Organizing Gibberish Thusly

September 2, 2015August 29, 2018 / Ally Bean / 31 Comments

First leaf with Autumn color says, “Look at me!”

THIS WEEK I’VE BEEN SORTING through my desk drawers and my computer files. I save lots of ideas, either scribbled on bits of paper or quickly typed on computer sticky notes.

I keep these ideas as prompts just in case I need something to write about here.

Like today.

MOST OF MY SAVED ITEMS are snippets of thoughts that float through my mind while I’m doing something else, so they’re not fully formed ideas. In fact, they are generally pure gibberish.

But I continue to believe that one of these saved items will be the best idea ever, so I’m reluctant to throw any of them away– until I do.

I could be deluded, of course.

[Rather like Gayle King and her massive purse + jewelry collection, featured in O magazine this month. It’s a collection so unwieldy that it required an outsider to sort through it, culling out that which no longer serves her.]

[Alright, maybe my little pile of ideas is nothing like Gayle’s purse collection, but you get my drift. Too much of anything is confusing.]

Underwhelming decorative Summer grass says, “I’m not dead yet!”

I WON’T BURDEN YOU WITH a list of my half-formed ideas. I respect your time and sanity, my gentle readers.

But I just wanted to let you know that I’m still moseying along the blogging trail.

Tossing and deleting the gibberish as I go.

Bourbon, Bunnies & Baffling Skies + Q[s]OTD

August 4, 2015August 4, 2015 / Ally Bean / 42 Comments

An acquaintance suggested that I needed to start an Instagram account. She’s there and loves it. She thinks that I could drive traffic to my blog from Instagram + she likes my photos and wants to see them all in one place.

Isn’t that sweet?

So last night, as a test run, I snapped some photos around here. I figure that these are the sort of photos that I’d probably put on Instagram, if I was there.

Which I’m not sure that I’m going to be.

As I was taking these pics I remembered a woman from years ago who had a unique blog, the name of which I don’t remember, in which she posted one photo per day of her kitchen table OR of what she saw while sitting at her kitchen table.

Her kitchen counter. Her backyard. Her sky.

And suddenly I was giggling to myself because what I’d snapped for my Instagram test run was exactly what this blogger, who I hadn’t thought of in years, used to do. Yet here I was doing the same thing, lending credence to: everything old is new again!

# # #

Q[s]OTD:

1) Are you on, or do you follow people on, Instagram? What do you like about it? What do not like about it? Should I be there?

2) In general, when viewing other people’s photos, what is your favorite kind of photo to see? And why?

Stormy Nights, Foggy Mornings & Musings On Curse Words

July 27, 2015May 6, 2021 / Ally Bean / 26 Comments

Butterfly in the sun.

IT’S RAINING HERE AGAIN this morning.

We had a few days of blue skies and sunshine last week, but late yesterday afternoon the thunder and rain rolled in again. It was just about the time we were getting ready to have a cookout. Natch.

I’m beyond caring about the weather. What more is there to say about it?

Well, what more is there to say about it without resorting to swearing? And you know, gentle readers, that this is not that kind of blog.

Oh no, we keep it polite here at The Spectacled Bean. Or, at least, polite enough to not offend the delicate sensibilities of any reader over 40 years old.

• • •

OCCASIONALLY I WONDER IF I wrote in a more, shall we say, direct way using curse words, then readers would perceive me as being more authentic and edgy, therefore interesting.

If I’d done that kind of writing, which I easily could have, I wonder if I’d have been more popular as a blogger, than I am now.

Cherry tomatoes in the rain.

I’ve no moral objections to curse words, I say them irl. However when it comes to writing I hesitate to use them.

I’m content as things are on the blog, but observing the language used by revered bloggers, I do [sometimes] question my decision to keep it clean here.

I’ve Read 23 Out Of 35, But I Don’t Know About This Book List

July 24, 2015May 6, 2021 / Ally Bean / 45 Comments

Earlier this week Time magazine published 35 Books Everyone Should Read in Their Lifetime. I’ve added the list to the bottom of this post. The list, compiled from responses by Reddit users, attempts to answer the question:

“what is a book that everyone needs to read at least once in their life?”

# # #

WHAT IMMEDIATELY STRUCK ME about the list is that out of the 33 authors, only 3 are women: L.M. Montgomery [Anne of Green Gables]; Harper Lee [To Kill A Mockingbird]; and Margaret Atwood [The Handmaid’s Tale].

Considering that the first two books are about children for children, and that the last one is about a society in which women are slaves, this list doesn’t lend credence to the idea that in 2015 we are living in a post-feminist society.

You with me here?

# # #

I THINK THAT WE can all agree, to use the article’s words, that: “Books have the profound capacity to stay with us for the rest of our lives.”

This is good + positive.

But by accepting this premise I think that it becomes even more important to turn a critical eye toward all the possible books that one can put on a list such as this. If one is going to have these books with him or herself forever, one must be discerning.

N’est-ce pas?

# # #

TO MAKE THE LIST more balanced, I’d suggest that we include &/or replace on it, at a minimum, the following books written by women: