(no subject)

[dewline]

1. Writing workshop today was okay.

2. So was the refresher from Ottawa City Hall on urban planning basics. They hold this class every few months for whoever is interested. The online version over Zoom was as packed as the one I attended in person back in the winter of 2019-2020. (At least I think it was back then.)

3. Still haven't seen WandaVision. Still resigned to spoilers because Disney+. Sounds like I'm missing out on fun stuff. Oh well.

4. More as it occurs to me.

Comments

[mtbc]

Is your no-Disney+ budgeting or principle? If money were no object, I'd subscribe, see more of The Mandalorian, etc., but, well, there just isn't enough for me to justify the cost.

[dewline]

Right now, it's budgeting, same as for all their competitors. I'd like to catch the Marvel and Star Wars stuff, of course.

[kaffy_r]

Urban planning became, at least very indirectly, one of my highly amateur jams as a reporter. I spent hours and hours in planning commission meetings for various communities in the Chicago area, writing stories coming out of those meetings, and that work also included hours and hours in conversation with planning department directors and staff, talking about whatever had caused community members to NIMBY themselves into a frenzy at the aforementioned meetings.

Those experiences were key to my understanding that zoning, for instance, helps determine the personality of communities, in both negative and positive ways. Zoning can highlight racism and classism by embedding them into zoning ordinances. Mindful zoning can begin to eliminate those same things.

By the time I retired, I'd long since realized that getting into the zoning weeds was fun for me, especially the challenge of writing stories that might help readers understand issues without making their eyes glaze over. My Best Beloved, on the other hand, spent patient hours with his eyes glazed over as I'd enthuse or rant about this or that zoning-related matter in my coverage areas.

Hunh. Even now, I can get wordy about zoning.

We've been watching WandaVision thanks to my beloved's pirate king instincts. It's remarkable television; creative and emotionally mature - which is apparently throwing a lot of MCU fans who want ... something different. When you can watch it, I think you'll appreciate it.