This week, I puzzled out an issue and solved a problem that a transfer student had been worrying about all summer. I feel good about that. That’s my favorite thing that happened this week.
Also, smart people said/wrote some lovely things on the internet:
Heather Havrilesky once again puts into words what I’m going through. Working with college students (and *ahem* also people in their 20s and 30s and sometimes 40s…when did I become the old person in the room?), I see them despair a lot, wondering if everyone is awful and everything is broken. Yes, in general, but also really no. There’s a lot of beauty and kindness below the surface. It takes some energy to see it, but if you’re already pouring vast amounts of effort into despair, maybe set aside a little of that for wonder and curiosity. It will make your life (and, dare to hope, your relationships) so much better. My life goal is to always remain curious about new ideas, new skills, and especially the people around me.
Happy July! I have the day off today, as I work for the state, and the holiday we would usually get at this time is on a Saturday this year. I’ll take it.
I’ve had a pretty easy week overall. In addition to having today off, I also took Monday and Tuesday off – just because – and I got a lot of reading and very little housework done and got to talk about books while in a pool on Tuesday. So…perfect days. I have a laidback party with some fun people this weekend, and then preparation for a reading retreat next weekend. Yay!
My seasonal depression is visiting. So far, it’s pretty mild this year. This is not a challenge, Derek (what I have named my seasonal depression. I feel like he would be a Derek. No offense if your name or the name of someone you love is Derek, of course. It’s just easy to yell in an exasperated manner.).
And yes, I do picture Derek from The Good Place when I yell it. Thanks for asking.
Here are some things that confused some of the summer sads this week:
Wednesday Adams is playing Klara in the screen adaptation of Klara and the Sun!!! And by Wednesday Adams, I do mean Jenna Ortega (which I had to google, because Jenny didn’t look right. Because it wasn’t). That is her real name. I’m too excited. I can’t be trusted to get names right.
One of my things-to-do-by-the-time-I’m-60 goals is to join an online book club. I should have been more specific. I have joined several. Technically, I am a member of at least three online book clubs, but I am having a hard time remembering to participate. I have online book friends and book groups, but I wanted to buckle down with one that reads and discusses a book each month. I was excited to discover that Kate Bowler has started one, and the first month is Shark Heart, which was on my radar to read for one of my challenges this year anyway. Added bonus – there are many ways to participate in this club. We’ll see how it goes!
One of these days, I’m going to give in and just make some Bala Baiana. It truly is everything I love in a candy.
“Obliterates” is a strong word, but I do enjoy Mamdani’s handling of the press. Almost as much as I appreciate that he actually does the job he was elected to do. The bar is so low, y’all.
I was really looking forward to this being the first day I slept past 7:00 in what seems like a thousand years. I realize 7:00 is reasonable for many people, but when you naturally fall asleep (i.e., without sleep aid medication, which I don’t take unless I’m desperate) at 1:00-2:00 a.m., 7:00 is hella early.
Guess when the very loud thunderstorm rolled through. 6:30. Six. Thirty.
Not cool, thunder. Not cool.
At least I didn’t have to get out of bed. I guess that’s something.
Here are some things on the internet I liked this week.
Today is Juneteenth, which marks the anniversary of the news of emancipation finally reaching Texas. To celebrate on this and any other day, please consider donating to the good work We Have Stories is doing in NYC. Also, please consider looking at your own community and joining in the good work being done there. Also, please consider starting the good work if you don’t find any being done around you.
This whole quote – “Things can be hot in a book boyfriend and an absolute red flag in a real boyfriend. This is the nature of fiction.” (This is the smallest example of that, but like in romance novels men are always tilting her chin up with their finger. Touch me like that?!?!?!?! Put your fucking FINGER under my CHIN to get my attention?!?!?! I’m sorry but I would karate chop your throat. Sexy in a book. Would drive me crazy in real life.) “ I feel seen.
One of my great joys is following professional dancers (specifically, partnered dancers, but I am a sucker for any kind of dance) on Instagram. Emeline Rochefeuille is one of my favorites, and this is so cute.
While my new position did come with a slight pay bump, it was definitely a downgrade in responsibility. I went from supervising a staff of 12 to not being a supervisor at all. HIGHLY RECOMMEND even a temporary career downgrade if you are feeling those signs of burnout (…or even if you just want to. Turns out, you don’t have to wait until you are already at your wit’s end to do something that makes your life better.). Even if it had been a lateral move financially, it still would have been worth it for all the added peace it has brought to my private life.
I hope your Friday was good, and I hope you have a great weekend!
I sat here for five minutes trying to sum up the things listed below, but my mind is drawing a blank. Little byproduct of the summer seasonal sads, probably. Anyway, here are things:
Voted this week. Quick question: Does Mamdani have a friend who is looking to relocate to Texas? I’d like Denton to experience how it feels to have Mamdani as mayor.
Every week, I make approximately 2,435 new plans for the plants in and around my home. This week, my favorite daydreams are thrifting small dishes to use as drip plates for pots and making mint ice cream out of the extravagance my plant has produced.
I have a Rec League. I love the unabashed sharing of things people love. It’s a nice brain break in the middle of the day.
I am very close to finishing my Libro.fm challenge for the year. The prompt that’s holding me up? “Plan or join an audiobook outing.” Because…why would I want to do that. I meant to listen to an audiobook during the last get-together of my local Silent Book Club, but I got overstimulated that day and ended up not going. Maybe I’ll try again. Or maybe I’ll include listening to an audiobook in my car. Technically, that’s an outing, in that it’s outside my home. It doesn’t say it has to be an outing with other people. It’s a stretch, but I may get desperate.
Today is the second round of Transfer Orientation, so work is going to be anything but slow. Perhaps the busyness at work is part of why I have been drawn to snippets and musings about a slow life this week.
I love this daydream about living in Italy (and also a gentle push to maybe put down/throw away the phone and live) from Shawn Smucker.
Andi’s snapshot of a slow-living moment made my mouth water. It’s been a while since I enjoyed a perfect omelette. I think I see one in my near future.
As it will soon be too hot here to cook over a stove or turn on the oven for a few months, I’m clinging to warm salad season lately. I love a good roasted veggie salad so much, but my willingness to tolerate the heat that roasting adds to my house will evaporate by mid-June. This week, my meal plan includes a spin on German potato salad (warm, with a mustard vinaigrette) and something with sweet potatoes, onions, and cranberries.
Speaking of changing weather, I love this piece of advice about being stuck in the transition time between seasons from Tamar Adler – “When you taste the season’s first cherry, then plum, then apricot, let all the time before it open your mind and heart to its miracle. Sit down and describe it. Be stuck until you unstick.”
After spending a good chunk of my lunch hour looking for two more things to include in this list, I’ve decided I don’t need five things. It’s just fine the way it is. It has books. It has cozy tips. It encourages literary citizenship. What more could you want (rhetorical)?
The Modern Mrs. Darcy Summer Reading Guide comes out next week!! This will mark 15 years of stellar recommendations of seasonal new releases from the MMD team. Here are some backlist favorites to whet your appetite.
A lot of these tips for making the end of the workday feel like a beginning rather than an ending don’t really appeal to me specifically (as a single person who lives alone and also is allergic to just about everything outside), but I like the general idea. I like having an evening “now I’m at home and not working” ritual. This is a good reminder of how much I definitely need that off switch in my life.
Two of my book club leaders already have a Little Free Library at their houses, but I am on a mission to promote more. I’m also in the process of seeing if I am allowed to have one on the back porch of my apartment. But I love the idea of doing it as a group.
There you have it. Short and sweet. Enjoy your weekend!
No, it’s not about seeing how many mashed potatoes I can eat without suffering serious consequences (a challenge I would happily undertake). For fans of the Books Unbound Podcast, it’s about reading the books that have been on your TBR for a minute that you haven’t quite gotten to yet. Mashed potatoes are the perfect metaphor for how I feel about the books that hover near the top of the TBR. Saving the best for last, if you will. Like eating mashed potatoes after you’ve eaten everything else on your plate.
[Aside – I do not do that. Potatoes first. Sometimes, potatoes only. Sometimes, potatoes mixed with something else on the plate, even though that violates the one-food-at-a-time code. That’s just how excited I get about eating potatoes.]
I do not have leftover feelings about mashed potatoes. And I don’t have leftover feelings about any book I’ve listed on a TBR this year, either.
This month’s list is intentionally sparse (well, compared to my usual TBRs) to allow me to give some TLC to the books I’ve already planned but didn’t read yet because…
Someone else had them on hold at the library, or
I started them and then had to switch gears to finish a book club selection before we met and didn’t pick the original book back up, or
(most likely) I had 30+ books on my TBR for the month, and that’s not typically a reasonable expectation.
I incorporated most of my cozy reading plan for May into the summer months, but there are a few books that I had on hold at the library that became available recently. I’ll continue to read these throughout this month.
Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinnaman (also fulfills the Book Riot challenge “choose a prompt from a previous year” – specifically, “read a staff pick from an indie bookstore”)
I ordered the three curricula I’m tackling for this challenge so that the one that will take the longest to see progress on (i.e., learning organ) was started first. While that’s not going as quickly as I’d planned, I have made some progress. At this point, I’m still regaining flexibility/mobility in my fingers so that I can play keys more nimbly. We’ll add in feet later.
That skill will also help out with my second curriculum, which I’m easing into this month. My goal for this curriculum is to write a score (or a song) and upload a recording on Bandcamp. I already have a rough draft of a score that I’m excited to perform. This curriculum will include some readings on deep listening, experimental sound/music, and other related topics. I’m going to start with these:
I don’t have specific books for the May mini-challenges here yet, but I’m keeping an eye out for these prompts as I read. Extra challenge this month – the three May mini-challenges must be published in different decades.
May Mini 1 – A coffee shop scene
May Mini 2 – Character has a roommate
May Mini 3 – “I’ll be there for you.”
Libro.fm
OK, so I am burning through audiobooks these days. So I’m going to keep doing so with this challenge in mind. Books I should be able to finish by the end of the month:
This Book Made Me Think of You by Libby Page (narrated by Zadeiah Campbell-Davies) – Read a bookseller-recommended audiobook – this one has been recommended by so many people, and it finally became my turn on our library’s waitlist, and I finished and returned it within 24 hours. It’s so good. I concur with my librarian friend that this is the best book about books (and bookshops) that I’ve read in a long time. I enjoyed the audio, but I’m 100% going to buy the print copy because 1) book lists, and 2) I will definitely re-read it at some point.
The Indigo Girl by Natasha Boyd (narrated by Saskia Maarleveld) – Read an audiobook with a buddy. It was…fine. But Brenda also read it via audio to discuss at book club last night, so I’m counting it toward this prompt.
Flashlight by Susan Choi (narrated by Eunice Wong) – Plan or join an audiobook outing. I’m counting my Silent Book Club meetup this Sunday as an “audiobook outing.” I’m sure others will also be reading via audio, as this will free up our hands for food truck treats.
A Murder in Eight Cocktails by Kelly Mullen (narrated by Laurence Bouvard) – Read an audiobook from our New This Week podcast
The Stories of Eva Luna by Isabel Allende (narrated by Samantha Desz, Cynthia Farrell, Joy Osmanski, and Timothy Andrés Pabon) – Listen to an audiobook by a Latine author
Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar (narrated by Arian Moayed) – Listen to an audiobook by a South West Asian or North African author
I hope you get to read (and eat) some of your mashed potatoes, too!
Happy Friday, friends! This week’s post is weirdly shopping heavy, but I’m here for it. I mean, some of the implied shopping is books, so at least that tracks.
Yesterday was Diada de Sant Jordi (Saint George’s Day), otherwise known as Day of Books and Roses. One of my coworkers surprised us with a selection of bookish stickers (“team whoever the villain is” is my favorite), bookmarks, roses, and a book of our choosing from her donation pile.
Excited about Independent Bookstore Day tomorrow. I mean, every day is Independent Bookstore Day to me, and event days are crowded, so I’ll probably skip the festivities at my local shops. But I like the opportunity to celebrate them, even if from afar. I also love Modern Mrs. Darcy’s list of great indie bookstores around the world.
I took Montana Happy’s cozy living style quiz. Zero surprise that “whimsical retreat” is my brand of cozy (although I do like a garden, and also a house, not an apartment, is my ideal).
My current financial goal is to insert a pause on purchases. I am a quick decision-maker, which is beneficial in literally every facet of my life…except shopping. It urges me to buy things that, if I put just a little more time and thought into it, I might not want in the long run and thus regret buying. So this cute top is on pause right now. I want more spring/summer casual business clothes for work…but also need to reassess if this is one I really love or if it just checks that box (meaning there might be something else I want more). If I still love it in a week, I’ll take the leap.
Speaking of things I took off pause…these are the best under-skirt shorts I’ve ever worn. I have only worn them once, but it was on a super mobile day (i.e., I walked around a lot rather than just staying in/near my office, like most days), and they did not budge even a little bit. They’re also lightweight and super soft and low maintenance. I’m going to pause a little before purchasing more – give them a couple more wears to see if it was a one-time thing or if the quality persists after multiple washes – but if they continue to perform as well as they did the other day, Thigh Society can just take all my money. A good undershort is hard to find.
Enjoy your weekend! I hope you get to visit at least one indie bookstore (if that’s your thing)!
I’m wearing jeans today. It’s been a minute since I’ve worn real pants. But they looked cute and I bought them. So here we are. I forgot how little the pockets are.
This has been a high-anxiety week. No specific reason (other than the usual living-in-this-world). I did have a checkup at the doctor (everything’s good), so maybe that’s it.
Anyway, today’s list focuses on little pockets of joy I love from the week. Enjoy!
How did Dorie Greenspan know that what the world needs now is to hear her wax poetical about pastry? [P.S. Dorie Greenspan always gushes about pastry.] [P.P.S. The world always needs it.]
My tomato plants are thriving with all the moisture we’ve been getting, but they look a little lonely. Time to plant some friends!
Next week is National Library Week! The theme this year is Find Your Joy, and I’m pretty sure my joy is at the library. I’ll have to make sure to block out some time to do some meandering and browsing.
How are you doing? Hope you find some joy this weekend.
Unpopular opinion – Spring is, objectively speaking, the very worst season. At least in Texas. But I imagine any place with trees or floral plant life is just unbearable right now.
So what does that leave? The desert? Desert people – how are you right now? Can you breathe? I’ve forgotten how it feels to be able to do that. Is it wonderful? I bet it’s wonderful.
The pollen is really pollening. My gray car has taken on a perpetual yellow tint, despite vigilant rinsing. I’m constantly drugged, and as they are providing no actual symptom relief, I’ve concluded the allergy meds are merely keeping me alive. I have a constant wheeze. It’s a miracle I can open my eyes wide enough to read print at all.
That must be why the audiobooks I read in March outnumbered the print books I read. For the first time ever. Incredible.
It’s National Poetry Month, though, so I’m going to power through with puffy, watery eyes to enjoy all the lovely collections I’ve planned. Print is always my preference with poetry.
[Disclaimer – I am a Bookshop.org affiliate – I get a cut of the sales from most of the links below.]
The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler (I haven’t quite finished the previous ones in the series, so I’m going to have to read them OUT OF ORDER to get this one read by the time book club comes *melodramatically breaks out in hives*)
Game Changer by Rachel Reid (I just picked this up from the library yesterday, and it’s currently my top priority read – I’ve been waiting since February 16! I know I’ve pre-ordered the special editions that are coming out in October, but I am tempted to purchase regular copies so I can read them earlier.)
Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid (Still waiting. But I’m #2 instead of #14, which is where I started on the waitlist, so…pretty impressive, Denton HR fans!)
It’s National Poetry Month, and I’m going to celebrate not only by reading lots of poetry but also by learning more about how to write it well from some of my favorite poets.
Financial Feminist by Tori Dunlap – April Mini Challenge: Knock, knock: who’s there? (answers the question/describes a person)
Libro.fm
Get a Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert (narrated by Adjoa Andoh) – Listen to an audiobook by a disabled author (Part of The Great Audio Reading Surge of March 2026. It’s so good! I’m excited to read the other two this month.)
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson (narrated by Robert Sean Leonard) – Listen to a banned book (Another part of The Surge. I am glad I didn’t read this as a child. I was way too sensitive to have been able to handle this then. It was almost too much for Adult Me to try to listen to during lunch and while driving. There was ugly crying involved.)
Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V. E. Schwab – Listen to a Libro.fm staff pick (Also read in March. While I liked Schwab’s series – Shades of Magic and Villains, specifically – better, it was a solid read, and the audio was fantastic.)
Judge Stone by Viola Davis and James Patterson (narrated by Viola Davis) – Read an audiobook from your wish list (Just waiting on my libro.fm credit for the month to pop up!)
M. Suzanne Terry 