This used to be the way I walked to work. There’s this forested ravine in the middle of the city, right along the path between our old apartment and the office. In many walking trips back and forth while reading books, I only walked into one stationary object. Walking while watching anime on my iPhone, however, was pretty unsuccessful.

These trash cans are decorated with spammy flyers from Japan. I don’t know if this means that Japan has such good graphic design that even its junk is worth using to decorate stuff, or if it means that the USA has such bad taste that we think their junk is attractive enough to decorate stuff with.

1. It’s interesting that the city puts signs on trees that it intends to cut down. 2. This sign has disappointing grammar. “Which” seems to be trying to refer to a noun that doesn’t actually exist. 3. I guess it’s good that trees are not sentient, or else this would be terribly disturbing.

Most of my local news for the past year and a half came from the headlines I saw on my neighbor’s newspaper as I walked out of the building. Every now and then I’d even lean down and flip the thing over to see a bit more.

When I was, oh, nine years old or so, my parents took me to San Jose to see some relatives. On the plane, I read my first not-necessarily-for-kids book, *The Source of Magic*, by Piers Anthony, given to me by my brother-in-law and mentor-in-geekishness. The book began my 24-book relationship with Piers Anthony in particular, and vaulted me into my reading habit in general. On that trip, we visited the Winchester Mystery House, which was fascinating to my weirdness-addicted brain at the time, and remained legendary in my mind for all the years since. Back in San Jose for my cousin Chris’s wedding, we had a chance to visit the House again. It was just as enchanting as I remembered, and this time I got a nice mug.

I used to work at JCPenney. In retrospect, I am kind of wary of a place that would hire my teenaged self. Whenever shoes go on sale at a department store, I see this situation. It’s a pretty awful thing to meet the moment you walk into a store.