I don’t know how it’s already August. I also don’t know how my daughter is starting kindergarten the week after next. WHAT IS HAPPENING? In lieu of trying to answer that question, let’s get into the roundup.
Quote of the week:
“The realization that life is absurd cannot be an end, but only a beginning.” –Albert Camus
What I’m reading:
Just started All the Gold Stars: Reimaging Ambition and the Ways We Strive by Rainesford Stauffer. Good for all of us who are recovering overachievers with deeply ingrained beliefs about what success means.
What I’m listening to:
Let Your Mind Run: A Memoir of Thinking My Way to Victory by Deena Kastor. I’ve been in a running rut during this marathon training cycle, so hoping this book gives me some inspiration.
What I’m watching:
Season 2 of The Bear. The hype is warranted.
Writing news:
Nothing exciting this week. Hoping to have more activity in fall.
Interesting things I learned this week:
- “News avoidance” is on the rise: In a survey, 38% of U.S. respondents say they sometimes or often avoid news. At the same time, the proportion of people who are “extremely” or “very interested” in the news continues to decline: In the U.S., this group was in the minority (49%) for the first time in the survey’s history, down from 67% in 2015
- Houston is planning to convert some school libraries into discipline centers (read here) (wtf. This is why people avoid the news)
- A Taylor Swift concert in Seattle shook the ground so hard that it registered as roughly equivalent to a magnitude 2.3 earthquake
- The first NYT poll of the 2024 election cycle shows a dead head between Biden and Trump: 43% of registered voters say they will support Biden, and 43% say they will support Trump
- Identical twins have become much more common, moving from 1 in 50 babies before 1980 to 1 in 30 babies now
- Between 2008 and 2010, Paul the octopus was regularly asked to pick the winners of FIFA games. Out of 14 predictions, Paul was correct 12 times, an 85.7% accuracy rate (for more facts that may convince you that octopuses are aliens from another planet, read here)
- Italy’s conservative lower house of parliament approved a bill that could impose prison sentences on parents who use surrogates to have children. Surrogacy has been illegal in Italy for 20 years, but the bill goes further to criminalize and impose fines of up to 1 million euros on people who use surrogacy
- If things do not change, then by 2050 we can expect at least 3 times as many days over 100 degrees per year
- Anthropologist Kathrine Starkweather has identified over 50 cultures, from the Arctic to the tropics, where women have routinely married more than one spouse
Weirdest thing I googled this week:
“Removing one testicle.” Part of some research I’m doing for a 10-minute play I want to write. Intrigued?
What I’m grateful for:
- My neighborhood book club. Great women, great conversation
- My pool and hot tub. They have been key this summer
- Finishing a 15-mile run when I wanted to stop completely at mile 4. Chicago Marathon is in about 8 weeks. I’ve been on the struggle bus with my training, but getting things done
- All of my daughter’s little friends. I didn’t used to be a “kid person,” but I have become one. They are all so unique and funny and interesting
- The 3 P’s: Poetry, puzzles, pets
Snapshots:
