Author: Kira

I am almost forty years of age and have ascertained what I enjoy and, largely, what I do not enjoy.

Here is a fairly thorough list of the things I like and thus anticipate thinking/doing things about:

1. My children. This project is not about them and they won’t appear. It is public and they’re too young to consent to something like that. “But Kira,” you say. “You have already sold them to Mark Zuckerberg, and his algorithm already knows what they’ll look like when they’re 42.” Well, that ship has sailed. Hopefully one day, when they’re older, they’ll read this and realize that my life has purpose beyond cutting up their apples and figuring out why their bluetooth headphones aren’t working.
2. Books. The central tension in my life is whether I should be rereading a book that I already know is good or trying a new book that could possibly be good. I do not have a very tense life. “But Kira,” you say. “You work full-time and have demanding young children. How do you have time to read?” Easy. It is called “telling them to go away.” (This page will not have any parenting tips.) Over time I have honed my book collection into a ruthlessly organized (see item 3) library of my exact interests: golden age and/or locked room mysteries, soft science fiction, short story anthologies, GK Chesterton, and books I happened to read before I decided to only read the previous four categories. I have one aspirational shelf of nonfiction that I will likely die before even starting. It is there so that if I have a party (unlikely), people will be impressed with my good nonfictional taste, but hopefully not ask any follow-up questions.
3. Perfectly optimizing all life systems into peak efficiency and elegance. Due to aforementioned children, this is going medium-bad everywhere except work where, not coincidentally, no children are present.
4. Talking about myself. I mean, I just paid WordPress $24 so as to talk about myself in a more organized (see item 3) manner.
5. Fixing up the house. “But Kira,” says husband, “the walls already have lights attached and paint upon them.” Well, those paint and lights are stupid and I hate them. I finished fixing up the old house, and that was how I knew it was time to buy a new house where I could once again hate every decision every previous owner has made since 1978, then spend a lot of time and money attempting to reverse those decisions. Who puts opaque brown lights everywhere??! Were they lemurs?!!!! (I met them at the closing; they were not lemurs. Just normal people who either made bad choices or were more apathetic about the bad choices of their predecessors. The list of things about which I am chill is actually very short.)
6. Extremely specific art that I buy on foreign eBays. It is mythology themed, from the ’70s usually, from France or preferably Germany. When I win the bid I forget I even bought it because it takes 23 days to make its way across the Atlantic, making checking the mail a glorious daily surprise. I experience 53 minutes of euphoria when it arrives, right up until I remember that I have to spend another $70 on a custom frame that is exactly 42x56cm and which will take a further 20 days to get here.
7. Buying things from random elderly men on Craigslist/Marketplace. It is inevitably located between 45 minutes and 2 hours away, one-way. “But Kira,” says husband. “We already have furniture and extremely limited wall space.” Okay but I’ll still be driving to Janesville for a dresser that I cannot lift half of. It is going to live in our garage for between 9 and 14 months while I decide the most difficult way to refinish it, preventing us from placing vehicles in the garage as the Lord (allegedly) intended.
8. Husband. This blog is not about him; attention is his greatest fear. If he dies first he has forbidden me from holding a funeral. I will hold one anyway because he won’t know, he will be dead, but his preferences were very clear. He would rank higher if he didn’t complain a lot about driving to Janesville to lift half of some dresser that he doesn’t want.
9. Reading scientific or news articles no longer than 14 pages in length that do not make me do math, so I can feel cultured. One time I mainlined six Economists on an airplane and then went to a party and knew enough to talk to a girl about mining in Mongolia, to her surprise, and honestly to my surprise, and frankly I have been chasing that high ever since.
10. Utopian political theory. I favor distributism but enjoy all the ideas.
11. Cats. They don’t have to worry about identity theft, so you can see them sometimes I guess.
12. I asked the twins what they think I like. They said “laying down.” Surprisingly astute observation for people who don’t notice until we’re in the car that they’re only wearing one shoe apiece. They are correct, I have resented every single time I’ve had to move my body on purpose. I don’t imagine I’ll have a lot of commentary about that but I shouldn’t rule it out, one never knows when one will discover a new, even more relaxing way to lay down.