02 January – Jeudi
Well, if I was going to write everyday this year, I already missed that one! So how about I’m going to write during the week or so and then post at the end of the week or when I think it’ll make a good post. Let’s try that!
I am deep into this Riley Green thing. I started slow by listening to his current album for the whole month of December. I listened so much that he was my top artist of 2024 according to Apple Music. Oh boy. Yesterday, I listened to his whole second album and yes, clicked on “buy” after the last song played. (I still buy my music because I want to listen on my iPods when I’m at work. And yes, I still have iPods.)
Why Riley Green? I HAVE NO IDEA. No wait, I do have an idea. Maybe?
During the month of November, I was half heartedly writing my November novel. (NaNoWriMo, the organization, was going through some things that made doing NaNoWriMo, the activity, a little uninspiring.) I love my characters from that story but I guess they weren’t enough because for some reason, I started writing another story in November. I thought I could do both but I ended up not finishing my November novel because I was too involved with my new story. How does Riley Green fall into all of this? Well, the new story’s main male character is a fella from Alabama. Right? How obvious is that?! I even made the character’s last name “Riley.” Lord!
I’m seriously blaming Ella Langley and her song, “You Look Like You Love Me,” which features Riley. Such a good song and yes, his part is cool. I totally dig it! The song led me to looking up Ella because I feel like I need to listen to more female country music artists. When I found out her birthday falls on May 3rd, well, that was that. I’m a fan! Bought her album, gave it many listens, and then saw that she was featured on one of Riley’s songs, “Don’t Mind If I Do.” Listened to that song and damn it, fell in love. Then I checked out “Worst Way” and lo, that song. I’m a sucker for sexy songs like that. I wanted that song and “Don’t Mind If I Do” and around that time, his album dropped with both those songs. I must have thought, oh yeah, I’m up for a new-to-me country music artist, let’s start with his third album. When I first bought it, I only listened maybe once or twice all the way through.
Something happened at the end of November. My head conjured a scene that wasn’t going to fit with the story I was writing as my November novel. So I write up the scene, no names for the characters, and it was a decent amount of words. I didn’t write at all for Thanksgiving week but this scene kept percolating in my head and on that Thanksgiving weekend, I listened to his album, start to finish, on repeat while writing more to this new story. And so it goes.
03 January – Vendredi
It’s raining right now. Gray clouds and cool temperatures– I don’t mind.
Skeleton Crew – We just started watching this show and were wary that it might be too “kiddie” for us but so far, I’m enjoying it! I have to keep telling myself that of course they’re going to make bad choices– they’re children! It’s quite adventuresome and I think does a good job of balancing out the kid stuff with the adult stuff. Well done!
Streaming music – For the longest time, we used Apple Music as our music streamer of choice. I’d gotten accustomed to it. I already have iTunes Match and Apple Music the service just seemed like a natural thing to have. Now we’re giving Spotify and YouTube Premium (which include YouTube Music) a turn. I’ve had a Spotify account for a long time but it was the free, ad supported tier, so I didn’t use it much. YT Music has a lot of the music I had with Google Music so it’s not a blank either. I want to like Spotify. The interface is easy. I think YT Music might win only because we watch a lot of YouTube and no ads is all kinds of amazing. We shall see how it goes.
Social Media – some thoughts
Spoutible – I want to like Spoutible. It’s stable and very pleasing to the eye and posts are chronological. Users there are actual, real people. The ones I follow are thoughtful and opinionated and have a worldview of things. All that said, it’s just so serious there. Maybe it’s the people I follow. Even when I try to look for people with brighter perspectives, I just find serious accounts. It’s just not fun there. I stopped posting my Wordles there because I admitted at one point that when I get stuck, I do look for clues and lo, I got called out on that. Like really? And there was the one person who didn’t understand why I played the “hard” version of Wordle. Like seriously? I stay there because I got @valerie and I’m going to stick it out even if no one cares what I post. It’s fine, I’m not that serious.
Bluesky – People want to make this the next Twitter, I think. Bluesky stalls a little sometimes when those waves of new users come a-flocking but it’s been mostly stable these days. Although there are all kinds of people there, only a couple of my main follows posts there. I like that my profile name there is @kiari.com. It’s perfect! It would be even more perfect if some of my fellas were there but alas, they are not. I’m keeping my account there, of course, because why not?
Threads – I love being on Threads. For me, it’s just the right mix of people I follow and an algorithm that has figured me out (for the most part). When it first opened up, it felt like such a joyful place. Of course, it’s settled down and you can find the icky people if you look long enough, but for the most part, there is still joy if you look for it. Right now, the “For you” feed is showing me all the love for Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, and I am all for it. When Agatha All Along was on, I kept clicking posts that said good stuff about the show and my “For you” turned into an Agatha lovefest. It’s great! A lot of the techies/YouTubers I follow use Threads on a regular-ish basis, as well as artists I follow. I feel like Threads is natural extension of Instagram and I do love Instagram. And as I am @kiari for both Threads and IG, it works for me.
05 January – Dimanche
Winter Break is over. I’m kinda sad! I really liked when I was off from work and I got to that point where I wasn’t sure what day it was. It was great!
Here’s to a good start to 2025, one and all!