Running to a meeting, I picked up my computer bag and grabbed the power cord from my desk. Arriving a couple minutes early for the meeting, I flipped open the computer, whipped out the cord, and plugged the cord in.

Or rather, I expected to plug the cord in. There was simply no way the cord would connect. The little metal piece that’s supposed to slide into the laptop case didn’t even begin to fit into its socket.

Thinking that maybe I’d gotten mixed up about which laptop I was using (one has the socket on one side, and one has the socket on the other), I carefully examined the laptop from all angles. No, that was the only round hole. I tried it again. No dice. Not even close.

About this time I remembered that people who have strokes sometimes can’t figure out how to do tasks they’ve performed a million times. And I’ve plugged my computer in at least a million times. I’m attached at the hip to this machine. And yet I simply could not wrap my head around how the cord was supposed to attach.

I examined the laptop again.

I examined the cord again.

Both seemed unharmed. And yet the two simply would not connect.

I tried to envision the effortless action of connecting the two — that action I’ve performed more often than I’ve done nearly any other action over the course of the last few years.

I examined the laptop one more time.

Finally, in utter frustration (and not a little bit worried for my sanity), I wrapped up the cord to put it away in my computer bag.

And there, to my complete surprise, was another power cord.

As it turns out, I’d grabbed the cord to a work-owned machine by accident, not realizing that my own cord was already nestled in its little pouch in the computer bag.

Well, so far the move has turned out to be even better than I’d hoped. I hadn’t realized how liberating it would feel to think, “I can generally walk 4 blocks — That means I can walk to the coffee shop, or to the store, or to dinner with friends, or to the public library, or to the river, or….” My world just expanded exponentially.

Even on days when four blocks are far beyond my capacity, I can sit at my kitchen table and watch the town walk by.

Still, part of my plan was missing. I’d intended to start reading the local paper. I’d even filled out the online request form for a subscription a few days before I moved. And yet… no paper.  Little did I know, there’s an initiation process. Remember how putting mail on hold works here? Yeah, it’s kind of like that. Here’s how to subscribe to the local paper.

1. submit online request (which includes name and address fields… this becomes significant later)
2. wait for person to contact you to “complete your order,” wondering all the while what the point of an online subscription form is if there’s no actual mechanism to subscribe online
3. wait some more
4. resubmit online request with “I don’t need two subscriptions, just one, but I’m worried the first one got lost” in the notes field
5. get email from them asking me to call them to complete my request, and confirming my address, which is wrong by one number
6. correct the address error via email, so it’s in writing
7. call them to set up payment
8. RECEIVE NEWSPAPER… and discover that your name is misspelled by one letter
9. email them to ask that your name be spelled correctly
10. open paper, wondering what level of reporting you’ll find

Luckily, I’m not actually interested in high quality reporting. Luckily, I’m mostly interested in knowing, even at a very basic level, what’s been going on in town. And I’m sure the letters to the editor and the police blotter will become my favorite sections. This week, for example, there was a sink reported to the police — a sink sitting in the middle of an intersection.

Of course, given my interactions to date, it’s possible that someone reported some silk in the road. One letter makes a big difference.

This blog used to feel incredibly private to me, but what with one thing and another, it no longer does. I don’t write here very often, but it’s a nice space to have for those times when I have distinctly non-librarian ideas to write about. Welcome.

Last weekend I was hunting around for some good cheese to put out for company. The selection wasn’t great (maybe all the delivery people were watching the Canada/U.S. hockey game?) but one wheel caught my eye. It didn’t name the type of cheese (though honestly, even if it had I probably wouldn’t have had much of a clue — I’m cheese-ignorant for the most part). It just said that it was part of the “Masterpieces” collection, and that this particular cheese was named “Vincent.” What makes this collection fun is that the rind of each wheel is decorated with a painting by the cheese’s namesake artist.

There in front of me was a wheel of Vincent cheese, so I did what anyone would have done: I picked up the wedge that depicted Vincent’s ear.

I’m going through Olympics withdrawal. I love the Olympics. I particularly love the Winter Olympics. There isn’t a winter Olympic sport I won’t watch. I even watched part of a hockey game this year! And somehow, the 50K cross-country skiing race is exponentially more interesting to watch than marathon running. And then there are crazy things like bobsled to ponder. I mean, what other Olympic sport is so full of people who defected from other sports, or people from unlikely places like Jamaica, or people who’s only contribution after the initial start is ballast? The sport is nuts! Oh, and this year one contestant even won a platinum medal! I just love the Winter Olympics.

But the sport that really divides people is curling. (Talk about a crazy sport!). Liking curling isn’t just a preference, it’s an identity. The more you tweet and blog and talk about watching curling the more the rest of us know that you wish to be known as a connoisseur of the Olympic games — a really with it kind of person with personality and a well-developed sense of geekish superiority. It’s kind of like being a goth in high school. You get to revel in being so totally different from everyone but without actually having to be different in a unique way. You get to be exactly the same as other goths, and do so in protest against sameness. Brilliant.

Meanwhile, I will continue on with my omnivore style of Olympic enjoyment. While I do, I may sip a glass of wine, which I will enjoy without knowing if it’s mediocre or stellar. I may even dress in black. And while I’ll sit slightly smug in my ability to tell the various figure skating jumps apart, I’ll know, deep down, that I’m no connoisseur. I just love the Winter Olympics.