2024 year-end reading roundup

The last few months have not been a good time for me, reading-wise. I was scrolling through my Goodreads reviews yesterday and realized that some of the books that I was thinking were my 2024 favorites were actually books that I read in 2023. I think my lack of enthusiasm says more about me and my state of mind than anything else. Hoping for better reading in 2025.

But if you made me do a 2024 top ten list (I know, you didn't), here it is. They are loosely in order of how much I still think about them-- order of impact? And probably only the first three or four would have made my 2023 list (she says grumpily).

Lit by Mary Karr
The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X
All My Knotted Up Life by Beth Moore
Saga, Vol. 1 by Brian Vaughan and Fiona Staples
Americanah by Chimamanda Adichie
The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride
The Kingdom, The Power, and the Glory by Tim Alberta
Trust by Hernan Diaz
Good Material by Dolly Alderton
Goodbye, Vitamin by Rachel Khong

Also there were two books I liked-but-didn't-love when I read them, but I think about them more often than some books I rated more highly: Stories of Your Life by Ted Chiang, and Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters.

And some genre fiction, for fun: The Goblin Emperor, The Magician's Daughter, A Memory Called Empire, Ten Things that Never Happened.

Here are a few reviews (edited for length) that I wrote in the last couple of months. I did quarterly reading roundups this year here, here, here, and #5 and #6 in this one, so I've already done this for earlier books. 

The Book of Love by Kelly Link:  Three teenagers emerge from a nightmare that went on for months to find that they had died under mysterious circumstances and had been held in some kind of limbo ruled by a man named Bogomil. Their music teacher Mr Anabin recreates their previous bodies and gives them a week to figure out what happened. I've read and loved many of Link’s short stories so I knew what to expect in terms of style, and the writing is frequently excellent. But this is Link’s first novel and I kept wondering why her editors didn’t provide more help. Somewhere in this 630-page doorstop is a stellar 450-page novel. When it’s good, it’s really good, but unfortunately it is often tedious.

By Any Other Name by Jodi Picoult: I’ve had two semesters of college-level Shakespeare, which is far from making me an expert, I know. Both Shakespeare professors I had acknowledged the difficulties surrounding the authorship of the plays, but believed that the various theories didn’t explain the facts any better than just accepting that Shakespeare wrote the plays.  ... But the main thing I wanted to say is that in those Shakespeare classes, we spent maybe half of one class period talking about this, acknowledged that there was very little evidence to prove anything, and then MOVED ON. The class was about the plays, not about the authorship. When someone gets obsessed about who wrote the plays, I have to think it says more about them and what they need to believe than it does anything real about Shakespeare or literature in renaissance England. Picoult's version makes an interesting story, but is it what actually happened? Who knows?

Love You a Latke by Amanda Elliott: I have mixed feelings about this book. What worked really, really well is the story of a woman who reconnects with her people and her heritage after giving them up several years before to escape her awful parents. What also works well is the exploration of how difficult it is to be Jewish in a Christmas-obsessed world. And it was fun to read a grumpy-sunshine romance where the woman is the grump.

But what didn’t work so well was everything else. The mystifying way Abby lectures Seth about his problems with confrontation even as she is failing to confront any number of issues of her own. The way she is suddenly best friends with Seth’s ex after two conversations. Not to mention the way she totally throws him under the bus to said ex. The way she runs out of the room when she finally sees her parents again and then has Seth go back to confront them. (Wtf?) Things just quit making sense after awhile.

Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt: You know from the start that everything is going to turn out ok for the lonely, lovable people in this novel— it just has that kind of vibe. And normally I love that. But the number of coincidences and deus ex machina moments that occur to pull everything together are a bit much. Still, it was fun. And how am I going to resist a book that has an octopus narrator? 

The Searcher by Tana French:  French is always a good writer so I was really looking forward to this. I was surprised that such a meticulous writer created such obviously stereotyped characters— the jaded retired police officer, the strong country woman who takes no prisoners, the neglected kid who just needs a mentor, the gossipy storekeeper, the quirky next door neighbor. But although it takes awhile—quite a while— French does eventually make the characters her own. Good book.

A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine:  Mahit lives on an independent space station that is home to about thirty thousand people. The station exists on the edge of a sprawling multi-system empire and only tenuously maintains its independence. Mahit has been through extensive language and cultural training so she can become a liaison to the empire, but still it is a surprise when the empire suddenly demands a new ambassador. Mahit is chosen, and is given a neurological implant that contains the memories of Yskander, the previous ambassador, harvested fifteen years before-- the last time he was home from his post. Her assignment is to figure out what happened to him, and above all else, to maintain the independence of her home station. The whole thing is fascinating. It was considerably more political than I usually enjoy, but still, this was a great read. Highly recommended to any science fiction fan.

Happy reading in 2025 and to all a good night.

MoM: Migraines on Monday

I'm starting a series called "Migraines on Monday" to corral the migraine talk in one place so you can find it if you're interested and skip it if you're not. Also, apologies for disappearing for so long-- the first week I missed I knew I would because I was hosting our family Thanksgiving, then the next week I was down with a nasty virus left behind by my adorable, much loved granddaughter that included pink eye and three days of not getting out of bed. 

Last week I felt a bit better-- still not 100% -- but I was involved in other things that I will save for another time since I promised this would only be about migraines. And being sick is about migraines, of course, because if you're migraine-prone, any time you get a head cold, you get migraines. So much fun. 

But the main thing I wanted to report on is the food trigger issue that I've been trying to sort out for the past several months. I already knew I had one trigger (wine), but I’ve never been able to identify any other foods/beverages that were for-sure migraine triggers. 

As I told you in this post, I've been avoiding common migraine trigger foods: citrus, nuts, onions, raspberries, gluten, chocolate, most sugar, all alcohol. I already don't drink milk, but that's not migraine-related, even as a child, I never liked the taste/texture. So the only dairy products I needed to avoid were yogurt and cheese. 

Honestly, I couldn't tell any difference. As a monthly average, I had the same number of migraines during the past four months that I had over the past four years (since I had covid in Nov 2020, which is when my frequency went way up). So three weeks ago, with Thanksgiving and Christmas foods everywhere abounding, I stopped worrying about it. I had a bad stretch recently, but on average, the numbers were still the same. 

And do you know when that bad stretch ended? After a week and a half of eating anything and everything for Thanksgiving and some Christmas events. I am just not convinced that my migraines have anything to do with food. Even two foods that I had previously wondered about I've eaten recently with no problem (parmesan cheese, a common trigger, and masa, since I had the worst migraine of the past couple of years after eating tamales the night before).

So, probably not any food triggers for me. But I have refined my list of things that do seem to be triggers. Here you go: wine, stress, motion sickness/flying, smoke, barometric pressure changes, and any illness/allergy that gets up into my sinuses. 

You know what has seemed to help over the past few weeks? Meditation, but not zen-type meditation, it's my own version of it-- which I think I will save for another time. 

One more thing: the book I referred to in the first of the recent migraine posts was an entire fairly strict system that you were supposed to follow 100%. I did learn some things (as detailed in that post), but his system ultimately didn't work for me. 

I've recently been reading a book that is the opposite-- it's written by a neurologist, but instead of having a strictly-defined program, he tells you everything he's ever heard of that has helped his patients, with an explanation of why it might work and a rating of how likely it is to work. It's called  The End of Migraines by Alexander Mauskop, M.D. It's exactly the opposite approach, and since headaches are so highly individual, it's an approach that makes sense to me. If I learn anything especially effective, I'll report back.

I had my six-month check-in with my neurologist this past Thursday, and even though my average monthly number of headaches has been unchanged, he wants me to stay on Ajovy, a monthly injection that I've been getting since the beginning of the year. Even though it hasn't reduced my frequency, I haven't had a really bad, stay-in-bed all day migraine since I started on it. My migraine meds have me up and about again in 1-2 hours (maxalt and half a percocet, and before you freak out about me taking percocet, read this post), which is a lot better than some migraineurs have, so I am grateful for that. 

That's all. Ha. I thought this was going to be a quick check-in. I am incapable of quick.

Letter to an Evangelical with Questions, part 1

Dear Friend, 

Many years ago, when I was a questioning evangelical myself, I spent a lot of time online looking for people who were going through the same search I was-- to no avail. I don't think that's true any more. Now there are many sources for intelligent, open-ended conversations about faith and religion. But out of some sort of kinship I still feel with my younger self, I'm going to try to write the post I would have wanted to read at that age. Maybe I still need to read it sometimes.

The first thing to say is that if you are an Evangelical who is not questioning, and you've found a vibrant church where you can learn and grow and the people around you are learning and growing, and the conversation is about grace and not judgment, and the teaching is about following Jesus and not earthly politicians-- if you've found a church like that and you're happy, then you don't need this. Evangelicalism wasn't working for me, and in the 40 years since I left it, I've never had any desire to return. But it does work for many-- there wouldn't be millions of Evangelicals if it didn't. Stay faithful and be curious and non-judgmental and don't be afraid to ask questions, but you don't necessarily need to leave. 

(If you're not an Evangelical and you're just reading this out of curiosity, you may think that Evangelicals like that don't exist, because the news is often dominated by extremists--but they're out there, and they're doing good things in the world, and they are as frustrated with the extremists as you are. Maybe more so, because they're being mis-represented every day.)

But if, like me, you can no longer bear the judgmentalism, the biased, circular reading of scripture, the near-idolatry of desiring earthly power and influence, and the closed-minded insistence on things that are patently untrue (six day creation? really?), then the next thing to say is be careful who you confide in. You don't need to tell everyone, or speak up in meetings, or bare your heart (and your mind) to your pastor-- not until you're ready, which is probably not yet. 

Start paying attention and observing how your church functions and how you function within your church. Watch and learn. How does your church handle people with questions? Are you encouraged to use the mind God gave you? God is big enough and strong enough to survive your questions (and has heard it all before), but often other believers are not that strong. If you do decide to confront someone who is a traditional believer, go into it with the goal of learning, not changing their mind, because it probably won't happen.

Leaving behind a deeply held religious faith-- especially if it is the faith of your family, the faith of your childhood-- is a lonely business, and I was not expecting that. My path had plenty of moments of muddled confusion, but overall, it was so clear to me that I could not continue as an Evangelical that it has always surprised me, sometimes even stunned me, that other Evangelicals I know and love haven't been on a similar journey. My mom and both of my siblings are still deeply Evangelical, as was my dad until his death. I'm fortunate that they still love and accept me and my weird beliefs, because not all "ex-vangelicals" are so lucky. Don't burn any bridges you don't need to (and sadly, you may need to. But don't do it carelessly). That's not being cowardly or weak, it's being loving and smart. 

I could have some stronger things to say about church leaders, but if you're a layperson as I am, the whole thing hinges on how you read Scripture. Evangelicals are insistent that the Bible is the "inerrant" (without error) Word of God, as relevant today as it was when it was written. They will you tell you that they believe whole-heartedly that every word of the Bible is factually true. But there are some inconsistencies in their story, and if you start watching carefully, you begin to realize that they tend to land on certain verses more than others, and those verses tend to be the ones that reinforce their biases. 

For example, 1 Timothy 2:12 (I do not suffer a woman to teach a man) is a single verse that has been used as the basis for an entire theology of women's roles in the church, ignoring the examples of women named in the text who were leaders and teachers in the early church. Not to mention Galatians 3:28 (In Christ there is no male or female). You don't have to see that as a contradiction in order to realize that the situation might be a little more complex than the traditionalists want you to believe. 

Be wary of anyone who is going to give you a verse to prove a point-- because this is a situation that Jesus runs into again and again, and he never falls for it. A Pharisee or a church leader would come up to him with a quotation or a bit of Jewish law (from what we call the Old Testament), and they weren't wrong. They could quote the "verse" (although it wouldn't have been called a verse at that time). But Jesus refused to be trapped into a cramped, limited interpretation of scripture. Even the Tempter himself used scripture to try and trap him. Just the fact that someone can quote a verse doesn't mean they're right. 

Oh, it's like opening the proverbial can of worms. Any Evangelical apologist worth their salt can argue about that argument. And that's another good reason not to confront someone you know will not agree-- because they're going to want to prove that you're capital-W Wrong, and that's an argument you're unlikely to win. I'm not an expert, and I can't hand you a winning argument. But I don't need to be an expert, or prove anything to anyone else. All I needed to do was realize that I was no longer going to be trapped into beliefs that were bounded by dry, lifeless interpretations of scripture, interpretations that were intended to put me in my place and keep me there, not allow me to bloom and grow.

.... and it's after midnight. That's why this is part one. More soon.

I don't seem to be able to stop updating you about migraines, and also a few other things

Apologies for disappearing last week. It is true that I was not happy about the election outcome (more about that in a minute), but that wasn't why I didn't post. I had an unusually busy week, and I just didn't have time to write something without staying up way past midnight-- which I'm trying to do less often these days. Partly because I'm old and I can't stay up that late anymore, but also partly because keeping regular hours, including having my morning caffeine at more-or-less the same time every day, might be a way to manage my headaches. 

A couple of months ago, I told you that I was learning about rebound headaches (here and here)-- the headaches you get when you take too many medications. They are also known as "medication overuse" headaches. The only way to stop them is to stop taking meds. As expected, that turned out to be a disaster in the short term-- I spent several weeks feeling miserable. 

But it has been a good thing in the long term. I didn't realize how often I was taking over-the-counter medications like Advil, Excedrin Migraine, Tylenol, and aspirin until I stopped doing it. I'd wake up with a headache and take an advil and two excedrin migraine. Three or four hours later, I might take more tylenol. Mid-afternoon, I'd take two or three advil. Somewhere in mid-August, I stopped all of that. I take prescription migraine meds if my pain level gets up over 7 or so, but other than that, I don't take anything. 

It's the opposite of what I used to do. I used to go through all kinds of mental games and med-taking "strategies" to put off taking my prescription meds. Try this combo, try three more of that, maybe if I take two aleve before bed, maybe if I take advil every six hours so it never wears off. I would get a few hours of relief, but I was still having way too many headaches. 

Now I do the opposite. When I have a migraine (which I define as a headache that gets up to 7 on a 1-10 pain scale), I take my prescription meds. Otherwise, I don't take anything. The good news is that even though it took 6-8 weeks, now when I don't have a migraine, I feel much better, and the low-level headache that I had pretty much all the time has stopped. I hardly ever take over-the-counter pain killers anymore. So that was definitely worthwhile.

But I'm still having migraines. I just feel better in between. So I don't know what to tell you. I'm still figuring this out and probably will be for awhile. I've been pretty consistent with the food things I was avoiding before, but so far that hasn't seemed to make a difference. In the grand scheme of things, two and a half months isn't that long, so it's probably too soon to say. 

I even bore myself when I type these, so I've decided if I want to talk about migraines more in the future, I'm starting a series called "Migraines on Monday" (love a good alliteration). That way they will be easy to find if you're interested, and easy to skip if you're not.

So about the election. There is a lot of triumph and even jubilation in the air around here. But I think all they've proved so far is that they were able to convince 75 million people that electing Trump would make their lives better. Now they've got to actually do it. I have no patience with the people who think that winning the election was the end game. It's not a game, it's our country.

Anyway. If I avoid the news, I can hope it won't make much difference in my everyday life, and I can keep reading too much for escape. For me the key seems to be to narrow down my focus to the situations and people that are right here in front of me. 

And really, that's all we can ever do. We don't know what's going to happen, but some of what happens might be good, maybe even amazing. A very petty part of me wants him to fail so I can say I told you so, but my better self would be so happy if he proves me wrong. It would be better for everyone if he steps up and does a good job. And anyway, as important as the President is, he is not everything. There is room for making a difference. ..... That's what I keep telling myself. 

That's probably more than you wanted from me. Have a good weekend. We're off to Houston of all places, for the wedding of one of my nieces, but it's only a 4-day trip. I just remembered I have a good Houston story from twenty years ago but it will have to wait till another time because our plane leaves at 6am and it's already late.

we interrupt our scheduled programming to bring you another mad, mad, mad post (but first of all, migraines again)

In the several posts about migraines that I've subjected you to recently, I don't know that I've really talked about motion sickness and migraines. The short version is that pretty much every time I fly, I get a migraine, and usually the next day, too. I got home from visiting my mom on Tuesday, and two days later I'm still feeling miserable. Ugh. Fingers crossed for better head health tomorrow. 

The combination of feeling like crap more than 48 hours after my plane landed back at home, combined with the after-effects of a visit to the southern states seems to have reawakened my inner shrew because I have been playing very loud music (a sure sign of anger for me) and slamming around the house all afternoon --which is, of course, great for getting laundry done and finishing my unpacking and cleaning the sinks. 

I’m getting off track here, that is not what this post was going to be about. Actually, what it should be about is an entire post in praise of my amazing younger sister, who is shouldering the burden of my mom's care with only occasional respites from her two sisters who live very far away. I will never be grateful enough.

I've spent quite a bit of time in this blog proclaiming my Crone Pride (can we get a gray rainbow? T-shirts? tote bags?). I've talked about embracing our age instead of running away from it and making ourselves ridiculous by chasing after youth. But I have to tell you after spending five days with my 88-year-old mom, there are a lot of things about getting old that just flat-out SUCK. 

She always tries to be sweet and kind, but you can tell she hates it. She can't do 10% of what she could do 25 years ago. She doesn't cook or entertain or keep her apartment clean, she can't drive or go shopping or even go to church. It's all just too painful, not to mention too much trouble. And although she will probably recover from her current injuries (she's fallen twice in the last two weeks, but thankfully no broken bones, just bruises and a re-awakened blood clot), she's never going to be her competent younger self again. 

She is not of the generation or the personality to get mad about it, so she's being pretty stoic, but I realized on the last day that I was mad for her. It just SUCKS. This is not what she wants for herself, and it's not what any of the rest of us want either. If she falls again, we're going to have to deal with getting her into assisted living, and although her daughters will breathe easier if someone is keeping a closer eye on her, it is absolutely not what she wants. Not to mention that she wouldn't be able to keep her cat. Ugh.

So that's one source of my anger. The other is being back down there. I have such a love-hate relationship with the land of my youth. There's nothing like it. I love it: the food, the drawl, the enthusiasm, the 80-degree weather in late October. There are ways I feel comfortable there that I rarely feel here, even though we've lived here 32 years, and that's far longer than I ever lived there. But at the same time, it also brings up so much anger in me, because I can still feel that suffocating pressure to be something that I never could be, as hard as I tried. Oh, how hard I tried. 

Anyway. Being there, in combination with the election and reading the news and hearing it discussed everywhere around me, brought up a lot of anger. There are things about the men in that environment that I cannot understand.

It's like there's this structure that exists in their heads, that has very little to do with reality. It's a created reality, an act of will. Reality is Like This, because that's what I say it is. You will accept what I say is the truth, regardless of whether or not it actually is true, because it's what I'm telling you. The fact that I have a mistress and maybe even a second family is irrelevant, you will believe that I am a fine, upstanding family man. (Hmmm. Maybe this has more to do with the news than the south.) It's part power play, part inspired leadership, part gamesmanship. And it has to be said-- part knowing your audience and how to hook them in. Based on the response of the Trump base, there are a whole lot of people out there who really respond to that coercive power structure. It seems to be what they want.

And there is a corollary that I really can't understand. There is this undercurrent, largely unspoken, that discrimination against women, sexual harassment and rape, the casting couch, the women who have felt they must, uh, put out, to get ahead-- that's all the fault of women. And especially of feminists. I cannot wrap my brain around this. How is the fact that someone is addicted to porn the fault of feminists? (a statement I actually overheard) How is the fact that women want to be free to express their sexuality (in the same way that men always have been able to) an open invitation to grope, threaten, coerce, and rape? 

Get some personal responsibility, dude. That's your problem. Like I said, there's some structure in their heads that tells them that if women are mistreated, it's the women's fault, it can't be their fault, they're just innocent victims of a slander campaign. Do they really still believe that they can't be blamed for being sexually aggressive because that's "just the way men are"? They can't possibly, can they?

See? this isn't quite saying what I mean to say. And of course #notallmen. I just deleted more. Maybe I will just say this. Twenty-five-ish years ago, back at the turn of the millennium, not long after --hmmm, I thought it was Time magazine, but I can't find it-- not long after a magazine named feminism as the most influential movement of the twentieth century, I read a response piece that said-- if that is true, then maybe the 21st century will be about men figuring out masculinity. Because it's a mess out there right now, and it seems like it is getting worse before (we hope) it will get better. 

And I still didn't say it well. But I've been thinking about it. Lots.

7ToF: traveling and other thoughts

1. I’m sitting at the gate at our local airport waiting to get on a plane to go visit my mom and my sister in parts south. It’s about 45 degrees here, it’s supposed to be 85 today at my destination. It is really hard to pack for 85 degree weather when it’s 45 degrees out. I kept thinking I should put in a sweatshirt and an extra jacket and some long-sleeved shirts because it will probably be chilly in the evenings (it won’t be). But the good news is it’s only a 5-day trip so I had plenty of room in my suitcase anyway.

2. You know what is totally worth it? TSA pre-check. It’s $80 (I didn’t verify— I think that’s how much it was the last time I re-upped) and it lasts five years. If you travel more than a couple of times a year, it is 100% worth it to not have to worry (much) about the exact amount of toiletries in your carry-on bag, and to keep your shoes on. Not to mention that the line is usually considerably shorter. Two thumbs up. 

3. One of my deepest fears is being bored. And I say deepest because I don’t actually think about it that much, but the first thing I do when I’m getting ready for a trip is make sure I have a bunch of stuff on my e-reader, download whatever word games I want to try, and make sure I have some podcasts and an audiobook or two to listen to. I do that before I pack anything, refill my toiletries, or organize my meds. Also, I think it’s super fun. 

For years I have also been carrying around a physical print book, in case the battery dies on my kindle or some other crazy thing happens. I have not opened that book in years. But it is always in my backpack. 

4. New this time: we decided to buy an iPad because we’ve heard they are great for road trips and we’re planning a (relatively) long one in February and March. I had an iPad years ago but I couldn’t figure out what to do with it— it didn’t seem any more useful than my phone and laptop, and it couldn’t replace either of them. But my impression is that with a Bluetooth keyboard they are a lot more useful these days, and also I am a lot more addicted to my iphone, and apparently it’s like a phone but with a bigger screen. We’ll see. But I do have it with me, so I downloaded a couple of graphic novels which are difficult to read on a paperwhite kindle. I’ve been hearing about Saga for years. I’ll report back.

5. It’s clear to me that as much as I have loved blogging, it’s just not sustainable, given the combo of how the online world works these days and my neurotic insecurities. But I still have a few posts I’ve been meaning to write for a long time, and never did. In fact, one of the main reasons I started blogging again back in January was because I wanted to write those posts. And I still haven’t. So I’m saying it here to make myself do it— when I get back, I’m going to start writing those posts and then I will probably shut down. I don’t know. Every time I say I’m shutting down I end up coming back. 

6. A thing that has become more and more clear to me over the past couple of years is that most people need some sort of spiritual life. Maybe it’s about connecting with the natural world, or with a deeper feeling of meaning, or a richer interior life—maybe it doesn’t need to look the same for everyone the way it did a hundred years ago when there were state and tribal religions. 

But not many people can face life in the modern world armed only with the data from their five senses without succumbing to bleakness and despair. We have allowed those few who can to dictate the spiritual health of educated people for a long time. That’s not necessarily a criticism— most of us who are over-educated have been all-in on getting rid of superstition, ancient prejudices about gender and sexuality, and hyper-morality (loosely) based on ancient texts. 

7. But as someone who was deeply committed to one of those old-fashioned faiths, I can tell you that when you educate yourself out of it, you lose something, and it’s not insignificant.  

So I’ve been trying to be curious. Is there a way to do both? Is there a way to be an educated person who believes in the scientific method and eliminating restrictive patterns of groupthink, but keep the parts of the spiritual life that, uh, for lack of a better phrase, nourish the soul? 

I know that this is not a new thought, not for years now, and books have been written and non-religious churches have been started. But I’ve tried a bunch of that stuff and I haven’t found something yet that works for me. 

You see why I’ve been hesitant to write these. Because who am I to take this on? I’ve started and stopped several times. But I finally realized that the only way I can do it honestly is just to do it for me, and to report back on what works and what doesn’t. My personality type (I know some of you roll your eyes at the Enneagram, but just let me make this point) is a social five with a four wing, and that means I love nothing more than diving deep and coming up with knowledge and wisdom that will serve the group. But if there’s anything that I’ve learned about spirituality over the past forty years, it’s that what’s meaningful to one person isn’t necessarily going to work for any other person. All I can do is report on my own progress, and maybe it will help you figure out your own approach. 

The other drawback is that it seems to me that this kind of thing should be crowd-sourced, and as much as I love any of you who have the patience to read my mess, none of you are commenting and/or participating much these days. So if you have ideas and opinions, I hope you will chime in, or email me.

As I said, I’m typing this at the airport, so I won’t be able to do my usual obsessive re-writing because I’m probably going to forget about it as soon as I arrive at the other end. So if it makes little sense, apologies in advance. I can guarantee you I will regret writing this because now I have to do it and I am so freaking intimidated by this topic. More later. 

summer fun with my nieces (had me a blast)

I almost titled this “A Boomer Reflects” because I know I’m being ridiculous. If you’re my age, maybe you can laugh along with me. If you’re young, don’t read this. It will just piss you off. But you know, it’s not even so much being a boomer as it is having been raised Evangelical. If you know, you know. 

This past summer, my nieces came to visit. I have a bunch of nieces, but this time it was two of them plus a fiancé, in addition to the one who lives here. The one who lives here is under age, but the rest of them are all over 21, so when they came over for dinner, we offered them a beer while Doug grilled burgers. 

We are not big drinkers, and our friends are not big drinkers, so usually one or two drinks per person is all we have with dinner. But for whatever reason, one or two drinks per person was not what they considered to be enough. By the end of the evening, most of our beer supply was gone (fortunately my sister was driving).

A few days later they went out to a local lake. We were going out to meet up with them later. They stopped by a convenience store on their way and loaded up. They had multiple six packs of various types of summer beverages that I didn't even know existed-- Smirnoff Ice? does it actually have vodka in it? Ranch Water? Is it malt like a Mike's hard lemonade? I have no idea.

By the time we got there, much of it was gone. But they didn't seem drunk, so in spite of my surprise-- who goes to the lake to drink a twelve-pack of White Claw (and of course, the answer is EVERYONE DOES) -- I had to let them manage it. They are 22, 23, and 25. They don't need me to babysit them. But still. I surreptitiously made them wait a couple of hours to leave so they would be OK to drive, but there really wasn't much else to be done. And to be fair, they had worked out among themselves who was OK to drive.

And they were fine. They got home without incident. They told some stories during the afternoon that made my eyebrows go all the way up my forehead, but everything was fine. I was just kind of -- I am embarrassed to admit this-- shocked. 

I was raised in a house that wasn't exactly teetotaller (my parents were very clear about that--they believed in grace, not rules), but it was a technicality-- we never had alcohol in the house, and I can count on one hand the number of times I saw them with a drink in hand. If someone brought my parents a bottle of wine when they came for dinner, it would hang around in the cabinet in the laundry room until my parents could give it away.

When I left behind being an evangelical forty years ago, I thought I was being so bold and rebellious because I would go out for "a beer" with my work friends, but the operative word there is "a." I can remember the only time I had two, and I decided it wasn't worth it. ha.

Of course, this is partly because of the ever-looming possibility of a migraine (wine almost always gives me a migraine, but beer and liquor are often ok). And it's partly because I am the world's cheapest drunk. I am giggly and silly halfway through my first drink. My kids think it's hilarious. I do not require multiple drinks to get the, uh, social lubricant benefits of alcohol. 

So I cannot help my instinctive reaction that OH MY GOD THEY ARE DRINKING TOO MUCH. But I have to respect that they know their own limits-- none of them live at home anymore, so they manage their own consumption all the time. (As long as they don't drive and kill themselves.)(Sorry, I can't help it.)

I've had a similar response to several popular novels I've read over the past couple of years about young people who are sleeping with anyone and everyone they can find. My adult self wants to yell at them, WE DID NOT FIGHT FOR YOUR SEXUAL FREEDOM SO THAT YOU COULD BE STUPID ABOUT SEX. 

(But you know, I guess we did??) I guess we (I) thought that women (and men) would handle their  freedom responsibly, not that they would believe any lie someone told them, up to and including that pulling out is enough, and don't worry I know how to do it, I've done it lots of times before. I mean, the sexual hangups of the 50s and 60s were ridiculous, totally ridiculous, but at least the social pressure to not have sex provided some protection against casual predators.

But don't we have to let them learn? I find myself practically yelling at the book, not having sex is a valid option! But in these books, it doesn't seem to be. It doesn't ever seem to be an option to decide not to, and go home and get a good night's sleep. (Of course, at least part of that is because how boring would that be? How would the story happen if she didn't get pregnant and have to figure out what to do?)

Anyway. The most recent of the ones I've read, Margo Has Money Troubles, is well written, strong voice, funny, heartbreaking, and ultimately empowering. A great book. But it just about made me sick to read the beginning. Is it better to have complete freedom and have to learn everything the hard way? Maybe it wasn't so bad to have some guardrails, some social pressure to not be stupid. Or maybe nowadays kids just have to learn every thing the hard way. 

But I do wonder about young women like me (or me the way I was at that age), who are naturally not quite as adventurous, who may feel pressured to do things they don't really want to do, because "everyone else is doing it," and isn't that hilarious, because it's the same advice that would have made me furious when I was their age. 

Things really do come full circle. Oh my god, this makes me feel old.

7ToF: Cleaning out my closet

1. Like anyone who has lived in the same house for 12 years, and in the house before that for 12 years, etc etc, we have way too much stuff. Of course we've known that. I've even written blog posts about it. But nothing gets me motivated like having my spouse get motivated. We helped my mom go through about a dozen boxes of her stuff earlier this past summer, and suddenly-- after years of saying why do we need to get rid of stuff when we have plenty of room to store it?-- he was all in on paring down. Because if we don't do it, someday our kids are going to have to do it. And if we don't do it while we're, uh, "young enough" to bend and lift and sort it ourselves, it's just going to get harder. And worse. 

2. So we were busy busy busy all summer-- summers are always busy around here-- but now that it's fall, we're ready to get started, I think, and for some reason I decided to start with my closet this afternoon. I say "for some reason," because it isn't the most obvious choice. I've pared back my closet at least twice since we moved in here, so the need is not so dire. The obvious choice would be to start with the Storeroom Under The Stairs, the back wall of which is stacked with boxes that haven't been touched since we moved in 12 years ago. 

3. But my closet is a) easier to access, and b) smaller and more manageable, and c) I figured I needed an easy win to start with. Also, I could do it by myself, since Doug is back on call again now that we are back from our trip to New England (which was super fun, a beautiful, joyful wedding with spectacular weather and scenery, and a couple of good days in Boston, a city I have always loved). 

4. So here were my guidelines, none of which are original to me. These are all things that I've gleaned from various books, blogs, and podcasts over the years-- I would try harder to source them, but honestly many of these ideas have become so commonplace that it would be hard to figure out where they originated. The first one is: if you've forgotten you own it, you don't need it. There's also a corollary: if you haven't worn it in two years, you aren't going to wear it. In other words, get rid of all the things that are just hanging around in your closet because you might wear them someday. 

The only exceptions I made were for a couple of things that I found that I was excited to remember I had-- an open cardigan I love but hadn't been able to find in a long time, a pair of pants that were my favorite work pants and had been shoved in with some other work clothes that I will never wear again. I couldn't believe they still fit and were as comfortable as they ever were. (shop your own closet for the win!) The other exception was for dress-up clothes, because we just don't dress up that often around here and if I have party-appropriate separates that only get worn occasionally, that works for me.

This category also included an embarrassing number of things that still had tags on them. ouch. It hurts to get rid of stuff with the tags still on, but I try to remind myself how happy it will make someone at the thrift store. Most of this stuff I bought because several years ago I listened to a podcast that was about brightening up your wardrobe and being brave and trying new things, and I bought half a dozen brightly colored skirts and dresses that I thought were beautiful (and I still do), but I should have known I would never wear them. Not my style. Which brings us to:

5. Understand what clothes you like to wear and that you will wear. There are a million podcasts and tiktoks and even books out there about how to define your personal style and create a capsule wardrobe etc etc so I will not go over that here (google if that's a new idea to you). And anyway for you to take fashion advice from me would be, uh, a poor choice, to put it mildly.  

But some of that info has been useful to me because I didn't even start to know what kind of clothes I liked until I was well into my twenties. I was raised by my mother to like what was on sale. If it didn't quite fit right or was a strange color, it didn't matter-- what mattered was that it was 40% off. 

Which means that you end up with a bunch of clothes that you don't really like and three pairs of jeans and half a dozen t-shirts that you wear all the time. I now know that it's far better to buy the occasional more expensive item that you will wear the heck out of than a bunch of clearance rack stuff that makes you cringe. (I say that like it's a lesson I've learned but I have to confess it still happens sometimes, witness some of the stuff I just cleared out.)

So thinking about what I actually like to wear was fairly new to me once I got old enough to figure it out. I will pass along a couple of things that have stuck with me me, in the form of a couple of questions that help me weed out things that aren't working, or keep from buying the wrong stuff in the first place.

6. One is, do you like shiny clothes or matte clothes? I think I heard this one on an Anne Bogel podcast years ago and I had never thought about it before. But if you know the answer, it can keep you from buying things you won't wear. I once bought a fairly expensive shirt for work that was a color and style that I loved, but it was polished cotton. I kept washing it and washing it thinking the shine would go away (and it didn't). I wore it maybe once or twice before it drifted to the back of my closet. No shine, luster, sheen, or sparkles for me (possible exception: party clothes, of course.)

The other is: do you dress to be noticed, or do you dress to fit in-- and sometimes I fit into a third category, which is: do you dress to disappear, because sometimes I do. This is not a judgement or "should" question, it's a personality type. I'm definitely a dress-to-fit-in/disappear person, so I wear a lot of black, gray, and dark blue pants/skirts/sweaters, usually with blue, green, or other unremarkable colors of shirts/t-shirts. Once you know what you like to wear, then you can get rid of the stuff that you bought that you thought maybe you might wear, but never have-- like the Hawaiian print camp shirt, or the cute white sweater with the tags still on it (reword that for you, of course, maybe those are exactly the things you will want to keep). 

7. And then there is the (optional) take-one-thing-back rule that I heard about probably ten years ago, which means once you've got your stacks of stuff to take to Goodwill, wait a few hours, look them over, and take one (or two) thing(s) back. Because sometimes you get over-zealous and weed out something that you really might wear again.

It worked pretty well. I took two two-foot-high stacks of clothes by one of our local charity shops yesterday, and set another foot-high stack aside to pass on to someone else. I'll tackle shoes tomorrow and then my closet will mostly be done.

I'm feeling very smug and accomplished, but really my closet was the least of my decluttering. Onward.

cynicism and, uh, culture

I have written a version of this post half a dozen times over the past few years, but every time before I get around to publishing it, something happens to contribute to my own cynicism and I delete it. Same thing happened here-- I wrote the post below in almost a single go after watching a popular TV show about horrible people. Then I read the news this morning, and once again I have to admit that maybe people really are that awful. 

But you know, that's how the news works these days. If we get mad or upset about something, we click more often and follow the news more closely, so that's what they give us. War seems imminent at a couple of different places on the globe and our political situation is ugly, but there are also people rescuing dogs and strangers from floodwaters, neighbors checking on the elderly, and aid workers around the globe trying to help. 

It's never 100% one way or the other, so I don’t get why art has to be about ugliness and despair. I've said before that our artistic and intellectual taste has been stuck for far too long in an aesthetic of the grim and the ugly, started by a bunch of unhappily married, alcoholic white men back in the 60s and 70s. And enforced ever since by the twin weapons of contempt and disdain. Whoa. Is that too harsh? At this moment while I'm pissed, it doesn't seem too harsh to me.

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You know what I am really sick of? Nihilism posing as "being an adult." If you are person who is trying to be kind and hopeful and generous, there is a certain element of the population who will roll their eyes and tell you to be realistic and stop being so naive and grow up. 

But you know what? That kind of talk enables all kinds of bad behavior. If you're just being "realistic" when you strike first and strike hard, then you can rationalize not trying to de-escalate a situation and not trying to understand someone different than you, or even just being mean. If you excuse your own cynicism and lack of empathy because I'm not a child anymore, and anyone who still values sincerity should wake up and join the real world already, then you don't have to try, or help, or worry about anyone's interests besides your own. 

Of course you can go too far the other way, and it's possible to be overly naive or gullible. And of course there really are some horrible people in the world. But I still think it's a false equivalence, this association of intelligence with nihilism, "being an adult" with those who have no time for kindness, being sophisticated with existential indifference. 

I've said stuff like this before, and I know it's an unpopular opinion and our culture is definitely not in a place right now where kindness and honorable action can be considered to be worldly-wise. But the reason I keep bringing it up is our current entertainment options. I try to get into the shows that everyone is watching, and universally the characters on shows I've tried to watch are awful, or on the rare occasions they're not, truly awful things happen to them. 

And if you complain and say that there is not one likeable person on the show, or at least someone you could root for, then you can't handle reality and that's what real life is like, and people who are "nice" are nauseating, anyway. I never trust a nice person, because it means they're fake, I read on a reddit page just yesterday. How convenient to be able to dismiss everyone with a kindly impulse all at once.

But is that what real life is like? Aren't people a mix? Is there really someone out there who doesn't know anyone who is kind or good-natured or warm-hearted? Because I know plenty of nice people, people who are helpful and work hard to interact positively with their co-workers and friends and family. If we deny those people exist, how is that "real"? if we erase the good guys, aren't we just ceding the stage to the awful people? I mean, if you love stories full of devious, manipulative mean people, that's fine, but don't call it reality, and don't tell me I can't handle reality when I don't want to watch that stuff.

I'm pretty sure most of the time your reality is not as dire as you're insisting art should be. I remember reading a column once by a film critic who was in Cannes for the film festival, and what a disconnect it was to sit in a theater watching one artistically-astute-but-horrible-to-watch movie after another, and then he and his colleagues would head to a restaurant to talk and laugh over an outrageously expensive dinner and a $300 bottle of wine. I've never been to Cannes, but I've seen plenty of depressing movies, and I'm so tired of this glorification of the dismal.

This is the kind of thing I'm embarrassed to post, because I know I'm so far out of the mainstream of the current art/culture world (let alone the cutting edge) that it is laughable for me to even have an opinion. But this is my opinion. And since we're out of town for the next eight days, if I post it while we're gone maybe I'll have forgotten about it by the time we get back.

(And you don't have to tell me to check my privilege, because I know that. This is in some ways the most privileged thing I've posted in a long time, but on the other hand, I still think it's worth saying.)

a couple of goodreads reviews

Well, first of all, the fourth section of Trust (by Hernan Diaz) did indeed pull everything together so that it makes sense. Trust is the story of a financier who made a fortune in the 1920s, even during the stock market crash in 1929. The first section is a novel written by a man who sensationalizes the story to make it into a best seller. The second section is from the point of view of the financier himself, who wants to re-create his story after this unflattering novel has been published. He works with a ghostwriter, and the third section is told from her point of view as she meets with him, sometimes daily, to take dictation while he tells the story he wants people to hear. The fourth section is from the point of view of the financier's wife. 

The whole thing is like an intricate clockwork mechanism, or some complex origami, that folds endlessly in on itself and then opens out into a flower or a mythical beast. Layers and layers are slowly built up in the first two sections, only to be dismantled in the third and fourth sections. It's brilliant. But there's no denying it is mind-numbing to read the first half. 

Section one starts out sounding like Henry James (which I don't necessarily mind), but it goes on for far too long. (At least, that's what you think as you're reading it.) Then you get to the brusque, no-nonsense bare bones of the second section. The two male narrators are equally tedious blow-hards who have told their manipulated stories at length. Then in the third and fourth sections, the true story begins to emerge. It's fascinating. I will remember "Air like french horns" far longer than the pompous tedium of the beginning.

On the other hand, if you can't get through it, I can't say I blame you. I only kept going because I had heard it would pay off (and it did). I did it by reading 10-15 minutes a day for a couple of weeks. If you're a patient reader, it's worth the tedium in the end.

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And it took so long to tell you about Trust that I don't really have space to tell you about the others, so maybe I'll just tell you about The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory by Tim Alberta, a clear-eyed account of the rise of Christian nationalism told by a journalist who is unapologetically Evangelical. I avoid politics and political books like the plague, but I was roped into reading this one because it was the non-fiction selection for September for a book group I'm in. I ended up giving it five stars. Here's what I wrote on goodreads:

I was raised evangelical, so I had many points of contact with the history Alberta describes. My dad worked at First Baptist-Dallas back in the Criswell days, I sang in the youth choir at a different church, I attended one of the Christian colleges he describes (not Liberty), I worked at a Christian camp in the summers, the same one I had attended as a camper years before. Like Alberta, my faith was everything to me. 

But unlike Alberta, I left it behind many years ago to become what the conservatives in this book would call a squishy, woke progressive. I still have many friends and family members who are evangelical, but they are mostly of the Never-Trump variety, so the depth and breadth of the spread of Christian nationalism Alberta describes was almost shocking to me. Alberta is thoughtful and engaging. He never compromises his commitment to his conservative Christian faith, but he also never backs away from critiquing the rise of Christian nationalism. He's a brave man, and it's a highly readable account. Definitely worth reading.

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I review most books I read on Goodreads (not "real" reviews, usually just a paragraph or two), but I'm actually not a goodreads expert so I don't know how to link to my reviews. The best I can do is give you the link to my profile, in case you want to follow along.