get a good turnout. (Even more vital, as I’ll be unable to attend. I’ll be at National Library Legislative Day in Washington DC that day, trying to convince our senators and representatives to continue to fund libraries at a national level.)

Assuming the budget is approved at that meeting, we’ll then all need to vote May 15th in our town offices to finally approve that budget. Plan accordingly, and stay tuned . . .

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve been posting my book ICHABOD in installments, as well as chapters from UTOPIA. Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Heavy Meta #16: Travel Abroad with Steven Pane

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In this episode, Kelly and I meet with Steven Pane, Professor of Music at UMF, and a veritable fixture at the Mantor Cafe. Besides his deep, lasting love of coffee, we discuss his studies at the university, with particular attention to the experiences he’s had leading travel abroad sessions to Italy. Why would a student want to do travel abroad? What’s it like? What could they expect out of it?

Steve’s got some fantastic stories to share, and it made me insanely jealous of the students who’ve been able to go over with him and the other UMF professors. Give it a listen!

Right click to download audio file.

Happy Birthday to MC!

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I don’t think it’s possible for someone to be more excited than a girl turning 5 on her birthday. MC has been looking forward to this day for months. With each family birthday, she’d proudly announce that hers was one step closer. And here we are at last.

One of the reasons time seems to go by so quickly, I think, is that it gets chopped up into small little pieces. When you’re younger, there are fewer pieces. You’ve got major holidays and your birthday. That’s about the extent of what you really care about. As you get older, additional noteworthy days get tacked on. The start of school. Vacation days. The end of school. Anniversaries. Birthdays of your children. Bit by bit, the year gets carved ever smaller, until it always seems like some important milestone is just around the corner.

So MC’s right at peak “special day” experience. Old enough to really know what to expect, but young enough that a single day can just be the epitome of awesome.

What is she doing on her birthday? Well, the kids all have the week off, so she’s hanging out at home. Denisa and I are both working, so Tomas is holding down the fort. Hopefully they’re just having non-stop fun at home. My guess would be she’s watching Netflix and playing games on her Kindle Fire. Her favorite shows right now include Little Einsteins, My Little Pony, and (when forced to by her parents, because we’d like her to get something quasi-educational in) Sesame Street. She’ll play pretty much any game she can, with a varying degree of ability.

She’s a lot of fun to have in the family, fond of doing goofy things just for fun. She likes to play games with the family and watch movies with everyone. She still loves taking naps (for the most part), and I’m very envious of her ability to get so much sleep in. She’s also *extremely* particular about her routine. MC wants everything done just the right way. She prefers Denisa put her to bed, but in a pinch I’m allowed to do it. When I do, it’s always the same. She wants her blankets on in a certain order, her stuffed animals arranged just so, and then a story. The story always must start the same way:

“Once upon a time, there lived a little bear, who lived in a _______” She fills in the blank, and then I have to come up with some sort of a story around that location. It’s ranged from everything to a cave to a pillow to a cloud to the inside of Mr. Snuffleuppagus’s snout to the inside of an eyeball (last night). Some stories are better than others.

MC’s request for dinner is home made mac and cheese, and I made her a chocolate cake last night that Denisa’s going to decorate with fruit when she gets home today. It should be quite the time.

Now that we’re five years in with her as part of our family, it’s hard to remember a time when she wasn’t. Happy birthday, MC!

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve been posting my book ICHABOD in installments, as well as chapters from UTOPIA. Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Living in Historic Times

[image error]I’ve often watched movies or read books set in a particular time period of history, and I’ve wondered what it would be like to live at that time. On the one hand, I think we each have a general idea of what we might expect. The Great Depression would be full of people jumping out of sky scrapers or standing in bread lines. The American Revolution would be everyone in the country heading out to fight the British.

Or something like that.

Except I really wonder if that was the case. The other day I was listening to a story on NPR, and they were interviewing a woman who lives in Syria near where the missile strikes were expected to take place. This was right after the chemical weapons attack. I was expecting her to talk about how crazy things were over there right now. How everything was in upheaval. How disastrous it all was. After all, there have been tons of refugees coming from the country. It had to be a ghost town by now.

But that’s not what she depicted. She talked about how normal everything was. How the kids had all been in school that day. How she’d spent the afternoon going to the gym. How people were talking about the potential missile strikes, but weren’t too worried about them.

I only caught a snippet of her interview, and I know nothing about her. For all I know, she’s the Syrian equivalent of Baghdad Bob, who spent the Iraqi War proclaiming blatant lies day after day. But her blasé attitude toward the whole thing made me wonder.

After all, I’ve lived through “historic times” of my own at this point. 9/11. The Great Recession. Donald Trump. While there have definitely been changes I’ve seen during each of these times, I’ve also seen life largely just keep churning forward. Sure, the topics of conversation might be different, and the Facebook posts certainly shift over time, but the actual mechanics of my days have been fairly constant.

This isn’t to say there’s no difference at all. There are many people who have been impacted by each of these times. I’ve had friends lose their jobs. Seen others lose their houses. Watched people head off to war in Iraq and Afghanistan. But I still get up at the same time each day, and I still have my banana for a snack and eat lunch at noon.

What I mean to say is that life is life. “Big” events impact a significant number of people, but for the majority, it all continues. 9/11 was by far the biggest “event” I’ve lived through. It’s altered the course of the country. But what, in the end, was its impact on me personally?

Security lines in airports and at stadiums are much more restrictive.
Class was canceled at BYU for the day.
I followed the news closely for the next while.
I had many discussions about 9/11 with friends and family.

That’s about it. On a personal level, not a whole lot happened. On a macro level, things really shifted.

So it doesn’t necessarily surprise me that people in Syria continue to live their lives. Continue to go to the gym and to school. It actually reminds me of my time living in Weimar, Germany. Buchenwald, a notorious concentration camp, is just over the hill, right next to the city. I remember talking to people who lived there during World War II, when the camp was up and running.

They said they didn’t really know what was going on there. They suspected, but they didn’t know. And it was easier not to know, no doubt. It was easier to just go along and continue living their lives. Because even during World War II, life would continue. You still had bills to pay. Kids to raise. Chores to get done around the house.

And the suffering just over the hill? Out of sight, out of mind.

I’m not sure what the conclusion of this post is. On the one hand, it’s reassuring to know life can continue relatively unscathed, regardless of what’s happening elsewhere. On the other hand, it’s important to remember that just because your personal life isn’t being impacted by national or international events doesn’t mean others are so lucky. Maybe even other people very close to you, physically or personally.

History looks much tidier when it’s all wrapped up in a Hollywood storyline. The reality is always more (and less) complex.

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve been posting my book ICHABOD in installments, as well as chapters from UTOPIA. Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

What’s Commonly Known Often Isn’t

[image error]I lead a fairly open life, when it comes to how much I let people know about what’s going on. Sometimes, I feel like I probably share way too much. Certainly I feel now and then like I go on about my writing too much. I’ll have a bit of book news to share, and I debate even bringing it up.

“I just posted about writing the other day. No one wants to hear about it again so soon.”

And yet I still run into people on a fairly regular basis who are surprised to hear I write, and they have questions about what it is exactly I write. Is it for children? What’s it about? Who published it? How often do you write each week? Things I just sort of assume everyone knows at this point, because I’ve written about it all so often.

Except of course they wouldn’t know. I post about it on my blog. I share that to Facebook, and maybe Facebook deigns to have it appear in someone’s newsfeed. Even if it does, there’s no guarantee people will actually see it. I’m on Facebook a fair bit, after all, and there’s often news that sails past me.

And really, this post isn’t to comment about my writing at all. It’s to say that if something I talk about so often can still fly under the radar for people who know me fairly well, how much else goes unseen about any number of topics?

We each have things that are important to us. We read about them at length. We follow the news when it comes out. And we talk about them with some of our friends at length. It can become easy to assume the things we follow closely are things everyone else follows as well. How could they not? We see it everywhere.

Except I think of the sensation I have when I learn a new word. “Copacetic” was a good example. I could have sworn I’d never heard that word in my life before a coworker used it a few years ago. I asked what it meant, and she seemed surprised anyone wouldn’t know it. (It means “in excellent order,” if you were wondering.) I told her I didn’t think anyone else used that word at all, but then I started hearing it crop up in people’s vocabulary off and on.

Either it was a huge conspiracy, and everyone decided to start using “copacetic” that one day and from then on, or else everyone had been using it all along, and I just hadn’t been tuned into it. Something tells me it was the latter, as much as I might wish it were the former.

So try to remember that when someone isn’t quite as informed as you assume they ought to be. Often it’s not a sign of ignorance. It’s just a symptom of too much information overwhelming us, all the time.

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