It's a good day

When I get an email that begins "Dear Depraved Sickos."

(But no, for real. I laughed out loud.)

Abstract Sunday

Hi, Internet.

I make no promises that I will visit with more frequency, though lots of people will be looking for more things that make them happy in the coming weeks and months.

I'm happy to share with you something that pleased and amazed me today, though, as I'm sitting in the office the day before Thanksgiving, waiting for my phone to ring.

I've long been a fan of the artist Christoph Niemann, who I first discovered through his NYT columns. He hasn't published them in a while. But I stumbled across him today somewhere else, and it led me to his Twitter feed, and man, is it a delight.

Click through to see some amazing illustrations, as well as interviews and other fun things. It made me smile. I hope it brings you joy, too.

The left wing of a goose

The Olympics always manage to capture my imagination. I can't help but be fascinated and amazed by the work, the drive, the effort that goes into getting to the games -- regardless of the outcomes.

And while I've been fast-forwarding through a lot of the pre-packaged video pieces, I've been reading a fair bit about the games. (Let's be honest -- I've always liked reading more.) In doing so, I came across this gem related to the creation of badminton shuttlecocks that I just need to share with you:

The shuttles themselves are intricate creations. Yonex orders thousands of goose feathers a year from China. The feathers are then trimmed to size and matched by color, flexibility and other factors. Only feathers from the left wings of geese are used in the tournament shuttles. Satoshi Yuza, a promotion manager at Yonex, chalked that up to aerodynamics.

Can you imagine? Only the feathers from the left wing of a goose go into competition-level shuttlecocks. What a weird, beautiful thing.

Keys

Do you see this?

This is a tiny piece of paradise.

I spent the early part of the week in the Florida Keys on the invitation of a friend who I love to pieces, and hadn't seen in too many years. Being there made me smile, of course -- I mean, that was the back porch. Look. It's gorgeous. -- but it was the invitation that made me happiest. It's so nice to know that connections are kept, through distance and time.

We swam, and swam, and swam. We talked. We explored. We ate delicious things. And, I like to think, we refueled a friendship that I hope will last a long, long time.

Also, she shared this with me.

That's a book recommendation by Judy Blume. Who owns the bookstore. That we were standing in. (I've read the book and loved it. Judy and I are essentially BFFs now.)

We missed seeing her there, but being in her space was pretty awesome, too.

Downtown perks

My office is in the 'burbs, and though they're densely populated 'burbs, they're not very walkable. And while there are some things that can lead to grins in suburbia, you'll notice that I was a much more prolific writer when I was working downtown. (Albeit in another state.)

So a change in job duties has led me to spend more time downtown. And that's led to a couple things that I want to share with you.

First, taking public transportation to work means more time with books. And more time with books always makes me happy.

Second, I saw someone rolling a Coke machine down the street on a dolly yesterday. Just pause for a minute and imagine a vending machine walking down the road. It's a beautiful thing.

Third, I ran into two people I know on the street last week -- both in the same day, at that. One was a new friend who was also working downtown, and we'll hopefully grow closer and see each other more after running into each other. The other is my future sister in law, who was downtown to get license plates for her car.

Unless you work in the same building as someone, you're just less likely to run into them on the street in suburbia.