Happy May! We are having “May gray” in southern California so it’s been pretty dreary, with a few hours of sunshine on a good day. I cannot believe we’re heading into summer soon. I’m ready!
Quote of the week:
“The sun is perfect and you woke up this morning. You have enough language in your mouth to be understood. You have a name, and someone wants to call it. Five fingers on your hand and someone wants to hold it. If we just start there, every beautiful thing that has and will ever exist is possible. If we start there, everything, for a moment, is right in the world.” –Warsan Shire
What I’m reading:
I just started The Garden by Clare Beams. I’m liking it so far.
What I’m listening to:
I also just started a new audiobook, Sociopath: A Memoir by Patric Gagne. A book about sociopathy written by someone who is a sociopath? Wow, so interesting.
What I’m watching:
I saw Abigail in the theater, which was a fun horror movie. I watched Fair Play on Netflix—another entertaining one.
Writing news:
Still working away on my new novel. I had a great call this week with the writer of the screenplay for my second book, Cherry Blossoms. Fingers crossed things get moving again on that front.
Interesting things I learned this week:
- Research tells us that people can focus on a single screen for an average of only 47 seconds (more here)
- Nearly one-third of teens and young adults strongly identify as readers (yay!) according to a new report commissioned by HarperCollins in collaboration with NielsenBook
- There are an estimated 15 million sociopaths in the US
- Rubatosis is the unsettling awareness of your own heartbeat
- 45% of women between the ages of 25 and 44 are expected to be single and childfree by 2030
- Human beings are the only living species with a chin
- California’s population is back on the upswing for the first time since 2020: The population increased by 67K last year
- 98% of middle- and high-school students said they want to be Internet famous, according to a 2022 Bloomberg survey. This is frightening!
- Americans are sleeping more than ever–we gained 10 minutes per day, on average, between 2019 and 2022
- Female patients treated by female doctors are less likely to die, according to a study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine
- A contronym is a word with two opposing meanings, like how “bad” can refer to something terrible or awesome
Weirdest thing I googled this week:
“National anthems with no lyrics.” I heard there a few countries that have these so I had to investigate. The countries are Spain, Bosnia and Herzegovina, San Marino, and Kosovo.
What I’m grateful for:
- Our Hawaii friends, Rob and Gloria, coming to visit on Saturday. They make us feel so loved
- A beautiful mid-week beach outing with my daughter (a couple photos below)
- A good mixture of mom activities and me-time activities. It’s so hard to strike the right balance; I’m usually heavily in the “mom activities” column. Related: I’m so grateful for our babysitter. My daughter adores her
