Please do not adjust your universe. The slight disquiet you feel is because I've moved OnePo, Boutell.Com, and everything else I run to a different hosting provider. I did that to get more storage, better backups, and more RAM for less money. More RAM, in this case, cuts down on disruptions when I deploy my other apps. The old b-com was running pretty close to its limits.

I've been banging on all the bits and validating that everything is here. For instance, I'm attaching a photo to this message.

That photo just about sums up my present situation: disordered but excellent.

Blues: fearless beings with a magical sense of connection, just screwing around.

Fusion: blues dancing to electronica. Sshh, don't tell them.

Salsa: really pretty math.

Salsa rueda: really pretty partial differential equations.

Bachata: who decides if it's gonna be sexy? Not you, fella.

Cha cha: has nothing to do with Nicole Kidman.

Swing: would you like to dance jitterbug, lindy hop, balboa, charleston or west coast? Oh sorry, I'm a southgoing zax.

Waltz: surprisingly sexy seventy-year-olds in the suburbs. Do try to keep up.

Tango: anger management.

Foxtrot: a thing? I guess? The longer you've been social dancing, the less memory you have of your three foxtrot lessons at that ballroom studio ten years ago.

This recipe is heavily inspired by the New York Times no-knead bread recipe and has snuggled intimately with various bagel recipes on the Internets.

Prep time: 10 minutes
Clock time: 18-24 hours
Yield: 8 bagels

Ingredients

3 cups white flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup oatmeal (plus more for dusting)
1/2 teaspoon instant dry bread yeast
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon sugar
3 tablespoons honey (optional; improves the crumb)
2 cups water, and just a smidge more
Corn meal, for dusting
Kosher salt and crushed anise seed (or other toppings, or none)

Method

Day One

Mix the dry ingredients well in a large bowl. Add the water and mix, just enough to form a dough; do not knead. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap. let it sit overnight, ideally at room temperature. In winter I stash the bowl in front of a heat vent.

After at least 18 hours, wash your hands well and remove the dough, laying it on a surface sprinkled with oatmeal. Fold it over on itself a couple times; really, that's it. You don't have to knead it.

Wrap it up in the plastic wrap you just used for the bowl and let rest for 15 minutes.

Put down a cotton towel or napkin and sprinkle it with oatmeal. Then wrap the towel around the dough.

Day Two

Let the dough rise for 2 hours. Around the 1:45 mark, start preheating the oven to 450 degrees, and boil water in a large pot. Add the honey to the water and stir it in well. The honey greatly improves the crumb of the bagels.

Lay out the dough and cut into eight pieces. Pick up each piece, roll it out briefly between your hands and pinch the ends together to complete the ring. Don't worry if it doesn't look pretty! It just adds authenticity.

Dust a baking sheet liberally with cornmeal to prevent sticking. A non-stick baking sheet can't hurt. If you're out of cornmeal flour or oatmeal will do.

Boil three bagels at a time, until they float or for 20 seconds, but no longer. Remove bagels to the baking sheet. Don't put too many in at a time or the water will cool. Let the boil resume between batches.

Sprinkle lightly with kosher salt and crushed anise seed, fennel seed or other toppings. The middle eastern place around the corner from my office just happens to carry crushed anise seed and I bought some on a whim. I am not as cool as I sound.

Bake at 450 degrees for 20 minutes or until nicely browned.

Fresh bagels are insanely great right out of the oven with your favorite fixins. They also freeze well. I usually eat one almost immediately, let the rest cool, then put three in a bag on the counter and four in a freezer bag.

I tend to alternate between this recipe and simply making bread, which can be done with the same ingredients, but you'll want to add another 1/8th cup of water or so. Bagels pick up extra moisture in the boil and need to be tough enough to resist.

During my London semester, back in '89 (yikes), I spent some time at the Camden Palace. That was my first club dancing experience. I remember closing the joint a couple of times. It was out of character for me then, but I liked the physical abandon of it. Mostly though I didn't dance much in between my teenage bedroom and my mid-thirties.

When I was single again in my mid-thirties and looking to try new things, I finally took a swing dance class to satisfy a lifelong curiosity... And I nearly just ticked off that box and moved on. I'd missed the swing revival, and as far as I knew there was nowhere to go.

But a friend took me to Brasils Nightclub, the salsa club in Old City, Philadelphia. And I realized that this was a living, breathing scene and I could go dancing as often as I wanted. Which was a lot.

For weeks I'd come home every Friday with feet still dancing in my mind's eye.

But I was still a suburban Connecticut dude with two left feet, so I took private lessons until I had a much better idea what I was doing, then started hanging out at a local latin dance studio.

It takes longer for fellas, because we have to learn how to lead from an instructor. By contrast, once someone who dances the "follow" part has the basics down, they learn a lot from every good lead they dance with.

I've danced salsa for a number of years now and still enjoy it, but lately I've fallen for blues dancing. Blues is much more spontaneous and collaborative... the "lead" and "follow" roles are not so strict, and you'll come across women who prefer to lead some of the time. It's very easy to pick up.

It's a little like writing free verse after writing nothing but sonnets for nine years.

I first saw a performance of Ibsen's Hedda Gabler on the London stage in 1989. And I saw what everybody saw, in 1989: a modern woman marooned in 1890, acting out in desperation because she was denied the opportunity to develop as an individual. It's a fine reading of the play.

But tonight I saw the play again, in 2015, performed at Philadelphia's Physick House. And I saw something very different. I saw a human being marooned in 1989. Marooned without the Internet. (*)

The feminist reading is straightforward enough. While her father was alive, Hedda lived an independent, privileged life. She was largely sheltered from the harsh reality that women had limited control over their own lives in 1890. She is surrounded by women who are fulfilled in caretaker roles, whether they got to choose them or not: as servants, sisters, nurses. But she wants to be an adventurer, a bon vivant, the center of her social circle. And once she has been dragged into marriage, through the agency of a white lie grown unchecked, she has no more choices left. None but one.

But what about 2015? In 2015 this play is about a human being deprived of Facebook. In 2015, Hedda Gabler is almost a horror movie, where the monster is 1989.

Yes, 1989: it was a time when you had to sit on the couch and share the remote with your immediate family. All night. Every night.

True, in 1989 you might escape into a book, or a video game, or certain early online activities. But alas, poor Hedda: she is not a bookworm. Her talents are social. She shines among friends.

And our social animal must endure a six-month honeymoon, in a country where she knows no one. She is forced to talk to the same person, all day, every day. She cannot even flee to the bathroom to check Facebook or Snapchat for a few seconds. There is only this: only her husband. Every minute of every day. Horror movie. Cue creepy music.

Is she lonely because she does not speak the language? No, Ibsen hints at something far more specific. Her prime complaint:

"To go for six whole months without meeting a soul that knew anything of our circle, or could talk about the things we are interested in."

Ponder how strange this is to imagine today. We are, every day, the President of our own fan club. We are never, ever away from "our circle" except by choice. OK, maybe for a two-week honeymoon. But for six months?

Hedda is a piece of work in many ways, and there are many threads that make up her downfall. Some feel devastatingly relevant today; some are a bit too melodramatic, but great fun in the right hands. But to me, in 2015, this stands out: as her father's daughter she had the Facebook friends she wanted, and took for granted that she could write on their walls any time she wanted, check for updates any time she wanted. And then: all gone.

All gone but one, and he holds a nasty bit of leverage over her; her snapchats will not erase themselves.

Everyone else has their place in the social order, or stumbles into a new one, despite her machinations. But Hedda has none, and she can't just go on okcupid and start over. Of course she has only one choice.

The past is a cruel place. Cue spooky music.

"But apart from that, Mr. Boutell, how was the play?" Very fine indeed. Just to touch on a few highlights:

Photographer Kyle Cassidy, as producer, somehow made this thing happen in Philadelphia's historic Physick House. You are right there bang in front of the actors in a sitting room. It's intense in a good way. And there will be a film of the play, too.

Naturally this all happened because of the Internet. And a kickstarter. And blood, sweat and tears, of course.

Jennifer Summerfield simmered gloriously as Hedda. Each micro- and not-so-micro-aggression came through with nuance and range. The melodrama that does tend to overwhelm the text at times never prevented her from connecting honestly with the audience.

Every time Hedda stopped working overtime to charm someone, she radiated an anger that said "I may have signed up for this, but it is not what I want. And I will never, ever accept it."

Adam Altman, as Hedda's new husband, plays the part of the self-absorbed nerd to perfection, enthusing about his research every time his aunt pleads for the slightest hint that they might be in a family way. And I say this with affection as a self-absorbed nerd. But even he can access family feeling, and so has a secure place that Hedda cannot reach.

Speaking of the aunt, Tanya Lazar's reading is also spot-on. Juliana Tesman lives through caring for others; she lives through family.

Of course she does. What else is there?

Well... what else was there? Now we have families of choice. Tribes of choice. Infinite overlapping personal fan clubs.

But shouldn't family, whether of origin or of choice, still be the most important thing? Yes, yes, of course. Hedda is an extreme case. But excuse me for a moment while I step into the other room and peek at my phone for a glorious minute. A guy can only take so much togetherness. Brr. Cue spooky music.

Tickets are still available. Playing through Sunday, December 20th.

(*) Yes, I know the Internet existed in 1989. And I personally had access to some of the escapes I'm talking about as early as 1986. But most people didn't, and their friends certainly didn't, and a social network without the people you know isn't really The Social Network yet.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of hanging out with three marvelous OPWistas in person. And I got a well-deserved yet gentle and loving earful about some longstanding requests I haven't seen to after many moons.

So last night I hit a few tickets:

1. You can now edit your comments! Frickin' finally. Enjoy. There is a little "edited" label next to comments that have been edited. That's to be fair to people who replied to the original comment; their remarks might otherwise seem excessive after the original commenter makes changes.

2. You can change your blog name via "Account Settings." That is to say, I could change "/boutell" to "/grumpycat", if I wanted. If you do this, be aware that your old URLs will not redirect. This is mostly meant for people who made a typo when they signed up.

3. Visible "undo/redo" buttons in the text editor. It was pointed out to me that OPW has no undo and redo buttons for text edits. Yes, the common keyboard shortcuts work, but there's no reason to assume we have them if we don't advertise them! Now you can find these features right on the toolbar. This will save you from grief especially when editing on mistake-prone devices like phones and tablets.

4. Edit: no more losing comments by accidentally leaving the page! My first take on this didn't work for iPhones, so I changed up the fix. If you have unsaved text in a comment, you'll now get a confirmation prompt if you accidentally mash a link that would take you away. Also, that pesky "posting as Dr. Whackadoodle" link is no longer an actual link in new comments. It was very easy to tap it by accident on a phone.

More is coming! The next most passionate request seems to be a way to tag posts.

The comment-saver feature isn't perfect. It can't stop you from accidentally hitting "back," for instance.

Probably the best thing about partner dance is that everybody needs a dance partner. Being pretty good is almost as much fun as being the Best In The Whole Friggin' World, and even being "enh" usually still means you get to dance.

Playing and writing music is different; we all have the option to listen to the Best In The Whole Friggin' World, and generally we take it. If you want an audience, you'd best find a niche, or start scaling that Best In The World mountain. Even your best friends are going to be... exactly as meh as you are, when it comes to listening to anything less. And that's only fair. Admit it, you hardly ever click when your friend posts an audio recording either.

But who says an audience matters? These things can be satisfying in their own right.

My friend... I was like you. I had over 9,000 messages in my inboxes. Plural.

I am currently doing inbox zero for both my personal and professional inboxes. That means that on a daily basis I hit zero messages in my inbox.

But alas, during a recent upheaval in my personal life, I let this go for my personal inbox for a while. Then I reinstated it. So the memory of how I did that is fresh in my mind, and I have the opportunity to share that with you.

Inbox zero is not a new idea, but everyone has their own ways of staying there. What follows is my own bag of tricks.

How to transition to inbox zero

1. Set aside an hour or more, just this once, to skim through the last 7 days of email and act on anything important. Important is defined as "if you don't reply to it today something bad will happen." Otherwise... no. Ignore it for now.

2. "Archive" everything. Absolutely everything. Hit "select all" and "archive," not delete. (*) This gets you around the anxiety of Maybe Deleting Something Important. You're not, you're just archiving it, okay? You can search for it later if you really want to.

(If you are not using gmail, fix that, or use something else which offers an "archive" button just as good and convenient.)

Instantly, you are in a much better position to act on the next truly important email that arrives in your life. But you can do better than that. Here's how I stay there on a daily basis.

How to stay at inbox zero

1. Once a day, sit down to do your "inbox zero," as described below. Make this a good time. You've got your coffee and a few minutes before you have to dash off; interruptions are as minimal as you can make them.

If this is your work inbox, just take the time. Your coworkers want you to be on top of your email. (**) If this is your personal inbox and you're a stay-at-home parent, I sympathize with the level of interruption you're dealing with, but again, it's an investment in you that your family ideally will willingly make.

2. Every time you get an email from a mailing list, political cause, etc., either read it right now, delete it on the spot, or unsubscribe. If you are disinclined to read it now, during your designated email time... what do you think the chances are you'll read it, ever? Absolutely friggin' zero. Unsubscribe. Every time you unsubscribe an angel gets its wings.

3. Every email should be replied to, forwarded to someone who can better handle it, acted on right now, deleted, archived for reference, or turned into a TO-DO.

Hint: if there is any extra information you need before you can act on the email, reply and ask for it and hit "archive!" That thread is gone from your inbox until they reply. You've just bought yourself one day, in most cases, before you have to do anything with this again. If the other party never replies, it was not important to them either. And you have documentation of that. You're the responsible one. Move on.

Most things can either be acted on right now, during your inbox zero time, or are unlikely to get done ever, and keeping them around is pointless. The exceptions... the reasonable tasks that take multiple days to complete or require something you won't have until later... belong on your TO-DO list.

4. Do not use your email inbox as a TO-DO list. You need a separate TO-DO list. Paper works surprisingly well, but there are innumerable TO-DO list apps. Even gmail has a little built-in TO-DO list feature tucked away. It's a choice on the "GMail" menu at upper left. There are third-party mobile apps that can work with it, too.

Hint: you can create a simple TO-DO, then archive the message, and search for it later when you need the details to act on the TO-DO item.

I also use calendar reminders in my phone for time-sensitive TO-DOs.

5. If you really, sincerely get emails you don't have to act on right now but would love to read later, create a "read later" folder for fun and edifying things only and move those messages there. This is not for actionable stuff. Actionable stuff, you should act on right now, or create a TO-DO. It is your cookie jar of cool things to read when you feel like it, not guilt trips you really must read. Those... you read. Right now. Or you don't mean it and you should archive them and move on with your life.

6. Accept that you're going to archive some things that turn out to be important later. It's OK. If it really matters to the other party more than you thought, they will ask about it again. In this case you are no worse off than you were before you got on top of your email world. And you're going to do this much less often than you did before.

7. When you get an email in the middle of the day... relax! You can reply to it now, and sometimes you should. But you could also just wait until tomorrow's inbox zero time. The absolute worst case is that you'll deal with it in one day. And that means you don't have to panic and jump on it right now.

Benefits of inbox zero

I hardly ever freak out when I get an email in the middle of the day, or at 3am for that matter. I never have that anxiety that comes from worrying that if I don't act on it this very millisecond, it will be lost forever in my inbox.

Instead I know that I will act on it during my daily inbox zero time.

My friends and coworkers took a little time to adjust to this "once a day" rhythm, but they like it soooo much better than the old "sometimes miraculous, sometimes totally unreliable" Tom.

My anxiety level has dropped because I know I'm responsible. I don't think I'm on top of my shit, I know I am.

And I really like not being a flake.

Plus: bragging rights.

(*) With gmail, "select all" will initially select the current page's worth of messages, but there's a little prompt asking if you want to select all the messages in your inbox. Yes! You do!

(**) Yes, I have the luxury of a job where my coworkers behave rationally, and you may not. My condolences. But I still think this will probably be a net positive for you in terms of Not Getting Fired, as compared to being 6 months behind on email.

One Post Wonder has completed its move and the URLs have been changed over.

I'm sure a glitch or two will be found, and I'm sure folks will report them here, or by emailing me, or even via the little bug icon. All of the above are fine.

A security warning is seen when the old personal blog URLs are used, so if you see that, just update your bookmarks to point to the new location of your blog. But you probably just have onepostwonder.com itself bookmarked anyway. And there's no issue there.

I want to thank the folks who very generously donated to help cover the costs of running One Post Wonder. Yes, I did blush.

We should be good for another year. OPW now lives on the same box with boutell.com, which is a big enough site that OPW can pretty much hang out in the margins without significantly increasing my hosting costs. Unless it gets big. In which case, it becomes a business anyway. So we're good there.

Thanks again for your support and understanding. You got me motivated to knock out the whole move in one evening.

And now back to my regularly scheduled locked posts for friends... just like everyone else on One Post Wonder. It's nice being home.

Sautee garlic, mushrooms and a little spinach in olive oil. Add 1/2 cup black beans, a half-teaspoon of cumin, a dash of salt and half a tablespoon of grape must.

What — no grape must in your kitchen? Use soy sauce, if you have one of those fancy "digestive systems" I've heard so much about, or a really swanky vinegar if you're like me.

Mash well with 1/4 cup of oats (quick oats will disappear better, but it doesn't really matter). Add a little liquid for easy workability but don't drown it.

Allow to sit for 10 minutes. Set a timer so you don't get impatient.

Make patties and pan-fry in 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Heat the oil as much as you dare (olive oil scorches easily; we're talking medium low here). Cover and pan-fry for 4 minutes on each side.

Add fixins to taste and serve.

Makes roughly 3 patties.