• the quotidian (12.31.18)

    Quotidian: daily, usual or customary; 
    everyday; ordinary; commonplace

    Christmas Eve.
    Cookies for breakfast.
    Piped peanut butter.
    Power outage: but thanks to my sweet kitchen beast, I could still cook!
    Beef jerky.
    The Destroyer of Clean Windows strikes again.
    Three shades of dirty.

    Just for kicks, they like to open up the septic, stare into the abyss, and ponder the meaning of life. 
    How they play.
    (See it — and a tour of my trashed house —here.) 
    SO snowboarding ready.
    Tech support.
    Look at those cheeks!

    This same time, years previous: family magnified, our apocalypse, tamalada!, eggnog, throwing it down.

  • right now

    Right now, I am…

    Savoring… lots of snacking meals of leftover cheeses, eggnog, nuts, cookies, and fruit.

    Worrying… that perhaps I’m eating too much of the above?

    Struggling… against the pull to be productive and disciplined while at the same time just wanting to luxuriate in the delicious holiday inertia for forever. Too bad “doing nothing” gets boring so fast….

    Discovering… a new writing place! They recently (a year ago?) expanded their space, taking over a vintage clothing shop and transforming the former changing rooms into little cubbies, perfect for holing up for long stretches of time. The music is terrible (abrasive) and the coffee is tepid (though tasty), but the atmosphere is pretty swell. Want to join me? If you’re lucky, you might get the roomy handicap stall.

    Signing up… for a publishing workshop with Jane Friedman. (No, the book is not done.)

    Missing… Spanish, Puerto Rico, and — I can’t believe I’m saying this — hot weather.

    Marveling… that Ghirardelli salted caramel boxed brownies taste exactly like toasted marshmallows! Am I the only one who thinks this?

    Thrilling… over my sweet children who pooled their resources and surprised me with an absolutely fantastic chef’s knife. The comfy handle, the smooth rocking motion, the wicked-sharp blade — I am so over-the-moon.

    Reeling… from the spontaneous purchase of a much-longed for macbook. This was not the plan. First, I bought a super-cheap Lenovo, but when we realized it was making a death rattle despite being brandnew, we returned it. Then, after much thoughtful and very adult-like deliberation, I finally settled on a better Lenovo — faster, more expensive. But — oh woe! — it was weirdly slow and kept blanking out. After working on it for a bit, my brother declared it defunct. By then my husband was like, Screw it, Jennifer. Just get a real computer.  So now our budget’s in shambles but I don’t really care because Oh my word, this computer is AMAZING. #noregrets

    Failing… yet again to convince my husband to go on a run with me, grumble-gr. My sister-in-law, aka my loyal running buddy, broke her elbow (surgery, plates, pins — ouch!) and will be out of commission for a couple months, so now it’s just me out there facing the bone-chilling cold all by my lonesome. 

    Appreciating… the meditative nature of solo runs. My thoughts go every which way and, when I return, I feel like I’m resurfacing from a deep fog. I like it.

    Gloating… over my hearing test results. My kids always fuss that I’m going deaf, and I feel like I’m always saying What?, so when our pharmacy hosted free hearing tests for a day, I took one. I fully thought the tests would reveal moderate loss, but no — my hearing is excellent. Thus proving that it’s not me — everyone else is mumbling. (Or maybe I’m a lazy listener….?)

    Watching… my older son’s snowboarding footage and wondering what sort of crazy person would even consider paying good money for the privilege (torture?) of whizzing down a snow-covered mountain with their feet strapped fast to a slab of wood? And then realizing, oh right — my kids.

    Raving… to EVERYONE about Roma. Have you seen it? Everything — the realism, the acting, the cinematography, the intimacy — is utterly pristine and exquisite.

    Finishing up…  reading Ender’s Game to the younger two kids, season five of The Great British Baking Show (and laughing at how the new hosts tear up all the time!), The Wife.

    Assembling… a puzzle, meals from leftovers, mince tarts.

    This same time, years previous: 2017 book list, 2016 garden stats and notes, 2015 book list, 2014 book list, remembering Guatemala, hot buttered rolls, chopped locks, one step above lazy.

  • 2018 book list

    Here you go, just in time for the dark winter months…

    *Where the Past Begins, by Amy Tan. Excessively wordy and dry. I skimmed a lot, especially towards the end. Also: what’s up with the huge paragraphs? They’re not easy to read or fun to look at, so why?

    *The Ninth Hour, by Alice McDermott. Pristine writing. Slow, meandering story. Pretty good.

    *Little Fires Everywhere, by Celeste Ng. Interesting and kind of fun, but the plot flaws and underdeveloped/inconsistant characters bugged me.

    *The Maytrees, by Annie Dillard. So bewilderingly dense that I felt, at times, like I wasn’t even reading English. Summary: one-third I didn’t understand, one-third I sort of understood, and one-third connected on a deep, deep level. Weird, huh?

    *The Great Starvation Experiment: The Heroic Men Who Starved So That Millions Could Live, by Todd Tucker. Interesting and informative. Also, it made me hungry.

    *The School of Essential Ingredients, by Erica Bauermeister. Food porn  over-the-top and light  but fun.

    *The Writing Life, by Annie Dillard. Excellent, though I didn’t get all the plane stunt stuff.

    *Educated, by Tara Westover. AMAZING. I devoured it in two days, mostly while sitting on the patio of our little vacation house in Vieques [dreamy pause], and then the three younger kids read it, too (though not while we were on vacation we’re not that efficient). Nuanced, gracious, and raw, it’s perhaps the best memoir I’ve read, ever.

    *The War Against All Puerto Ricans, by Nelson A. Denis. Stupendous, eye-opening, and extremely well-written. Reading it while in Puerto Rico and struggling to understand the messy relationship between the United States and Puerto Rico (and while attending church with the grandson of Pedro Albizu Campos, no less) made the book feel just that much more relevant. Highly recommend.

    *Call the Midwives: A Memoir of Birth, Joy, and Hard Times, by Jennifer Worth. Entertaining, and surprisingly similar to (at least the beginning of) the TV series, but so poorly written.

    *The Invention of Wings, by Sue Monk Kidd. Fun and engrossing. The storyline was unpredictable and low-key, and therefore unsensational, which I liked.

    *Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood, by Trevor Noah. Entertaining and eye-opening  he has lived such a wildly varied life. I’m considering buying it and making it required reading for the older kids.

    *Gorilla and the Bird: A Memoir of Madness and a Mother’s Love, by Zack McDermott. Written by a lawyer with bipolar, this books makes for an interesting connection between mental illness and the prison system. Also, the vivid writing helped me to understand not just what bipolar is, but how it feels.

    *Look Me in the Eye: My Life With Asperger’s, by John Elder Robison. Great story-telling. Insightful. I made it required reading for the older kids. (Warning: it may inspire certain readers to blow things up.)

    *A Lesson Before Dying, by Ernest J. Gaines. I didn’t much like the main character, and the flow felt stilted, but the ending was super powerful.

    *A Girl’s Guide to Missiles: Growing Up in America’s Secret Desert, by Karen Piper. A personal, informative account of the war-making machine, but as a story goes: meh.

    *Speaking with Strangers, by Mary Cantwell. Beautiful, fluid writing, but I did not “get” her at all.

    *The L-Shaped Room, by Lynne Reid Banks (the abridged version, because that’s what my mother had lying around the house). Interesting.

    *The Power, by Naomi Alderman. Pros: Intriguing concept and good writing. Cons: Weak plot, underdeveloped characters, repetitive, and lacking humanity and nuance.

    *The Hate U Give, by Angie Thomas. Insightful, multi-layered, and relevant. After reading it, I bought a copy so the older children could read it. The girls both loved it.

    *Where the Crawdads Sing, by Delia Owens. Super fantastic. Incredible. Exquisite. Delicious. Felt a little Barbara Kingsolver-esque. My husband and I fought over it who got to read it and when (I started it first, so I got dibs.) I inhaled the entire last section, came up gasping for breath, and then was so worked up (in a good way) that I had trouble sleeping.

    ***

    Currently, I’m reading four books: Becoming (having trouble getting into it), Salt, Fat Acid, Heat (ordered it!), A Gentleman in Moscow (I keep having to take it back to the library and then get it out again), and The Wife (a whippy-fast page turner).

    Now, your turn! What good books have you discovered in 2018?

    This same time, years previous: balsamic-glazed roasted butternut squash and brussel sprouts, sex for all creation, old-fashioned sour cream cake donuts, the quotidian (12.22.14), the quotidian (12.23.13), bacon-jalapeno cheeseball, marshmallows.