Anyone else still recovering from Halloween? Our school district has a no-school day after Halloween “so the kids can sleep in after all the festivities” (aka the teachers do not want to deal with the sugar crashes), and we’ve had early dismissal every other day this week. It continues to baffle me how the school system is STILL set up with the assumption that one of the parents (aka the mother) does not have a job. The juggling act with work and childcare is so hard! Needless to say, I am looking forward to the weekend.
Quote of the week:
“I feel that art has something to do with the achievement of stillness in the midst of chaos. A stillness which characterizes prayer, too, and the eye of the storm. I think that art has something to do with an arrest of attention in the midst of distraction.” –Saul Bellow
Related: Last night, I saw U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón speak at Scripps College and she talked about this topic. What is the point of poetry? She described poetry as giving us a chance to pause, to grieve. She talked about the healing power of art. To paraphrase, “A poem may only heal its writer…but isn’t that enough?”
What I’m reading:
I am finally finishing up Wellness by Nathan Hill. It’s 600 pages so it’s a commitment, but so worth it. I’m in awe of his writing and the TONS of research he did for this book.
What I’m listening to:
On my long drive to/from the Ada Limón event last night, I listened to Blue Hour by Tiffany Clarke Harrison. Next up: What About Men? A Feminist Answers the Question by Caitlin Moran.
What I’m watching:
Still nada. Haven’t had much time for shows lately.
Writing news:
My second novel, Cherry Blossoms, turned 5 this week. This book is quite different than my other novels—male main character, lots of dark humor, research heavy (I took a Japanese class as part of writing this book!).
Interesting things I learned this week:
- Only 3% of book owners sort their books by color, and they are more often under the age of 30, according to a recent survey. When I moved houses, I decided to have a “blue office” so I only have blue books on my shelves, so I guess that counts as sorting by color
- Recent data suggests stricter gun laws DO help: Stricter gun laws passed by 40 states from 1991 to 2016 reduced gun deaths by nearly 4,300 in 2016, or about 10% of the nationwide total. States with stricter laws, such as background checks and waiting periods, consistently had fewer gun deaths
- Britney Spears’s memoir sold 1.1 million copies in its first week
- Hippopotamus derives from the Greek term for “river horse”
- A man in Ontario has just applied for a World Record for a zucchini he harvested that is 8 feet, 4.79 inches long
- An elephant is pregnant for up to 22 months
- A Georgia restaurant went viral this week for charging a $50 surcharge for “adults unable to parent” unruly children
- The Hollywood sign debuted in 1923—it turns 100 on December 8. Related factoid: In 1943, either strong storms or vandals took out the “H,” leaving the neglected sign to read “ollywoodland” for SIX YEARS, when the chamber of commerce replaced the “H” (and also removed the “land”)
- The Author’s Guild reports that writers have seen their income decline by 40% over the past decade. In 2022, a full-time author earned a median income of $23K, according to the Guild’s most recent survey. This is why many of us are not full-time authors 😉
- The body has a smaller immune response to colds in winter versus summer. I read this in Wellness, which is a fiction book but has so many interesting factoids (like I said above, he did SO much research for this book. There is an 8-page bibliography at the end of it!). From the book: “The brain perceives the shorter days, the lack of sunlight, the cold temperatures, and it thinks: This is the season of scarcity. And so it does not spend as much energy fighting colds as it does in the summer, the season of abundance”
- Less than 1% of the U.S. population has completed a marathon
Weirdest thing I googled this week:
“Does an octopus have bones?” Okay, so my good friend was in town this past weekend to help me celebrate my birthday and she came along to my daughter’s school’s “trunk or treat” event on Friday evening. One of the cars was decorated with a beach theme and included skeletons of various sea creatures… including an octopus. My friend and I, who I assure you are quite intelligent people with Master’s degrees, looked at each other and said, “Wait, an octopus has bones?!” We googled it and it turns out that, no, they do not. Per our google search, the skeleton featured at the trunk or treat is sold by various outlets (like here) and, in our opinion, is spreading misinformation. Ha.
What I’m grateful for:
- My good friend visiting this past weekend. It was such a treat to see her and have some quality time. We hung out with my daughter, hiked in the hills near my house, went out to eat yummy food, talked for hours—so nourishing
- A fun Halloween. I admit, I am not a holiday person. I hate the pressure of holidays. But this one was fun. I volunteered at my daughter’s Halloween class party, we did the “trunk or treat” at her school, and we went trick-or-treating in our neighborhood (they really go crazy for Halloween where we live). My daughter was a police officer for the second year in a row while me and her dad dressed up as burglars
- My daughter starting casual Spanish lessons with our neighbor, Rosa. This makes my heart so happy. I was fluent in Spanish when I was younger and would love to see my daughter discover the benefits of thinking in another language
- Seeing Misery (based on the Stephen King book) at our local playhouse with my mom. I’ve always loved this story and the production was so well done
- Seeing Ada Limón, U.S. Poet Laureate (and my personal favorite poet), at Scripps College last night. She read 9 poems and I could have listened to her all night. Then she had a conversation with Lynne Thompson, former Los Angeles Poet Laureate, and it was just so wonderful. I wish I had a recording of it
Snapshots:
