Good morning and happy Wednesday! I’m back from FL, back to life, back to reality, back to the here and now. And so it goes.
Before I get into what I’m up to, let’s tend to two important matters of business:
March is Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month. I know. Yuck. But here’s the thing, yuck or not, if you’re over 45, under 45 with family history, or experiencing any symptoms, GET SCREENED. Yes, the prep is sh-tty but the propofol nap is great and you may save your own life. Whatever’s stopping you from scheduling your screening, well, get over it. Same goes for all the other preventive “stuff.” No excuse for putting it off is good enough. It could be a matter of life and death. Get yourself checked.
Sunday is the start of DST, so don’t forget to Spring ahead. I heard the other day that we are gaining 3 minutes of daylight per day so obviously this will accelerate things. So long seasonal-affective disorder. Hello Summer. Schedule the pool opening. And change the batteries in your smoke alarms, check your CO alarms, replace them if you’re in need of new units, and do the same for an elderly relative or friend who might not be able to do it for themselves. This too could be a matter of life and death.
So with that potential life-saving stuff out of the way, on to What I’m ______________.
What I’m Reading
Finished Dirtbag, Massachusetts by Isaac Fitzgerald and was happy to be done with it. For the first half or so I loved it, but maybe that was because I wanted to love it, inspired by Isaac’s general enthusiasm and exuberance when he is on the Today show. But then I started feeling like I was waiting for the story to hang together and was disappointed when it never did. For me it all kinda started to feel repetitive, albeit in a well-written way. Every “bit” was a different manifestation of the same thing—Isaac overcomes whatever whatever is imposed on him by himself and/or someone else and he eventually overcomes it and ultimately achieves great success.
I started and finished The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid. Last month I reported on her latest, Carrie Soto is Back, which was my first exposure to TJR—I’m late to the party here, I know. In any case I borrowed this paperback for vacation, knowing absolutely nothing about the book beyond a report from my mom (who hadn’t read it) that the ladies at book chat didn’t like it but their daughters did. I thought that was kind of a weird “review” but so be it. I’m one of those “see for myself” kind of people when it comes to the subjective so I was happy to read it and conclude for myself.
I pulled it out on Day 1 at the beach and my 17 year-old niece exclaimed, “Ooh I loved that…do you?” When I told her I was barely into it she said “Oh, I hope you love it.” That in and of itself made me happy, knowing we’d be able to bond over the book, and it gave us something fun to talk about as things unfolded.
So…did I love it?
I did. And—without spoiling it for those of you who haven’t read it but plan to—well, I don’t know what exactly I was expecting but I certainly wasn’t expecting to feel like someone was simultaneously reaching through my chest and squeezing my heart and kicking me in the stomach. But that’s what happened. I felt this one deeply and viscerally. It made me retroactively sad and proactively mad…and often found me feeling oddly conflicted. The only thing else I have to say about it is IYKYK…and if you read it and still can’t make heads or tails of my comments here, hit me up and we can chat.
I moved on to and am thoroughly enjoying I Came As a Shadow by John Thompson (with Jesse Washington). I grabbed it way back when I saw an interview with Jesse Washington, suspected I’d love it, and knew I’d get to it eventually. So on the cusp of Black History Month and March Madness it felt like a perfectly timed pick. I love basketball, and I especially loved it back then. Patrick Ewing came out of CRLS and when he played at Weymouth South it was a big (BIG)(BIG!!!) deal. I definitely wanted to know more about that big Big East era.
The story is fascinating on so many levels and surprisingly, it’s not the basketball stuff that I’m finding the most interesting. How and why John Thompson carried himself the way he did, the path he took to get to Georgetown, and how everything came together to enable him to achieve greatness in the face of so much adversity (racism!) is some really inspiring stuff. I’m further along than the 51% indicated in the pic above but still have a bit to go and am hanging on every word. I always enjoy when I read about something I was alive during and kind of knew about but at the same time knew nothing—I love putting all the pieces together. And I love feeling like I'm going to come off the last page of a book better than I went into the first.
For personal/professional development I’m just getting into Influence is Your Superpower by Zoe Chance. One of my perpetual professional challenges is in a group setting, with a shared objective, when I’m able to quickly get a sense of a pretty good path from Point A to Point B but can’t get other people on board. My idea ultimately gets rebuffed as everyone else typically focuses on the wrong details. If it’s a low-stakes thing, I don’t dig my heels in and if it’s high stakes I’ll try to fight the fight. But I have trouble, say, when a stronger personality or a higher-ranking individual gets a hold of a group and starts leading them down what may not be the right path. I have trouble cracking through that and being heard.
Here’s an example: in the leadership development program I was in a few years back, we had a group project on cultural implications of doing business in Asia. Most group projects are, as they say, like herding cats—annoying but to be expected, and this was no exception. We all had assigned countries and had to research the same 10 or 12 things for each country, after which we had to educate each other and then figure out how to put the info together and present it to train the other groups on doing business in Asia. I suggested we tell a story through some fun and funny slides, and offered to put them together. Which I did. They came out great and everyone seemed to like them—but someone else in the group insisted we should deliver the information in the form of a skit. Long story short, that personality won out, and a poorly written and executed skit was delivered poorly. The slides were paid lip service, rushed through as part of a closing summary. The feedback on the presentation was “Why didn’t you just use the slides? They were fantastic.” 🤦♀️ (Story of my professional life.)
I have a good gut, and I have really good business instincts…and it often is proven out that I was in fact on the right track. But that’s overlooked and/or forgotten as everyone shrugs and moves along. There’s no real repercussions so there’s no point to me saying a socially appropriate version of “I told you so.” But at the same time I know that everyone’s time would have been better spent and the outcome would have been better if I had done a better job advocating for my idea—a lesson that might be instructive for next time. It’s not about me wanting to be right—it’s about me wanting to be the most efficient and effective in achieving the stated outcome and having my ideas heard as part of the process. My good instincts are both a blessing and a curse, I suppose. In any case, that’s a pattern I am really hoping to break so this is the first of two titles on the topic of influence that I picked up and plan to spend some time with in the hope that it improves my effectiveness in this regard. I’ll take advice and insights here if anyone has them.
What I’m Watching
First things first I need to flash back to a movie we watched a while ago—not exactly sure when, can’t find if and when I posted about it here, and I wasted enough time trying. Anyway the movie is a documentary called Crip Camp, and I recommend it highly. It’s uncomfortable but eye opening and important. Anyhow one of the featured people in the movie, Judy Heumann, died the other day, so it’s been on my mind. Judy was a life-long and well-known advocate for the disabled. Her commitment and grit and determination propelled her to her status as a great changemenker—and if you don’t know her story, you should. Her NYT obit is here, but I trust you can search the interwebs yourself for more info should you be so inclined. And Crip Camp is streaming on Netflix. Rest easy, Judy—you earned it.
I finally set aside a little time to watch the highly recommended documentary Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice (HBO Max) and it was just what I needed. I never knew she and Emmylou Harris were old friends and sang together—that was a real high point for me. I loved the movie—no surprise since Different Drum has been favorite song since I first heard it when I was 6 or 7.
Because I flew Delta to and from FL, saw more movies than is typical for me. I watched the movie Elvis again…and while I don’t think it will achieve the same cult status with me as Bohemian Rhapsody or Rocketman, watching it this time, after LisaMarie’s untimely death, made it that much sadder of an experience for me. You see how the greed of one man (the Colonel) compounded by the greed of another (Vernon Presley) compounded by the naivete of the talent (Elvis) generates negative consequences, the implications of which are still rippling through the Presley family, and probably will for generations to come. Doesn’t get much sadder than that if you ask me. I also watched the movies Aftersun (well done, cerebral, and depressing) and George Michael Freedom Uncut (also well done and also depressing, because you know George dies at the end) on the flight home.
For something a bit more uplifting, when I was in FL I finally got to watch (the also highly recommended) Catherine Called Birdy (Amazon Prime) and once I got into it (aka thought to turn the subtitles on) it was such a fun watch. Birdy is such a great character. And the soundtrack is fun too:
(Especially this version of Mazzy Star’s Fade Into You—you know I love me a good cover!)
Something about the movie had me recalling and feeling (in part) the sheer joy of watching the series Dickinson. Can’t recommend both the movie and the show enough. (For more of my thoughts on Dickinson, check here or here.) The music from Dickinson is great too—but you have to watch before you can appreciate the music. Same goes for Catherine Called Birdy. Watch then listen.
We’ve been watching a lot of the Bruins, who are on a real tear this season. We were lucky enough to see them in person last Thursday and were rewarded by a big win and 5 third-period goals pretty much right in front of us. And the pre-game pizza at Ducali did not disappoint either.
The High-School Reunion tournament on Jeopardy is a fun twist but the time lag between the contestants answering and Mayim giving her yay or nay is annoyingly long.
And then there’s The Bachelor. Zach is frequently referred to as “the boring Bachelor,” which in some ways I understand. He’s not overly dynamic and he has some odd ways of characterizing things. But I think people call him boring because he’s the no-drama Bachelor; he cuts to the chase, tolerates no hijinks, and does a good job of aligning his words with his actions. As a viewer, I appreciate that. Spoiler alert if you aren’t caught up—I’m about to talk about this week’s ep. I wasn’t sorry to see Kat go home. She lost sight of the fact that this is a game and she wasn’t the only contestant—and once you start getting overly desperate and emotional, that’s a red flag. Especially when the other women seem to be doing a better job keeping it all in perspective. When Brooklyn got the last one-on-one date of the week, Kat was clearly about to burst into tears…and as she sat there looking like she just found out Santa isn’t real she said to (her arch-enemy) Brooklyn: “I’m obviously happy for you I’m just sad.” That sums up this season in a nutshell. 😂
What I’m Cooking
I discovered my new favorite appetizer recipe and all the ingredients can be had at your local Trader Joe’s (if you’re lucky enough to live near one). This is the Spicy Baked Feta With Hot Honey in all its glory:
I think I’ve said it before so I’ll either say it again now or say it for the first time—if you like to cook, you can’t go wrong with the NYT cooking app. It’s my go-to when I want to try something new and also want to have high confidence that the recipe will deliver as advertised. Saturday night I made this delicious Cheesy Baked Pasta With Sausage and Ricotta. It was a crappy day outside so I wanted a comfort-ish food. I also wanted it to be relatively hands-off so I could enjoy my company. This fit the bill nicely—but I did go off-recipe and went with two pounds of sausage, a full pound of pasta, and 2 28-ounce cans of crushed tomatoes, and 2 14-ounce cans of diced after scouring the extremely helpful reader notes. It didn’t dry out at all and it reheated wonderfully. Hit me if you don’t subscribe but want the recipe. Oh, and you’re probably gonna need a bigger-than-12-inch skillet.
Also, and I haven’t cooked with these in a while because they were in short supply, but I will be very soon as Trader Joe’s finally got the shelf-stable gnocchi back on the shelf (at the Hingham location anyway). Not sure what will be first up but I’m thinking this One-Pan Shrimp Scampi With Crispy Gnocchi. We shall see!
What I Am Listening To
Had a Spotify playlist shared with me recently and the great thing about it (besides the obvious one of having a great friend who often shares great music with me, incidentally the same friend who I recommended I watch Linda… and Catherine… (she’s a keeper!)) was that I never had heard many songs on it but the songs on it that I have heard are true auditory gems(like Driving by Everything But the Girl and the Rich Girl cover by Lake Street Dive)—so I was pretty sure out of the gate that I was gonna enjoy it if not love it, and I was right. (Speaking of EBTG, their Acoustic album is one of the greatest you’ve likely never heard and their cover of Time After Time is positively sublime). Enjoy it all here:
Beyond that I feel like all I’ve been listening to are meditations and music designed to crack insomnia. Over the last three weeks or so my sleeping has been abysmal…and nothing seems to be helping. If I had to hazard a guess, I have some low-level perpetual anxiety and that just gets in the way of good shuteye. I’m sure it will pass—it always seems to—but if you have a go-to sleep solution, I’m interested in hearing it.
Thanks for sharing a slice of your week with me. It’s always so great having you here…especially on mornings like this, when I am overtired, cranky, and in desperate need of some coffee, which I am about to go get a fresh cup of. I appreciate the comfort of your company.
Love you too.