Digital Manticore

A Week in the Life: February 14, 2021

Posted on February 14, 2021 by Lindsey

Happy Valentine’s Day! We’re not in the habit of making a big deal of Valentine’s day in this house, but I do like it as a reminder to appreciate the people I care about and who care about me. This morning, I made biscuits and gravy for breakfast and then Kirk and I played Mario Kart 8, which was my Valentine’s gift to us. Kirk is going to make us dinner tonight. In non-pandemic years, we made it a custom to go out for dinner the day after Valentine’s day. It’s a good way to avoid crowds and high prices at restaurants. Going out on the 15th instead of the 14th doesn’t mean you love each other any less.

This week has been a little chaotic for me. We have a big proposal at work that we’re trying to finish and the writers keep blowing off their deadlines. I was scheduled to edit it this weekend since that was the only time remaining. Fortunately, the potential client extended the due date. Unfortunately, they published that announcement at midnight Saturday morning, so I still worked late on Friday and worked early on Saturday before finding out about it. I’m glad I got to keep three-quarters of my weekend, but all the stress wore me out. Having personal time is so important to me and enjoyable free time is the main benefit of having a job (aside from the paycheck!). So, when work cuts into my time, it really stresses me out. After being so keyed up over the threat of working all weekend, I was exhausted when it didn’t happen. Emotions are annoying that way.

Consuming

Here are some things I’ve recently read, watched, or bought.

Books and Other Words

book cover of Mexican Gothic, shown on kobo ereader. Puffin stuffed animal peeking out behind the book — Mexican Gothic

This week I read Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Mexican Gothic. This is the second book of hers I’ve read and I had pretty high expectations because I loved Gods of Jade and Shadow. Mexican Gothic is a spooky novel set in 1950s Mexico. The protagonist, Noemí, gets a semi-incoherent letter from her cousin, who married a white man and moved to his fancy house in the middle of nowhere, and the family is concerned. Noemí is sent to investigate and horror ensues. I usually don’t like scary books (real life is enough, thanks), but I liked this one a lot even though I was scared. There is an interesting supernatural element, but the real horror comes from the forces of colonialism and patriarchy. I recommend this book if you’re looking for some chills from a different perspective.

Meanwhile on the internet:

How a sluggish vaccination program could delay a return to normal and invite vaccine-resistant variants to emerge via The Washington Post. Only read this if you want to be stressed.
New Zealand Parliament scraps tie requirement after Maori MP ejected from chamber over dress code tiff via The Washington Post. I thought this was interesting in terms of what we think is “respectable” and normal and how that is defined by the dominate culture (white Europeans). Does wearing a tie make a politician better at their job? I highly doubt it, but this Member of Parliament was kicked out for not wearing a tie! Fortunately, the New Zealand Parliament then eliminated the rule, but it’s ridiculous that it existed in the first place (and that someone felt the need to enforce it).
Macaroni and cheese at Monticello via EatingWell. I liked this examination of how macaroni and cheese became American food (hint: through black people, like many American traditions).

TV and Music

I mentioned months ago that I had started watching the Golden Girls. I’m still slowly making my way through it—I’m now in season three. This show just gets better as it goes on. Since one of my other new pandemic activities has been ballet, when I hear the theme song, I keep thinking I should make a little ballet routine to perform to it to celebrate my pandemic pastimes. Perhaps I will do this to celebrate the end of the pandemic.

Rampant Consumerism

My old slippers were beat to shit and my feet have been hurting (I have a sit/stand desk for work and I like to stand when I can) so I decided to spring for some nice slippers that would hopefully improve that situation. I bought these lovely tiger print slippers from a brand called Vionic. They are pretty comfortable. They do feel more like a shoe than a fluffy slipper, but that’s what I wanted. So far, I like them.

After hearing me complain about how much I hate mint toothpaste (but continue to use it for lack of alternatives), Kirk did some research for me and found this Hello brand toothpaste. I bought strawberry and grape flavors, which are ostensibly for children, but they include fluoride so they are appropriate for adults. Brushing my teeth is now way more pleasant. Between this and the Cocofloss, I’m actually doing a really good job of taking care of my teeth!

my slipper-clad feet propped up on the side of a chair, showing off my new tiger-print slippers — new slippers

two tubes of Hello toothpaste, one strawberry and one grape flavored — new slippers

Making Things and Doing stuff

We’ve let our garden get a bit … feral this season. We planted things and have pretty much let the rain take care of the watering and left it at that. The lettuce shot up to start producing seeds before we got around to picking it. The broccoli starting flowering much sooner than expected (Kirk suspects the freezing temperatures we had confused the broccoli). The herbs are going crazy. If I’m smart, I will pick them and dry them out before they, too, begin flowering. Although, I have been using the fresh herbs quite often, I can’t keep up with this massive quantity.

lettuce that has shot up and two large herb plants — lettuce and herbs

broccoli plants starting to flower — lettuce and herbs

Spanish

This week I finally started feeling the pull of being more serious about Spanish again. Part of the end-goal of learning Spanish—or any language—for me is being able to experience things in the language just like I would with English. This week I started reading the Spanish edition of Vagabonds by Hao Jingfang and I’m feeling a little success on this front. This is one of the first books I’ve read where I feel like I’m understanding it all and I just want to read it to read, not to “study Spanish.” It’s actually translated from Chinese, so why not read the Spanish translation and not the English? It’s a relatively long book and I expected it would take me a while to read, but I’m moving through it relatively quickly, which is satisfying.

Kitchen Witchery

It turns out that I took no food photos this week, but I did make food (one must eat). I tried out this pasta e fagioli recipe from Rancho Gordo since I saw the recipe and had all the ingredients on hand. It was good but I didn’t love it as much as I thought I would. I also made brown butter brownies so I could have something to stress eat while editing this weekend (now I don’t have to work so I’m just normal eating). I wanted to do my Peruvian kitchen trip this weekend, but I am going to have to save it for next week instead!

Cat Therapy

Finally, here is a cat photo for your nerves. Sometimes when I pet Huey wrong, she corrects me by putting her paw on top of my hand and making me stop.

Huey the cat looking at the camera, with her front paw on top of my hand — “please stop”

weekly update

A Week in the Life: February 7, 2021

Posted on February 7, 2021 by Lindsey

I’m going to change things up and start today by relaying some good news: we’re refinancing our mortgage! I feel like we’ve leveled up as functional adults by doing this and that I deserve a merit badge. We’re about 3.5 years into our current, 30-year mortgage, which has a 4.125% interest rate. Our new mortgage will be 20 years and a 2.85% interest rate. Our monthly payment is staying almost exactly the same but now we’re skipping almost seven years of payments. It seems like black magic but apparently this is how finances work? The “value” of our home has increased a lot since we bought it (somehow?) so we’re able to get rid of the PMI from our payments too. This is going to save us something like $160,000, which is nuts. It’s only by chance that the rates and home values have aligned by this and a bit of luck that a friend mentioned he was refinancing, so I started looking into it. It doesn’t seem like a matter of $160,000 should hinge on coincidence, but that’s 21st century America for you.

I know last week’s post was quite dramatic on the subject of Viola. I’m feeling better than I was, but I was, indeed, feeling big emotions last weekend. I’ve set her box of ashes in the living room with a feather toy and a little mouse. I wish I could do more. I miss her every day, but I haven’t cried this week. This is probably the last I’ll say about her for a while. We’ll focus on Huey living her best life instead.

Consuming

Here are some things I’ve recently read, watched, or bought.

Books and Other Words

I read two novels this week: The Psychology of Time Travel by Kate Mascarenhas and The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls by Anissa Gray. I liked both books quite a lot. The Psychology of Time Travel was great because it asks how time travel would fuck you up on existential and emotional levels and it looks at the kind of measures a corporation would take to stay in the time travel business. There’s also time traveling lesbian romance, which is the kind of content I’m here for you. The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls is a non-fantastical story about a family, focusing on three sisters, trying to deal with their childhood trauma. Be warned that you shouldn’t read this if you don’t want to read about eating disorders or abuse. It’s not the main focus of the novel, but it is a theme.

book cover of The Psychology of Time Travel shown on kobo ereader — The Psychology of Time Travel

hardcover book The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls. Huey the cats feet visible next to the book — The Psychology of Time Travel

Meanwhile on the internet:

On vibing via Close but Not Quite. I don’t know how to describe this piece so I will simply say that I was vibing with it.
The Met digitally restores the colors of an ancient Egyptian temple, using projection mapping technology via Open Culture. I thought this was really cool! It’s interesting to see ancient art as it was intended to be seen instead of the washed-out version we normally get.

TV and Music

I’ve now watched the first season of Orphan Black, a show about a woman who discovers she has a whole bunch of clones living different lives out in the world. I started watching this with Kirk, but after a few episodes he kept stalling on watching it. I finally learned that he didn’t want to continue with it and I was free to watch on my own. I’m liking it a lot so I finished up the first season pretty quick. I just got the first disc of season two in the mail so I’m looking forward to watching that this week.

Rampant Consumerism

a bundt pan and a madeleine pan, new and sitting on my counter — new pans in funny shapes

In anticipation of baking a babka this week, I bought a bundt pan from The Kitchen Table, a local shop that sells kitchen wares. I decided to buy a madeleine pan while I was at it because why not. I have resisted buying single-use pans but I realized I have the space to keep them and, frankly, what else am I doing these days? I was very pleased that Kitchen Table dropped my order off on my doorstep! I thought I would have to wait for it to come through the mail.

Making Things and Doing stuff

As an editor, I hate seeing a header directly follow another header, which is why I feel obligated to put something here. My only subheading here today is “kitchen witchery” because I don’t have much else to say about things and stuff. I’m plugging away at knitting and dance and Spanish, but I don’t have anything new to tell you. Let’s get on with what you really want: food photos.

Kitchen Witchery

Last weekend, we “went” to Morocco. I made a few more recipes from Feast of the Islamic World and listened to some Moroccan music. Recipes included North African layered flatbreads, Moroccan kefta (aka meatballs), “the chicken that flew” (a dish of chickpeas and sweet potatoes—the chicken flew away!) and rice pudding. I liked the flatbread and the chicken that flew quite a lot; I would make them again. I didn’t love the meatballs, I don’t know if they were too dry or if I don’t really like lamb. Kirk said they were good though and he told me he doesn’t like lamb, so who knows. The rice pudding was good too. I scaled down the amount of orange blossom water the recipe called for and it ended up just right.

a plate with moroccan flat bread, meatballs, and a chickpea nad sweet potato dish — moroccan feast

a small bowl of rice pudding topped with sliced almonds — moroccan feast

I’ve been alternating weekend baking experiments with kitchen travels. Yesterday I made a chocolate babka! I’d never eaten a babka before, but I had heard about it and thought it sounded delightful. I made the recipe from The Baking Bible, which called for baking in a bundt pan. It was really good. I already want to make more.

a babka, turned out of its bundt pan, cooling on a wire rack and recently glazed with butter — freshly baked and glazed babka

two slices of babka on a small plate, revealing the swirl pattern inside and chocolate filling — freshly baked and glazed babka

As to normal weeknight cooking, I tried a recipe from Jubilee: Recipes from two Centuries of African American cooking. I’m always looking for new bean dishes because they are usually filling, cheap, and tasty. I liked this one a lot. It’s a one-pot dish in which you cook the beans and rice in chicken broth and coconunt milk. I also tried another round of bagels. This batch came out a little uglier than the last but they were just as good. I tried making onion bagels, but didn’t do a good job of making the onions stick, so they were basically plain. I think I’ll do a sesame or poppy seed bagel next time because seeds are easier to work with.

a large pot of red beans and rice sitting on the stove — red beans and rice

a plate with a serving of red beans and rice, cornbread, and roasted broccoli — red beans and rice

Cat Therapy

Finally, here are some cat photos for your nerves. Huey came to hang out while I was in the middle of dance class this week. This was fine until she plopped down in the middle of my dance floor (such as it is) and started taking a bath. Thanks, Huey.

Huey in the middle of the room, bathing herself, computer monitor showing a dance class in the background — Huey interrupting my dance lesson

Huey the cat sitting on the floor next to the bed. The sun is shining on her and makes her black fur look dark brown. — Huey interrupting my dance lesson

weekly update

A Week in the Life: January 30, 2021

Posted on January 30, 2021 by Lindsey

A framed photo collage featuring 7 photos of Viola the cat — Viola tribute collage

Last week I said I was feeling okay about Viola’s death and, after this week, I’ve realized that was a premature assessment. I ordered a photo collage of her and hung that on the wall this week. When the picture arrived, I had to spend some time howling and crying again. Then I had to adjust to seeing her on the wall when I walk by (which is good and bad, but I’m hoping the bad feelings will ease up over time). Today, Kirk and I drove to the vet to retrieve her ashes. This was also a highly emotional activity.

I guess this blog is a grief diary now.

a small wood box containing the ashes of the late Viola the cat — Viola’s final resting place

It feels a little weird to write about some of this stuff. When I got home, I curled up on the bed with her box of ashes and cried for a long time. I currently have it next to me as I write. Viola used to position herself between my body and the keyboard when I was typing and I’ve got it in the same spot right now. I’m not planning to carry it around forever, but it is comforting me, in an odd way, to have it nearby for now. I know this sounds a little weird but I am sharing it because I think it’s important to talk about how we grieve.

Consuming

Here are some things I’ve recently read, watched, or bought.

Books and Other Words

This week’s books are Big Dirty Money by Jennifer Taub and How the Multiverse Got Its Revenge by K. Eason. Big Dirty Money is a look into white-collar crime and how it is (rarely) punished in the U.S. It’s informative and it will probably piss you off. How the Multiverse Got Its Revenge is the sequel to How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse. It’s a space opera with cool aliens and character growth and it’s a lot of fun to read.

book cover of Big Dirty Money shown on Kobo ereader — Big Dirty Money

hardback book: How the Multiverse Got Its Revenge — Big Dirty Money

Meanwhile on the internet:

Emotions on Strike via Dissent Magazine. More on work and burnout and their emotional impact. I was nodding along with this article and realized when I reached the end that I’d just ordered a book from the author.
What happened with GameStop via Markets Weekly. There have been many articles describing what’s going on with the stock market and the proletariat this week, but I like this one. It characterizes the situation not as a popular uprising (which is fun to imagine and maybe also partly true) but a game of hedge funds striking at each other.
The Art of the Cover Letter via The Paris Review. This is about cover letters but it’s not cover letter advice. Here’s a preview, “I’ll say this: what I have done to language in the service of cover letters haunts me. At worst, cover letters strain one’s faith that words convey meaning at all, let alone that sentences can shimmer, steal breath, or gird spines. I spend each day climbing mountains of junky paragraphs, scavenging for hunks of usable scrap—like so much copper wire—my senses deadened by the incessant clang of multipart adjectives.”

TV and Music

Kirk and I have started watching Star Gate: SG-1, not the least because it has, like, a million episodes. So far it’s entertaining despite the cheesy nineties-ness of it all. That’s okay though because I’m not in a deep-thinking mood when it comes to TV right now.

Rampant Consumerism

hardcover book; Work Won't Love You Back — Work Won’t Love You Back

One of my goals for this year is to support independent bookstores by buying a book every month from a different shop. This month I pre-ordered a book I have really been looking forward to, Work Won’t Love You Back by Sarah Jaffe, from Vroman’s Bookstore. Vroman’s is in Pasedena and has been in business for over 100 years. I heard about them from a social media post going around last summer encouraging people to support the store due to their history—during World War II, Vroman’s donated books to Japanese people in California’s internment camps. If you have other independent bookstores to recommend, let me know about them for future months!

Making Things and Doing stuff

My things and stuff energy has been a little low lately, but here’s a little bit.

Moving It

I’ve been doing ballet class for home the last few weeks given the state of the pandemic. I read that we should be doubling up on masks or upgrading to better masks and I said, you know what, I’ll just stay home, thanks. I’m enjoying class from home a lot more now that I’ve made my own barre. Being in the studio is still more fun, but at least I can do everything I need to from my living room and not stress about coronavirus. I’m also starting to feel like I’m “getting” ballet a little more. I joined the class with kind of a “well, why not” vibe but I’m enjoying it and starting to understand why this kind of movement is interesting.

Kitchen Witchery

I was hoping that I’d be able to share my next kitchen “vacation” today, but I’ll be making a Moroccan feast tomorrow and I wanted to get the blog up today. You’ll have something to look forward to next week (or tomorrow if you follow me on instagram). This week I did try a really good black bean soup recipe from the Cool Beans cookbook, which I bought myself for Christmas. The soup is topped with masa dumplings, pumpkin seeds, and feta, although I will probably replace the feta with a queso fresco next time I make this. It was really tasty and pretty easy to make! I also tried out a recipe for popcorn balls this week. Why? I don’t know, but I bookmarked it months ago and the spirit moved me to try it (Side note: I keep singing “popcorn balls” to the tune of Uptown Girl. Brains are weird). Because you can never have enough cookies, I also made a batch of chocolate chip and walnut cookies. These are the Levain-style chocolate chip, but I baked them in normal cookie size.

a green bowl filled with black bean soup, which is topped with masa dumplings, pumpkin seeds, feta, cilantro, and dried ancho chili — black bean soup with masa dumplings

a sheet pan with 12 chocolate chip and walnut cookies on top — black bean soup with masa dumplings

Cat Therapy

Finally, here are some cat photos for your nerves. As a special treat, I’m sharing a photo of Huey as a kitten to accompany this goofy picture of her taking a bath.

Huey the cat sitting on the bed with her back feet stretched in front of her. She is hunched over to lick her leg, resulting in belly rolls — Huey taking a funny-looking bath

Huey the cat as a small kitten, looking alert — Huey taking a funny-looking bath

weekly update

A Week in the Life: January 23, 2021

Posted on January 23, 2021 by Lindsey

The last week was emotionally turbulent, but I am starting to feel better. I spent the first few days after Viola’s untimely departure crying and howling that I couldn’t believe she was gone. I still feel haunted by her absence but my body and mind can only physically sustain so much sorrow. I’m not crying (much) anymore and I’m starting to feel normal again. I am, however, exhausted. Strong emotions are tiring. On top of everything, I had to get out of bed and go through the motions at work all week. What the heck.

I appreciate all my friends for being so kind and supportive. Many people have offered condolences and help, some people sent cards, and I even got a plant. I think our culture (or at least the part of our culture I inhabit) has come a long way in recognizing how important pets are and how real our emotions about them are. People have said to me that it’s hard to lose a member of the family. Pets aren’t human but they are important parts of our lives. Unlike people, they can’t really disappoint you or be an asshole, so it seems unfair when they die.

This is my first real grief—I haven’t lost any close family members or friends as an adult, which is fortunate (especially in these times). So, I have been thinking a lot about what we say when someone dies. Most of my life I have heard “may they rest in peace,” in the Christian tradition. “Rest in peace” is really about the dead more than the living. They’re dead. It would be hard to disturb them, I think. I’ve come to appreciate the Jewish version, “may their memory be a blessing.” It seems to better acknowledge that grief is about the living. Someone dear is gone but we hope that, one day, their memory will bring you joy and not pain. A few days ago, I could only imagine pain when thinking about Viola. Now I’m starting to see where her memory can be a blessing. I have a story highlight on my instagram of her pictures and videos. I’ve been paging through it every night when I get in bed as if it’s a set of prayer beads. Last night was the first time I relaxed while looking at it. In life, Viola always helped me feel calm. I’m relieved to know she lives on, in a way, in photos and video. (Of course, writing this has made me cry again, so there’s no winning).

Consuming

Here are some things I’ve recently read, watched, or bought.

Books and Other Words

It was a little hard to read this week because Viola was always my reading companion. Many times I sat down to read and started crying instead, but I did manage to finish some books I had started including When Tiger Came Down the Mountain by Nghi Vo and Culture Warlords: My Journey into the Dark Web of White Supremacy by Talia Lavin.

I also finished up some reading on composting that I got from the library: Composting for a New Generation and Bob’s Basics: Composting. If you only have room for one composting book in your schedule, I recommend Composting for a New Generation. It is a good guide for beginners. It explains all the different ways you can compost and provides instructions for making your own composting containers. Composting is something I want to start doing this year and I feel like now I actually understand it enough to do it, which is exciting.

cover of the book When Tiger Came Down the Mountain shown on Kobo ereader. Huey the cat napping next to the book. — When Tiger Came Down the Mountain

book Culture Warlords, which has a red cover and white text, next to Viola the cat — When Tiger Came Down the Mountain

Meanwhile, on the internet:

The ignominious deceits of Congressman Cawthorn via The Nation. The new, 25-yaer-old, Trump-supporting representative from North Carolina has been lying about everything, including his education and business history. The article researches Cawthorn’s claims about training for the Paralympics and found that he’s not at all a serious person. The thing with some of these Trump-leaning conservatives that continues to baffle me is why lie? Why lie about this? Do you think your constituents are too stupid to care? Is the liar themselves too stupid to make a good lie? I can’t comprehend it.
The meaning of the mittens: Five possibilities via The Intercept. After sharing so many Bernie in his cozy mittens memes this week, of course I was interested in Naomi Klein’s analysis of the situation.
Do ‘elder Goths’ hold the secret to aging successfully? via The Washington Post. Most of our culture is youth-obsessed, but goths are all about the macabre past. From the article: “Bush argues that Goths’ success in aging has a lot to do with their ability to juggle opposing, seemingly paradoxical energies. Take Goths’ emotional intensity: While off-putting to some, Goths’ willingness to harness dark feelings such as despair, gloom and hopelessness, rather than repress them, can prove healthier in the long run, Bush says. Equally vital is Goths’ ability to find humor, irony and beauty in supposedly “ugly” sources, such as flowers that grow by a cemetery or the absurd frailties of the aging body. In a culture, for instance, that already treats older women as frightful, why not own that, and become the most fabulous grand dame of darkness the world has ever seen?”

TV and Music

We are living through a great time for RuPual’s Drag Race because we have season 13 airing right now and Drag Race UK season 2. I’m enjoying both, but the UK season has a certain je ne sais quoi and it’s hilarious. It’s really great to have something so fun to watch right now.

This week I started re-watching Star Trek: Deep Space 9 because I wanted something that wouldn’t be too wild and something I’ve seen before. It’s fitting the bill but I did kind of make a mistake because I forgot that in the first episode we have to deal with Sisko losing his wife in a spaceship accident. That set me crying again but I’m okay now. I also had to yell at the TV when they had an episode with a pandemic spreading around the station. Have they even been a pandemic before? Total amateurs.

Rampant Consumerism

a pile of zotter chocolate bars on my countertop — zotter chocolate

For some reason, facebook has started showing me lots of ads for chocolate makers and I keep clicking on them because I guess they’ve got my number now. I mentioned previously that I am going to order a book from an independent bookstore every month. I ordered my book for this month (it’s not here yet!). I thought it would be fun to get a fancy snack to accompany my reading. The chocolate got here before the book this month and we’ve been sampling it. It’s really good! This is Zotter chocolate and they make bars that are like a bonbon but in bar form. This year I’m all about trying to make fun or interesting events for myself at home while I ride out the rest of this pandemic. If that means buying fancy chocolate, so be it.

Making Things and Doing stuff

A weekly pill organizer containing daily vitamins and medication, plus an M&M in each slot — tip: add candy to your pill organizer

This week I was inspired to add peanut M&Ms to my weekly pill lineup. Why? Because they fit perfectly. Plus it makes taking my anxiety meds every night a lot more fun. Literally no one can stop you from adding candy to your pill organizer.

Knitting and Crafts

details of a shawl in progress with a pattern that sort of looks like stained glass — mystery “knit-a-long” update

Now that I’ve had a little break from my Christmas gift knitting marathon, I’m getting back into my groove and working on this shawl. I don’t know what the finished pattern will look like since it’s from a “mystery knit-a-long” that my mom bought for me last Christmas. However, I’m super into this part of the pattern because it looks like stained glass. Knitting is cool as hell.

Kitchen Witchery

I’ve kept things simple in the kitchen this week, but I did do a little bit of baking. I made a batch of my favorite pumpkin rolls to give myself something to do (and eat) because I still had some pumpkin in the pantry. In an effort to use the large amount of carrots I accidentally ordered, I made carrot bread (recipe from The Bread Bible). The recipe calls for raisins, but I don’t hate myself so I substituted pecans. I really like making quick breads like this in the mini-loaf pans. It bakes faster and it’s easier to deal with.

three mini loaves of carrot bread, cooling on a wire rack — carrot bread mini loaves

a slice of a small loaf of carrot bread to reveal the texture inside — carrot bread mini loaves

I also made bagels for the first time! I’m alternating my “kitchen vacations” with baking techniques and this week it was baking time. The bagels weren’t too hard to make, just a little bit of effort at the end with getting all the bagels boiled and topped with the “everything” blend before baking. I’ll definitely make these again because they were delicious. I used the recipe from The Bread Bible, which has yet to let me down. I tried both methods of shaping a bagel: one where you make a ball and push a hole through it and another where you make a snake then close it up into a circle. The snake-dough versions didn’t quite hold together as well as the hole-poke ones. You can probably tell which is which in the photos. A valuable lesson for future bagel efforts.

five everything bagels on a baking sheet that has just been removed from the oven — out of the oven!

five everything bagels cooling on a wire rack. The counter below is covered in a tea towel that says "bitch I am the secret ingredient" — out of the oven!

Cat Therapy

Finally, here are some cat photos for your nerves. Huey seems to be enjoying her new status as the only cat in the house. She’s been cuddling with me a lot more and sleeping on the bed every night. This is great but it makes me feel like I was neglecting her before. Kirk says I wasn’t, it’s just that Viola always made herself the center of attention. Regardless, Huey is getting plenty of high-quality attention now.

Huey the cat standing in front of the screen door, looking into the back yard — Huey getting some fresh air

Huey the cat lounging on the bed with her head up and front paws crossed in front of her — Huey getting some fresh air

weekly update

Two Weeks in the Life: January 18, 2021

Posted on January 18, 2021 by Lindsey

When I was thinking about what I wanted to write this weekend, I had some ideas about novelty and how the pandemic has made novelty a difficult proposition. Of course, then Viola died and that has provided me with a horrible type of novelty that no one asked for. I’m writing this on Sunday night, past when I normally quit the computer to go to bed. When I was retiring for the night, I used to call Viola and she would race past me down the hall the hang out in the bedroom with me. She was always next to me when I was reading in bed. Normally I love getting in bed at the end of the day but now I’m only dreading it.

I thought about not writing a blog this week, but I didn’t write last week and I have some things I want to share/not forget about. It might be a little jumbled but this website is free.

Consuming

Here are some things I’ve recently read or bought.

Books and Other Words

Essa Hansen’s Nophek Gloss is another book in one of my favorite motifs: found family. It’s a space opera, there’s a crew of misfit privateers, and people trying to work through their trauma. I liked the story in general, but one thing I thought it was particularly effective at was its portrayal of PTSD. So this is a good book for sci-fi fans and for people who like to see complicated characters dealing with their shit.

Lauren Beukes’ Afterland was really good. It’s set in the present day United States, but a terrible virus has killed almost all men. The novel rotates points of view between Cole, her son (Miles) and her sister (Billie). Miles survives the plague only to be scooped up by the government’s research apparatus. Cole just wants to get her son out and travel home to South Africa. What follows is a wild road trip novel of family drama. There’s even a cult! What’s not to love?

book: Nophek Gloss. A dark cover featuring a glossy spaceship and large white text — Nophek Gloss

book: Afterland by LAuren Beukes. Cover design has a sky blue background with a few white clouds and a rose upside down in the foreground — Nophek Gloss

Meanwhile, on the internet:

Is it a resolution or is it capitalism via Culture Study. A little late but it’s still January. I do enjoy using the new year as a time to reflect, but I can’t ignore that most “resolutions” are pretty consumer-driven. Just buy this to improve your life! Be more productive! Lose weight!
Who taught women that they should only eat 1,200 calories a day? via Buzzfeed. Oof. Who among us hasn’t tried limiting our calories to 1,200 per day? This is a great choice if you want to literally starve yourself. Why do women feel we should to this?
The $3,000-a-month toilet for the Ivanka Trump/Jared Kushner Secret Service detail via the Washington Post. Just when you thought you knew how low the Trump-Kushners were, they reach a new nadir in shittiness.
Get in losers, we’re singing sea shanties via The Cut. If you have yet to hear about the current internet trend of singing sea shanties (and space shanties!), you’re welcome.
Meet the ASL interpreter who turns into a ‘hype man’ at D.C. protests via NPR. I heard about this guy on twitter and was amazed with how cool his ASL interpreting looked.

Rampant Consumerism

a bag of high-gluten flour and small jars of malt powder and "everything bagel topping" on my kitchen counter — preview of coming attractions

Something I’ve wanted to try baking for a while is bagels and I finally bought the ingredients I need. I looked into it last year, but this was during the rush on baking supplies when everyone was suddenly a baker. The thing I really needed was malt powder, but the high-gluten flour helps. The everything bagel topping is an added bonus. I’m hoping try this out next weekend.

Making Things and Doing stuff

Spanish

I am finally registered to take the DELE C1 exam! It’s November 13th in Seattle, which was the closest option for the testing date I wanted (I could have done Los Angeles in May but I am not that optimistic about the pandemic). I’ve been thinking about taking this test to validate my Spanish skills for years, but now I’m finally going to do it.

Kitchen Witchery

I’m trying to bring a little more excitement to my at-home pandemic experience so I’m making some new things in the kitchen. First, I’m tackling some new baking techniques. I made croissants a couple of weeks ago. It was fun and they came out amazing! It was my first time laminating dough, but it didn’t seem too complicated. It just required patience.

a close-up of croissants cooling on a wire rack — croissant success

a single croissant on a small black plate — croissant success

Second I am taking “trips” in the kitchen. On Friday, I went to Egypt with two recipes from Feast of the Islamic World: koshari and a semolina cake. I spent the day cooking and grooving to Egyptian music. It’s not the same as actually going somewhere, sure, but it was something fun and it broke up my routine. I shared the whole process on my instagram and took suggestions for where we should “go” next time. Popular suggestions include Cuba and Morocco, so that may be coming soon.

a semolina cake topped with whole almonds, in an 8-inch cake pan — koshari!

Cat Therapy

Finally, here are some cat photos for your nerves.

Huey the cat lying on her side, looking at a cell phone. The phone is propped up and playing a "cat TV" youtube video — Huey watching TV

Huey the cat, lying on the floor with her belly up. She is framed by sun coming in from the window. — Huey watching TV

the world around us

Viola Halsell, 2008 – January 16, 2021

Posted on January 16, 2021 by Lindsey

Viola died today. I did not expect that today would be the day she died. She had been lethargic all week. She spent a couple days curled in a ball on the bed. She rallied to eat some wet food earlier this week and I thought she was feeling better. Then she stopped eating and refused to acknowledge food. We put food in front of her and she would walk away from it. I thought she had a belly full of hairballs. This morning I put some hairball medicine on her paws and, rather than lick it off, she seemed to sigh and accept her sticky fate. That’s when I started calling around for a vet.

The vet today told me that Viola had a mass the size of a tangerine in her abdomen, she was dehydrated and sick. The vet said that it was likely cancer and, were it her cat, she would choose to euthanize her. The alternative was a battery of tests and a long weekend staying in the hospital, with no guarantee that she’d be able to recover. I did not want Viola to spend her last days scared and alone.

I adopted Viola in 2008 from the animal shelter in Seattle. I’d had Huey for a few months and thought she would like company (narrator: she would not). Viola was in kitty foster care with a brother, a fluffy white kitty named Chai. Viola was then named Viola Mae, but I’ve never once called her all that.

When I first brought her home, she was scared of everything and thin. But she always wanted to play and she warmed right up to me. She never slept on my bed until my then-boyfriend and I broke up. Once I moved, she was on the bed constantly.

Viola was a trooper who weathered several moves, including from Seattle to southern California, and from there to Sacramento. She was always by my side when I was home, either in my lap, purring next to me on the couch, or even sitting on the floor near my desk. She was a diva who wanted to be the only object of my attention. She sometimes harassed Huey by chasing her out of the bedroom and often tried to murder Kirk with her glare. She tried to be a bully, but the sound of the doorbell always sent her running to hide under the bed.

A eulogy

Viola, I love you so much and I will never be the same. You were my darling kitten. You were beautiful and fluffy and deserving of the best life. I hope your time on this Earth was cozy and worthwhile and that you felt loved and cared for. I wish I had known sooner that you were so sick. I wish I could have done more for you, played with you more, pet you more. I’m sorry you got cancer and you spent the last days of your life sick and tired. If there’s something after this life, I hope you’re getting the best of it. I love you so much and always will.

Here’s one last collection of Viola photos for your nerves.

Young Viola

Viola wide-eyed, looking over her shoulder at the camera — earliest known Viola photo

Viola lounging belly-up in a chair — earliest known Viola photo

Viola sitting on me

Viola sitting on my pillow with her tail curled around my head — Forever sleeping on my head

Viola on my head part 2 — Forever sleeping on my head

General Viola appreciation

A close-up of Viola — Viola is an intense cat

Viola the cat exposing her extremely fluffy underbelly — Viola is an intense cat

Last Days on Earth

weekly update

A Week in the Life: January 3, 2021

Posted on January 3, 2021 by Lindsey

It’s 2021 and I have to go back to work tomorrow! I’m happy to be employed but I wish I didn’t have to work. Taking a week off has been really good. I read a lot of books and made foods, I played video games, and got myself organized for the things I want to do this year.

Consuming

Here are some things I’ve recently read, watched, or bought.

Books and Other Words

Nicky Drayden’s Escaping Exodus is about future humans who fled the Earth and are living inside giant, space-faring beats. This is a weird, squishy sci-fi and I liked it a lot. It reminded me of Kameron Hurley’s The Stars Are Legion, which also features a matriarchal space-faring society eking out a living on ships made of organic matter. Escaping Exodus takes a more class-focused lens and gives us a perspective into who suffers to keep society functioning. I’m always up for a sociological fiction so I thought this was a good read.

What We Don’t Talk about When We Talk about Fat by Aubrey Gordon is so good. It’s a perfect blend of research and personal experience as a fat woman. This book was a lot to take in. It’s good but terrible to see the statistics about how fat people are treated because I’m glad I’m not alone but also, fuck why are so many people so terrible? Research is pretty clear on the fact that dieting is not effective in the long-term, so why is our culture bent on demonizing fat people? Gordon posits that thin people have to see themselves as morally superior than fat people, otherwise they would need to acknowledge that body weight is largely luck, circumstance, and genetics instead of some kind of righteousness or good personal choices. This book is truly essential reading.

Feminist City: Claiming Space in a Man-Made World is also a combination of memoir and data. Leslie Kern discusses cities and the fact that they have been designed by men for men’s needs—seeing “respectable” women in public is a relatively new phenomenon. She asks what cities would be like if women’s needs were accounted for? How might housing be organized so that women could work together to share child care and other labor? What could make women feel safe? This book didn’t blow my mind, probably because I had already read Caroline Criado Perez’s Invisible Women, which chronicles the many ways that our environment favors men.

book cover on kobo ereader: Escaping Exodus — Escaping Exodus

What Book cover on kobo ereader: We Dont Talk about when We Talk about Fat — Escaping Exodus

Meanwhile, on the internet:

America’s vaccine rollout is already a disaster via the Intelligencer. From the article: “As a country, we have only 40 million doses, and had aimed, according to Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar, to vaccinate 20 million by year-end. That’s bad enough. But we have administered only 2 million of those — barely 10 percent of the goal. At this rate, achieving sufficient vaccination to reach herd immunity and bring the pandemic to a close in the U.S. will take about seven years.” All I can say is ughhhh
Would you believe me if I said I was starving? via Talk Poverty. A reflection on being both poor and fat in keeping with what is apparently this week’s theme.
Fat lady attempts to get health care: An oral history via McSweeny’s. This is satire but I almost cried reading it because it is really resembles my experiences. I’ll never forget the time I went to the doctor because I was really sick and he was like “we need to talk about your BMI.” Bro, I am SICK.

TV and Music

I was excited to watch Wonder Woman 1984. That excitement was misplaced (spoilers ahead). The first Wonder Woman movie was a lot of fun because we see Diana being joyful and fighting for a better world. WW84 has none of that. Diana is lonely and spends all her time pining over a man who’s been dead since the last movie—which took place 70 years ago! She’s the greatest warrior in a generation, she stopped a god in the last movie, and now she’s spending all her time being sad about a man. Being sad for 70 years! I can’t get over that. This is not the paradigm of fully realized womanhood we need. I thought Diana was going to make friends with Barbara Minerva, who joins the museum staff where Diana works. But no, Barb is uncool and not in the cute way. I really did not appreciate Barbara’s story arc: she gets a magic wish to “be like Diana” and then starts getting strong, popular, and good at putting on flashy eyeliner. Do we need another version of the “let your hair down and take off your glasses to be a hot girl” trope? I argue no. There’s a lot of crazy shit in this movie (like Chris Pine’s character from the last movie doing a ‘Quantum Leap’ style body possession of an unsuspecting man. I’m not even going into this), the villain becoming a magic stone for making wishes, and Wonder Woman saving the world by whispering quietly to humanity. Next time I want a girl power pick-me-up, I’m going to watch Mad Max Fury Road or that scene from The Boys instead.

I think some people are going to be indignant about this but here it us: until this week I’d never listened to a whole Madonna album. I am passingly familiar with Madonna and obviously know her hits but she was not a fixture in my household’s musical landscape when I was young. In 12th grade, some school assembly had a 1980s-themed “name that tune” game and I got to be a contestant. I was super into new wave at the time, so I got almost every song within a few beats. I was not able to identify Madonna’s “Like a Virgin,” despite fellow students shouting “MADONNA” at me. Alas. In any case, I listened to the “Madonna” and “Material Girl” albums this week to educate myself. They were fun. They sound a little dated now, in a way, but it was fun to hear some new-to-me songs.

Rampant Consumerism

The targeted ads got me again and I bought a scrubby thing that’s meant to replace bath poufs. Because I wanted free shipping, I also bought their weird toothbrush. Both the scrubber and the toothbrush feel quite nice, but the scrubber doesn’t seem to lather body wash up in as satisfying of a way. However, it does stick to the shower wall, which I like, and it’s supposed to be recyclable.

Making Things and Doing stuff

Languages

I had a mediocre showing in Spanish last month but did a fair amount of French. Good for me. I’m feeling re-energized this month (which seems normal for me this time of year). I’m really looking forward to taking the C1 DELE exam in Spanish so I am feeling motivated.

Notebook page recording my spanish studies for December 2020 — December spanish. lol

Notebook page recording my french studies for December 2020 — December spanish. lol

Kitchen Witchery

I had some leftover egg whites I needed to use (I’m stuck in a cycle of having too many whites or too many yolks). I tried out this coconut macaroon recipe, which I liked better than previous versions I’ve made. I also put some chocolate on top because why not. I used the rest of the egg whites on this white chocolate mousse because I wanted to try something different. It was delicious but so rich. I am rarely bested by a dessert, but I’ve had to portion this out over the last few days. I couldn’t eat much at once.

coconut macaroons drizzled with chocolate — working that coconut macaroon game

a small glass containing white chocolate mousse with a square of chocolate sticking out — working that coconut macaroon game

Outside of desserts, I had some fun cooking this week. Including a butternut squash and blue cheese tart with caramelized onions (recipe from Salt, Fat, Acid Heat), a chili (roughly based on this recipe), and biscuits and gravy. I actually made a cream biscuit for the biscuits and gravy because, although I thought I had bought buttermilk last week, I did not. Shame on me. Regardless, the cream biscuits were really good.

butter nut squash and blue cheese tart in a round dish — butternut squash and blue cheese tart

beef and pinto bean chili in a crock pot — butternut squash and blue cheese tart

I love the new year and I love snacks, so I went wild with a snack-based dinner for new year’s eve. We had ranch dip with various accoutrements, plus a baked brie. Kirk bought me a gift basket of cheeses for Christmas (it’s true love), which included brie, so this seemed like the right time to eat it. I baked it with the awesome salted honey that my sister bought me and it was, in fact, delicious.

wooden snack board with olives, apples, almonds, chips, radishes, celery, carrots, and ranch dip — new years eve snack board

baked brie topped with honey and pecans, surrounded by slices of bread — new years eve snack board

Cat Therapy

Finally, here are some cat photos for your nerves. Huey has been enjoying the Christmas gifts.

Huey the cat sitting in a cat play tube, looking out at the camera — Huey in the safety of her tunnel

Huey the cat curled up in a bed/basket that has a heating pad on the bottom — Huey in the safety of her tunnel

books

2020: The 13th Annual Year in Books

Posted on December 31, 2020 by Lindsey

I was really hoping I would beat my past reading record (90 books!) this year, but alas, it was not meant to be. I made it to 88 books, which makes 2020 the new second-place for my competition with myself to read the most books. Looking at past books of the year posts, I saw I had written this in 2017, “I made it through 62 books in 2017, which feels like a success considering the madness this year wrought.” All I can say is, wow, she didn’t know a damn thing.

Page count: 32,996 pages, based on the page numbers recorded in LibraryThing. When I read 90 books in 2014, the page count was 35,177 pages. So maybe I wouldn’t have beat my record anyway, were I to count pages.
Library use: 49 library books, 39 of my own books. Shout out to the library for keeping reading from being prohibitively expensive.
Female/male authors: 77 women authors, 10 men authors, 1 with a mix (from an anthology). This means about 88 percent of the books I read were by women. Come through, matriarchy.
Digital and analog: 47 digital, 41 paper. This stat doesn’t mean much, since I’m an equal-opportunity reader, but it is fun to see how things shake out each year.
Fiction and non-fiction: 56 fiction, 32 non-fiction. About one-third of this year’s books were non-fiction, which seems to be my new trend. Earth is full of interesting things.
Books in other languages: I read 8 books in Spanish, which I think is the most I’ve read in one year. It’s finally starting to feel more natural. It only took -checks notes- 10 years.
Favorites:
- The Midnight Bargain by C.L. Polk for witchcraft and taking down the patriarchy
- The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow, also for witchcraft and taking down the patriarchy but in a totally different way
- The Daevabad Trilogy by S. A. Chakraborty for middle eastern-themed fantasy
- The F*ck It Diet: Eating Should Be Easy by Caroline Dooner for going into the science of diets and why they are pointless
- The Night Watchman by Louise Erdich for historical fiction about Native people set in the not-so-distant past
- Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky for the spider kingdom sci-fi you didn’t know you needed
- The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett for a haunting perspective on race
- Can’t Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation by Anne Helen Petersen because it documents why millennials are having such a hard time and shows that it’s not an individual problem
- Miracle Country: A Memoir by Kendra Atleework for the inland California environmentalist perspective

And now, the list!

Date Finished	Title	Author
1/3	The Golden Thread: How Fabric Changed History	Kassia St. Clair
1/4	Indelible in the Hippocampus: Writings From the Me Too Movement	Shelly Oria (editor)
1/5	Rogue Protocol	Martha Wells
1/10	Exit Strategy	Martha Wells
1/12	Betraying Big Brother: The Feminist Awakening in China	Leta Hong Fincher
1/19	The Mirror Empire	Kameron Hurley
1/30	Empire Ascendant	Kameron Hurley
2/3	La fruta del borrachero: Una novela	Ingrid Rojas Contreras
2/4	The Broken Heavens	Kameron Hurley
2/8	Nine Pints: A Journey through Time, Money, Medicine, and Mysteries of Blood	Rose George
2/12	The Sisters of the Winter Wood	Rena Rossner
2/16	The Secret Lives of Glaciers	M Johnson
2/18	Stormsong	C. L. Polk
2/21	The F*ck It Diet: Eating Should Be Easy	Caroline Dooner
2/24	The Secret Chapter	Genevieve Cogman
3/2	The Luminous Dead	Caitlin Starling
3/10	Autonomous	Annalee Newitz
3/12	The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power	Shosana Zuboff
3/18	Mostly Dead Things	Kristen Arnett
3/21	Leftover Women: The Resurgence of Gender Inequality in China	Leta Hong Fincher
3/23	Docile	K. M. Szpara
4/1	The Starless Sea	Erin Morgenstern
4/2	Umami	Laia Jufresa
4/13	Hiding in Plain Sight: The Invention of Donald Trump and the Erosion of America	Sarah Kendzior
4/13	Little Gods	Meng Jin
4/17	The City We Became	N. K. Jemisin
4/19	Women Talking	Miriam Toews
4/24	How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse	K. Eason
4/28	The Glass Hotel	Emily St. John Mandel
5/2	Caramelo	Sandra Cisneros
5/4	The Voyages of Cinrak the Dapper	A. J. Fitzwater
5/8	Gingerbread	Helen Oyeyemi
5/14	Network Effect	Martha Wells
5/16	Los hombres me explican cosas	Rebecca Solnit
5/17	The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks about Race	Jesmyn Ward (ed.)
5/20	Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women that a Movement Forgot	Mikki Kendall
5/24	Ancestral Night	Elizabeth Bear
6/1	The Night Watchman	Louise Erdrich
6/7	American Oligarchs: The Kushners, the Trumps, and the Marriage of Money and Power	Andrea Bernstein
6/12	Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle	Emily Nagoski, Amelia Nagoski
6/15	The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter	Theodora Goss
6/25	European Travel for the Monstrous Gentlewoman	Theodora Goss
6/28	Children of Time	Adrian Tchaikovsky
7/1	El reino del dragón de oro	Isabel Allende
7/5	The Vanishing Half	Brit Bennett
7/8	They Were Her Property: White Woman as Slave Owners in the American South	Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers
7/10	The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet	Becky Chambers
7/16	Gods of Jade and Shadow	Silvia Moreno-Garcia
7/21	The Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl	Theodora Goss
7/24	Goldilocks	Laura Lam
7/25	A Closed and Common Orbit	Becky Chambers
7/29	Record of a Spaceborn Few	Becky Chambers
8/4	Children of Ruin	Adrian Tchaikovsky
8/8	American Prison: A Reporter’s Undercover Journey into the Business of Punishment	Shane Bauer
8/16	Harrow the Ninth	Tamsyn Muir
8/24	A Burning	Megha Majumdar
9/1	How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States	Daniel Immerwahr
9/1	Technical Communication Today, 6th Edition	Richard Johnson-Sheehan
9/6	Empress of Forever	Max Gladstone
9/6	Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism	Safiya Umoja Noble
9/11	The First Sister	Linden Lewis
9/16	Miracle Country: A Memoir	Kendra Atleework
9/20	Sistema nervioso	Lina Meruane
9/25	Sisters in Hate: American Women on the Front Lines of White Nationalism	Seyward Darby
10/1	Feminismos: Miradas desde la diversidad	ed. Pikara
10/1	Can’t Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation	Anne Helen Petersen
10/6	A Witch in Time	Constance Sayers
10/16	Machine	Elizabeth Bear
10/19	The Midnight Bargain	C. L. Polk
10/19	Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void	Mary Roach
10/25	Mill Town: Reckoning with What Remains	Kerri Arsenault
10/30	The Once and Future Witches	Alix E. Harrow
10/31	Beowulf: A New Translation	Maria Dahvana Headley
11/2	Piranesi	Susanna Clarke
11/5	The Space Between Worlds	Micaiah Johnson
11/6	Sombras de Reikiavik	Anthony Adeane
11/8	Republic of Lies: American Conspiracy Theorists and their Surprising Rise to Power	Anna Merlan
11/12	Transcendent Kingdom	Yaa Gyasi
11/20	The Language Hoax: The World Looks the Same in Any Language	John H. McWhorter
11/22	The City of Brass	S. A. Chakraborty
11/27	The Kingdom of Copper	S. A. Chakraborty
12/4	The Empire of Gold	S. A. Chakraborty
12/9	Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest	Zeynep Tufekci
12/11	Thick: And Other Essays	Tressie McMillan Cottom
12/13	The Empress of Salt and Fortune	Nghi Vo
12/22	The Unreality of Memory and Other Essays	Elisa Gabbert
12/27	Escaping Exodus	Nicky Drayden
12/29	What We Don’t Talk about When We Talk about Fat	Aubrey Gordon

weekly update

2021: Let’s Do This I Guess

Posted on December 31, 2020 by Lindsey

collage of pictures including a garden, a goat in a sweater, a woman lifting weights, a girl with an owl and a cat wearing sunglasses — 2021 mood board

I know that all of our troubles won’t magically disappear at the stroke of midnight on January 1, but I wish they would. I’m thinking about what I want to do in 2021 with present conditions in mind. I hope that, by the end of the year, we’re all vaccinated and living our best covid-free lives. I know I’ll be last in line for a vaccine since I don’t have to talk to the public or care for anyone. I’m thinking about the year with that in mind and with nine months of pandemic experience.

Hobbies and Other Witchery

Books. My private goal in 2020 was to read 100 books. I didn’t make it, but I got close. This year I am making it a public goal: I want to read 100 books. This is mostly just to say I did it and see what it feels like to read that much. Besides, I don’t have much else going on. I also want to do my part to keep independent bookstores alive because they always have the best stuff. Something fun I want to do for myself is buy a book from a different bookstore each month. I can’t go anywhere interesting so I have to bring things to me.
Music. Make a point of listening to new (or new-to-me) music and finding stuff I like. Kirk bought me a lovely blue tooth speaker for Christmas so that will help.
Knitting. Knit a sweater! I’ve knit many small things (and one top), but I have yet to knit a sweater, which is the quintessential knitting activity. I have yarn and a pattern picked out for a big, chunky sweater and I’m looking forward to making and wearing it.
Baking. Expand my baking skills and try new things. I know in the not-too-distant future I want to try making croissants, donuts, and a babka. I’ve got my bread game going strong so now it’s time to branch out.
Cooking. I have a lot of great cookbooks and a number of them are about cuisines from other places. I can’t travel so I want to try travel by cooking. My general plan is to try a few recipes from another place every month, but we’ll see what my energy levels are like. I have already marked a few recipes to try from Peru: The Cookbook and Feast of the Islamic World.
Composting. Maybe this is weird, but I want to start composting. Why throw away all these food scraps when we can turn them into soil?

Languages

Spanish. I have talked about taking the DELE exam before and, in fact, had planned to do it in 2020. This year I’m going to do it for really real. I mean it. I’ve even sent in a registration form already. I’m trying to register for a date in November, when, one hopes, things will be fairly safe.
Icelandic. I want to get back into learning Icelandic this year. I have been thinking about it a lot without actually studying. I’m hoping my teacher will be available again, or perhaps she can refer me to someone else if not.
French. I started learning French again on a whim, so my plan this year is to keep at it as long as I’m having fun. I also want to find something to read or watch in the language that makes it more interesting for me.

Intangibles

Take it slow. It’s hard for me to relax and not fill all my time with activities. That’s a little bit because I get bored easily and a lot because of how I cope with anxiety: be too busy to worry about it. This year I want to work on taking things as they come and not overfilling my schedule for the sake of it. This is also going to be important when/if we can start living that non-pandemic life again. I know I’ll want to do everything at once, but I also know that will quickly overwhelm me. I don’t have to make up for “lost time” or anything like that. I want to ease back into things.
(Re-)establish routines. The most difficult part of 2020 was that basically all of our routines were destroyed. Now that pandemic life is more of a known quantity, I want to focus on resetting some routines and establishing new ones to get me through all this at-home time. I’ve particularly struggled with exercising regularly since exercise used to be an activity that happens outside of the house. I’m hoping to find a new rhythm for my days and work in some good habits. I’ve started flossing and have kept at it for the last two weeks so I know there is hope for me.
Community. I’ve been donating to causes but I want to get involved in something that will better my community. I’m not yet sure what form this will take but probably some kind of volunteering. I’ve learned from the last few years that we are all responsible for making society and our communities not suck. Now I have to start putting in some work.

weekly update

A Year in the Life: 2020

Posted on December 27, 2020 by Lindsey

It feels a little weird to write this post. I know a number of people have been sharing memes saying they don’t need any year-end posts to make them feel bad about whatever they have done or not done to get through the year. I can respect that. For me, doing stuff is what got me through the year. Even if it was low-key stuff like baking bread and knitting socks. I am, of course, in a different situation than many people since I work from home and I don’t have to take care of anyone. We’ve all coped with this year differently. This post is about what I did.

Looking back at what I said I wanted to do this year, I feel a number of things. Obviously I could not have anticipated the pandemic and how deeply it would affect us all this year, so goals about playing roller derby and keeping up with my weight lifting are moot. Other things seem almost prescient. I talk about wanting to be less wasteful and not buy shit I don’t need, which has definitely been part of the spirit of living through the pandemic. Living through the early pandemic in particular made me get better at using what food I have on hand and not throwing away those last bits of leftover meals, habits which I’ve worked on through the year. I’m not saying I’m “grateful” for the pandemic (because I’m really, really not), but it has demanded a certain amount of reflection and reconsideration of how I run my life and relate to others.

This year has been hard. I feel a kind of survivor’s guilt because it hasn’t been that hard for me in a lot of ways. I have a stable income and health insurance, I have a cozy home. But the social upheaval and the uncertainty of this year have been challenging. I definitely feel less patient and more emotionally raw, as I’m sure everyone does. I have tried to channel that into, alternately, empathy and helping the people around me as well as relaxing and caring for myself. It’s hard, but I’m trying.

Something nice: this is my first full year of regular blogging (I started in the middle of 2019). If you click on the “2020” tag, you can see everything I wrote this year. I’m really glad that I kept up the blog this year. With the days of pandemic life blurring into one another, I know without it I would have looked back on this year and asked “what the fuck happened?” Despite the pandemic (because of?) I did a lot of things. They weren’t the things I expected to do, but I did things.

Books and Media

I read a lot this year! I am going to post my books of the year list later this week (I’m not done reading yet!), but I’m currently at 87 books. My private goal this year was to read 100 books, which is clearly not going to happen. I feel good that I’ve gotten quite close though!

One aspect of being at home so much is I started being more purposeful about what media I consume. I realized I wasn’t listening to much music and organized some new playlists for myself to make it easier to enjoy music. I’ve been trying to listen to some new (or new to me) artists so I don’t get too set in my ways. I’ve also been watching more movies and purposely picking what I want to watch instead of getting lost in the infinite scroll of netflix streaming.

Rampant Consumerism

As you might guess, most of my rampant consumerism this year focused on buying stuff for my house, like baskets for organizing my closet and bins for my pantry. I also got an air purifier (shout out to California’s worst fire season) and a rowing machine/exercise bike since it became more or less impossible to leave the house this summer between the heat and the ash. I also put a lot of effort into emergency kits. I can’t personally do much about the pandemic or the fires, but it does reassure me a little to have some emergency supplies in place.

Making Things and Doing stuff

Did you know I had to work at my job all year long? It’s ridiculous but true. I don’t write about work a lot, but I did a lot of fucking work this year. Pandemic notwithstanding, we did a lot of proposals and I took on projects like trying to help people understand how to write and organizing our reusable content. It feels really insane to me that many aspects of regular life have continued as normal while 300,000 Americans died of coronavirus this year. I’m lucky that my boss is understanding about how it feels to be alive right now and hasn’t demanded anything ridiculous. I’m a little affronted that we’ve had to keep working at all. Compartmentalization is at an all-time high.

Languages

Studying, at times, offered a good distraction from pandemic life. It’s an act of optimism to keep at it; a belief that I’ll eventually be able to go somewhere and talk to new people.

I really thought this was going to be the year I’d take the C1 DELE exam and validate my Spanish skills once and for all, but the pandemic has made fools of us all. That said, I did a lot of reading and studying in Spanish this year and I’m feeling pretty good about my skills. I even translated my voting guide into Spanish! I also started making efforts to do some volunteer translating work. I did a couple of small jobs and then it fell off my radar. Something to renew my efforts in for 2021!

Unfortunately, I didn’t work on Icelandic at all this year. My teacher was taking maternity leave and then the pandemic hit and I couldn’t muster the energy to study on my own. However, in a surprise twist, I did start studying French again, inspired by taking up ballet. I took three years in college but forgot a lot of it. It’s been interesting to get back to it, although I don’t love it as much as Icelandic (that’s right, I have favorites).

Knitting and Crafts

I went hard on knitting this year. I knit five pairs of socks! Ten whole socks! No wonder I feel like I want a break from sock knitting. I also knit an awesome top and two shawls. Many of these were gifts because who doesn’t love a handmade sock or shawl?

green-and-silve striped socks with grey cuffs, heels, and toes — blocked and officially finished

me wearing my freshly knit shirt — blocked and officially finished

Moving It

As far as exercise is concerned, this year would have been cursed for me, pandemic or not. I started off the year strong but sprained my ankle in February (a lifetime ago, by many reckonings). I had fun taking a few turns at coaching before coronavirus took us all out of the game. With pandemic boredom getting me down and looking for something to help my ankle rehab, I took up ballet in the summer. I didn’t really know if I would like it, but I have enjoyed it a lot. It’s been a good counterpoint to roller derby because I have to use my body in very different ways.

Kitchen Witchery

I looked back at the food photos I posted this year and noticed three trends: bread, charcuterie boards, and treats.

I made a lot of bread this year. Of course, this includes some springtime sourdough, which I made like everyone else. I like sourdough but learned that I don’t like the commitment to regular baking. Once the weather started warming up, I abandoned the project. I still made a lot of great breads and expanded into some more labor intensive breads like pumpkin knots and Poğaça rolls.

cross section view of the sourdough loaf — sourdough loaf cross section

sourdough coffee cake with a slice on a plate to expose its crumb — sourdough loaf cross section

These aren’t technically charcuterie boards since I don’t have much meat involved, but this year saw a lot of snack board/charcuterie/shark coochie art. Am I a basic bitch or am I finding classy ways not to make dinner? You decide.

A wooden board covered in snacks> several kinds of cheese, nuts, crackers, proscuitto, and pear slices — birthday “shark coochie”

ranch dip snack board: veggies, chips, onion rings, nuts and olives — birthday “shark coochie”

Finally, because eating is one of the few reliable coping mechanisms remaining to us in this pandemic year, I made a lot of treats. Some might even say it was too many treats (It’s Kirk. Kirk might say this). I tried some new stuff like cream pies, battenburg cake, and macarons. I also revisited some favorites like cookies and toffee.

one giante toffee that covers most of a sheet pan — toffee in it’s ultimate form

sweet potato pecan pound cake with maple glaze — toffee in it’s ultimate form

Cat Therapy

Finally, here are some of the year’s best cat photos for your nerves. Huey and Viola turned 12 years old this year.

Huey the cat sitting on top of the edge of the couch — Huey, couch queen

viola the cat lying on a comfy chair — Huey, couch queen