Winnow Once And Winnow Twice

I knew this last night, but I’m only just remembering, there’s no coffee.   Up early and sleepy.  Usually I’m up early because my consciousness has returned and there is no point in rolling around in bed.  I plod down the stairs slowly, use the bathroom and check what messages appeared overnight and if there’s a bottle of San Pellegrino in the fridge, I’ll throw some ice in a glass and bring it back into my office. 

Emails first, we chat second.  Anything that’s actionable gets thrown into the open “to-do” email draft, I have off to the right of my screen.  Then the New York Times, first a scan, then a consideration for which articles merit reading.  Anything to do with China first, and then, if any of the headlines merit deeper attention followed by a sweep down to the summary sections of news they’ve compiled below. “World News”, “U.S. News”, “Politics” I’ll read a few.  “Business” and “Technology” I’ll dig in if it’s topical to me. 

Before allowing myself to progress to the Washington Post I head to Toutiao and try to find a Chinese article to read.  Once I’ve translated it on the MDBG dictionary I paste it in a Word doc.  I suppose because of all the live links this take as much as five minutes to paste-in.  And while I wait, I’m cleared for the Post.  Once spinning-wheel-of-death has spun and the vocab is all there I go back and remove all the word’s I already know how to read.  I winnow once and winnow twice and stop when I have three pages left and these I try to memorize and then, I can go back and try to read the article itself.  It isn’t a pretty read, but it’s a read.

And this whole progression was so sleepy this morning.  By seven, I’ve confirmed there’s no coffee and decide to bike out to Starbucks.  My eyes are drawn, when I arrive to the colorful new bags they’re promoting.  Why there is coffee from Hawaii and one from Brazil and here, from Rwanda, none of which I’ve tried.  They unclip the fancy labels and start to grind the beans.  Around about this time I remember to ask how much they actually cost and am gob smacked to discover they’re $20 a bag.  Biking home, I’m keen to try the Brazilian first.  And when I take them out of the bag, and the two beautifully designed labels, unclipped as they are slide out on the counter, it becomes clear that those were the only thing that distinguished one bag from the other and I have no idea which is Brazilian and which is from Rwanda.  I take a smell and try to imagine what either place might smell like.

Friday 6/21/19