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It’s been a long time since I’ve bought a hot book. No, not that kind of hot book. (🔥) And not in an Amish Romance kind of way either, although I do enjoy shelving those at the Habitat ReStore. I just mean the types of highly anticipated, much-publicized novels that, say, Jenna Bush Hager often selects. I usually reserve those for the library. Literally. I reserve them and am often like number 350 on the waitlist.
Group dynamics;
Figuring out what makes a person a part of a larger categorization…
The Things We Never Say…because those things are nestled deep (perhaps really, really deep) in our hearts. And they say the heart doesn’t lie. But also that the heart can be deceitful. So that’s where those things — the things we never say — remain because how they will be received is unknowable.
Over a year ago, I read this news story about two Vermont lawmakers — one of whom, over the course of four months, poured a tiny bit of water in the other’s bag. It’s so juvenile. But it also hearkens a bit to torture à la waterboarding: slow and slithering and sanity-impairing. Anyway, consider me fascinated.
When I was 4 years old, I really wanted my name to be Alise. Not Alice. Alise. (Pronounced Elyse or Aleece or however else one would spell it.) I made people call me Alise. I “signed my papers” (i.e. the pretend homework I gave myself…nerd alert) Alise. I have no clue how I decided on Alise, but for a brief shining moment, I was Alise.
So much Yesteryear commentary in my feed. (😒) I still contend this whole thing is a publishing psyop where supporters use a whole lotta 4D chess to explain what the heck is going on with that book. But we bravely move forward!
My mom is half Norwegian and half Swedish, and there are some branches of her family that embrace the Swedish component quite vigorously.
Volunteering at Julia’s, the used bookstore attached to my local Habitat ReStore, is a fun gig because I get this fascinating overview of random books that have made it to publication. Like: Motivating Your Man God’s Way and numerous Amish Romance novels. (Omg, I love reading the blurbs…Wanda Brunstetter, you are one prolific writer!)
Our struggle with — and perhaps our fight against — the ordinary is what makes us human. We all, at some point, want to believe that our lives are extraordinary. Of course, every life is extraordinary…I truly believe that. But it’s in the mundane and humdrum moments where our uniqueness flourishes. “Extraordinary” is subtle; “ordinary” gives itself away amidst obvious attempts.
What’s in a name?
I try to volunteer a couple of times a month at the used bookstore attached to a Habitat ReStore. It’s called Julia’s Café & Books; it’s named after Julia Maulden, a woman who helped establish Habitat for Humanity locally.
It’s not Groundhog Day…although the basic gist of the seven-volume On the Calculation of Volume — these slim novels by Solvej Balle and translated from Danish by Barbara J. Haveland, Sophia Hersi Smith, and Jennifer Russell — is that a woman named Tara Setler is stuck in a strange time loop where every day is November 18.
From Newsletter Issue No. 25:
I’m a fan of Will Guidara, former owner of the NYC restaurant Eleven Madison Park, author of Unreasonable Hospitality, and — apparently — cameo-achiever on The Bear. (Haven’t watched the third season yet!) I get his periodic Pre-Meal email dispatches, and they are simple, short, catchy — and pretty darn edifying.
Here’s a roundup of nonfiction I’ve read in the last few months:
Distance makes the heart grow fonder. Or allows us to forget. Somewhere in the middle is just “there” — out in the ether, summoning no strong opinions one way or another.
“I was more a trampoline park kind of mom.” So said my extremely awesome + adventurous friend this weekend when we were somewhere where it seemed like it would be utterly exhausting — albeit très hip — to have a kid with you. I loved her even more for that comment. You gotta bend when you have kids — it doesn’t mean you’ve forfeited your entire being.
I finished Wreck by Catherine Newman and Season 3 ofShrinking in the same week and what that means is that I feel like pulling a Roberto Benigni and running up and down my street screaming “Life is Beautiful!” while simultaneously crying my eyes out.
Reader: “A person who reads.” (But also: wine [?] + my trusty glasses. I put those images below in stories yesterday after I realized we were coincidentally hosting our “parlor read” on International Book Day…)
A book is this inflexible thing. What’s on the pages, what’s in the pages — it is what it is? No matter who wrote it? Or where they wrote it? Or why?
I had bought this book — a used copy of Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner (of Fleishman is in Trouble fame) — to put in our Little Free Library. (It’s now there.)
10:04 is a hard book to take a picture of because the cover art is a somewhat indecipherable/inverted dark image of Lower Manhattan with part of the electric power grid out. Also, it’s sporting a plastic library dust jacket. (If you saw all the pics where you could see me in the book’s reflection…) But if you viewed this book IRL, it would look essentially the same as what you’re seeing here — it’s not as if this image is some massive distortion. It’s the same even if you’re looking at it through a different lens.
From Newsletter Issue No. 24:
“Helena Kim, a stay-at-home mother in Chula Vista, Calif., decided that when she turned 59, she no longer wanted to cook. ‘I was getting groceries delivered anyway,’ she said, ‘so if I am going to order groceries I may as well order the whole meal.’ She tips well and gives drivers high ratings… Ms. Kim, now 60, adores her automated life. ‘I get Amazon delivery, I get food delivery, I get grocery delivery, I get pet food delivery,’ she said. When she does leave the house, ‘I drive a Tesla and I use self-driving mode. If I could get a robot housekeeper, that would be perfect.’”
Beep-boop, beep-boop, let’s hear it for an automated life.
When it comes to the snooze button (which, have you noticed, is ginormous on the most updated iPhone OS?), here is my philosophy, at least with my own snooze button activity: The point is not so much to get more sleep; the point is to have an awareness that I am getting more sleep. I think that fundamentally, humans want to actively know that they are receiving or experiencing a benefit. Is being granted a bit of extra sleep without being alerted to it the same as actively choosing to get that extra time? I don’t think so. (Stay tuned for my exhilarating dispatches on my philosophy of laundry.)
The Brick came up in conversation with friends the other night. You know, this thing (?) that is heavily advertised as a way to curtail phone use. (Cue all the Brick ads in our feeds, starting now.) It was relayed that “I have my life back!” was the refrain from a person in his 20s who used a Brick. (Wow?)