Daily Check-In 2026.10.30
It’s Friday and another week ends, with our heads spinning from all the things. More and more information about midterm elections, University politics…. I could go on but this blog isn’t the place to list all the challenges. Here I will take my retreat from all of that. Or, attempt to make meaning out of all those little bits. Each click on a cybersecurity training, each very human request sent entirely out of context by email, dis-aggregates us. They abstract us. They alienate us. And when the world seems to be asking all of us to do more with less, it can feel pointless to sit down to write something longer and deeper. But as usual, taking a small action can provide some hope. And taking a small step to speak from a more integrated place might help us connect beyond the to do list. You are so welcome to join me. Follow along, comment on the social media, reply to the email. Say hi in the hallway or on the sidewalk. Resistance through substance?
I am optimistic that this Angry Cyborg Writing Club will provide a very small point of integration for me, and hopefully for a few others? Perhaps this time and space can be healing. 30 minutes a day for a 30 days is not going to be enough, but it’s a lot more than nothing. I’ve been dashing between meetings and driving kids around, teaching and grading, cooking and cleaning. But in the small spaces I am also daydreaming about what this writing group could be. It might look like this:
Daily Check In
1. What are you working on?
For newcomers, I am writing a book on the history of ergonomics. I am typing up some notes about Etienne Grandjean’s understanding of housing for elderly folks from 1973. I was trying to decide if these comments on the need for warm, non-slip floors would go in the section where I review the international scene, but I think I will place it with his moderate resentment about needing to study disabled folks.
2. What went well?
I typed the notes I took yesterday on this section in the large green book. I enjoyed listening to music. And despite distraction, I wrote something!
3. What was a challenge?
I am still sorting out where to put these bits. And half my brain is dreaming about reading Simon Penny. Grappling for big ideas about embodiment and abstraction, and chewing on the big ideas that have surfaced in recent conversations about where higher-education is going. And where design might be able to go?
4. What will you do tomorrow?
Yes. Yep. Question 4 may be the most useful one for writing in a state of distraction. Knowing where to pick up in tomorrow’s state of distraction is really useful. Well and I am done with the little Grandjean section and I don’t know that it is yet time to pull out Simon Penny so... I guess read more on 1970s ergonomics related to disability. Maybe grab this study from even earlier: Nichols, P. J. R., R. W. Morgan, and R. E. A. Goble. 1966. “Wheelchair Users—A Study in Variation of Disability.” Ergonomics 9 (2): 131–39. I have been reading Bess Williamson and certainly can use that and Replaceable Me for overall disability history but I am trying to write about what the experts were up to.
Maybe.
Onward!
