• Running is a conversation with myself

    I’m not really into Harry Styles’ music but I appreciate his running habit and this interview with Murakami from Runner’s World is gold. I could listen to him talk about running all day.

    I have a marathon coming up this weekend and I’ve only recently been listening to music from time to time on my runs. However, I still prefer to not have anything on my ears. The less stuff the better. The bit about “having a conversation with myself” rather than any other people made me think of this notion of being alone in my thoughts. Harukami talks about the way running empties his mind and I think to me that means I’m thinking all the things on my runs until there is nothing left except that happy tired feeling of accomplishment which makes anything else that happens in the day better.

    “The thing that I’ve found, in the rest of my life but particularly in running, is the idea of trusting myself to do exactly what I say I’m going to do,” Styles says. “To say to myself, I know that you can do something difficult, and that you can get up and train when you don’t want to train, and that you’re able to push through hard things.

    Having that kind of self-integrity—no one can run a marathon for you. Whereas there are a lot of people who help me make music, put the music out, put on a show and make me look good at it!

    But running is a conversation with myself.

    I like that. 🏃🏼‍♂️‍➡️

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  • Above the clouds

    Above the clouds

    “Above the clouds” is the best Gang Starr song ever. I dare you to name a better one.

    I’ve been listening to some playlists while training for the ATT Marathon (coming up this weekend!) and this track came on. It was levitating.

    I looked for a video and I don’t think one was ever made for this song. I did find the following video of DJ Premier talking about how the track came together though, which just serves to adds to the legend.

    This also reminded me that I saw Guru perform in Bellingham, WA back in my college days. I totally forgot about and can’t remember the downtown venue’s name where the show was. I think it was for one of the Jazzmatazz albums? Pretty sure Premier wasn’t there, but I remember it was a great show. RIP Guru.

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  • Death of the Author

    I finally got around to reading Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor. I can’t remember where I found out about it, just that it was a sci-fi book people were loving.

    It wasn’t what I expected and it didn’t seem science fiction enough, at least at the start. It was interesting enough to keep me going through the beginning, and it certainly got better.

    One of the main themes of the book, and maybe the most endearing part of it for me, was the power of stories and how stories are unique to humanity.

    “Stories contain our existence; they are like gods. And the fact that we create them from living, experiencing, listening, thinking, feeling, giving—they remind me of what’s great about being alive.” (Nnedi Okorafor, Death of the Author)

    In the end, I enjoyed this one quite a bit. Recommended!

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  • Natural Magic, WAAN, İlhan Erşahin, and more of my favorite albums from February 2026

    Natural Magic, WAAN, İlhan Erşahin, and more of my favorite albums from February 2026

    It’s the end of February and I’m so glad that spring is coming as I’m totally sick of this winter weather and ready for some sun! The new album damn definitely felt like it broke towards the end of the month though, so that is going to make this update all the more interesting. Here are my faves from February aka the month the Seahawks became world champs again (yup, still on that high)!

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  • Why do some of your coffee grounds fly all over and stick to things

    Why do some of your coffee grounds fly all over and stick to things

    Ever had that experience after grinding coffee where the coffee grounds sort of “fly” out of the cup holder when you are removing it and stick to your hands and countertop as you are trying to sweep them up? Me too, and I’ve always wondered about it.

    Turns out that grinding beans can generate a lot of static electricity, and it’s made worse by any plastic parts in your grinder (my Virtuoso has a platic catch cup). Oh, and apparently lighter roasts are more prone to generating static (shatter into finer particles and pick up more charge because they are drier and more brittle) which happens to be my go-to.

    It also turns out that a guy named Ross came up with a method to minimize the static with a technique known as The Ross Droplet Technique, or RDT. The method consists of adding a tiny amount of water a single droplet—to your whole beans before grinding or spraying them with a water mist from something like a 1–2 oz atomizer. Water is slightly conductive, so even a small bit of it lets the charge dissipate in the same way as touching a metal doorknob to discharges static.

    TIL

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  • What you are aware of

    What you are aware of

    “What you are aware of, you are in control of, what your are not aware of is in control of you.”

    Awareness by Anthony De Mello.

    This is a line from Awareness (one of the very few books I reread annually and have posted about before) that I’ve been coming back to again and again over the past few days.

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  • Fabiano do Nascimento, SML, and more of my favorite albums from January 2026

    Fabiano do Nascimento, SML, and more of my favorite albums from January 2026

    January is a bit of a weird month for new music. It’s great because there are so many albums from last year still to discover (on best-of lists, etc) and there are always some gems dropping that tend to get lost in the mix. I’ve had a solid rotation this month though. Here they are.

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  • Jim Carrey wisdom

    This graduation speech from Jim Carrey is really good. Sure, the background music is a little much, and the edits are a bit rough at times, but it’s worth 8 minutes of your life, I promise.

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