On Tuesday this week, two different people asked me how my day was going and, twice, I said, “It’s a crazy Monday!” before realizing it was not Monday. That tells you how my week’s been. My brain is FRIED from juggling work, packing, starting to move. I’m hoping to be moved in by Monday. I have already set up my bookshelf. Priorities. The most relaxing part of my week was going to the dentist. I had a small cavity filled and I was just happy to lie back and close my eyes.
Quote of the week:
“Wonderful things happen when people feel felt, when they sense that their minds are held within another’s mind.” — Dan Siegel, a UCLA psychiatrist and prominent theorist in the field of interpersonal neurobiology
What I’m reading:
I finished Mother in the Dark by Kayla Maiuri and loved it. I’m now reading Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be by Becky Kennedy. Wow. It’s really a book about relationships, in general. So many great insights and strategies.
What I’m listening to:
I am loving Joyce Maynard’s memoir, At Home in the World. It’s been on my list for a long time and am so glad I’m finally reading it. She’s one of my favorite novelists. If you don’t know, she had a relationship with JD Salinger when she was in her late teens and he was in his fifties. Her telling is both haunting and beautiful.
What I’m watching:
Bad Sisters on Apple TV. I’m on episode 4. Love it. Wish I had time to binge it.
What I’m talking about:
I have been totally boring and self-absorbed with my own life stress this week. The only things I’m talking about are what a terrible company Living Spaces is (seriously, I submitted my first-ever Better Business Bureau review) and how my back hurts from lifting things I shouldn’t.
Oh, I did watch the Boston Marathon on Monday and did a lot of talking about that. I ran it last year and it was such a great experience. Watching it makes me want to do it again. So many inspiring athletes.
Interesting things I learned this week:
- Spanish athlete Beatriz Flamini spent 500 days alone in a cave, as part of research into the effects of isolation on the body and mind. She said it was enjoyable and she “didn’t want to come out.” I like my solitude, but this is on another level
- The minimum wage has been $7.25/hr since 2009. If it kept up with inflation, it should be $27/hr. This is ridiculous
- 41% of workers with a post-graduate degree said they respond to work emails or other messages from work outside of normal work hours extremely often/often, according to a Pew poll of nearly 6000 people
- 46% of workers don’t take the full number of paid days off offered by their employers; of that 46%, more than half of them don’t do it because they didn’t feel like they needed it. Whaaaat is happening to our culture?!
- This week, a rare hybrid eclipse appeared for the first time in a decade. Hybrid eclipses make up only 3% of eclipses. There are only a few each century!
- Since January, state legislators have introduced more than 400 anti-trans bills, more than the number introduced in the past four years combined. I do not understand why people care so much what others do with their gender or sexuality
- Women are 27% less likely than men to receive CPR from a bystander if they have a heart attack. It’s believed the disparity is due to the lack of representation in CPR training, as classes primarily use male, flat-chested manikins (see below if the word “manikins” is as weird to you as it was to me)
Weirdest thing I googled this week:
“mannequin vs manikin.” When I read about the above CPR statistic, the article used the word “manikin” and I thought, “Wow, that’s a major misspelling.” Then I googled and learned this: “While mannequins model clothing in stores, manikins model medical situations and scenarios. The main difference is that mannequins are stationary models that advertise products, while mannikins are more realistic and anatomically correct models that are capable of simulating real-life medical scenarios.” I had no idea.
What I’m grateful for:
- The (slow) departure of my head cold. I’m getting less congested with each day
- The near-completion of my house. Excited to move; sad to leave our current house behind. As Dr. Becky says in her book, “two things are true”
- Great peak training week for my upcoming half marathon. I had a 14-miler this morning and it included an accidental 10K PR!
- Beautiful weather! We’ve had lots of gloomy days but the sun is out now and I’m loving it
