The Fluffbucket Diaries

My colleague was downright breathless about my taking a day off from work tomorrow.

“What are you doing for your birthday?” she asked.

Having breakfast with a friend and then going to Marytown to spend the afternoon on a mini-retreat, I said.

“Like one of the retreats you’ve done before? Where you think about suffering and stuff?”

Well, not quite like that, I told her.

“Good for you!” she said happily. “This is a day for you!”

Um, yeah, kinda, I mumbled awkwardly. But not really.

Sure, it’s my birthday, but it’s not like it’s a spa day or something. I have a track record in recent years or hating my birthday. I mean, really hating my birthday. Like brooding over it. Either nobody notices it, or everybody notices it. I’ve vowed for years that I’d just as soon go away for the day, maybe go on retreat and focus on something besides getting old and feeling forgotten. And finally, I get a chance to do just that.

So no, I don’t want this to be a day just for me. Going to a shrine honoring a saint martyred at Auschwitz isn’t exactly getting a massage and a makeover. Spending the afternoon in front of the Blessed Sacrament isn’t a rollicking, self-indulgent whoop-de-doo. But I don’t want a big whoop-de-doo.

Getting “me time” for my Lenten birthday would be a most depressing gift, honestly.

A quiet, peaceful “Jesus time,” though? Sure, I’ll take it.

Wordle 261 4/6

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The news about this ridiculous “convoy” around D.C. is sorely testing my resolve to fast from mockery for Lent. Time to curb my news intake again.

As my birthday approaches, I don’t need another thing to make me feel old this week.

Insert bland non-spoiler text here.

Wordle 260 4/6

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This photo on the front of The New York Times website (accompanying a link to Maureen Dowd’s latest column) is the pictorial equivalent of the acronym “WTF.”

Perhaps it’s just as well that I’m stepping away from social media for a spell. From Kaitlyn Tiffany in The Atlantic ($), the war in Ukraine has unleashed a phenomenon that predates the Internet, but has found a new venue there:

…the behavior on display is, if nothing else, a product of a lack of sense. It’s the agitated, aimless buzzing of the type of crowd that gathers in the aftermath of some bewildering catastrophe. Social scientists have a name for this mode of chaos: They call it ‘milling.’…

The word comes from the mid-20th-century American sociologist Herbert Blumer, who was interested in the process by which crowds converge, during moments of uncertainty and restlessness, on common attitudes and actions. As people mill about the public square, those nearby will be drawn into their behavior, Blumer wrote in 1939. ‘The primary effect of milling is to make the individuals more sensitive and responsive to one another, so that they become increasingly preoccupied with one another and decreasingly responsive to ordinary objects of stimulation.’ …

We’re emoting, lecturing, correcting, praising, and debunking. We’re offering up dumb stuff that immediately gets swatted down. (We’re getting ‘ratioed,’ as it’s called on Twitter.) We’re being aimless and embarrassing and loud and responding to each other’s weird behavior. ‘People are kind of struggling to figure out appropriate ways of responding to this really uncertain situation,’ Timothy Recuber, an assistant sociology professor at Smith College, told me. …

After a crowd gets done with milling, Blumer theorized, it moves on to doing things—things that can be ‘strange, forbidding, and sometimes atrocious.’ Later scholars pointed out that milling crowds can also end up engaging in not-so-terrifying behaviors, and that individuals do not usually lose all control of their faculties in the face of a disaster. But the idea that milling is a first response to horrifying or confusing situations has indeed held up.

I need to do more with this space besides my Wordle scores. Haven’t had a ton of time lately to do so. And now that I’m largely done during Lent (except Sundays) with social media – where a lot of my source material would come from – I guess this means I need to read and think about stuff more.

Actually thought about what ultimately was the answer on the third try. Shouldn’t have second-guessed myself then.

Wordle 259 4/6

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Not quite by a thread.

Wordle 258 4/6

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My brain seems to work more quickly with this game lately.

Wordle 257 3/6

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As some might say, shit’s getting real.

Not giving up Wordle for Lent. Or blogging. But I’m pushing social media out of my orbit until Easter.

Wordle 256 3/6

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Didn’t get to this until after my work day was over.

Wordle 255 4/6

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Guess I’m giving up baseball for Lent. ☹️

Tom McTague in The Atlantic ($):

There can be something a little distasteful about Western onlookers (myself included) cheering on Ukrainians for a cause that our countries are not willing to join, a stance that risks raising the price of a peace that will be paid only with Ukrainian blood. Nevertheless, it is possible to recognize this, to be inspired by what Zelensky represents, and then to be shamed by his example.

(Going forward, a ($) will designate sources as subscription sites. I have four main go-to sites that are subscription-based: The New York Times, the Washington Post, The Atlantic, and the Los Angeles Times.)

Say what you will about Twitter; it can be invaluable for breaking news, if it’s curated well.

My Ukraine list on Twitter is now open to public followers after keeping it (like I keep all my curated Twitter lists) private.

And as C keeps reminding me, I used to have a page listing news sources and other publications many blogs ago, as a reference point during my Holy Weblog days. He still misses it. I’ll be creating a new one and posting it here sometime this week.

(Update: Here’s a new iteration of my old page of go-to news sites and blogs, which you’ll also find in the site navigation above.)

Power of elimination rules.

Wordle 254 3/6

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Jennifer Rubin in the Washington Post:

If we have been looking for something that might unify polarized, divided democracies, defending Ukraine (and by extension, freedom) from Russian shock troops might fit the bill. …

If Ukrainians are willing to assemble molotov cocktails and die for their country, maybe Americans can bestir themselves to vote — and insist that every legal voter gets access to the polls and every ballot gets counted. American voters might even rethink their priorities, putting defense of democracy at the top.

Perhaps appropriate for a Sunday.

Wordle 253 4/6

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Late posting yesterday’s Wordle. Felt like it could have been another strikeout.

Wordle 252 4/6

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I honestly thought I was going to have another 6/6 game.

Wordle 251 4/6

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Been steeped in Ukraine coverage and World War III-related insomnia and anxiety for the past day. After several years of studiously avoiding news for my mental health, I feel like I’ve reverted to my old newspaper wire editor days.

So, it’s time for a break.

Phew, indeed.

Wordle 250 6/6

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