The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton

The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton was our March and April book club pick. We met in early March (face to face!) to do some postcard writing for Wisconsin's disastrous April election (our candidate did win, so it wasn't as disastrous as it could have been, but because the novel is 848 pages long, we decided that perhaps we'd give ourselves more than a month to read it.  We did our book club via Zoom, which was not the same as meeting in person, but was the highlight of my week, so that is how book club goes in the time of coronavirus. The book was awarded the 2013 Mann Booker prize and is highly regarded by many critics.

This novel.  What can I say about this novel? It wasn't the book for me, I'll say that much. To simplify this book is to say it's about a series of inexplicable events that take place in a New Zealand gold mining town in the 1860s.  You start out with dozens of threads that eventually kind of, sort of, tie together at the end.  To simplify it even further, it's a bunch of dudes sitting around talking to other dudes and the only appearances of women are in the form of a whore; a timid, downtrodden wife; and the cunning, devious widow.  The first one hundred pages are twelve men sitting in a hotel bar uncovering the story of what had taken place in the previous six months and those first one hundred pages took me approximately six weeks to read because I kept falling asleep.  Boring dudes talking about boring things just doesn't work for me.

I am going to say, not in a self-deprecating way, that maybe this book was too smart for me. I was reading it carefully, taking notes, and I still don't fully understand the convoluted plot.  The book's framing device was set around the zodiac. There are twelve main dude characters that we follow around and each represents a zodiac sign. At the beginning of each part, there's a star chart. I'm pretty sure that's supposed to tell me something, but it doesn't.  The other framing device the author uses is that each part is half as long as the preceding part, so the first interminable section of the book is half the book, the next section is a quarter of the book, the next and eighth, and so on. It makes it seem like the novel is picking up speed as it nears the end, but it just ends up making it feel like the ending is rushed, which is INSANE in a book with as many pages as this one had.

My book club peeps liked this book for the most part. They found the setting immersive and liked being put in a different world than the one where we currently live. They didn't mind the terrible stereotypes of women (NGS, there wouldn't BE women there - get over it!). They didn't mind the strange detours into astrological predictions. They didn't even notice the strange mathematical structure of the book (why would you even bother if only one person in every ten who reads the book gets it?).   So I'm definitely in the minority.  

Here are some of my notes.

Notable lines:
1) Drake was a greasy, nasal fellow of limited intelligence; hearing his name, one was put in mind not of the naval hero but of the common duck, a species he closely resembled. (page 88)

2) A phrase of his father’s returned to him: you give a dog a bad name, and that dog is bad for life. (page 165)

All the things I had to look up:
1) Frock coat, tailcoat, Norfolk jacket (page 1): There were a bunch of dudes in a room and the description was to make sure you knew that they were dressed in a variety of different types of formality and to also indicate that there were class differences.  

2) Baise (page 1): A coarse, typically green woolen material resembling felt, used for covering billiard and card tables. My husband was appalled that I didn't know this word, but not everyone grew up with a pool table in the basement.

3) Spume (page 2): Froth or foam, especially that found on waves.

4) VanDyck's Charles (page 2): Reference to an oil-on-canvas portrait of Charles I of England by Anthony van Dyck c. 1635, now in the Louvre Museum, Paris. It depicts Charles in civilian clothing and standing next to a horse as if resting on a hunt, in a manner described by the Louvre as a "subtle compromise between gentlemanly nonchalance and regal assurance.”

5) Passing his lucifers (page 11): This phrase was used half a dozen times in the book.  It basically means passing a match, like to light a cigar or cigarette.

6) Sal volatile (page 19): A scented solution of ammonium carbonate in alcohol, used as smelling salts.

7) Acccoucheuse (page 22): French for a woman who is an obstetrician (a physician skilled in the art and science of managing pregnancy, labor and the time after delivery) or a midwife (today a non-physician trained to assist a woman during childbirth).

8)  Kowhai flower (page 45): Widely regarded as New Zealand's national flower, although an official designation doesn't exist.

9) Doss-house (page 94): This is a synonym for flophouse, a derogatory term for a place that offers low cost lodging, providing a place to sleep and minimal amenities.

10) Pounamu (page 99): "Greenstone" in New Zealand English - several types of hard and durable stone found in southern New Zealand; highly valued by the Maori.

11) I looked up lots of birds. 
A) Kereu (page 102) - the only pigeon endemic to the New Zealand mainland
B) Petrel (page 628) - any of numerous seabirds; one of the smaller long-winged birds that fly far from land
C) Gannet (page 628) - a large seabird with mainly white plumage, known for catching fish by plunge-driving
D) Albatross (page 628) - I knew what an albatross was, but wanted to see a photo of it to compare it the other birds being described. A very large oceanic bird with long narrow wings.
E) Tui (page 815) - Endemic passerine bird of New Zealand. It's gorgeous and has a great song and a pom pom on its chest.

Tui.

12) Bills of lading (page 118): A detailed list of a shipment of good in form of a receipt given by the carrier to the person consigning the goods. Oddly enough, this also came up in another book I was reading.

13) Seven virtues/cardinal four (page 135): I'm too much of a heathen to know this reference. Traditionally, the seven Christian virtues or heavenly virtues combine the four classical cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, temperance, and courage (or fortitude) with the three theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity.

14) They're as chalk and cheese (page 197): An idiom referencing that two people or things are completely different from one another. 

15) Kahikatea (page 207): A coniferous tree endemic to New Zealand. The tree grows to a height of 180 feet with a trunk exceeding 3 feet in diameter.  

16) Flotsam v. jetsam (page 389): I've looked this up so many times in my life.  Flotsam refers to a sunken vessel whose goods float to the surface of the sea, or any floating cargo that is cast overboard.  Jetsam designates any cargo that is intentionally discarded from a ship or wreckage (jettisoning something).

17) Fossick (page 390): Rummage or search; search for gold in abandoned workings.

18) Abstemious (page 425): Not self-indulgent, especially when eating and drinking.

19) Euchred (page 585): Towards the end of the novel, this was used so much.  It means to deceive, outwit, or cheat.

20) Fel de se (page 653): Suicide.

Ten Months with Hannah!

April was a strange one, everybody.

Hannah was sick again, so we're back on diet trials.  I feel so badly for her because we're clearly missing SOMETHING about what's making her sick and I just can't figure out what it is.  Our vet is sympathetic and has done tons of research, but all the blood tests have come back normal, which is GOOD, but doesn't give us good guidance about what to do next.

But we persevere.  After she missed a couple of weeks of daycare because of her illness and early closure of the kennel before it was deemed an "essential service," we have returned to taking her weekly. I do the whole exchange with no contact with any person. Hannah goes without a collar or harness. I get there, open the trunk, and Hannah zooms over to the gate where the kennel owner is holding it open for Hannah to race through.  When I pick Hannah up, I drop my payment in a coffee can on a picnic table about ten feet from the kennel gate, open the trunk, and the kennel owner opens the gate for Hannah to zoom into our car.  It's safe and Hannah loves being with her friends. I love that the kennel will probably still be open after all this confusion passes.

I have also been sporadically taking her to the dog park. Our county dog park is huge - over 20 acres for the big dog park. I use a tissue to open and close the gate and otherwise touch absolutely nothing. It's easy to keep social distancing because it's such an open space. But sometimes people don't abide by social distancing rules, so that's why I haven't been going super regularly. If I drive up to the park and people are congregating in huge groups, I just drive back home.

I've taken it upon myself to really amp up Hannah's training during this time. In the photo above, she's working on "stay" in a church parking lot (this is us moving from no distractions to low distractions). This church is behind our house and the parking lot is generally busy all the time, every day because it's used by people using a school associated with the church and the public middle school that's just on the other side of the church.  We've been doing some training here because it's not in as much use as it normally is.  She is also pretty grumpy in this photo, which I think is pretty indicative of every time I try to work with her on training outside of our "normal" training time before breakfast and dinner.

The squirrels! And rabbits! And chipmunks! And robins!

(Parenthetical paragraph: I had no idea that 1) robins were dumb birds who don't know enough to be frightened of my prey-driven dog and 2) robins REALLY do pull worms up from the ground - that's not just a cartoon-y kind of stereotype. Before these last ten months with Hannah, I would sort of notice that it was wild kingdom in our yard/neighborhood, but now I KNOW.  I know where the rabbits' burrows are, I know where the four outdoor cats live in our regular walking pattern, and I know just how incredibly dumb robins are.)

There are so many smells and things to see outside that walking Hannah is a lesson in patience for me. She will stop and sniff EVERY TREE you pass if you let her. So we're working on training "these are business walks" and "there are fun, sniffing walks."

If it weren't for Hannah and Zelda the Cat, getting up in the morning would be a chore. I look forward to getting up and letting Hannah out of her kennel while Zelda begs for food in a loud voice. I rely on our three daily walks to keep me sane and from going stir crazy. It is so much fun to do training sessions with her because she just picks everything up so quickly and wants to please.  Each time we come in from a walk, as she sitting by the door, I lean down to unclip her leash and I whisper to her, "you are good, smart, and beautiful and I am so happy you chose us to be your family." And then I hug her and we go inside where she begs for food.  Because she is, after all, a dog. 

An Honest Look at Life: Social Distancing

We try to keep to a schedule, honest. The alarm goes off every morning at seven and we ignore it until 7:30 to 8:15. I walk the dog while Dr. BB feeds the cat and then I train and feed the dog. We eat breakfast. And that's when things go awry.

Sometimes I shower right away. I'm so excited to shower. Sometimes I remember to put on sunscreen and makeup. I wear a scarf and pretend like I'm going somewhere.

Sometimes I just go straight to work in my pajamas. I'm not excited to shower. I barely have the motivation to brush my teeth, let alone accessorize. 

Some days we exercise in the morning. Some days I realize it's eight at night and I still haven't worked out.

Some days there are Zoom calls and meetings and Webinars and my mind goes round and round in circles. There's so much to do and so little time to do it in. Some days there is nothing on the calendar and I read a book on the couch until the sun goes down. 

Some days we are on the ball. Dinner goes in the crock pot and it's ready to go at 6 on the dot. Other days I realize that we are missing crucial ingredients for the recipe I had planned and we end up eating scrambled eggs and popcorn.

Some days there are things to look forward to.  There are Zoom calls with my friends. Sunday night I'm devoting the entire evening to my book club call and I literally don't even care if I'm the only one on the Zoom call.  The drive to daycare on Tuesdays is kind of exciting - I wouldn't say that I'm a big fan of driving normally, but because I'm doing so little of it, it's thrilling and when I get to go over 45 miles per hour, it's like I'm a newly licensed teenager all over again.

Some days there are things to not look forward to. Our university's chancellor talking in a campus-wide video-conference about furloughing faculty members and staff members. Days that had been planned travel days (I was going to get to see my mom!) are now just reminders of things we can't do.

The things that go on like clockwork:
The cat and dog are fed in the morning. The dog is trained before she eats breakfast.
I have a regularly scheduled Monday morning meeting.
The dog goes to daycare on Tuesdays.
The cat and dog get fed dinner. The dog is trained before she eats dinner.
The dog gets two long walks and one or two short walks every day.

And that's it. Every day the routine is different. I try to reach out to someone who doesn't live in my house every day via Facebook or text message or email or phone. I try, but sometimes I fail. Motivation to keep going waxes and wanes and it's never clear to me what my level is going to on any given day.

I still want to support our small businesses. Here are some small steps I have taken.

1) I am still paying for classes at our local yoga studio and (more importantly) taking the classes through Zoom so that the owner knows the demand is still here.

2) I bought $60 worth of honey from a local farmer. I usually buy the honey at the farmers' market, but I just called and picked it up at the farm itself, setting down the money under a flower pot. It felt vaguely like I was doing a drug deal.

3) I signed up for our yearly CSA.  I would do this anyway, but I signed up early and flooded my social media with reminders for other people to do it.  Good news! The CSA sold out. Bad news!  I didn't get in on time for a spring share.

4) I take the dog to daycare once a week, just like normal. I can do the whole transaction without any contact. I open the trunk of our car, Hannah zooms out and heads to the gate where the owner/operator is standing to let Hannah in.  Hannah goes without her collar or harness - just a naked dog. When I pick her up, I open the trunk, walk over to a coffee can, put in my $20, and the owner/operator opens the gate and Hannah jumps into the car.

5) I did a curbside order of birdseed from our local garden shop. (I was glad I did curbside because there were a TON of maskless people in that store and I almost had a panic attack at the thought of having to actually go inside.)

And we wait. We don't know what the future holds. Maybe it's too optimistic to assume that our yearly CSA will just be like normal. Maybe it's dumb to spend money on birdseed when our salaries are going to be cut by 10%. Maybe it's going to turn out that dogs can spread COVID-19 and I'm going to regret sending Hannah to daycare. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. 

But the world keeps spinning, right?  And we have to make SOME plans for the future. So we solider on.

Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb

Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb is the first novel in the Farseer trilogy and the first book in her extended world (that's called The Realm of the Elderlings). These are thirteen books that consist of a bunch of trilogies and other series.  I have dipped in and out of Hobb's world, including actually reading this book before, but I decided that there was no time like the present to get immersed in a new fantastical world. I started at the beginning and I'm going to work my way through the end.

If you're keeping count, that means I'm working my way through this extended world, Laura Lippman's Tess Monagan series, and Jussi Adler-Olsen's Department Q series. I'm a sucker for comforting characters who never let me down. I'm half tempted to start rereading Sue Grafton's Kinsey Milhone mysteries, but I'll resist until I'm at least done with one of my other serialized worlds.

In Assassin's Apprentice, our boy Fitz is the illegitimate son of the prince. He's abandoned by his mother at a royal home and Fitz embarks on a life in which he is trained to be an apprentice while palace intrigue unfolds all around him. The book dives into a rich description of the life of a royal-adjacent, the scope of the kingdom, and the slight magical elements that make this world run. And it does it all through the eyes of Fitz as he grows up.  When he's a child, he notices the things that a child would notice. When he's a young man, he noticed the things a young man would notice. It's absolutely wonderful to watch him grow up.

It's also a book with one gut punch after another. Poor Fitz is despised from the moment he appears at Buckkeep's door.  He finds one comfort that is almost immediately taken away from him. His most consistent mentor in life, a stablemaster, is as inconstant in his affections as a feral cat.  Every time you think things are going to turn around for poor old Fitz, things do not.

The thing I like about Hobb's writing is that she weaves in details of the world seamlessly. We know from just a few pages in that Fitz can somehow feel what animals around him are feeling.  Because everything is told from Fitz's perspective, this magic is just normal to us. So when someone points out that this ability, known as Wit, is unnatural, you're just as surprised as Fitz is.  I love how Hobb seamlessly incorporates world-building this way.

This book just resonated with me, at this time of safer at home and a global pandemic. Consider the following two passages.

I. All events, no matter how earthshaking or bizarre, are diluted within moments of their occurrence by the continuance of the necessary routines of day-to-day living. Men walking a battlefield to search for wounded among the dead will still stop to cough, to blow their noses, still lift their eyes to watch a V of geese in flight. I have seen farmers continue their plowing and planting, heedless of armies clashing but a few miles away. (Chapter 3)

I just think about how I still get up in the morning, walk the dog, eat breakfast, and things are still sort of normal, but the world is falling apart us. I read this passage and it just really struck a chord with me at this moment in history.

II. And the kingdom fails, for as each town must decide alone, so it is separated from the whole. We will shatter into a thousand little townships, each worrying only about what it will do for itself if it is raided. (Chapter 11)

A couple of weeks ago there was a meme going around the internet with the text "having some states lock down and some states not lock down is like having a peeing section in a pool" imposed over a photo of swimming pool.  That's what I kept thinking about. Defense of the whole only works if everyone does their bit to work together. You can't become isolated in your thinking because that instinct towards self-preservation harms the total.

To wrap it all up, I'm super excited to read the rest of these books in the order in which they were intended to be read. Yay for Robin Hobb!

The Sugar House by Laura Lippman

Baltimore Blues
Charm City 
Butchers Hill 
In Big Trouble

The fifth book in the Tess Monaghan series, The Sugar House is almost like two separate novels crammed into one. In the first part, Tess is doing a favor for one of her father's friends and needs to figure out the identity of a murdered woman. Once that discovery was made, it unearthed a slew of other unanswered questions that lead to Tess uncovering many political scandals. 

This series is absolutely delightful. I sometimes find myself a bit lost in the weeds on plots (particularly in this novel and Butchers Hill), but I'm not really reading it for plot.  I mean, the plot is fast-paced and there, so it's good enough for me. Tess is a delightfully strong female character. She loves her dog and her boyfriend.  She stays in shape and, while she's definitely not perfect, she's a female character I can relate to. She doesn't always make the choices I'd make or even the right choices, but she's curious and determined and stubborn and I get her.  I'm not even sure I really like her, but that's not what it's about, is it?

I think Lippman's love for Baltimore really shines here, too.  I've been writing about how Baltimore is a main character in the series since the first book and it remains true to form. Lippman writes about Baltimore neighborhoods in the way I write about vegetables - with nuances and subtleties, but deep, deep love. I particularly enjoy how the neighborhoods play a role. If you're going to Federal Hill, you know some political shenanigans.  I've never been to Baltimore, but I feel like I've been to Baltimore, you know.

Anyway, I'm going to keep going through this series. It seems like I'm not going to be able to get physical books from the library  and these have reasonable wait times, so there you have it.  I'll be steady-streaming Lippman books while I slog through my current book club book (over 800 pages and it's exceedingly boooooring). 

Ending Neck Pain: A New Pillow

This not a sponsored ad. It is about a product I LOVE and paid for with my own damn money.

About the time we were leaving Minneapolis, almost a decade ago, I started suffering from neck pain and stiffness. It wasn't an all the time thing, but it wasn't unusual that I couldn't move my neck to the left to look out the car window or that when I would sit down, a pain would radiate down my back from my neck. I hold all my tension in my jaw, neck, and shoulders, so I would always just chalk it up to stress and sort of tell myself to DEAL WITH IT ALREADY.

So then I started doing all the things that are recommended for dealing with neck pain. I lost the extra weight I put on after I broke my leg, I started doing yoga regularly, and I stretch and I stretch and I stretch. I still had neck pain, but at least I could tell my doctor that I was doing all the things.

I was browsing an unspecified social media platform a couple of months ago when someone posted about the miracles of sleeping with a special pillow for side sleepers. I had never heard of such a thing and the metaphorical needle scratch that went through my head was incredibly loud. Imagine if I had done all the things and all I really needed was to switch my pillow, which, by the way, not a single person had ever mentioned in my quest for the ability to turn my head in both directions like a normal human being.

Enter the Honeydew Sleep Company's Scrumptious Side Sleeper pillow.

This has legit changed my life.

I slept on it for two nights and woke up with such increased mobility that when my yoga instructor said to do an ear drop to my right shoulder, I was able to move more than a fraction of a centimeter. That cut out bit in the middle means I'm not forever trying to punch the pillow up under my head - the pillow IS ALREADY UNDER MY HEAD. Whenever I turn over in the middle of the night, absolutely no adjustments need to be made because the pillow is already perfectly positioned.

Now, I love this thing. I talked about it for two weeks straight before Dr. BB also dropped a c-note to buy one. But his head is too bit for it.  When he put his head down on it, his head hit our headboard. So it's not for the big-headed.  You know who you are. I'm not mad about this because it means I have an extra pillow when this one gets gross because you know that pillows need to be replaced all the damn time, right?

Behold! The extra pillow that lives in the guest room.

So, I'm not telling you what to do. But if you're the kind of person who isn't sleeping well right now and you're the kind of person who sometimes holds their tension in their upper body and you're the kind of person who always sleeps on their side, you might be the kind of person who could benefit from this ingeniously designed pillow.

And that's it. That's what's making me happy right now.

Girl at War by Sara Nović

Girl at War by Sara Nović  is a novel that tells the story of Ana Jurić.   When she was ten, her life was torn apart by a war in her home country of Croatia. Through a series of flashbacks, we learn what happened  to her and her family and how she ended up in the United States at a college in New York.  We see her struggle with her family and romantic relationships, we see her struggle to separate her past self from her current self, and struggle to determine where she belongs.

I actually used this book as a test to see if I could get ebooks from the library onto my Kindle (it was one of the only books on my list that was available to borrow immediately), so I quickly downloaded it without actually considering that a sad, sad book about a child in a war-torn country was probably not the best option for me during the COVID-19 pandemic and social isolation.  Ana, our main character, struggles with her sense of "home" so much in this novel and all I kept thinking about was how hard it must be for people who don't have safe homes to go to right now.  All those people who are in countries involved in war, refugees living in crowded camps, people in abusive homes, homeless people, people who live in shelters, and the list just kept growing in my brain and I just kept getting more and more verklempt.


Here's a line: In America I'd learned quickly what it was okay to talk about and what I should keep to myself. "It's terrible what happened there," people would say when I let slip my home country and explained that it was the one next to Bosnia. They'd heard about Bosnia; the Olympics had been there in '84.  When I was in college, I worked at a grocery store as a cashier during the summer in a city where there was one of the largest settlements of Rwandan refugees in the United States.  Two of our baggers were a teenage brother/sister pair of those refugees and I remember the sister telling me how much she missed her home country and how she longed to go back and I remember just wondering why she would want to go back to the place that caused her such pain.  Of course, I made the proper noises and asked her what she remembered and missed the most, but when I read that line in this novel, I was transported back to that 20-year old self I used to be and spent some time beating myself up for not asking MORE. 

It's a great book, it really is. The writing is amazing - vivid and striking. The character is so understandable - you really understand her motivations and actions.  The point of view is rich and clear - you immediately buy into the narrator's sense of detachment and wonder at how she went from one place to another. Nović is a marvel, really.  I didn't want to read this book (it was so sad), but I was unable to stop turning the pages and I was incredibly disappointed when I read the last page.  My Kindle said I was only 91% of the way through and I was almost angry that the majority of the last 9% was a book club guide/interview with the author, although I did think that the interview was worth reading since I knew nothing about Nović  before I started this book.

So I think you should definitely read this book. You'll learn a lot about Yugoslavia and the politics of the Baltic region. It'll make you seriously consider the limitations of your own ability to empathize and understand.  But I am not sure that I was in the right mental space for this novel right now.  I cried a lot.  But I'm going to recommend it as a book that everyone should absolutely read at some point in their life.  Just maybe not today.

Bright New Things by Anna Godbersen

Bright Young Things by Anna Godbersen is the story of three young women in New York City right before the stock market crashes. There are speakeasies, flappers, and people people at beautiful parties in this Roaring 20s-era novel.

This is a very readable novel. Our three main characters have very different experiences.  Letty and Cordelia travel to New York together from Ohio to try their hands at life in the big city.  They have a falling out almost as soon as they arrive, so we follow Letty as she tries to start a singing career and Cordelia who, it turns out, has a long-lost father living in the city. Cordelia quickly befriends Astrid, a wealthy socialite whose life is maybe just a facade.  I found that the variety in each of their storylines made for a fun, diverting read.

On the other hand, these characters really do make all the wrong decisions about dudes in the novel. This sort of upsets me because they are really, really dumb and naive. And maybe Cordelia and Letty have some sort of excuse for their naivete, but it strains the limits of my credulity that Astrid doesn't know exactly what's going on in her world in regards to men and their faithfulness or lack thereof.  I feel like Godbersen had the ability to make these young women make some challenging decisions in a positive direction and they always just were "woe is me, I'm gonna do the worst possible thing because I wuv him."  And I don't want to read that.

But read it I did. Because the grand settings were grand, the plot moved along at a nice clip, and Godbersen is sort of a genius with historical fiction.  So, yeah, read it. 

March 2020 Podcast Roundup

So, it's going to be a small list this month because, to be honest, so many of my go-to podcasts are talking nonstop about COVID-19 and I just...can't.   I have the best intentions and I download all of them, but as soon as Planet Money starts talking about COVID-19's impact on the economy, I just get overwhelmed and delete it immediately. That's where I'm at.

Fanti is a new podcast from Maximum Fun in which two culture commentators walk us through the complicated feelings of being a fan of something or someone who sometimes you let you down. You're a fan, but you're also sort of anti-.  It's incredibly insightful and helpful for someone who like me really has a hard time separating the art from the artist.   The other thing that's incredibly helpful for me is that this podcast is not for me. The hosts are queer black men who have a whole popular culture knowledge base that I do not have. They do not dull down their conversations for me. I had no idea that Gayle King said a thing about Kobe Bryant and that thing created another thing, but I figured it out quickly because Jarrett and Tre'vell are NOT going to water it down for me.   It's great.

Pre-the world changed, Code Switch released an episode called "The Limits of Empathy." This episode centered on the story of a white woman named Grace Halsell who, for a time in the late 1960s, tried to take on the identity of black woman. She took some medication to darken her skin and embedded with black communities. Her work culminated in the writing of a book. This episode looked at the importance of this work, as well as the controversy. I have moved on to another position and will no longer be teaching a race and politics class, but I thought this would have been an excellent addition to my syllabus.  You can't just take on the identity of another - it doesn't work that way.

I have written about Slate's Culture Gabfest only one time before. This is not because I don't love it. It actually goes straight to the top of my list most weeks. It is because these episodes are formulaic and every week is worth a listen, but no episode is PARTICULARLY standout. Every episode is standout (shout out to Crime Writers On... and Pop Culture Happy Hour for this same phenomenon).  Anyway, in this long-running show, Stephen Metcalf, Julia Turner, and Dana Stevens cover pop culture from the lowest to the highest. Dana has been on a leave of absence (she's working on a book about Buster Keaton and I swear she's been working on it for all my life at this point, so I bet she feels similarly), but she has COME BACK these last couple of weeks because of the chaos of the world and I CHERISH the dynamic between Stephen, Dana, and Julia and it is so comforting to have all three of them back together.

And that's it. It has taken a lot to pierce my COVID-19 avoidance bubble in the last couple of weeks. I'm hopeful that April will bring me more recommendations, but I fear that I might be wrong.  The golden age of podcasting may be over, my friends. Along with many other wonderful things in the world.

2020 Yearly Goals, Quarter 1

Oh, NGS of January 2020. You really didn't know anything, did you? Okay, here you go.  My original post is here.

Area One: Health
1) Work out three times a week for 30 minutes or more - I don't know.
2) Work out an additional two times a week for at least 15 minutes
3) At least two strength training workouts every week

These are great goals. I'd love to be able to tell you whether or not I did them, but I had some serious issues with depression early in the year and I was barely able to shower daily and brush my teeth, so keeping track of whether I actually worked out or not just didn't happen. I know that I bought a 15-class yoga pass for Jan/Feb and used every pass.  Beyond that, I just don't have the data. Sorry to let you down. I vow to do better data collection in quarter two and on.


Area Two: Professional
1) Get my email under control and keep it there (try to keep the inbox to 15 emails or fewer at all times)
I have mostly managed to do this. I took a couple of weeks and started to cull things very carefully before I just said fuck it all and deleted everything that was older than three months.  I have three inboxes (work #1, work #2, and personal/volunteer) and my work inboxes are definitely clean. I get a ton of junk email in my personal/volunteer inbox, so it sometimes does creep back up to 100 emails, but I just go in there and delete everything about once a week.  I feel much better about looking at my email now and if I can keep this inbox hygiene habit, I'll be happy.  I definitely don't feel dread at opening my inboxes anymore.

2) Volunteer position - I'm on the board for my local community center.  I'm head of the programming committee and I'd like to get a program started in 2020

I have no idea if the community center will exist at the end of this pandemic. We aren't holding regularly scheduled committee meetings and I'm not doing any work on it.  Eh.

3) Update my resume and cover letter
I actually did this when I was sort of surprised invited to a job interview that led to a job offer.  Yay!

4) Create a portfolio 
I did this, too. I don't know if you can see it or not, but I'll try to link to it here. I (verb tense is hard here) am/was teaching a class that is portfolio based and I wanted my students to see an example of a portfolio, but I didn't want to do an academic topic because I didn't want them to copy my structure/work. Anyway, I created a portfolio about Hannah the Dog. Done.


Area Three: Communication 
1)  Post to Instagram once a day  
I have posted 58 times since January 1.  That's a 63.7% completion rate. Not great. Not terrible. It's really hard now that I'm social distancing and  mostly staying home, but I'll try to be better about documenting the things that make me happy.


2) Update blog at least twice a week
I posted 11 times in January, 8 in February, 11 in March. That's an average of  2.3 times a week. Yay! Nailed it.


3)  Keep track of books read
Totally did this! Nailed it.

4) Send a postcard/note/letter to my two elderly aunts and one uncle every month
One of my aunts died in February, so I'm going to change this goal to my mom, aunt, and uncle.  I did manage to do this, although I'm not going to lie - I sent the March postcards on March 30.

Area Four: Personal Improvement Projects
1) Tackle one project around the house every week 
See depression comment above. I probably did this about 25% of the time, but I most certainly did not track it.
 
2) Duolingo every day
I lost my over year long streak at some point and just stopped doing it. I will restart in the next quarter.


3) Take at least three more classes with Hannah
We completed a class session! We were signed up to move up to the Intermediate class, but that was cancelled with the COVID-19 chaos. Hopefully we can get in another session in 2020, but in the meantime I've stepped up our at home training, buying a new book on tricks and some target sticks.  She will be mentally stimulated no matter what!

4) Try a new recipe every week
We started off strong, but I think we only tried five or six new recipes.  Still, that's better than nothing. I did not track this, either.

So the lesson here is that I need to have a better tracking method or at least one that's easier for me to do at night when I'm exhausted.  I'll have a think on this because I'll need better data for all of you in my next quarterly roundup. 

2020 Q1 Books!

I usually have two or three books going at a time. One is my downstairs book and it's usually a book made of paper that I borrow from the library. Occasionally I'll have two  downstairs books - one by the couch and one on the table for reading during eating. One is my upstairs book that I read before going to bed at night and it's generally on my Kindle.

Frankly, I don't finish a ton of books, so if it even makes this list, it's probably not terrible. Unless it turns terrible in the last half in which case I feel obligated to finish.

1/2: Rebel Heart by LK Farlow (free on Kindle): A not-great romance novel in which the main characters really needed to just have a conversation.  Nice guy with a trust fund falls for a rebellious girl with a trust fund (she's a rebel because she dyes her hair and has piercings, but...uh, in that case, I guess I'm a rebel?).  I think I disliked this novel because there were NO real world problems. Money? No biggie. Trust funds. Abusive father? No biggie. Mom will embarrass him and get him arrested.  School woes? No biggie. Just study a little more!  Argh. No thank you.

1/3: Charm City by Laura Lippman (library)

1/6: The Purity of Vengeance by Jussi Adler-Olsen (library)

1/7: The Crime Beat by A.C. Fuller (free on Kindle): This was apparently the first third of a series. It was sold as a standalone novel, though. It was...not. Also, it didn't entice me into buying the rest. Pretty lackluster "mystery" in which a reporter and cop who have traditionally been at odds with each other get together to tackle a tough case. Since I'd just finished a great reporter book in Charm City, this just didn't do it for me.

1/13: Well-Read Black Girl edited by Glory Edim (library)

1/15: Dark Path by Melissa F. Miller (free on Kindle) - The first book in a series about a forensic pathologist who happens to be a practicing Buddhist. It was...fine.

1/17: A Column of Fire by Ken Follett (library)

1/17: Falling for Ryan Part I: Falling for Ryan by Tracy Lorraine (free on Kindle) -  This book came as part of a five part series. I read the first part and declared it to be a "stupid book." The characters are just so inane. If I were either of the main characters, I wouldn't want to be with the other one, either. No thanks from me!

1/20: Butchers Hill by Laura Lippman (library)

1/22: Beard Science by Penny Reid (free on Kindle) - This is the third book in a series and it felt like it. I was just dropped into a world with a gazillion characters and not a lot of explaining as to who everyone was. On the other hand, both of our main characters were quirky enough to stand out in a sea of canned romance characters.  I will probably read more Penny Reid, maybe starting at the beginning of a series.

1/24: Dream with Me by Kristen Proby (Kindle purchase) -  I really loved the early books in Proby's With Me series, but I have found that since the sixth book, the characters have been boring and forgettable.  Since this is the 13th book in the series, maybe I should stop reading it?

1/30: Be with Me by Lea Coll (free on Kindle) - The dialogue is artificial, the woman is a door mat, and the bad guy is so obviously the bad guy. Definitely did not entice me to buy more Coll books.

1/31: Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones (library)

2/1: Trust Exercise by Susan Choi (library)

2/3: In Big Trouble by Laura Lippman (library)

2/6: Lethal Balance by Cherise Sinclair (Kindle purchase) - Sinclar is the author of the actually amazing Masters of the Shadowlands series. This is the second novel in her followup series, Sons of the Survivalist.   It's a fine series, but the Shadowlands novels are so much better with better developed characters who stand out in my mind.  Lethal Balance involves insta-love between a man and a child and the child drives most of the conflict in the novel.  Since I'm not what you would call a kid person, this whole plot left me cold.  Eh.  I'll still read them because Sinclair is head and shoulders above the writing of an average romance author.

2/12: The Outsiders by SE Hinton (library)

2/13: Sated in Ink by Carrie Ann Ryan (Kindle purchase) - Ryan's Montgomery Ink series is a fun contemporary series in which many of the couples face real-life issues like money, health, and problems in raising/combining families. And then there's this book in which the main characters really just all have crappy jobs (hint: just get new jobs).  It was a disappointing entry into what is a traditionally solid family saga. 

2/17: Bare Ass in Love by Sasha Burke (free on Kindle) - There are some legitimate beefs with this novel.  The heroine is naive and childlike in some ways. The hero is oddly busy working, but it's not clear what he actually does.  But here's the thing. The characters do stand out to me in a real way.  They are not traditional characters who are just like all the other characters in contemporary romantic fiction.  It was enough to get me to download the next book in the series. 

2/18: The Bromance Book Club by Lyssa Kay Adams (library)

2/21: Hard Ass in Love by Sasha Burke (Kindle purchase) -  This is the followup to Bare Ass in Love. This book was boring.  It also had so many tropes (dead wife, precocious child, "bullying" taking place off page, "quirky" heroine whose quirks are not charming but annoying).  I will not be buying any more Burke books.

2/22: Meanwhile, Elsewhere: Science Fiction and Fantasy from Transgender Writers edited by Cat Fitzpatrick (library)

2/23: Charming Hannah by Kristen Proby (free on Kindle) - Thumbs way down. I did love some of Proby's earlier books, but her new ones aren't cutting it for me. The last straw was when the hero told the heroine that she was moving in with him and she was (obviously) going to sell or rent her house. I was astounded. What if she didn't' want to move in with him? What if she wanted him to move into HER house?  No thanks from me.

2/24: Accidentally All of Me Book 1 by Ali Parker (free on Kindle) - Sort of a boring book about a man raising his niece after his sister died and how he falls for a local veterinarian. I'm a sucker for a book with a dog as a main character in it, but not necessarily sold on precocious kids.

2/26: Strike a Match by Lindzee Armstrong (free on Kindle) -  Woman falls in love with a firefighter who saved her life. This has been done better (see Can't Help Falling in Love by Bella Andre).

2/26: The Marco Effect by Jussi Adler - Olsen (library)

2/27: Just One Night by Melanie Shawn (free on Kindle) - I don't know. Having the thirteenth novel in your series as the freebie is maybe not the way to introduce an audience to your world. I just felt like there were a number of awesome characters who I was barely introduced to. Also, this was (spoiler) a situation in which a five-minute conversation could have prevented the entire story.  I liked Shawn's writing and maybe if I'd started at the beginning of this Crossroads series, I'd feel differently, but as is, I don't think I'm sold on these books.

3/2: Blind Man's Bluff by Ivy James (free on Kindle) -  I honestly see this novel as sort of anti-disability and was disgusted by the ending. Hard pass from me.

3/3:  The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (library)

3/9: The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler (library)

3/12: Just One Regret by Stacey Lynn (free on Kindle) - I'm a bit surprised I finished this book, to be honest. I just do not resonate with people who a) are obsessed with children and procreation and b) do not just tell the truth for no discernible reason. Grr.

3/17: Fleishman is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner (library)

3/22: Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo (library)

3/22: The Neanderthal Box Set (Knitting in the City #1 - 1.5) by Penny Reid (free on Kindle) -  I vowed to read more Penny Reid because I think her female characters are fun.  I do not find arrogant, bossy men to be my cup of tea, however, and I think it's possible that while I want to like Reid, I don't actually.  No go for me.

3/25: Grit and Grind by Kat Addams (free on Kindle) -  Steamy romance. Pretty good.

3/27: The Nanny by Gilly Macmillan (library)

3/30: Bright Young Things by Anna Godbersen (library ebook)

Total: 37 books