Syllabus #232

It's not such a bad little tree

We took a little Christmas hiatus last Sunday, and now we're back and ready to wrap up the year of our lawd two thousand and twenty three.  Let the record show that Andy and I had a delightful holiday with both our families combined, and unless anyone is being real passive aggressive about it, nobody got angry, or injured, or ill this year!  Which is great, because last year involved some torn ligaments (not mine) and the year before that involved projectile vomiting into an N-95 mask (mine) and trying to negotiate the purchase of an anti-emetic from a Portuguese pharmacy.

I don't have Spotify so I can't share with you my Spotify Wrapped.  If I did have one, it would probably just be Spotify sending the authorities to my door to make sure I'm not planning on showing up at Laura Jane Grace's house and peeling off her face and making it my face.  Or it might be a gentle suggestion from Spotify that other music exists besides the 20+ year oeuvre of Against Me!.  Sorry, I like what I like.  I don't see people out there giving Swifties a hard time, and they're paying thousands of dollars for concert tickets and weeping in movie theaters.  Let me be.  

Also, 98% of my listening is devoted to podcasts, so it's not that weird.  Get off my back.  I don't have a problem, you have a problem.  I'm not defensive, you're defensive.  I know you are but what am I?  I'm rubber, and you're glue.  Sticks and stones may break my bones, but when it came time to throw bricks through that Starbucks window, you left me all alone (all alone).  

What I do have to report on this, the final day of December, is that I am ending the year with a 250 day Wordle streak!  It's still going strong!  I'm on a Duolingo streak of 1753 days, and a yoga streak of, let's do the math here...2,191 days.  That's 6 years, one of which was a leap year.  I read 65 books (kind of...the 65th one is in progress but I'll have it mostly finished before midnight tonight).  So basically, I accomplished absolutely nothing of consequence and I'm ok with that.

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Now here's an extracurricular I'd gladly chaperone.

 

If this is a true story it's amazing and I want to be friends with the author.

It's not often that I yearn to be incarcerated, but if I was going to go to jail, send me to this one in Chile.

Jeet yet?  What will we all be eating in 2024?

Analog Reading:

Finished Rabbit Remembered by John Updike.  I read the original tetralogy earlier this year, so it was fun to revisit one of my favorite dysfunctional fictional families.

Read Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann.  What a twisted, unbelievably dark time.   The extent of the deception and cold-blooded destruction of the Osage people purely out of greed is just beyond.

Reading Lauren Groff's Vaster Wilds.  As of this morning, I'm about 1/3 of the way into it, and expect to read most of it today.  It's good!  Hoo boy, there's a lot of diarrhea though.  

Post-Festivus

 I forgot to declare a brief hiatus to these syllabi, so I'm doing it now.  I'm just out here trying to be an adult and finely calibrate my alcohol consumption this holiday, in the hopes that I might land at an agreeable midpoint between Sober, Joyless, and Judgmental and Shit-faced Shrieking Banshee.  It's fine line to walk.  Wish me luck!

May your days be merry and bright, unless you're hungover, in which case, may they be dimly lit and quiet, and I hope someone brings you a greasy breakfast sandwich and a fountain Coke.

 

Syllabus #231

Today is the best day of the year - Finnish Bread Day.  As soon as I click 'publish' on this bad boy, I'm getting right into the kitchen right over to a different part of the kitchen to get started. It's kind of hard to be downstairs in my house and not be in the kitchen.  But I digress.  

My grandmother has eaten this bread at Christmas basically every one of the 90 years of her life.  We used to make it together every December 23rd so we would have a loaf to enjoy on Christmas morning.  Now, I need to bake it earlier than usual so that Ye Olde USPS can deliver it to her before Christmas Eve.

Iowa was an excellent teacher of this craft.  Over the years, she gradually let me take over more of the process until I was doing most of the work.  I say let, and maybe she was strategically scaffolding and building my confidence, but I think the last couple times we made bread together, she was also glad not to be standing at the counter, punching and kneading dough.  

The bread I make alone somehow never tastes as good as the bread Iowa and I made together.  However, and I know this is blasphemy to admit, I think my loaves are prettier.  To be fair, I'm working with an oven that was manufactured more recently than the Reagan administration and therefore generally maintains a consistent temperature, and the pan I use is slightly bigger so the loaves are less crowded.  I'll never tell her that, though.

Finnish Bread circa 2015

Finnish bread, 2022

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The worst gifts given, received, or witnessed by Slate staff.  I'm sure I've given some real duds over the years.  I'm not a great gift-giver.  Sometimes I'll have a flash of brilliance and come up with something really thoughtful and unexpected, but most of the time, no matter how much mental energy I put into it, I just end up hoping the intended recipient will furnish an explicit wishlist.  Sorry to everyone who's ever received a well-intended flop from me.  

I come by my tone-deafness honestly, though, if you believe in thoughtlessness being hereditary.  Not that I want to claim any legacy of personality from the paternal side of my family.  But I once witnessed my dad's daughter-from-his-first-marriage* open a package of Christmas gifts from my dad's mother, a woman I'll call a grandmother for the sake of verbal expediency**.  

I recall being about 10 in this story, so let's say it was 1995ish, which puts the gift opener around 20 or so.  I'm in a small, stuffy apartment and everyone is probably smoking except me.  I mostly hate every single one of them for that, and there's a good chance I'm reading a Goosebumps book and hoping to sink so far into the itchy plaid couch cushions that I disappear completely.  

But then the most wonderful thing happens.  This daughter-from-his-first-marriage unwraps a bar of soap.  Okay, normal enough, except this soap is RANK.  It smells like a funeral home and the aroma cuts through the plastic packaging and the wall of cigarette smoke to hit me on the other side of the room.  Then she unwraps another bar of soap.  And another.  Beneath the bars of soap, she unearths another small rectangular package.  Surely not more soap?  Oh no, dear reader.  Finally, something a young 20-something of the mid-90s can truly enjoy.  Cassette tapes!  What did senile old Helen think this modern young woman wanted to rock out to?  Janet Jackson?  Mary J. Blige?  Rod Stewart?

Wrong!  They were...exercise tapes!  On cassette!  Not VHS.  Just plain old for-your-ears-only audio cassette tapes.  Nothing says, I love you granddaughter and want to cultivate your healthy body image like a gift that tells you to get off your ass and sweat it out, then hit the showers 'cause ya dirty.

*I strongly identify as an Only Child and refuse to refer to these children-from-his-first-marriage as siblings.  They are not.  

**Much less grandmother and more senile woman I met a few times, who always called me hon because I'm not sure she actually knew my name, and who thought I was about 6 years old until the day she died, even though I was in college by that point.

In praise of flipping off your friends' doorbell cameras.  That's an idea I can get behind, much like taking a close-up shot of your elbow-pit on a friend's disposable camera so when they get it developed they have to wonder if it's an ass.

Analog Reading:

This was a banner week for reading!

Finished The Heat Will Kill You First.  The author tried to end on an optimistic note, but all I got out of it was, we're gonna be hot, and we're all gonna die.

Read Pineapple Street by Jenny Jackson.  After reading about dying from climate change, it was fun to read about the fake problems of 1-percenters in New York City, and how strange it can be to enter that world through marriage after growing up working class.

Read The Guest by Emma Cline.  This was an interesting choice to follow Pineapple Street, as it follows a darker path to attaching yourself to members of elite society.  The protagonist is a 22-year-old sex worker with a drug and alcohol problem, who has worn out her welcome everywhere she goes due to her increasing desperation and decreasing grip on reality.

Just started to read John Updike's sequel to the Rabbit tetralogy, Rabbit Remembered.  It feels like going to a high school reunion, catching up on all the hot goss about who became successful against all odds, who had a glow-up, who really let themselves go, who wasted all their potential.  After reading all 4 of the original books at the beginning of this year, it seems fitting to finish out the year with this one, that picks up in 2000, 10 years after Rabbit at Rest.

Syllabus #230

Let it be known that I have achieved a new Wordle streak.  My previous streak ended last year over winter break.  I was up to day 224 when I fell from great heights and experienced disgrace.  After a minor setback earlier this year, I have reclaimed my dignity.  I'm now up to day 229.  I feel like Kramer test driving the car in that episode of Seinfeld.  As improbable as it may seem, I'm just going to ride this out until the wheels fall off.

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The storms on Saturday evening missed us, but just a couple miles to the north of us, not everyone was as lucky.

I appreciate Slate's dueling best-books lists from Laura Miller and Dan Kois. 

I am going to refrain from sharing any thoughts on the situation in the Middle East, other than to say that I wish for peace for the innocent civilians on both sides of the issue.  That being said, I found this Vox article about the history of the keffiyeh to be illuminating.  The bit about the scarf coming into vogue as a generic fashion accessory in the mid-2000s explains so much about why I randomly bought a green keffiyeh for $5 from a store on South Street in 2007 and thought nothing of wearing at the time.  

Analog Reading:

Finished North Woods by Daniel Mason.  It went to some spooky dark places that I wasn't expecting but thoroughly enjoyed.  

Reading The Heat Will Kill You First is not exactly a hopeful experience.  It is a highly engaging, compelling read, though.  I was reading it yesterday morning on the balcony while it was 59 degrees at 7 am, in December, and then hours later I found myself following the track of a tornado as it ripped through an area just a couple miles north of us.  I can't wait to be boiled alive, killed in a catastrophic storm, or wiped out by a previously-tropical insect-borne disease.  

Syllabus #229

Anyone who has ever worked in a school knows that a full moon has very real, highly pernicious effects on children's behavior.  The Full Beaver Moon of this past week sounds like something I would get arrested for.  Truly, all I can say is thank gawd the FBM didn't coincide with the PMS, or, dear reader, I would have gotten arrested.  And not for a cute little indecent exposure charge.  The way these children made it an olympic-level sport to be as obnoxious as possible.  Unreal.

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Hello, it's me.  I don't actually do this.  If you're a cop, I DEFINITELY DO NOT DO THIS.  I actually avoid self-checkout on principle, but I did steal a grapefruit once out of frustration and a desire to reclaim my time.

Myyyyyy liver in fight - Afternoon delight!  I find that day drinking, if there's a clear endpoint, works out much better for me than night drinking.  If I can sober up and put another meal on top of whatever booze, before going to sleep at night, the next day is going to be a lot more tolerable.

Macaulay Culkin, National Treasure.  I don't use this phrase lightly (actually I throw it around like confetti, but I mean it) 

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Analog Reading:

I've been vibing all week on North Woods by Daniel Mason.  I was expecting a fairly conventional book about the lives of the various inhabitants of a cabin in the Massachusetts woods over many generations.  It IS about the inhabitants of a cabin over many generations, but it's so much weirder and more inventive than I was led to expect.  Every era is recounted in a totally different narrative fashion, and the story is taking some strange and spooky turns I did not see coming.  It's good!

Syllabus #228

We Thanksgiving'ed in New Orleans.  They should call it the Big Queasy, because most of our group was constantly intoxicated and I was constantly migrained, which segued into a delightful head cold that I am currently enjoying.  

Overall I guess it was a successful trip.  I bought an extremely tasteless t-shirt using the Visa debit card I earned as an incentive from my health insurance plan for getting an annual check-up.  Thanks for buying me a t-shirt with about 30 pair of cartoon boobs printed on it, Cigna.  I was, at long last, reunited with the sandwich of my dreams, a double-decker collard green melt with coleslaw, at Turkey & the Wolf.  

One member of our party nearly fell victim to the "where'd you get your shoes?" scam.  All 7 of us were nearly taken out by a lil scuffle between the police and a person resisting arrest while we were waiting on the sidewalk outside a restaurant.  I also watched a gentleman defecate on the sidewalk.  Felt just like home, really.

What exactly is a Bourbon Street Candle supposed to smell like?  If it's not vomit and urine we are all complicit in this lie.

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Progressive Flo, national treasure?  There's hope for all of us who are just annoying enough to be memorable and forgettable at the same time. 

New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2023.  I've read 7 of these already, am in the process of reading 1 more, and have 3 others on my Kindle or in print, waiting to be read before the year's end.  I feel like I didn't make a very strong showing this year, but this is giving me some inspiration for when I need to queue up some more holds from the library.

Analog Reading:

Finished Gary Gulman's memoir, Misfit.  It was sweet and poignant and funny and I hope he continues to de well in his career and his mental health.  What a mensch.

Now I'm reading North Woods by Daniel Mason.  Too early to form an opinion, but it's on that 100 notable books list, so it better be decent.

Syllabus #227

And now to the tune of Alicia Keys, everybody SING:

This Kroger's on fiiiiiiiiire...

Oh snap, you guys.  I might have psychic powers.  Or I might have learned how to manifest, a la The Secret.  What I'm saying is, I might have accidentally burned down Murder Kroger with my mind.

I usually go grocery shopping on Saturdays.  This Saturday was no different.  I gathered my list, grabbed my purse, told Andy I was leaving.  On my way out the door, I grabbed a bottle of Windex and some paper towels in a spontaneous burst of inspiration to clean the inside of my desperately smudged and streaked windshield.  That led to me finally cleaning off dog slobber and nose prints from the cargo area, festering for the last 5 months since I took Charlie on a road trip to South Carolina.

All this time, Andy thought I had left for the store, so he was surprised to see me walk back in the house 10 minutes later.  I go, "I'm back, store was closed!"  And he's like, "Why?  Somebody else get murdered there?" And I told him sarcastically that no, the store was on fire.  So I turned around and came home.

I explained about the window cleaning diversion, and left for real.  I ran to the art supply store to re-up my stash of supplies for making deranged-magazine-collage holiday cards.  Then I finally arrived at Kroger and as I'm crossing the threshold of the store, the fire alarm starts going off.

At first, I question by sanity/sobriety.  No one else seems to notice, nor give one single iota of a shit about the alarm.  People in the produce section are just going on squeezing avocados, sizing up the girth of the cucumbers, living life unfazed as this alarm is blaring and emergency lights are flashing.  I finally lock eyes with an older employee in the floral department and she gets it.  She's looking around nervously and I'm like, "Should we be evacuating or...?"

At long last, someone gets on the intercom and tells everyone to evacuate.

I walk back to my car, thinking, wow, this is an exciting departure from my normal Saturday routine!  But also wondering, did I somehow cause this?  Did I manifest this?  With my uninspired, offhand joke?  As I'm standing back at my car and pondering these newfound powers I may or may not possess, an ambulance and two fire trucks come roaring into the parking lot.  Then another fire truck.  And two more.  It feels like an episode of Sesame Street.  The Count going "Four Fire Trucks, Ah-hah-hah!  Now five, now six, now SEVEN Fire Trucks, Ah-hah-hah!"

At this point, I cut my losses and decide to drive up Gallatin Pike to the other Kroger, which is bigger and arguably better but also somehow worse because the layout of the store is reversed and I feel like I'm doing everything backwards when I shop there, and also their parking lot is stupidly designed, and it's necessary but not always possible to make a left out of their driveway to get home.  

But I digress.  On my way up Gallatin, traffic directly in front of me slows to a mysterious crawl.  The lights ahead are green, the road appears empty, and yet the car in front of me in the right lane, and the cars beside me in the left lane: 10 miles an hour.  It all becomes clear when the car ahead of me changes lanes, and I see that I am now following something that can't possibly be street legal.  No insurance.  No tags.  Because it wasn't a car.  It was a dog.  With no tags.  Or collar.  But a dog, just trit-trotting down Gallatin Pike like he was late for an appointment.  I put my hazards on and was just like, well I hope this guy turns right soon.  

And before you judge me for not stopping in the road to help this dog, it was me or him in that scenario.  One does not simply just STOP in the middle of Gallatin Pike, unless one is high on meth or otherwise does not care whether they live or die.  Eventually, the dog did wise up and start running down the sidewalk, but after I passed him, I saw in my rearview that he ran back into the street.  I don't know how that turned out, but godspeed, little dude.

Epilogue:

On Saturday evening, I found out via my good pal Mark Zuckerberg that the Kroger was never actually on fire, but a Frito Lay delivery guy hit a pipe and somehow caused the sprinkler system to flood the store?  Who knows if any of that is accurate.  Also, at some point shortly before or shortly after I was on the scene, there was a car flipped over in the middle of the street between the Kroger and the Aldi?  In an area where you can maybe get your speed up to 15 mph between a stop sign and a traffic light?

I dunno, man.  Bunch of savages in this town.

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I downloaded this app that is supposed to translate your cat's meows.  Hadley never shuts up but as soon as I open this app she's all, "I refuse to speak without my lawyer present."

Look at these kids using the library!  I bet back in the day when you could get rapped across the knuckles with a yardstick, these kids knew how to put a book back with the spine facing out, I'll tell you that much.

Analog Reading:

Still reading, but honestly losing interest in, Outlive by Peter Attia.  It's getting a little into the weeds with medical jargon, and I'm just over here going, yes but please explain it like I'm five (going on 75).  Tell me how to be old but not decrepit.  That's all.

Also reading Gary Gulman's clever and moving memoir, Misfit.  He writes with such precise, vivid detail and wit about events and feelings from his childhood.  At first I was questioning whether it's even possible to remember such experiences with any degree of accuracy, but then I remembered that all my most vivid childhood memories are also the very worst moments.  Could I describe what happened on any middling to good day in elementary school?  Absolutely not.  Could I narrate with fidelity a minute-by-minute rendering of every time I was embarrassed, disappointed, or misunderstood?  Yes, right down to the weather, the outfit I was wearing, and what the teacher's gross coffee breath smelled like.

Syllabus #226

There was a Connections this past week that was plucked from my very own brain, it seems.  Although, I was utterly floored when I deduced that Fresh Air was a red herring and was not among the podcasts.

This morning I am currently, as I type this, experimenting with an Instant Pot that was rehomed to us in August.  It has been gathering dust on the kitchen floor because this dumb house lacks adequate storage and I am a slob.  I vowed that if we didn't use it by Thanksgiving, I would take it to Goodwill.  I found myself with just over a pound of small, past-their-prime apples languishing in the fridge, leftover from a recipe, and decided to kill two birds with one stone by possibly blowing up my house and using the IP to make a very small batch of apple butter.  There are 7 out of 15 minutes of high pressure cooking remaining, and I haven't been coated in shrapnel yet, so I think we might be in the clear.  

Will try to remember to report back next week on the quality of the apple butter, if I'm not in the burn unit.

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I thought we were done with this pile of equine doodoo that is changing our clocks.  Now it gets dark at like 2:30 pm.  Not really but it sure feels that way and even though it has also been weirdly warm, I just want to crawl under a weighted blanket with a loaf of warm, buttered bread and wake up in mid-April, covered in crumbs, blinking my sleep-crusted eyes at the glorious sight of trees just beginning to leaf out.  Like, the AUDACITY of humans to be like, hey, you know what we should do twice a year?  TIME TRAVEL.  And everyone except Arizona is like, great, let's do it.

Analog Reading:

Reluctantly finished Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver.  What an engaging, compelling, humane portrait of the rural South, poverty, and the effects of the opioid crisis.  The ending was hard-earned and highly satisfying.

Now I'm reading Outlive:  The science and art of longevity by Peter Attia.  I can't remember where I read a review of this book, but it sounded interesting.  I'm not sure about it yet.  A lot of books of this ilk tend to be pure quackery, but this guy seems to be pretty keen on using data to extrapolate likelihoods and generalizations, and is prescribing approaches to thinking, rather than giving precise, one-size-fits-all commands.  It's interesting so far.

Syllabus #225

Getting older means that every Halloween, instead of plowing through a truly alarming quantity of fun-size candy bars, one or the other of us is treated to the sweet sweet release of general anesthesia.  Last year, it was me and my cataract surgery (jealous?).  This year it was Andy's turn.  Maybe I shouldn't blast it all over the internet, but he's fine, everyone is fine.  Next year, maybe it will be my turn again, perhaps for a lobotomy.  A girl can dream.

Also, Daylight Savings is so dumb.  Of all the things we do as a society, collectively agreeing to time travel in a coordinated manner has to be the absolute stupidest.  Wasn't this crap supposed to go away?  I thought we legislated it out of existence?  Somebody has some explaining to do.

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R.L. Stine taking a spin as a guest writer in Slate's Dear Prudence column might be the best thing on the internet this year, definitely the best in this fiscal quarter.  His responses are refreshingly direct and downright bitchy.

Speaking of being old, here's an elder millennial breaking down the sub-generations of weariness within our age cohort.  

And just for some more generational context...

Analog Reading:

Finished Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City by Jane Wong.  I enjoyed it.  Interesting window into the experiences of someone who grew up in the same time and sort of same place, with such a very different life.

Sinking my fangs into Barbara Kingsolver's Demon Copperhead.  Add this to your list NOW.  I am as enthusiastic about this book as I was about Tom Lake, but don't expect this one to make you feel good.

Syllabus #224

 

My twice-annual reminder of how much I would hate to work in retail or otherwise have to touch and account for physical money has ended.  Book Fair, always a pleasure (to see you go).  My mom came to help, and I may not have survived otherwise.  Can I operate a book fair singlehandedly?  Yes.  Can I do it alone without nearly having an aneurysm and turning into the meanest shrew alive?  Not really.

Parents of young children:  Please teach them how money works.  Pay for things with cash in front of your children sometimes.  Also, don't send your child to the book fair with one lousy dollar.  You're setting them up for failure and disappointment; it's cruel.  You know how many kids cried this week because I had to be the ogre that told them they couldn't buy the [insert hot title here] Pokemon/Dog Man/Manga/Book with the Slime/Book with the Lego man/Book with the Plastic Megalodon Tooth with their $.37?  So many kids cried this week!  

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I would die of instant satisfaction if David Sedaris immortalized one of my foibles in his writing.  This person is ungrateful! 

Amanda Knox coming in hot with the practical sleeping tips you pick up in prison.  She and Martha Stewart should compare notes.  

Say it ain't so!  Everything that Wawa touches turns to gold, except for pizza, apparently.  

Oh wow, so many parallels between a Spirit Halloween and a book fair.  

Analog Reading:

Finished R. Eric Thomas's hilarious book of personal essays, Congratulations, The Best is Over!  I think I said that last week, but I can't be bothered to check.

Then I pedaled right on through Jennifer Weiner's The Breakaway.  I read a review of it in the New York Times in the past couple months that made it sound slightly more...literary?  This was solidly in the rom-com territory and wasn't quite what I was expecting.  I picked it up because the premise of a woman in her 30s leading a 2-week bike tour to get away from some personal drama sounded fun, and tt was an enjoyable, entertaining read, but I was unfamiliar with Weiner's writing before this.  

There was a lot of telling rather than showing, and some didactic stuff about feminism, body positivity, a woman's right/ability to make choices regarding her life path in general and bodily autonomy specifically.  Don't get me wrong, I'm all about those things, but it felt like the author was trying to heavy-handedly persuade someone who might have been on the fence about it all.  And despite all that, it still seemed like the main character, Abby, allowed other people to pressure her into cheating on her boyfriend with this lothario on two wheels.  

AND, despite the occasional typos and proofreading failures of yours truly, bad copyediting in published works drives me bananas.  The author THANKS her copyeditor in the acknowledgements, but I think that copyeditor did her dirty in at least two glaring instances.  The protagonist lives in Philly and works part time as a dog walker for a doggy daycare called Pup Jawn, but it seems like Weiner just straight up forgets one time and calls it Dog Jawn, which is just awful.  Pup Jawn is corny, but calling it Dog Jawn and not Dawg Jawn is just a missed opportunity.  Also, the author once described how Abby got up early and 'road' her bike somewhere.  No!  Fix that before you send it to the printers, woman!  But nobody asked me, did they?

Now I'm reading another memoir about growing up in New Jersey (there is a distinct Northeast theme to the last several books I'm reading) called Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City, by Jane Wong.  It's about growing up as a Chinese-American immigrant in New Jersey, and having a father with a crippling gambling addiction.  Uplifting!

Syllabus #223

We discovered that HBO Max is live streaming playoff baseball, so we have been watching the Phillies games.  I'm getting really into it.  I think baseball is my sport.  It's certainly the only one I can follow and understand, and I've never been groped by the mascot of another professional sport (I'm looking at you, Phanatic).  But anyway, even though it's on HBO, it's just a live stream of whatever TBS is broadcasting, so there are still commercials.  Which is wild, because I haven't watched TV with commercials in years, and all of a sudden I'm confronted with all these dumb products and services that we are supposed to want, that I honestly never even knew existed.  Like a Viagra-ordering website called FridayNightPlans.com?  Ew.  Also, it's apparently a rule that either Jennifer Garner or Pete Davidson must be in every commercial now?  I've missed so much.

It me

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Last Sunday, I made this Irish Seafood Chowder, but of course I didn't follow the recipe exactly.  I followed it in spirit.  I'm not about to buy fresh clams from either the Murder Kroger or the Always Smells Like Farts Kroger (doubt they even sell them), and I'm not schlepping across the river to Whole Foods to spend an inordinate amount of time and money on a meal that Andy will only begrudgingly admit is 'okay.'  So I used canned smoked oysters and canned smoked trout plus cod and mahi mahi out of the freezer.  I had but one sad piece of each fish languishing in packages that had contained an odd number of filets, which is annoying in a 2-person household.  And then I couldn't find leeks at Kroger (shocking) so I used a couple shallots and some yellow onion.  And then I didn't want to buy a whole container of half and half to use only 3/4 of a cup and have no earthly use for the rest, so I just used 2% milk.  Oh and I didn't have fish stock so I used vegetable stock and threw in a couple dashes of fish sauce.  How am I even allowed in the kitchen?  I thought it was great; Andy, naturally, deemed it 'okay.'  It paired well with this soda bread recipe, sliced hot and slathered with salted butter.

We are having our first book fair of the year this week, and my mom is just a glutton for punishment very helpful and likes books and children (and, I suppose, me) enough to come and help me run the fair.  We are in for a real treat this week.  After setting up the fair on Friday after school, I can confirm there does not appear to be anything questionable on the Celebrate Every Voice cart, and honestly I find it offensive that anyone would argue otherwise.  I'm not worried about anyone objecting to the content.  I'm just bracing myself for the onslaught of the kids who bring in a sock full of uncounted loose change, and the ones who hand over a sweaty fistful of crumpled dollar bills, and the ones who think 7 pennies is "seven monies" and that they can use their riches to buy the hardcover book with the shark tooth that costs $18.99 plus tax.  Oh and don't get me started on sales tax.  Or the specific family who thinks it is acceptable to purchase books on day one and try to return them on day five after they have very obviously been read from cover to cover.  But if any student asks, I'M SO EXCITED.

Analog Reading:

Finished Zadie Smith's The Fraud.  Wow.  The amount of research and planning and craft that must go into such a book makes me feel inarticulate.  

Breezed through R. Eric Thomas's collection of humorous personal essays, Congratulations, the Best is Over!  It was great!  Hilarious, insightful, irreverent, poignant, all the words that show in blurbs on a book jacket, but for real.  He is now in my pantheon of humor writers who could write the copy on a package of hemorrhoid cream and I'd be thrilled to use it:  David Sedaris, Samantha Irby, Chelsea Handler, I feel like I'm forgetting someone but that might be it.  

About to begin Jennifer Weiner's The Breakaway.  It sounds fun!

Syllabus #222

Fall Break has come and gone.  Now we're on a slow, cold, march to Winter Break.  I got a new phone (well, the oldest model of new phone that (very little) money can buy), got a haircut, visited the parentals.  All while the world burns and lives are falling apart over in Israel and Gaza.  I don't have anything worthwhile to add to the discourse, but it feels wrong not to acknowledge it at all.  I remember when it was a catch phrase in the early 90s to go around saying 'peace in the Middle East,' and I'm sure kids were just repeating it because it vaguely rhymed, not because we really had any ideas about the ongoing conflict, but it's sad to think a whole lifetime has passed and people are still killing each other about the same things.

 

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I am very anti-gun.  I am SO anti-gun that I would love to round up every firearm on the planet and throw them all into the mouth of an active volcano.  But if I thought a grizzly bear was gonna take me out on the way to the mailbox?  I am walking out my front door strapped to the nines like m.f.'ing Rambo, y'all.

Not me over here googling DOD school librarian jobs.  Fully stocked supply closets?  Higher pay?  Students who all have their basic needs met?  What is this fantasy land?

This article about the origins of 13 as an unlucky number failed to mention one of the most salient manifestations of the number - The Jersey Devil.

See also, Stephen King's (shockingly brief) 1984 essay on reasons to wrap yourself in bubble wrap and hide out in a bomb shelter whenever a Friday the 13th hits the calendar.  Nothing truly bad happened to me on this Friday the 13th, of October, no less, but I DID endure 7.5 hours of driving that should have been only 5.75.  I could have walked from one side of Chattanooga to the other in less time than it took me to process through the city limits on I-24.  

Analog Reading:

Sped through Laura Dave's The Last Thing He Told Me.  It really took some twists and turns, as a good thriller should.  

Savoring Zadie Smith's The Fraud.  I expect to finish it today.  There's so many layers of meaning.  It's so good, but I feel like I'm missing some of the historical references.

Syllabus #221

My weekend morning porch coffee habit might be coming to a natural hiatus for a few months.  It's been in the 40s at sunrise the last 2 days.  It's tolerable with a thick bathrobe and a hot coffee, but if it gets any colder, my fragile Reynaud's*-having fingies and I will be staying inside.

It's like meteorological fall held off until the exact beginning of Fall Break.  I'll enjoy wearing layers and not sweating for approximately 3 days before I will be ready for 80 degree weather to return.  

*A very real and not made up affliction that, ahem, some people insist is imaginary.

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A couple of interesting books about race and labor history 

When a writer is so amusing you'd read even their grocery list, and the universe gives you, basically, their shopping list.  Samantha Irby's roundup for The Strategist is funny, but her Substack newsletter reflecting on the concept is even more hilarious.  She makes a good point about not seeing normal brown teeth on TV anymore.  We don't really watch TV (what a pretentious thing to say, but I am who I am) so this isn't a phenomenon I encounter regularly, but last night we were at a bar having dinner and watching the Phillies/Braves playoff game, and one of the cameras zoomed in on a coach in the dugout, aggressively chewing something with his mouth open, and the sight of his jagged, nicotine-stained teeth in full HD relief was SO JARRING.  I think sports might be the last bastion of average human dentistry on television.

Analog Reading:

Finished Mr. Mercedes.  I did appreciate the ending, but man, was it tense for a while there (because of course).  Also, our pal Steve could use a more ruthless editor, but who am I to say that?  I mean, guy did write actually very good tome of advice on writing, the aptly named, On Writing, but maybe he should apply himself to the natural sequel, On Editing. It might be the shortest work he ever produces. 

 

Now reading Zadie Smith's new novel, The Fraud.  She strikes me as the opposite kind of writer from Stephen King (beyond genre and literary merit) in that I get the impression she labors, if not agonizes, over every word, whereas it's easy to picture King just sitting down at his keyboard and unleashing a firehose torrent of words, tweaking a comma or an adjective here and there, and keeping it moving.  At any rate, The Fraud is excellent.  It takes a while to settle into its rhythms, but then it's a layer cake of exploration into the human condition.  Aside from the most obvious case of fraud that lends the book its' title, is anyone really who they purport to be on the surface?  

Also picked up The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave, on the recommendation of a coworker friend.  It promises to be a fast read, so I promoted it towards the top of my always metastasizing physical and electronic TBR pile.  It's not a book I would have been likely to stumble upon on my own, but it's highly entertaining so far.  I always think I'm not really into thrillers or anything romance-adjacent, but then I pick one up and have to admit the appeal.  Also, I did devour V.C. Andrews' Flowers in the Attic series at an age when I was old enough to be fully aware and in thrall of how salacious it was, but too young to fully grasp all the references, so I can't be throwing rocks from inside my glass house, or whatever.

Syllabus #220

The high point of my week was a literal high point.  If you're not popping 1/4 of a perfectly legal 10mg Delta 9 gummy at 7:30 and in your jammies brushing your teeth with your electric toothbrush at 8:30, is it even Friday night?  

The low point of my week?  How could I ever begin to choose?  The inventory reads like a list of candidates in the Republican primary race - interminable and repugnant all the way down.

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Speaking of politics (let's not and say we did?).

Analog Reading:

I've been reading Stephen King's Mr. Mercedes and I have some notes.  Steve, hi, it's me.  Just a little constructive criticism, but the 1950s called and they want all their n-words back.  Every last one.  We don't need 'em anymore.  I feel like there's a way to show that Brady is a big ol' racist without having him think the n-word in his internal monologue every other paragraph.  

I feel like I shouldn't even be reading it at this point, but like, it's a library book, so it's not like I endorsed this language with my dollars.  Like, ok, Steve, we get that you're a white Boomer who lives in Maine and probably don't know more than a handful of Black people.  Maybe that was a valid excuse at the beginning of your career, when one could argue that it was the times and you possibly didn't know any better.  But now you are one of wealthiest, most famous authors in the world and your books have been made into dozens of films and tv productions.  Surely, someone, at some point, has suggested that maybe you, in your infinite creativity, can find some other way to convey to your reader that someone is racist without making them constantly say racial slurs.  Your audience is smart!  We will recognize racist dog whistles that aren't explicit racial epithets!  Show, don't tell!  Or maybe you can just come up with characters that are bad for reasons besides being racist!  There are other ways to be an awful human, racism is but one of them!  I don't know, just a thought.  

Syllabus #219

Yes, hi, hello, TMI alert.  I am just surfacing from the most severe bout of PMS I have had in a very long time.  How I made it through this week without a criminal conviction is anyone's guess.  I would apologize for the things I said when I was angry, but whatever I said was probably justified, and whoever I said it to probably deserved it.  PMS is the true story of seven strangers eggs picked to live in a house uterus, work ovulate together, and have their lives taped absorbed by a tampon...to find out what happens...when women stop being polite...and start getting real.  The Period World. 

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Are you a party host or an enthusiastic guest?  Can you maybe be neither?  Reluctant guest who will bring a bottle of wine to be polite, and leave as soon as is socially acceptable?  Person who avoids hosting because your house is weird and you are too uptight to deal with people who don't RSVP but show up anyway, or say yes and bail at the last minute?

One of these restaurants is in our neighborhood.  I haven't been there because they're only open for lunch a few days a week, and I'm not trying to wait in line for an hour to drop an eye-watering amount of money at a time of day when I could just as easily eat a peanut butter sammich and keep it moving.  

I guess we really did peak in high school.  I'm sure (I hope) I'll be dead by 2080, but part of me wants to pull up with a bucket of popcorn and watch the decline of humanity unfold.  

Speaking of people nearing the age of 100 and Doing It Right, Jimmy Carter, everybody!  What a mensch.  Give this man another bowl of peanut butter ice cream.  

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Analog Reading:

David Grann's The Wager was gripping and epic and well-researched.  The amount of suffering these shipwrecked men faced, even before the shipwreck (hello, scurvy), and the level of determination the had to summon to make it back to jolly old England, was astonishing.

Next up:  Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King

Syllabus #218

This came to a 5th grade student through our interlibrary loan system, and I've never been more proud or ashamed.  Proud to know this student, who is apparently just as much of a weirdo as I was (and honestly still am), probably just typing 'farts' into the search box to see what came up.  Also ashamed to discover this glaring omission in my own library's collection.

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You can pry millennials' cultural relevancy from our cold, dead, immaculately preserved fingers.  

Speaking of a time when millennials were still young and carefree - what did any of us DO before cellphones?  

It's rough out there for teachers.  Relatively speaking, my job is much easier than that of a classroom teacher, and I honestly really like my job, but there's always a part of my brain that asks, what else am I qualified to do that 1) pays more, 2) is less politically threatened, and 3) is statistically less likely to put me at risk of experiencing a mass shooting?  I haven't come up with any answers to that question, by the way.  

I feel like the TV movie version of Danelo Cavalcante's escape ends with him making his way to Canada and becoming the leader of a Boy Scout troop, or pulling a Never Been Kissed move and disguising himself by enrolling as a 7th grader at a local middle school.  Dude is only 5 feet tall??  No wonder htey couldn't find him.  

Analog Reading:

Go read Ann Patchett's new novel, Tom Lake, immediately.  10/10, no notes, engaging, beautiful, only national treasure Ann Patchett could write such a beautiful pandemic novel that I would think, sure, that time wasn't so bad.

Sure, I'll Join Your Cult by Maria Bamford was the witty, whimsical reassurance we all need that there's always someone out there a little crazier than you.

Up next, I'm about to start reading David Grann's The Wager, followed by Stephen King's Mr. Mercedes.  

Syllabus #217

Last weekend was a mercifully long weekend, and we spent Monday hiking in Beaman Park.  I say 'spent Monday' rather than 'spent the morning' or 'passed the afternoon' because at one point, I thought that hike was going to be the rest of our lives.  Andy got bitten by a horsefly, and I got stung on the bridge of my nose by something sizable that flew directly into my face with such force that the impact hurt almost as much as the sting.  

What was advertised as a 6 mile hike turned into a 7.5 mile hike because the trailhead was located halfway around the loop of a shorter trail, and then it expanded into nearly 9 miles because we stupidly took the wrong side of the fork on the trail leading back to the car.  Back when we lived out west, a hike of upwards of 15 miles wouldn't have been out of the question, but it hits different when you're drowning in humidity, swarmed by buzzing and biting insects, and end up traveling 30% further than the hike you were prepared for.  

The highlight of the hike was crossing paths with a group of four Nature Nuns.  Out of respect, I didn't take their picture, but I thought I was hallucinating when we first spotted them through the trees.  They were dressed in white habits, either owing to the heat or because they were wearing them one last time before the good Lord sayeth thou shalt not wear white after Labor Day.  

At first, I assumed they were bachelorettes dressed as sexy nuns, because that seemed a much more obvious explanation than encountering a group of actual Sisters just tromping through the woods.  However, when we crossed paths with them, they were genuinely polite and looked too wholesome to be hours away from getting turnt on Broadway or flashing their jugs from a pedal tavern.  They yielded the trail to us and did not once ask us to Venmo them money to buy the bride a drink, so I am fairly confident they were legitimate nuns.

Guard cat/resident gargoyle

 

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Speaking of people of the cloth, have you heard about our comedy Lord and Savior, Danny McBride?  

It's too bad America can't have nice things.  These public pools in France look lovely.  

Lol forever at this fraudster not getting hot vegan meals, and being released on bail to play video games at his parents house.  I'm sure my mom would take me in if I was in dire straits, but like, wouldn't I at least be grounded or have to do chores if I had to move back home while awaiting trial?   Oh and he's having a sad because he ran out of Adderall.  So has everyone else, apparently!  (Srsly, ask any teacher!)  But also, what do you have to concentrate on in jail?  I would think jail would be less oppressive if you were literally unable to dwell on how much it sucked because you can't pay attention to any one thing for long enough.  

My condolences to the family, but maybe this kid just needed to get good.  I can totally relate to the crippling stomach pain following the consumption of extreme levels of spice on an otherwise empty stomach, though.  I did almost have explosive diarrhea on the streets of St. Augustine after just such a folly, so it happens to the best of us.

And here I thought there were no moops.

 

Analog Reading:

Finished The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt.  It picked up towards the end, and the stark and sudden reversal of fortune felt appropriate.

Read, Undermajordomo Minor by Patrick deWitt.  I think that's the end of my deWitt kick for a while.  In fact, I may have now read all of his published books.  It was a strange one, to be sure.  deWitt seems to like to genre-hop just like Colson Whitehead, but he's nowhere near the master that CW is.

Just started Tom Lake, Ann Patchett's new book.  It is utterly enrapturing, as usual.  Ann Patchett is a national and Nashville treasure.

Syllabus #216

Every year, when the South goes back to school at the beginning of August and every teacher I know in the Northeast is just hitting peak summer break, I'm absolutely ill with envy.  Now that it's Labor Day weekend, and schools up north are just bracing to rip off that summer bandaid, I feel, not quite schadenfreude, but something like the wise older sibling who can look back on say, puberty, and tell the younger sibling how much it's going to royally suck at first, but you'll survive.  It's going to get ugly, but it'll eventually get better.  Maybe.  Probably not.  Honestly, the best is probably behind you, but it was fun while it lasted, right?

 

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A Cuban enclave in Kentucky?  Who knew?  Might be a reason to visit Louisville, actually.  

Permission to smoothie, if you do it right.  It doesn't have to be an undercover milkshake.

Martha, Martha, Martha.  I'd be more concerned about wtf particles and microbes were bound up in that glacier ice than whether it's tone deaf regarding climate change to pluck a lil' ice cube straight from the ocean. 

In praise of laze.

This book sounds good!  If my list of pending holds from the library were an actual stack on my nightstand, you might soon find me on an episode of Hoarders.

Analog Reading:

I finished Colm Toibin's Brooklyn.  It was a good book, but I hated the ending, not for how it was written but for how realistically unsatisfying it was.  The main character had these flashes of agency, but mostly just let other people determine her fate, until she was left in a position of having to choose between two equally terrible options.  Sometimes it bes like that, but we don't have to like it, either.

Had kind of a stalled week of reading with Patrick deWitt's The Sisters Brothers.  I'm not enjoying it as much as I did The Librarianist.  It's not terrible, but the chapters are very short and kind of choppy feeling, and it makes it hard to get really absorbed in the story.  I have also fallen asleep within about 2 pages every night, so it's taking much longer to read than it should.  

Syllabus #215

We drove down to Alabama on Saturday to visit the US Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville.  For Andy, it was a homecoming of sorts, as that nerd attended Space Camp not once, but twice, in his youth.  He knew the names of all the rockets and was deep into the history of the space program, and I'm just like, look at how they poop!  

It's about a 2 hour drive from Nashville to Huntsville, so I was looking for other things to do while we were down there to make the most out of the day.  On the museum's website, they listed other attractions in Huntsville, including a couple of historic homes, a botanical garden, an art museum, and a store called Unclaimed Baggage.  It sounded like a nosy cheapskate's fever dream, and we said sign us up for that.  As it turns out, the pickins are so slim in Huntsville that Unclaimed Baggage is, in fact, not remotely in Hunstville at all, but rather 45 minutes away in Scottsboro.  We did not go to there.

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We got a lot of links this week!  Take what you will.

  

One teacher's mild take on why teachers are leaving education in droves.  She speaks like somebody who has a hot take up her sleeve but wants to keep her job for the time being.  

Margaret Renkl speaking the truth, although I think she's being a little to charitable towards old Guvnah HVAC.  

Accents and languages are fascinating!

Our butt-washer is named Jon Bidet Ramsey.   A treasured family member, highly recommend getting one.

Highly agree with conceptualizing after-work exercise as recess.  I like to go for about an hour walk every day after work.  Last week was brutally hot and I still managed to get out there every day except Friday.  Also, I like to trick myself into exercising before work in the morning by rolling out of bed and putting on a workout video while I'm still in my pajamas.  The workout is accomplished before I'm even fully awake enough to resent the imposition on my sleep.

David Sedaris is why I don't own a FitBit or an Apple Watch.  

Analog Reading:

I finished The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride.  10/10.  Excellent.  I shed one single tear at the beautiful but not schlocky ending.

I blasted through Gabrielle Zevin's The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry.  It was sweet and entertaining and witty but felt formulaic and had some plot elements that really threw me out of the moment.  In an otherwise generally realistic story, the whole act of fostering and adopting the abandoned child was so glossed over and simplified that I was like, worried for the safety of all the other children in the foster system in a bureaucracy that is so casual about letting a rando assume custody of a dead stranger's baby.  Overall, it was enjoyable to read but nowhere near as excellent as Zevin's Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow.

Now I'm reading Colm Toibin's Brooklyn.  It moves at a much slower clip than A.J. Fikry and is much more tightly focused on one character than Heaven and Earth.  That's not to say it's boring, but it is a change of pace.  I might try to watch the movie version after I finish the book.

Syllabus #214

When I was a kid, I was morbidly fascinated by middle-grade Holocaust literature, both fiction and non-fiction.  I had one book that especially haunted me, called I Have Lived a Thousand Years. a harrowing memoir about a teenage concentration camp survivor.  The title comes to mind every once in a while, when I've had an especially exhausting week at work.  Which, believe me, I KNOW, is the trashiest, most ignorant thing to compare my cushy life with anything remotely traumatizing or difficult.  And yet, this week was the first full week of school, and I was weirdly very ill for about 36 hours in which I powered through in a Coricidin-buffered haze, which bifurcated the week in a confusing way.  And all of a sudden it was the weekend and arriving at home on Friday felt like lifting the trap door to my bomb-shelter and stepping out into the sunlight after a month underground eating canned tuna and drinking my own urine.  

That sounds like hyperbole, but go talk to any teacher in the first month of school and read them that analogy.  I will give you $50 if they do anything other than shrug and say, "Yea, that checks out."

On Saturday we ate Very Good Sandwiches at Little Hats

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To be a fly on the wall in this space!

Analog Reading:

I expect to, but will regret to, finish The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store this afternoon.  The tension is rising and I have about 30 pages left and I'm desperate to find out what happens but then it'll be over and I just hate saying goodbye to these fully-fleshed out, compelling characters.

Up next, TBD.

Syllabus #213

Yes hello I have stared into the bucket of truth, and in the bottom was this pizza, and lo, I saw that it was good, and I am forever changed.  The half in the foreground was a hot pickle pizza with dill, Calabrian chilis, and ranch drizzle, and you'll forgive me for any typos that follow because I have salivated all over my keyboard.  I have one slice leftover for lunch today and when it's gone, I'm going to feel the kind of nostalgic longing for happier times that many people associate with their childhoods, or their college days, or their first loves.  I'm not being dramatic.  It's that good.

If you are local to Nashville, please don't tell too many people about Pinky Ring Pizza in Madison because I don't want it to blow up to the point that I can no longer access this jewel that I just discovered, but please do hurry yourself on over for a pie.  Good lord.  I'm not religious but you better believe on this Sunday at lunch I'm taking my mouth to church and praising sweet baby Jesus for this perfect manna from heaven.

Don't even talk to me unless you're putting pickles and hot peppers on your pizza.

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We've all Wordled, but have you Connected?  It's like a daily SAT verbal exercise for utterly no purpose other than bragging rights, which is kind of also the purpose of the SAT, except this doesn't also largely and arbitrarily determine the trajectory of your future, your educational debt, and your lifetime earning capacity.  Low stakes insufferable nerd fun.  To date, I have a near-perfect record, having made only one mistake in the first puzzle I attempted a couple weeks back.  Now that I've announced that, I'm sure I'll start screwing them up left and right, but it's been a real ego-stroke while it's lasted.  

Speaking of education, but the high-stakes kind.  I'll be unraveling a cardigan in solidarity with the librarians of the Houston school district.  So you say you're trying to raise reading and math scores?  But you're closing libraries and turning them into discipline centers?  I'm sure that's going to work out beautifully for you.  

Analog Reading:

Finished Patrick deWitt's new novel, The Librarianist.  It was quirky and delightful and I enjoyed every minute of it.  Despite not being a septuagenarian male living in Portland, Oregon, I very much identified with the protagonist.  Somebody who spends their days reading, walking, tidying, cooking, and eating?  Damn, y'all.  It me.

Just picked up James McBride's new masterpiece, The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store.  I'm only a few pages in, but I can already tell it's going to be great.