Author: Jeremy Felt

Hello, April. May it start being spring soon? 🌨

A coffee grinder operating at its best is so wonderful. That the espresso started actually being espresso again was great by itself, but I dialed in a new grind for the chemex this week and it just tastes so good.

There were a few days last week where I was able to wear a t-shirt for our mid-day walks. That was fun while it lasted. Now it’s back to a bit of winter with some short bouts of light jacket. Supposedly it will be in the 60s by the end of next week. If so, the house windows are going to be wide. freaking. open.

We felt an earthquake! It was a 6.5 with an epicenter in the middle of Idaho, just about 300km from Pullman. A long way from us, but it made itself known. I felt my chair rolling back and forth as if the house was shaking and I couldn’t figure out what could be causing it. I looked over at the plant next to my desk and the leaves were waving. It’s funny how long the delay in my brain lasted before I realized what was going on.

I was very happy today to look closer and see that Shake Creek happens to run right by the epicenter. 😂

My last issue of High Country News arrived this month and I was on the fence as to whether I would subscribe again. I really like the work that they do, but I wasn’t making the time to read it and my unread stack is pretty high.

This week they published a very in-depth report, “Land-Grab Universities“, which explores how “expropriated Indigenous land is the foundation of the land-grant university system.”

I’m grabbing this quote from the article only because I’m familiar with WSU and some of the tribes mentioned:

“Meanwhile, Washington has retained nearly 80% of the original grant to fund Washington State University. No money was paid by the federal government to the Coeur d’Alene, Colville, Shoalwater Bay and Chehalis tribes for land supporting WSU. The Makah, Puget Sound Salish, Chemakuan, S’Klallam, Umatilla and Yakama received a combined $2,700 for their land cessions. In fiscal year 2019, the remaining lands generated $4.5 million for WSU, mostly from timber harvest”

HCN, Land-Grab Universities

The journalists dig down to the individual parcel level and show pictures of the current land, how much the federal government originally paid for it, and how much revenue it has brought in for each university. It’s really fascinating reporting.

This doesn’t change my mind on the land-grant mission. The work that land-grant institutions do is important and how they share that work with the community can be critical in many areas. I hope reporting like this is embraced by each land-grant institution as a way to start coming to terms with what it means and what reparations can be made.

Note: I also renewed my subscription to HCN.

I haven’t done a picture in one of these yet!

Michelle and I have walked through downtown Pullman a handful of times around 6 or 6:30pm over the last week. It’s amazing how empty it is. Normally there would be a decent stream of cars coming down the one-way Main Street with plenty still parked on the sides. Now it feels like Christmas morning or something.

The bicycle shop that you can see in this photo was featured in the local paper the other day. Bike shops remain essential businesses under Washington State’s current guidelines. I appreciated the sign the owner was wearing around his neck telling customers to please keep a 6ft distance.

Hang in there and enjoy the weekend as best as it can be enjoyed. 🤗

Song number one is not a fuck you song
I’ll save that thought until later on
You want to know if there’s something wrong?
It’s nothing
It’s nothing

Fugazi, Song Number One

I’m not sure how I made it this far without listening to Fugazi, and maybe I’m forgetting something, but I think I did.

This week I listened to their first few albums and had a blast. Music like this always brings back the best memories of playing in rock and roll bands. Sometimes I’m not sure I had a great reason for stopping. I know my day job “demanded” a lot—I worked too much and got paid too little. Was it that I was broke and tired of driving my crappy car into the city every week for rehearsal? Of all the things I wrote about, why don’t I ever explain that!?

And how on earth is the Myspace page still up! There’s a throwback photo for you. 😂

Jeff posted about his comfort meal—grilled cheese and tomato soup with hard-boiled eggs—and asked for others’.

I’ve been thinking all week about my answer. There are a lot of great foods, but nothing that really pops into my brain as “comfort”. That said, I have a lot of great memories around grilled cheese and tomato soup (without the egg, which I should definitely try).

There’s a good chance Michelle and I made that for dinner at least 3 times a week when we first met. It was one of our meals of choice while hosteling in Ireland and is always a right answer. Once for St. Patrick’s Day we actually ordered Brennans bread and Knorr tomato soup mix from Ireland so that we could actually recreate the experience.

The photos I had on Instagram from that day are now on Micro.blog, which is nice. One perfect meal, which is absolutely comforting, is:

• Knorr tomato soup mix
• Brennans Irish Bread
• Kerrygold Irish butter
• and Kerrygold Dubliner cheese

I very much enjoyed Om’s post, “Dealing with not knowing“. Please go read it and I will also steal a quote from Edvard Munch that he used:

I was walking along the road with two friends – the sun was setting – suddenly the sky turned blood red – I paused, feeling exhausted, and leaned on the fence – there was blood and tongues of fire above the blue-black fjord and the city – my friends walked on, and I stood there trembling with anxiety – and I sensed an infinite scream passing through nature.

Edvard Munch, on why he painted the Scream

I am never going to look at that painting the same way again.

I’ve done well this week at maintaining focus. Last week’s “find a single focus” has started working pretty well.

First, I’ve paid a lot of attention to the way I think things should go and the way that things do go.

One example is that I often think I should start working by 8am in order to have a productive day and wrap things up by 5pm. But in reality, I’m never ready to sit and start working at 8am. I’d also like to be a bit more mindful to how the day begins. After accepting that, I moved how I thought about my schedule around and the days have started much nicer.

So thumbs up to accepting the reality of a 9am start when that’s when you start every day.

And second, I tricked my brain! Last week’s bookmark moving has completely paid off. Instead of reactionary visits to COVID dashboards and news sites, I have to go hunting for them. This usually causes me to just turn back to what I was doing, which is a welcome change.

Happy Friday—it’s pizza night. Stay safe and home. 🍕