On hot summer days in Coeur d’Alene during my childhood, I walked to the beach barefoot. It was about six blocks from my grandparents’ house. First I had to get across the packed dirt and gravel driveway where grandpa parked his excavating equipment. Then there was a short section of unpaved road on Lost Avenue,…
Author: kittyireland
Paying attention to attention, psychology, habits, art, writing, literature, mysteries, nonsense, addiction, humanism, humor and cake.
In Which I Explain My Lack of Babies
Today I saw a headline on the internets: “Cameron Diaz Defends Her Childless Status,” and I thought, why on Earth does she have to defend herself for that? I haven’t given birth to any babies (or kittens for that matter). I am 42 years old, and if all goes to plan I never will give…
Content Strategy: What it Means to Me
I love having job titles that didn’t exist ten years ago. It means that I am growing with the shape of the landscape, rather than trying to cram myself into familiar roles. Four years ago, when I was offered a job with the title Web Content Curator I didn’t really know what that was supposed…
Why I Never Delete Email
I used to aspire to “inbox zero” — that zen state of an empty inbox with important messages filed into their proper folders and everything else archived. When I was busy, this was pretty much impossible to maintain. I used to be a vendor for Microsoft, and they like to send emails. If I was…
Why We Need Generalists in Tech
I am not a programmer. While I do have a distant background in visual design, I can’t do anything particularly impressive with Creative Suite; nor can I build more than the most basic html web page. I don’t have an MBA, or an accounting degree, or a particular knack for sales. What I do have:…
The Curious Appeal of the Crime Drama
I read a lot as a teen. I read young adult fantasy, regular old fantasy, Judy Blume, various smut, Tom Robbins, fucking Camus, Anne Rice… the list goes on. (I’m not really sure why Camus is fucking Camus, but somehow it seems right). Amidst all of that, one of the most atypical reading habits I had…
Quantified Love
Over the past couple of years I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, writing, talking, and…er…quantifying about the Quantified Self (QS). Last October I gave a talk at the QS global conference in San Francisco. In May I will be attending my third QS conference in Amsterdam. While delving into QS is related to my work,…
(Not Quite) One Thousand Words
I keep hearing that text is on its way out. People don’t read. Your blog post should be fewer than 800 words. People want visuals. While all of this may be valid, I for one am standing by text. Written language is a wholly unique form of communication, and what it does cannot be replicated…
The Girl from Coeur d’Alene
In recent years, Coeur d’Alene, Idaho — where I lived the first eighteen years of my life — has been earning high praise as a beautiful gem in the mountains with a plethora of activities for the vacationer. This article holds it up as the #1 mountain town in the United States. I can’t disagree….
I'm sorry, everyone, but I really don't like Ender's Game.
At the age of 42, I finally read one of the most renowned 20th century novels in the young adult sci-fi category. Pretty much anyone my age or younger who has ever been a little geeky has read Ender’s Game. I’ve certainly been known to be a little geeky, but my tastes ran to the…
Plumb Wonderful 