Friday, March 1, 2024

NYT Word Games: In which I violate the "Teri's Hair" Rule

Back in the mid-90s, there was a Superman TV show that ran for several seasons called Lois & Clark. It starred Dean Cain as Clark Kent and Teri Hatcher as Lois Lane. I've always been a (moderate) Superman fan, so I was immediately in on this show. In fact, I got a little obsessed with it. 

Looking for similarly obsessed fans, I joined a "listserv" --cutting edge at the time, antique now--where you could send an email to one email address and it would be automatically distributed to everyone on the list. The listserv for Lois & Clark was a bunch of total nerds-- as you would expect with a group of people who cared enough to find it a decade before social media was even an idea-- but they were funny and sometimes smart and I loved it. 

Anyway. This is a long story to tell you something that is not even slightly related to today's topic, but I'm in this far so I will finish. Teri Hatcher had the same hairstyle for --oh, the details are hazy, but let's say the first season. At some point, she decided to change it, and you would have thought the world was ending. There were endless outraged emails with the subject line "Teri's hair," and some of them were paragraphs long. Many paragraphs. It went on for weeks, and then would periodically revive whenever her hair changed.

It got to the point that a contingent of us absolutely refused to read any post that had "Teri's hair" in the subject line, because it's just stupid hair, and she can wear it however she wants, for god's sake. Sometimes I would be itching to make some brilliant, witty comment about her latest hairstyle, but I refused, on principle, because no way was I going to fan the flames of what was essentially a boring topic.

And that is the same reason I have so far resisted talking about my obsession with the New York Times word games. I know there are people who post their results daily, and some of them are friends of mine, and I might in my most secret heart of hearts think they're being a little over-the-top, but I bow before their right to post whatever the heck they want on social media (because everyone else sure does). 

But I was determined to not be that person myself. Then I arrived at today, and I don't really have anything to tell you this week, besides the (unremarkable) announcement that we are about to leave on a 3-week road trip, and I don't know if that means I will be posting more or less. 

So here we are. My starter drug was the Spelling Bee. If you are uninitiated, the New York Times has a games app where they post daily puzzles, including their famous crosswords, a variety of other word games, and a handful of non-word games like Sudoku. There are a couple that are free or have free versions, but I am obsessed enough that I pay for the subscription. (You can also buy "packs" of puzzles without subscribing.)

I found out about the Spelling Bee when I followed Ben Dreyer on then-Twitter, after reading Dreyer's English, a book expressly designed to make word nerds happy. He would occasionally post cryptic messages about a word game he was playing, and based on the enthusiastic responses, it seemed he was not alone. He didn't ever mention the name of the game, but he always included a bee emoji-- enough clues to google "bee word game" and find it. 

So that's how I started. The Spelling Bee is run by a kid named Sam--I think he was 25 or 26 at the time--who is just a year or two older than my kid named Sam, so even though there were occasional word choices or exclusions that made me roll my eyes (like the day the pangram was "anklebone")(really?), I mostly thought that its quirkiness made it more interesting and lovable. 

Then the shutdown happened, and a bunch of hyper-competitive people were home with nothing to do, and suddenly our weird little #nytsb community got cutthroat. I quit following the discussion, but I still play the game. Every single day. And also Wordle and the Mini Crossword.

My limitation with the NYT word games is the amount of time I'm willing to spend on them. It usually takes me less than 10 minutes to do the Mini, Wordle, and make a start on the Bee. I might do the big crossword on Monday or Tuesday, but around Wednesday or Thursday (they get harder as the week goes by), they get hard enough that I run out of patience and/or time. I'm not great at it-- there are people who can solve a Friday puzzle in 10 minutes, and it takes me 30-50 minutes or more. It's not that I can't do them (she doth protest), I just don't care enough to spend 45 minutes a day on them. Unless I'm bored. Or traveling.

For the record, I quit doing Connections, because I would only get it 3 or 4 times a week and it made me feel stupid. (You can put on my gravestone that DISH is a category, not an item like PLATE or CUP. Thank you.) Same with Letterbox. 

So that's my routine. It's often the very first thing I do when I pick up my phone in the morning. I usually only play the Bee until I get to the Amazing level-- really, it isn't all that amazing since it's only half of the available words for the day-- but most days I don't have enough patience to push through to Genius (although I've been getting it more often lately because Doug has started helping). Kinda weird, right? I'm obsessed enough to do it every single day, but not obsessive enough to push through to the end.

And even Genius isn't the absolute end. It's the end they tell you about, but there is another level called Queen Bee that you don't know about unless you suddenly hit it (has only happened to me once). Queen Bee means you've found all the possible words for the day. For those hyper-competitive folks, once they know about it, they're not going to stop until they hit Queen Bee every single day. 

If you ask me, that must require cheating, because there are weird words or variant spellings that make it on the list, and unless you know about them, they're not exactly going to occur to you as possibilities. For example: when the letters are there, MAMA, MAMMA, and MOMMA are all accepted. And there are all kinds of ways to get hints or cheat-- just google "Spelling Bee hints," or even the NYT publishes a daily column with clues and spoilers.

My other favorite game, Wordle, was started by a software engineer as a birthday present for his girlfriend. In a matter of weeks it had exploded to several hundred thousand users. NYT bought it a couple of years ago. My Wordle strategey-- and all of us who do it every day have one-- is that I use a different word every day, and I try to use up consonants. 

You have six guesses to get a five-letter word. Apparently what most people do is try to use up vowels, so they start with a word like ADIEU. If you're using up consonants, usually by the 4th or 5th guess you're doing a word scramble with four or five letters instead of trying to guess what _A_E_ is.

It takes more guesses-- usually four and five, and the only way I'm going to get it in two is if I start with a totally lucky guess--but it's much more reliable than the vowel method. I think. People have done studies of this stuff, so probably someone knows. My streak was over 300 last fall when I got stuck early in the day and forgot to go back and finish. I was OK with it because I had been thinking about purposely breaking my streak anyway since we were about to go on a vacation and I didn't want to feel pressured to do it if I wasn't in the mood. 

Good grief, I am even boring myself. Are you still reading? I guess you must be if you read that.

Anyway. My streaks have been much shorter since then so it's not working as well as it used to, but it's good enough for me. If you really love Wordle, you can try out all the non-NYT variants (easy to find if you google), including Duotrigordle, a super fun version where you are solving for 32 words at once. I did it for awhile but eventually I quit because it takes so much longer.

Enough. Like I said, we are about to leave on a 3-week road trip, and sometimes traveling makes me want to post more often, and sometimes I forget all about having a blog and don't post at all. Have a great weekend, and I'll be back in 3-4 weeks or maybe sooner. 

Friday, February 23, 2024

(Arriving in and then) Leaving Las Vegas

Vegas is the perfect place to go for a winter weekend getaway from Northwest Montana. Of course there are hundreds of other warm, lovely places that you can visit to get away from winter, but most of them require more than one flight, and also we wouldn't want to leave after only two days. 

But Vegas? It's a non-stop flight, and even better--it's only fun for about 48 hours and then you're done. You walk around shaking your head at all the crazy things people do when they have more money than sense (sometimes with just a smidge of envy and admiration) and then you're ready to get out of there. It's the ideal weekend break.

AND..... OH MY..... for Christmas our kids bought us tickets to see U2 at the Sphere. Yup. 

U2 at the Sphere!!!!!!

Our son-in-law knows a guy who knows a guy, so they got at least a bit of a discount. I was so afraid it wasn't going to work out (for any one of a dozen reasons--schedule, weather delays, plane going down, etc) that I wouldn't even let myself think about it until we were actually at the airport. 

We've been U2 fans for decades-- Doug is more dedicated than I am, but still they are one of my absolute favorites. Joshua Tree was a formative album for both of us, back when formative albums were a thing. (Are they still? I'm too old to know.) There are a dozen+ of their songs that stop my heart. All the obvious, plus Running to Stand Still, Trying to Throw Your Arms Around the World (best bass line ever), Stay (Faraway, So Close), Stuck in a Moment, Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses. I could go on, but you get the idea.

Our flight down was delayed by two and a half hours, and the on-time departure would have already been past our usual bedtime, so by the time we got there, we were more than half asleep. But our Uber driver knew exactly what he was doing and took us around a back way until he could turn onto the road that has the Sphere dead center and all lit up like an enormous sparkling planet sitting half a mile in front of you and we both gasped. It's definitely spectacular. 

I had scouted around for something to do Friday night since our U2 tickets were for Saturday. If we'd done the Sphere first, anything else would have been a disappointment, but the Motown Revue at the Westgate on Friday was super fun. In an hour and a half of three minute songs, there was maybe one that we couldn't sing along with. Highly recommended, and the venue is very small so the cheap seats are just about as good as the expensive ones. Two thumbs up from us.

Saturday afternoon we took an Uber to the Springs Preserve, which is normally a garden and arboretum with hiking trails and the Nevada State Museum, but on the particular day we were there, there was a Black History Month festival going on, so there was music and special food trucks and lots happening. Very fun. The museum is not large but it is very well done (I confess I was not expecting dinosaurs).

There is also a re-creation of the original 1905 downtown with a bank, general store, hotel, and train depot, and actual small houses that have been moved to the site and restored, one of which you can go in. Well worth an afternoon, and it gets you away from the Strip for a bit. 

And then there was the concert at the Sphere. It was so good. They may be as old as we are, but they can still do their thing. The whole time before they start, the enormous screen in front of you is a boring visual of rows of concrete tiles that you're just staring at waiting for something to happen. Then the band comes out, the opening riff of Zoo Station starts up, and it looks like the vibrations from the sound are crumbling the tiles away and light comes pouring in and it is breathtaking. 

The concert itself was excellent, but there's also the venue, and the Sphere is practically unbelievable. The spherical screen is the size of four football fields, and it's so huge you lose track of size. We were high enough up that the actual band members were about the size of ants, but a good bit of the concert was projected up on the screen at larger than life size, and the images were so clear and sharp that it felt like we were actually watching the live action. They say there's no such thing as a bad seat and I believe it.  

(I tried for about 45 minutes to upload photos so you could see, but for some reason I couldn't get it to work this time, so you'll just have to imagine it.) (No, it's better than that.)

Toward the end, when the Edge locked in on the intro to "Where the Streets Have no Name" after an extended introduction, it was so perfectly perfect that I started crying. I'm sure they are beyond tired of playing those old songs from the 80s but I've never seen them in concert before and I would have been sad if they hadn't played at least a few. They did that one and "With or Without You."

The whole experience was crazy and amazing. We loved it. They didn't have Larry Mullen Jr (who has had neck surgery and is recovering), but the guy that replaced him seemed to fit right in. I don't think they're going to be at the Sphere much longer, but if you get the chance, definitely go. Also I heard Beyoncé is next and I kind of want to go again.

Details for the concert-shy: We haven't been to many big arena concerts like that because they feel too loud and overwhelming to me, but I had ear plugs (believe me, you can still hear just fine), and I did ok. If it had gone on a much longer I might have faded, but I knew so many of the songs, I was relieved I could stay the whole time. Also, I am terribly prone to motion sickness, but the visuals for this concert weren't of the rollercoaster/cliff-diving type, so there was only one song where I ended up shutting my eyes. Overall, very doable for concert wimps like me.

So that was our amazing weekend in Vegas! This weekend will probably be a lot calmer. And also not 70 degrees. *sigh*

Friday, February 16, 2024

getting old, part 17: old lady skin

Last week I reached for something while I was wearing short sleeves and was shocked to realize that I have crepey skin. Maybe it's been there a long time and I just noticed it because I've been wrapped up in cold weather clothes, but whoa--the sight of papery, wrinkly skin on the underside of my arms was kind of a surprise. To put it mildly. Because we all know we are getting older every single day, but then you see crepey skin and are briefly knocked breathless from shock. 

I mean, theoretically I am okay with this. Some of my favorite people from childhood had crepey skin, (though they probably would have died if I'd pointed it out to them). My grandmothers, my great aunt Virginia, various teachers and mentors--I loved those women, even adored some of them. I don't have bad memories associated with wrinkly skin. I don't remember having specific thoughts about it at all, but if I did they probably ran along the lines of huh. that must be how older women's skin looks. Which is exactly right. 

But on the other hand, also: who the hell thought of this? Because it is a really bad idea.

So of course I googled it, because sometimes you really do need information. Apparently the number one cause of crepey skin (which some sites elegantly spell "crépey" which made me laugh because my college French may be rusty, but isn't the french word actually "crêpe"? ) Anyway. The number one cause of elderly-female skin is sun overexposure, which is ridiculous, because the main place I've noticed it is the under side of my arms and I can guarantee you my under arms have never been overexposed to the sun. I mean, how would you even do that? Recline on your chaise lounge with your arms raised up over your head?

Other causes of *cough* that kind of skin -- tobacco use (no), hormonal changes (maybe), dehydration (maybe), excessive weight loss (definitely not), but mostly it's just a symptom of aging. And the main way you counteract it is with moisturizers. Have we talked about moisturizers? Because it is a fraught issue for me. 

Some people have always had very dry skin. My younger sister is one of them. She's had dry skin since she was in her twenties. When I go for a massage, I have to go home and shower off the massage oil because it sits on top of my skin and makes me feel greasy. But if my sister goes for a massage, she tells me her skin soaks that massage oil right up. And if you have that kind of dry skin, you probably know all about the best moisturizers for dry skin because you've been dealing with it for years. The recommendations below are not for you.

But this is new for me. Until I was in my 50s, the only type of moisturizer I could use on my face was oil-free, because otherwise I would break out like a teenager. The one I use now has "SODIUM PEG-7 OLIVE OIL CARBOXYLATE" fairly far down on the ingredients list (I just looked) so maybe this has changed. I do clean it off at night, though, with a microfiber washcloth. 

On the off chance that you are in the same situation as me, here's what's working for me, and please let me know if you have additional ideas. Besides Kiehl's, you will notice that I tend toward drugstore options because there are plenty of things I would rather spend money on than moisturizers. Seriously.

Daytime moisturizer: like everyone else I know, I use Olay Regenerist Micro-sculpting Cream Moisturizer with SPF-30. Great stuff, and not all that expensive compared to the department store options.

Night-time moisturizer: Kiehl's Ultra Facial Oil-Free Moisturizer (I would use this during the day but it makes my face shiny)

Hands: Aveeno Daily Moisturizing Lotion (I have to rinse it off my palms after I apply it, but it works great)

Cleavage (if you don't know why you need cleavage lotion, move along): Kiehl's Creme de Corps

Why the hell do we need so much moisturizer? 

Those are not affiliate links (i.e., I don't make money off them), but for the record, I have no problem with people who use affiliate links, I'm just too lazy/privileged to figure them out for myself.

Have a nice weekend. We are doing something super cool this weekend but I can't quite believe it's going to happen so I'll let you know next week how it turned out.

Friday, February 9, 2024

7ToF: the dang phone

Like everyone, I'm trying to cut back on my phone time these days. So I will tell you some things that are working for me, but as usual, I'm no expert. These are pretty basic things, but sometimes I'm surprised at what people don't know about their phones. Also, all of the steps I describe here are for iphones, apologies about that, but I've never owned an android phone, so I don't know much about them.

1. I don't remember where I heard this but it is not an original thought. The first thing to do is figure out what is most addictive for you about your phone. Social interaction? Games? Keeping up with breaking news? Feeling involved? Passing the time? In other words, what do you get out of it? For me, it's partly a way to pass the time when I'm bored, but mostly I'm addicted to information. Google and iMDB are my downfall. I mean, you can get the answer to anything, and I love that. I can start by trying to remember the name of an actor in the show I'm watching and twenty minutes later I've moved on from the TV show to her co-star in her most recent movie and an interview with the director and before you know it, I've learned all kinds of things that I'm curious about but none of them are things I need to know. And I do that multiple times a day. 

2. Then the next thing is to figure out what you do want to be able to do on your phone. For me, it's usually texting, phone, camera, calculator, reminders, GPS, and weather. (I almost never make phone calls, and my texting is usually under 15 minutes a day, so I don't worry about those. If those are your downfall, your list will be different.) So you go to settings, then Screen Time, and then "Always Allowed," and move all of those things to the Always Allowed section. 

3. Then you go back to Screen Time, and under "Downtime," schedule the hours of the day that you want to restrict your other apps. My downtime is currently set for 9:00pm to 7:00am. (I stay up till 11:30 or 12 most nights, if you go to bed earlier, you may want your downtime to start earlier.) During those hours, the only apps I can easily access are the ones I set to be Always Allowed. You can override your downtime, but so far I've been able to keep that to a minimum-- or at least enough of a minimum that I haven't had to figure out a stricter system. 

You can also set a "Focus," which is a more flexible way of scheduling downtime, but it will take too long to give step-by-step instructions here. If you want to just wing it, choose Focus under Settings and follow the prompts, or google how to set it up. You can turn a Focus on and off on the Control Center (the screen you get when you swipe down from the top right of your home screen).

4. I also have an app called Forest, which you can customize in a lot of ways, but basically it throws up a lock screen for an amount of time you specify--say, 30 minutes. During that 30 minutes, a tree or a shrub grows on the lock screen. If you dismiss the lock screen, you kill the tree. It's surprisingly effective if you just need to keep yourself from using your phone for awhile while you get something done. You can set it to allow phone calls and texts.

5. The thing I am loving the most right now is something I read about back in January when everybody was making New Year's resolutions-- you can turn color off on your phone so you're looking at a black and white screen. This is supposedly less addictive-- the bright colors are part of what keeps your eyes glued to the screen. To turn this on, go to Settings, then Accessibility, then Display & Text, then scroll down to Color Filters, and turn Color Filters on. Grayscale (Black and White) is the default option. But the surprising thing is, after you've been looking at a black & white screen for a couple of hours, when you turn colors back on, they are positively garish. 

6. The next super-cool thing you can do is set this up as a short cut. Start at Settings, then Accessibility, then scroll down and choose Accessibility Shortcut, and choose Color Filters. Then you can use a triple-press of the side button (the one on the right) to go back and forth between colors and black&white. It is great. This is my current favorite phone trick. 

7. I also try to remember the things that make phones great. Like, if I'm sick or I've got a travel day, I destroy my screen time stats because why not use my phone to pass the time when I don't have anything else to do? It's one of the best things about having a phone. I'm not a big fan of the screen time stats, because sometimes I do want to use my phone. I just want to feel more in control.

So those are my ideas. This is obviously a work in progress, because I still spend more time than I'd like on my phone. But it's better. If you have some good hints or tricks or whatever about managing phone use, let me know. And have a great weekend.

Tuesday, February 6, 2024

In which I prove that women in their sixties (well, me, anyway) are absolutely capable of carrying a grudge for 45 years

So here is the conversation that popped full-blown into my head the day after I published last week's post, which was (in part) about the difficulty of being friends with people who have different priorities than I do, namely because I don't want to put much energy into hair, makeup, and fashion, and I am friends with a bunch of women who are stylish and put-together in a way that I probably never will be. 

My internalized mother (who bears a somewhat distorted resemblance to my real-life mother, and who will hereafter be referred to as IM): Well, Barb, if you really care about your friends, you should be willing to put in the little bit of effort it takes to be more stylish when you meet up with them. What's important to them should be important to you.

Me (deflates significantly, because it's not like she and I didn't have a variation of the conversation a million times when I was in high school): But Mom, isn't what I want just as important as what they want? Also, define "a little bit" of effort.

IM, who apparently speaks 90% in clichés: Looking your best is important, dear, especially when you're going out in public. You only get one chance to make a first impression. Why wouldn't you want to put your best foot forward? It shows that you are a competent adult who knows how to present herself in public.

Me: But trying to conform to cultural norms about clothing and beauty is exhausting! And demeaning! And I have other things I want to do! And anyway, why does dressing up always mean being uncomfortable*? 

* Seriously. Putting on comfortable clothes is synonymous with getting home and taking off your fancy clothes. There is no definition of "getting dressed up" that includes "putting on clean jeans, my favorite sweater, and a cute pair of low-cut hiking boots" which is what I want to wear when I go out to meet up with friends. Also "cute hiking boots" would be an oxymoron to my mom. And she could (rightly) point out that people who only go hiking half a dozen times a year don't get to wear hiking boots to a restaurant. Thank God I live in Montana, where hiking boots are acceptable just about everywhere.

Et cetera. You get the idea. Of course my 87-year-old mother would never say any of this to me now that I am 62. Although come to think of it, that might be because she lives 1500 miles away and never sees me when I'm getting dressed to go out. 

You know, typing this brought back a very distinct memory from high school that I probably haven't thought about in twenty (thirty? forty?) years. My senior year, there was an all night "casino" party at the mall after our graduation ceremony. I had picked out my outfit a couple of weeks earlier and I was happy with it-- jeans with blue satin stitching on the pocket, a blue and lavender striped short sleeved cotton top, and sandals (so shoot me, it was the 70s). My mom had no comment until my boyfriend showed up at the door in dark jeans, a black shirt, and a velvet jacket. She marched me back up the stairs and made me change clothes. 

I don't know how to describe the outfit she made me change into, I just remember that it was super uncomfortable and I kept on having to readjust it and pull on it and untwist the top. I can remember arguing with her-- moo-oom, I hate this top! and her hissing at me, you can't wear that other one! you're embarrassing me! I was mad at her for years. Ha. Since it's making me mad to type it out now, I guess I still haven't forgiven her. I'm so mature. 

This was going to be the first half of a longer post but it got so long so I'm done. Also I should probably edit it a bunch more, but in an effort to be less of a perfectionist, I'm just sending it off! Wheee!



Friday, February 2, 2024

I'm just standing in a doorway, I'm just trying to make some sense

I've been thinking quite a bit recently about how difficult it is to truly be supportive of other people's individuality. It's hard even with my friends, let alone with people I barely know or don't know at all. One of the amazing things about human beings is how different we all are, and the older I get, the more I realize how true that is. But our differences aren't just a matter of liking different kinds of music, or whether or not we love horror movies, or we say sneakers or tennis shoes or trainers.

For example-- a simple one, just among my friends-- I'm not a person who puts a high value on fashion, hair, and makeup. It's not that I don't care at all, but I definitely don't care enough to put a lot of time into it. My clothes are clean and in good repair, and they're within the larger boundaries of what is currently in style (was that vague enough?), but most of the time I probably look more like a grad student than a real adult. 

Which is fine with me. The thought of putting more effort into my appearance exhausts me before I've even tried, and honestly, I've never recovered from my 80s feminist thing about fashion and beauty being an enormous waste of time and money meant to distract women from accomplishing more important things.

But I have friends who dress well and care about their hair and have put some thought into the makeup they wear. They have a definite personal style. It's important to them that they look put together and stylish when they go out. I get that, but I don't do that. In fact, if I'm being honest, I can't do that, because style is not something that I understand or value.

Obviously, I can be supportive (and slightly envious) of my friends who are more into this than I am. They look measurably better than I do when we get together for lunch or whatever. And of course they can be tolerant of my lack of care, because they (I hope) like me and want to get together. 

But there's a fundamental disconnect, too. Because I refuse to put much time into my appearance, I am saying that those things are not important. And because my friends do put a lot of thought and effort into their appearance, I'm de-valuing something that is meaningful to them.

It's kind of a dumb example, but it's the easiest one I could think of to say something that is actually really important to figure out about how to have civil discourse. How do we really, truly honor someone else's values and choices and opinions, when that someone's choices undermine our own choices, or go contrary to something that is important or even dear to us? 

Because obviously we are having this problem in our country right now about a lot of things that are way more important than what we wear to go out to lunch. How does someone with exuberant sexuality express that without making her friend who is more reserved feel like a prude? How does someone who believes that religion is the cause of endless evil in our world support someone whose religion is her deepest, most cherished set of beliefs? I could go on for paragraphs.

It's not easy. Or simple. And I think in order for it to truly be mutual, it takes awareness on both sides. I comprehensively disagree with you but I value you as a human being, and I support your right to make the choices you do-- that understanding has to be coming from both sides. All sides. Maybe our common ground is how strongly we hold our convictions, even if our convictions are very different. 

I don't know. This isn't very well-reasoned, I know, because even though I've been thinking about this quite a bit recently, I don't have any answers. Hmmm. I started to go off on a tangent here, but it's late, and this is probably already long enough. More some other time. Have a good weekend.

Friday, January 26, 2024

Six More Books I loved in 2023

Maame by Jessica George: Maddie is the daughter of Ghanaian immigrants living with and caring for her disabled father in their London home. Her mother has left her to it, sometimes for over a year at a time, so that she can take care of family business back in Ghana. Maame is the story of Maddie learning to stand up for herself and claim the life she wants—as soon as she figures out what it is. It is occasionally hilarious, often heartbreaking.

Family Meal by Bryan WashingtonThis is a tough read. Cam’s partner Kai is killed in a way that is maddening and horrible, but since you don’t find out for a while exactly what happened, I’ll leave it at that. The story of Cam’s spiral into grief and rage and self-destruction is visceral and raw. But once he nadirs out, his trajectory is toward healing— it just takes awhile to get there. Well worth hanging in there. The writing is true, and there is no higher compliment if you ask me. Check for trigger warnings, because there are some difficult moments.

We Could Be So Good by Cat Sebastian: Nick Russo has been a city reporter at a big NYC newspaper for several years when the publisher’s son Andy stumbles into the newsroom looking to gain experience before he has to take over when his father retires. What follows is a sweet and thoughtful story of two men figuring out how to be together in a world where even holding hands in public could land them in jail. Set in the 1950s, We Could be So Good felt as much like a window into the times as a romance, although the romance is beautifully done. Thoroughly enjoyed it.

Seven Days In June by Tia Williams:  Eva Mercy and Shane Hall spent a crazy week together during their senior year in high school. They were both in trouble, but their connection seemed to be a safe harbor in the midst of their individual traumas. The week ended badly, and they haven’t seen each other since. But they both became writers, and the books they write are a sort of conversation across the years. 

When they end up (mostly accidentally) at the same writers’ panel years later, a million emotions bubble up. Across another crazy week, they have to decide if they want to try again. In spite of being white and considerably older, I really identified with Eva/Genevieve, maybe because I also suffer from intermittent chronic migraines (not as debilitating as hers, but bad enough). The ending is excellent, and how often can you say that? (not often enough).

The Bandit Queens by Parini Shroff: Five years ago, Geeta’s husband disappeared without a trace. In the conservative, rural town where she lives in northern India, a woman with no husband or family is a disgrace, and rumors are swirling that she killed him. She’s lonely, but she’s figured out a way to support herself and has resigned herself to her life.

Until one night an acquaintance shows up wanting Geeta’s help with murdering her abusive husband, since Geeta “already knows what to do.” Then she discovers her former best friend might not be as uncaring as she seems. From there, complications multiply. It’s part Thelma and Louise, part My Sister the Serial Killer, part Xena Warrior Princess, occasionally hilarious, occasionally darkly ironic, occasionally black revenge comedy. It’s the kind of thing that’s super hard to do without turning it into either a farce or a bloodbath, but Shroff handles it so skillfullly, it’s hard to believe it’s a debut novel. Loved it.

Witch King by Martha Wells: Kaiisteron, Demon Prince of the Fourth House of the underearth, comes blearily awake to realize he has no idea where he is or what happened to him. His body has been held in stasis for almost a year in an underwater coffin. He has only minutes to figure out how to respond, save an innocent victim, and rescue his friend Ziede. And that’s just the first ten pages. There is some humor, but mostly this is a deeply heartfelt story of Kai and his devoted friends figuring out how to respond to oppression, betrayal, and grief. There is magic, but it is sometimes dark and desperate.

It is also almost too complex. I felt like Kai at the beginning, trying to get my bearings as I was thrown in at the deep end with little help. When I was twenty, I would have had no trouble with it—and I’m pretty sure I would have thought this was the best book I’d ever read (at the time, that dubious honor was held by the Thomas Covenant books). I still loved it but I had to read it twice to really understand what happened. There is a lot going on across two different time lines, and Wells resists the temptation to info dump—which takes far more work on the part of the author. And the reader, for that matter. Highly recommended if you enjoy complex world-building and a loyal band of friends fighting impossible odds. I went back and forth between the ebook version and the audio version, and the narrator is great. Plunge in, because it’s a great story.

Next week I will move on, promise. Other posts in this series:
2023 Reading Roundup

Six Books I Loved in 2023

Friday, January 19, 2024

Six Books I Loved in 2023

These are not in any particular order. There aren't many surprises, I think I just loved what everyone loved.

The Light Pirate by Lily Brooks-Dalton: Some climate dystopias strike me more as an exercise in paranoia than as realistic. But this one is so entirely plausible and believable— especially in the first half— that I occasionally had to remind myself when I wasn’t reading that the events hadn’t actually happened. It’s mesmerizing, and the characters felt real and like people I know. It’s deeply disturbing, and yet there are threads of hope throughout in the form of people who learn and grow and adapt. There’s also a bit of magical realism, but not enough to pull it into the realm of fantasy. 

The Mutual Friend by Carter Bays: A group of interconnected people in NYC come and go, crisscross and connect and don't, come into focus and fade away. It's brilliant and I loved it. I don't know that I can do a better job of describing it than the blurb does, but I will say that it builds slowly--not boringly, but slowly-- for the first half or so, and then all that careful character building begins to pay off. There are also a bunch of literary allusions for the lit nerds among us but you don't need to know anything about them to love this. 

Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club by J Ryan Stradal:  Stradal's newest novel tells the story of several generations of women whose lives become intertwined with a local restaurant in Northern Minnesota. Betty leaves an abusive home situation and takes her daughter Florence on the road from one precarious situation to another, until she runs into Floyd, who owns the titular supper club. Florence grows up to become a human wrecking ball, creating havoc in one life after another in her desperate search for security. Her daughter Mariel grows up and falls in love with the heir of an enormous chain of restaurants that seems to exist to put supper clubs out of business. I was enthralled. It trails off a bit at the end, but I loved it.

The Last Ranger by Peter Heller:  Ren Hopper is a ranger in Yellowstone National Park. He lives alone in a cabin, a few yards away from another cabin where wildlife biologist Hilly lives. Shortly after the book opens, he finds Hilly near death, almost certainly due to the actions of a particular poacher. Ren is recovering from the death or loss of almost everyone he loves, so parts of this book are deeply sad. There is a bit of suspense as Ren tries to figure out exactly what happened and who is to blame, but mostly this is just the story of Ren, trying to figure out how to make it through the day, and then the next. Another one that falls off a bit toward the end, but I loved this book.

Shark Heart: A Love Story by Emily Habeck: George and Wren met almost by accident, but they are immediately attracted to one another. Not long after they marry, George begins to exhibit strange symptoms. They discover that he has a rare disorder that will result in his mutation into a great white shark. The premise is so bizarre that if Shark Heart hadn't come so highly recommended, I would never have believed it could work.

But it does, and it is a story of rare beauty and courage. It's hard not to compare it to Franz Kafka's 1915 novella Metamorphosis, about a young man who wakes up to find out he's turned into a giant insect. But in spite of all the parallels, the resulting story is entirely different. Kafka's story is famous for its bizarre depiction of alienation and despair, but while Habeck ignores none of the pain and suffering of George's transformation, she turns George and Wren's story into one of beauty, courage, and hope.

Tom Lake by Ann Patchett: Lara is in her late fifties and her three adult daughters have come home to spend lockdown at the family cherry farm in northern Michigan. The first half is practically an empty nester fantasy- all your kids are home, getting along, working together, and hanging on your every word as you tell the story of the summer you spent having an affair with a man who would become the world’s most recognizable star. But summer flings (and cherry harvest season) eventually come to an end, and not always gracefully— the ending of that long ago summer comes back into focus and things turn a little dark. The final reveals are sad and somewhat difficult to read, but it's beautifully done-- a tour de force by an author at the top of her game. I liked it better than The Dutch House, but I think I'm in the minority there.

Entirely by accident, I read these last two books (Shark Heart and Tom Lake) immediately after one another. Both books have characters who are deeply involved in a production of Thornton Wilder's classic play Our Town, which was first performed in 1938. I've never seen it, but I ordered a copy of it after reading these two novels and it is great (of course) and makes a thought-provoking reading experience together with the two novels. Made me wish I was still teaching so we could discuss.

Six more next week. Let me know if you have any recommendations!

Friday, January 12, 2024

2023 reading round-up part one

This is the first of three posts on what I read in 2023 (I know. But reading is my thing, so apologies in advance, because three posts is probably two (three?) more than you want.) This one is about what I read, then the next two will actually list the books. I'm going to try doing the lists this year with a shortened version of the reviews I posted on Goodreads, which makes for a longer post, which is why I split it in two. 

I am all in favor of everyone reading whatever the heck they want, so I have zero intent to change your mind about what to read. But if you know how our tastes compare, then you can figure out if a book I like might be a book you will like. So, with that in mind:

What works for me: character-driven novels as long as something is happening; plot-driven novels as long as the characters are well-developed and memorable. It's not easy to make me laugh while reading, so when an author can do that, I love it. I often enjoy books that have a mystery element, but I'm only good for a handful of actual "mysteries" a year. I love some books that leave me in tears, but not many. And I especially love a book that surprises me with how good it is, which is not much help in figuring out my taste, I know. I love smart characters, competent characters, or on the other hand, characters that start out in a bad place but then learn and grow.

What doesn't work for me: horror, suspense, or anything that's going to interfere with my sleep. My main time to read is right before bed, so I don't want to read anything that's going to keep me up with dread, anxiety, or scary-ness. (That said, for my entire life I've stayed up too late on countless nights reading books I couldn't put down. I just don't want it to be because they are scary or horrifying.) I don't mind if Everything Is Awful at various different points in a story, but I don't like books whose main message is that Everything Is Awful, even if the writing is gorgeous. I do not like books that other readers describe as leaving them wrecked, sobbing on the floor with my soul torn in two. I'm just too old for that.

I was an English major in college, and I loved it. Then I went straight from undergrad into grad school to get a Master's in English, but I bailed, because I was so burned out on school. I hated grad school the first time I tried. But unlike people who get tired of reading when they have to study it in school, reading was never the problem. It was school that was the problem, not reading. I have gone through periods where I was uninterested in reading certain types of books, but I don't think I've had a day that I didn't read since I was in about second grade. 

Then I went back to grad school when I was 49 and that time, I finished and got my Master's. I wrote about a bazillion posts about that while it was happening so I'll skip over that. Unfortunately, the second time ruined me for bad writing. I used to be able to read anything. Now it has to have a certain level of good writing or I can't get through it. I know I'm supposed to be a snob about that (and I am), but I also regret it. It's much harder to find books that I love now.

The other thing grad school did for me is use up whatever patience I once had for existentialism. It's been the gold standard of academic posturing for the past sixty years and I have no use for it. If you're sincere about it, it'll make you suicidal, and if you're not sincere about it, it's just a pose. No thank you. Human existence is inherently meaningful, and inherently worth experiencing. You don't need to believe in God to believe that. So there.

Whoa. Where did that soap box come from? So anyway. If you're out of patience with existentialism, that eliminates upwards of half of "serious" literary fiction from the past couple of decades, so I've been on the wrong side of intelligent opinions for awhile now. Which makes me kind of defiantly determined to read whatever the fuck I want, you know? So I read romance novels, science fiction, memoir, and all kinds of literary fiction, and if you tell me that we need a "women's fiction" category because it's not as intellectually sophisticated as so-called literary fiction, you and I have nothing in common, go away. And lucky for me, I'm not the only one who is getting tired of existentialism, so there's a lot more good literary fiction out there than there used to be. (Good as defined by me, that is.)

As I've said before, I keep track of my reading on Goodreads (click here). According to them, I read 98 books this year, but they count books that I shelve as "skimmed," which I don't, so really I read 86 books this year, a good amount. I'm happy with it. Mainly fiction, maybe a dozen non-fiction. The non-fiction was mostly memoir except for Sharon Salzberg's book Faith, which is excellent, even though it didn't make the top-twelve list I'll get to next time I post. 

Sorry about all the grumpy opinions today. I feel like I didn't cover everything I meant to, but it's 11pm on Thursday night and I don't want to miss posting on Friday the very first week after I said I was going to start, so that is all. It's well below zero here right now (possible explanation for the grumpiness), I hope you are warm and have a stack of good books, wherever you are. 

Post from the past:  Last year's reading wrap-up

Friday, January 5, 2024

thoughts on blogging in 2024

I wrote this last spring when I was waffling about whether or not to keep posting here. Then over the summer, I decided I was done. But I miss it. I always do, and so one of my new year's changes is to start posting again. Probably not often. I'm aiming for once a week, on Fridays.

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When I started blogging a million years ago (2003), the online world was not the center of popular culture the way it is now. Those of us who set up personal blogs early on were just a bunch of nerds having fun. Social media didn't even exist. 

It never occurred to me that by keeping a blog, people would think I was setting myself up as an expert or (god forbid) an influencer. I mean, why would I? I'm barely passable in any area where influencers excel (fashion, makeup, home decor, cooking). Other than reading a lot and thinking too much, I have few talents.

It was months after I wrote the "Makeup and Me" post back in 2015 that I figured out that some people thought I meant to give advice about makeup. It was so absurd, I was speechless-- who in the world would take advice from me about makeup? I wear as little as I can get away with. I thought I was making fun of myself, and also I thought more of my readers would be smiling along with me (which turned out not to be the case)(more about that another time).

In my mind, this blog has been about providing sometimes-snarky, sometimes-heartfelt commentary from the cheap seats, so to speak. But that doesn't seem to be possible anymore. I don't know. I'm trying to figure this out as I type. 

Based on the feedback I've been getting recently, if you express an opinion in a blog or a substack or on social media, people assume you are setting yourself up as someone who wants to be an example, listened to, noticed. Apparently it doesn't have to do with intent, it's just the way social media works these days. It feels like people are either looking for someone to follow, or someone to tear down. There doesn't seem to be any room for wiseass, hey-what-about-this-interesting-thing commentary.

Of course at various times I've hoped that by posting here, I would find like-minded people, especially years ago when I was writing intensively about recovering from evangelicalism. Or maybe I could find other people who enjoy complex, non-nihilistic literary fiction but have a soft spot for genre fiction with smart, competent female characters.

(ok maybe that's a good example-- I type that thinking I'm poking fun at my absurd zenn diagram of reading tastes, but maybe it comes across as me thinking that is an admirable goal for all readers. I don't know.) 

I do post my opinions about books I've read and movies I've seen, and of course I'd love it if you agree with me, but I'm not expecting it. Maybe even when we disagree, my opinions will help you figure out what you like. It's like listening to my favorite book podcast. By my estimate, Anne and I have about a 60% overlap of books we like, and of those, there's maybe a 30% overlap on books we love. The rest we'd probably disagree on. But I can listen to her and usually figure out whether or not I'll like something she's recommending because I've been listening long enough that I have a pretty good idea of how our tastes compare. 

I've also written posts that I thought might give you a different way to think about things, or even change your mind, but I never thought anyone would actually listen to me. It's like the way I give advice to my kids-- I can't stop myself from doing it, but most of the time they ignore me (as they should, they're 33 and 26). I post almost entirely for selfish reasons. I like writing. I like the way it clears my head. I like the way it forces me to figure out what I think. And writing for a blog forces me to think harder than scrawling in a journal (although sometimes I do that, too).

After all, if I truly meant to set myself up as an influencer, I would do some self-promotion-- and I have not. I have posted a link to this blog on social media exactly twice in the past dozen or more years. Three times if you count the time I posted it to a private group on FB. The link is in my profile on all of my social media accounts, but that requires someone clicking on my profile, first of all, and then being curious enough to click on the link. I'm hardly forcing anyone to read it. 

Obviously the criticism I've received struck a chord, probably far deeper than people intended. (In fact, it was only said to my face twice--once explicitly, once implied. And then there are frequent comments online in general terms that are unrelated to me, but which I neurotically take personally. My response is, uh, clearly way out of proportion.) "I like doing it" is pretty much the only reason I have to keep going, and theoretically, that's the only reason that matters. But in reality, it's hard to keep going when people are telling you that by continuing on, you're suffering from delusions of grandeur. And yet here I am.