John Steinbeck wasn’t a favorite of mine during the grade-school years. We were forced to read The Pearl and Of Mice and Men at some point in the curriculum, and it surely felt like homework. Knowing me, I’m sure I falsified my way through multiple essays, book reports, and literature journals about the struggle between good and evil, the paradoxes of good fortune, and whatever else my teachers expected me to extract from them. And so, upon graduation, I assumed I’d closed the chapter on Steinbeck and his connection to my life. Alas, I’m an old bitch now, and things have a way of coming full circle.

When a dusty old copy of East of Eden ended up on my desk, a small part of me shriveled at the sight of John Steinbeck’s name printed across the cover. A week later, I had finished the entire thing. I then slipped into the 1955 Hollywood adaptation, directed by Elia Kazan and starring James Dean. I have watched approximately one other James Dean movie in my life—the obvious one, Rebel Without a Cause, which leaves only Giant. And a small part of me wants to save that one for another time. There are only so many James Dean performances in the world, after all, and I’ve apparently reached the age where I’ve begun rationing them.

His take on Cal Trask was downright phenomenal. Dean gave the character a nervous, wounded quality that made him difficult to look away from, even when the movie itself felt constrained by how much of Steinbeck’s enormous novel it was attempting to squeeze onto the screen. He did what he could with the material he was given, and in several places, considerably more.

And with that said, I'm considering to give The Pearl another glance. We have to start somewhere, right?

Treating a workplace like a relationship is a no-go. I gave ten years to one place, decided to try out something new, but was scared of change, so kept a tiny toe in the door in case things didn't pan out. Well, it's panning out and I'm learning it's easier to just let things go. Luke Perry and Shannen Doherty left the famous ZIP code and things certainly turned out okay-ish for them. Now, I'm kind of stuck in the formalities of keeping somes toes in that one place. I have three scheduled shifts left and it's probably going to end just like that. So, I've decided to treat my next three appearances like a Kim Cattrall cameo on that one show she refused to do. Stay tuned, folks.

Mini Notebook: Good for the desktop. My handwriting is a bit sloppy; various attempts at deciphering heiroglyphics can be disastrous. I'm a black pen enthusiast, so when one's not available, my OCD kicks into overdrive.

Apple Notes: A gold standard for nearly two decades. Although, doesn't transfer easily to my non-Apple devices. Manual labor involved with getting notes from Apple to Windows environment. Off-Apple access involves the very limiting iCloud website. If that dilemma could be rectified, it would be a utopia.

Microsoft OneNote: Helpful at work; not so much in my personal life.

Evernote: Worked great for clipping and drawing; then they started hiding features behind paywalls and limiting access to multiple devices unless you were willing to pay the fine.

Notion: A great idea in theory, but I spent too much time trying to make it visually appealing than using it properly. Everything lives online; and a great fear of losing the data.

Obsidian: Again, great idea in theory. Heavy learning curve. Very minimal guided setup, a plugin ecosystem, complex advanced features. Data is stored offline, can sync between devices with Dropbox.

Nota: A self-made text only environment I created that is essentially the Notepad application on Windows but allows tags and links. Also included text formatting and simple mathematical calculation where I could create a check registry. iOS app works on both iPhone and iPad, plus a Windows executable. Everything syncs through Dropbox. A little buggy at this time. Still attempting to patch.