The Monthly-ish roundup
It’s Wednesday…so here’s whassup
Every five weeks I write this on Wednesday, which means every five weeks you get the 4-1-1 on how I’m spending my discretionary time. Sometimes there’s more going on than others, but I’m pretty proud of my reading report this go ’round…I got a little bump thanks to plenty of dock time on vacation last month. Other than that, the main thing I’ve been trying to do is keep cool. Like everyone else I am sick of being sweaty…and I know it could be worse. The AC is working as hard as it can and we can’t get the house under 75° no matter how much money we throw at the electric bill. The pool is 89°, which is great in that it’s cooler than the air…but the only way to stay relatively cool is to be almost completely submerged. Sunday I put a pool noodle under my chin and my arms by my side so the only thing above water was my head. Things that should be green are brown and ugly (our lawn looks like the Great Plains, dust-bowl era), animals are eating plants that aren’t meant to be eaten, leaves that have grown tired of trying to suck water up from through roots in arid ground 100 feet away are falling off the trees, making it look like a nuclear Fall. I’m not complaining…it is what it is, and it’s been like this for everyone…and it’s been not the best. That’s all. We’re all getting by…making do…and allegedly it’s 20 degrees cooler today (which feels about right), with a 10-day stretch of cooler temps ahead, with chances of rain. So there’s that…hope.
That said…without further ado…
What I’m Reading
I finished (and loved) the Billie Jean King autobiography, All In. I was kind of bummed at the end because I couldn’t see all the pics on my Kindle (they were tiny and couldn’t be enlarged), but other than that, no complaints about the book at all. Hers is quite a story but for me it was a real eye opener in that I thought I already knew her story…when really I had no idea. I mean I knew the general arc of things but I was missing some critical details—and I learned a lot about her admirable dedication and ongoing commitment to human rights. What an amazing impact she has made outside of the sports world! All the important stuff that I didn’t know has me thinking a lot about this notion, of thinking you know what you don’t and how dangerous that can be. It’s so important to constantly challenge and test our own assumptions, and the general rule of thumb should be to approach most situations with an “I don’t know sh-t” mindset. Also, I carried on about this when I was reading it, but now is a good time to re-mention how great Adam Grant is, and how great his book Think Again is. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend you do. It will lead you to re-think your re-thinking and get your open minds opened even more.
You may know that I like thinking (obsessing?) about choice, chance, fate, destiny, and life being/feeling somewhat vast while it’s also like we’re constantly on the edge of a razor, or a tightrope, or whatever. Life’s not a solid, sure bet and it’s definitely and decidedly not linear. So when I read Kate Atkinson’s companion to the brilliant time-jumping book Life After Life (this one called A God in Ruins) I was thrilled to be reunited with some characters who felt like old friends, excited to read about what had happened to them since we last were together. I’m not going to say too much more than that because I feel like anything I could say could be a spoiler, and I’m still not sure whether I loved or hated the ending. But I will repeat this: life is not a solid, sure bet, and it’s definitely not linear.
Six Walks: In the Footsteps of Henry David Thoreau by Ben Shattuck was a ginormous sleeper of a hit for me. It was recommended by a friend who had heard about it and hadn’t yet read it…maybe she heard an interview with Ben, who knows (who cares?), but her description of it spurred me to purchase it immediately, without knowing a lick about the story, and without knowing anything about Ben Shattuck beyond “married to Jenny Slate.” The book occupied a place of honor in The Pile since it arrived, and when I came home from vacation I felt a strange compulsion to pull it from the middle of the stack (Out of order? Gasp!) and start reading it straightway. I loved this book so much. Sooooooo much. Like so f-cking much. The whole time I was reading it, I was thinking how much I loved it and how surprised I was by how much I loved it. What probably is not a huge surprise is that I especially loved his “walk” that involved a trip to Maine—you know I love me some Maine…it’s the way life should be after all. (Or so say the signs they hang up there. Ayuh.) There’s a section where he talks about friendship, and reading it coming off the heels of my vacation/retreat in Canada, well, the words almost flipped me off my pool float. Fortunately almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades which is a good thing because if I had flipped off the float my little hardback book would have been a goner. Reading while floating is a new thing for me. I have the old not waterproof Kindle so I’ve long been fearful of losing that to the deep end…but recently (probably because it’s so goddamn hot here—global warming is real people! Cryptocurrency is the real scam you should be sh-tting on!) I realized that I had no choice but to be in the water while reading and so decided to take a chance with the actual physical book—lower replacement price point if it falls in. But I am really going off the rails right now…digression disaster…focus! Must focus. Anyhow, his words on friendship gave me that weird and rare (and oh-so-amazing!) sensation that we can share a part of a soul with people we’ve never met, or people we don’t know very well. Shattuck writes:
I see John a few times a year now—usually for a few days. When I do see him, I’m sometimes distracted by our first year together, how surprised I was to encounter in him the sudden ease and depth of friendship you might find once, twice in a lifetime. How many of us feel the first encounter of our friend through the friendship, an echo in friendship? Or not an echo because I don’t actually feel a repetition one ten-year-old memories. I’m thinking of something more internal, some earlier identity of mine that presents when I’m around John. When we met I was twenty-six, with all the uncertainty and vague ambiguity that come with being twenty-six. In a way, I will always be twenty-six around him…
Right? I felt those “echoes” reverb through my bones…and I realize that part of what makes some of my greatest friendships so great is that I do experience those feelings of the first encounter of the friend through the friendship, and that those feelings anchor me without tying me down. I described it differently a few weeks ago, noting that new friends “also help us revisit and reprocess and re-appreciate our old friends.” We get to retell and re-experience our friendship origin story but with the beauty and wisdom of time, with new dimensions and attitudes and experiences and perspectives…and that is how old friendships stay new, how they grow. When reading this passage in the book, while I was feeling these things, I did in fact feel a most spiritual kinship with Mr. Shattuck. All said, this is a great book, and especially so if you love to walk and overthink things and can’t shake the feeling that you’ve lived at least one past life. I’ll give some more context about my experience reading this when I talk below about a show I’ve been watching—they share a lot of “stuff,” both chronologically and thematically, and also in terms of profound impact on my brain, in terms of my thinking. (And thinking and thinking and thinking and thinking…remember what my dad used to say to me (all the time): “Honey you’re wrapped too tight.” Oh, Dad. What a gem he was!!! I’ll never not miss him.)
Crying in H Mart (aka crying in the swimming pool, which is what I did most of the time I bobbed about reading it), is a memoir by musician Michelle Zauner (of Japanese Breakfast); it was great, but sad. I could feel almost all of the emotions, and definitely could relate to the pain of losing a parent to cancer. And in related news an H Mart opened not too far from me last Thursday and I happened to drive by that very night…the store went in where the old Roche Brothers was and the right-lane traffic to turn in was backed up all the way to Olindy’s. If you’re not from the South Shore of MA that means nothing to you but let’s suffice it to say the place was a madhouse (at 8pm) and had traffic backed up for over a half mile. I’m sure the fuss was all worth it for those interested, but for me, well, the book and the H Mart grand opening traffic gave me flashbacks to one of my actual Japanese breakfasts, that time at the onsen in Yugawara. I’m all set, thanks.
So the non-fiction kick rages on as I opened up my Kindle the other night to start Broken Horses, the Brandi Carlisle autobiography. I can’t be the only one in the world slightly obsessed by the rise of the Joni Mitchell whisperer, can I??? I’m only a little bit into it, and for some reason it feels a touch self-aggrandizing…which I know is how some people felt about the Newport FF Joni Jam thing…which in turn might be why that’s in my head. But anyhow my mind is totally open to her story and her style and I’m completely curious about how she persevered and overcame life to get to where she is today. Stay tuned.
For a professional development read, the current book I’m making my way through is (the awfully titled) The Courage to be Disliked by Ichiro Kichimi and Fumitake Koga. The title is truly unfortunate. I mean who actively endeavors to be disliked? And who is interested in using whatever courage they can muster up for such a dubious distinction? It’s kind of like what Adam Grant calls the “disagreeable giver,” a label that I simultaneously embrace (for what it means) and reject (for what it implies). Maybe I’m so adamantly opposed to these labels because I feel like they are misleading mislabels that perpetuate the very challenges faced by the people whose qualities they celebrate. Anyway, this title popped up more than a few times on lists that included other titles that I have noted as “must reads” (e.g., Ikigai) or titles I have already read and enjoyed (e.g., Stillness is the Key), and I haven’t been reading this type of book for a while, so I figured it was time. I like to read these personal-professional development books to give myself a new (if not unique) way of looking at the world, to re-evaluate my place it, to come to a different understanding of where and why I am, and to plan and strategize manageable ways to optimize my place and role in it all. So I picked this one up the other day, with no intention of generating courage, with no intention of using a lick of said courage on being disliked, but rather in an attempt to make peace with my constant striving for improvement, for ongoing advocacy for better processes that drive better outcomes, and for peace of mind with how I do it, so that I can sleep well at night regardless of whether my actions result in change or not. But I hope they use “dislike” in the context of avoiding toxic positivity and of avoiding carrying the weight of other people’s (unrealistic) expectations…and although I am happy in life, I am looking forward to shed some of the remaining everyday annoyances that I let myself get bogged down by. Which is ultimately why I’m reading this. We’ll see.
What I’m Watching
Not the Red Sox. Man, do they suck. I’m a lifelong fan but these days some of the games are just too painful to watch. And how about that overpaid bum Chris Sale‽ Hurts a rib only to come back and break his pinky only to fall of his bike and break his wrist‽ Season over. If anyone is interested in paying me not to play, I have a much lower price tag than Mr. Sale…and a much better disposition (if I do say so myself). (Though I do have a tendency to break my wrists. 😬) But speaking of baseball, if you missed this story coming out of the run to the LLWS, do not miss this heartwarming gem:
Now that you know what I am not watching I want to talk about two shows I’ve been watching, one that’s very cerebral and one that, well, isn’t. So let’s start with the latter.
The Bachelorette, actually The BacheloretteS. Usually this is one of my guilty pleasure/watch-when-Kerri-is-out-playing-hockey shows, but she came home from work when I had it on and told me to keep watching…she said she was going to be working down at the other end of the couch..but she was listening too. It was a particularly “ugly” episode for someone’s first foray into the franchise…Hayden professed his love for his dog (Rambo) over his Bachelorette (Rachel) pretty much. Kerri thought it was ridiculous, but she also said I don’t have to watch it in private anymore..in other words, she liked it. 😂😂😂 When I explained a certain plot twist to her (how Rachel and Gabby made the guys pick one of them, and how that whole Rose Ceremony played out when the suitor expressed a preference for the other bachelorette) it felt even more ridiculous…saying the words out loud and hearing them come out of my mouth...seriously‽ Even so we watched in real time on Monday, and she said she might have to go back and watch the season’s first episodes to see how it all went down. So I think she’s hooked. The show itself is something…from the customary drama of the “what comes next this season” previews to Rachel’s near-constant crying to Gabby’s dominant conversational style of head nods/head shakes/yeahs/nos to contestants saying they are shy/don’t like attention (uh, hello, you chose to be on national TV‽), well, it’s pretty standard fare.
And…Dickinson. I didn’t watch the final season at first…I was saving it, wanting to save this delightful treat of a show for when I needed it, to spare myself the pain of the series ending…but I reached a point where I had to re-engage (thanks to Six Walks)…and as it turned out my delaying tactic only made the pain worse. (Note the lesson: pushing something unpleasant off doesn’t make it go away!) Anyhow, this show is brilliant. I’ve written about it before, when I started watching, but it definitely deserves another major mention. It was similar to Six Walks on a number of levels, starting with the fact that Thoreau and Dickinson shared the same space and the same time and relate to the world in a seemingly similar way (Thoreau actually was featured in an early ep of Dickinson!). And both works provide an experience that feels like the reader or viewer is going back in time on someone else’s trip back in time (in the case of Six Walks because the author did and in the case of Dickinson because of the crazy and creative way her life was reimagined and represented)…for me the experience of reading and watching boiled down to me having a way to look at my own past from a different perspective, mainly to ensure that I am getting every last drop out of the giant plastic wine bag of life that is my present. And I think there’s also a weird New England liberal arts school sensibility that I developed during my college years, though not at or in Amherst, and I felt that bit of connective tissue too. And the music from the show is next level. Next. Level.
Speaking of Music, Here’s What I Am Listening To
Obviously and probably not surprisingly…lots of Olivia Newton-John. The news of her death at 73 on Monday afternoon threw me for a loop, immediately sending me to the HR intranet page to see if the death of “Pop Culture Icons” qualifies for time off under our bereavement leave policy. (Big no.) I remember poring over the Caldor (a local department store) flyer one Sunday morning with my sisters in 1978…the Grease double album was on sale for $9.99…as we stared longingly (and probably lovingly) at the full-color ad, my mom tuned right in and made us an offer we couldn’t refuse—if we chipped in $3 each, she’d pay the rest and drive us across town as soon as the store opened so we could get it. We tripped over each other getting upstairs to shake 12 quarters each from our respective banks and waited for the store’s opening. And when we got home and tore off the plastic wrapper, we put it on the turntable and listened…over and over and over. Her Have You Never Been Mellow album (1975) had long been a favorite in our house, and I couldn’t get enough of Please Mr. Please. (In hindsight, I’m not sure why my parents didn’t dig a little deeper into my odd fascination with old-people music and do some sort of intervention but alas they did not and alas here I am. 🤣🤣🤣). So anyway when I heard she had died I went right down an Olivia rathole on Spotify…and was happily sad (or was I sadly happy?) to re-discover some of the gems I had forgotten (e.g., Sam). Sigh. Oh, and not to speak disparagingly of the departed…but how about that husband or boyfriend or whatever of hers that “vanished” at sea? He’s alive and in Mexico right? Look for someone in Groucho glasses at the funeral service and see if it’s him. Anyhow, thank God for technology…my friend who only became my friend because of music and I were able to stay very connected from the second the story of her death broke and remained attuned to and supportive of each other’s “mourning.” I appreciated this, because not just anyone would get it. So there’s that. Anyway, 73 is too young to die, and cancer is a vicious f-cking disease—we need to put as much effort into curing cancer as we do, say, to fueling useless political debates. All said, the ON-J back-and-forth on social media and via text with friends reminded me that there’s so much I actively forget but that the proper trigger can totally unleash a flood of subconscious memories. Like the time Jackie Casey drive us to Boston so we could listen to her Concert on the Common and peek at it through the fence (1982) or the time she appeared on John Denver’s Christmas Special (1976) to sing “Fly Away” with him. Sigh. Voice of an angel. Actually both of them—Olivia and John—voices of angels. (Speaking of angels, if you have any interest in who Jackie Casey is, that story is here.)
And here is my stab at an ON-J greatest hits playlist (not in order of greatness, but in a thoughtful order)—please let me know what great songs I missed!
And this is an outstanding (for the most part) but slightly obscure album of covers by Juliana Hatfield. Trust me.
What’s Cooking?
Shelf-stable gnocchi is back in stock after a brief-but-felt-like-forever hiatus at Trader Joe’s, so I’ve been exploring some new ways of preparing it, and have enjoyed both Baked Gnocchi With Summer Vegetables (the ricotta makes it!) and Gnocchi With Hot and Sweet Peppers. Both were delicious. I also made this restaurant-quality (IMO) chocolate mousse, which was fantastic. All three of these were enjoyed with mom during our weekly post-Tai Chi Thursday night dinner, an event which easily could be the single greatest thing to come out of the new COVID-precipitated world order.
And before I go…
Another thing I want to mention here is something I did last weekend. Kerri’s goddaughter Chanel (I’ve written about her here before, both here and here if you want to catch up) had a wedding to attend in Salisbury, MA and had some logistical challenges with getting there as a result of it being a very busy weekend of family events…she called on Kerri for help and we figured out the best way for us to handle the request was to head up to Portsmouth, NH on Friday and make a weekend of it. So we grabbed Chanel Friday after work, transferred our stuff to the accessible van, and made our way to NH. Chanel has osteogenesis imperfecta and is in a wheelchair. In general, two thumbs down to Portsmouth for accessible shopping. So many cute storefronts, most with at least one step to get inside—which made it impossible for us to do anything but window shop, something none of us had any interest in doing in the beating sun and temps in the high (and very humid) 90s. Overall we had a great weekend, though I raise this issue to re-remind everyone that when you consider diversity, equity, and inclusion, you must consider and be sensitive to disabilities of all types—both those you can and cannot see. I clench my jaw tighter than I’d like and more frequently than I’d like when we are out and about with Chanel. She seems pretty nonplussed by it all but I get heated when people without handicapped placards are taking up her spot, or when someone stares, or when people bump her chair trying to get to the front of the line. That said, we got fantastic seating and service in Portsmouth from BRGR Bar, Colby’s, and The Friendly Toast—so shout-outs to those places, and our awesome servers at them. (Also, when Chanel was out celebrating at the wedding, Kerri and I hit two fun breweries (Liar’s Bench and Great Rhythm) and had a delish dinner at a place called Street. So fun.)
(Update from a previous post: you’re probably all wondering about my friend who I mentioned was attempting to summit Mt. Whitney a few weeks ago. Attempt successful. Good work, friend. Keep climbing!)
Thanks to every one of you for being here…feeling of appreciation not withstanding, I am well aware that this feeling doesn’t come along every day…so I’m not gonna blow the chance, when I’ve got the chance to say I love you…I honestly love you. (IYKYK.)
See you next week. (Honestly) love you too!
Just bought six walks. Thank you. Enjoyed this post thoroughly
Thanks for the playlist, book recs, and keeping me somewhat current. I have NEVER heard of H Mart! Love You (and Teddy)!