Y’all. Y’aaaaaalllllll. I have not even opened the door to the outside world today. I will not be stepping out. Listen, I aspire to be one of those people who takes a refreshing walk in nature and appreciates the Great Outdoors every single day, but I’m just… not. Maybe I could be if I lived in, like, San Diego or Hawaii or something, but it is slushy and drizzly and the entire world out my window has the color palette of a Whistler portrait. No thank you.
But I am “hashtag blessed” because I have a good book and Cute W has taken it upon himself to try out a new Bolognese recipe and, really, there is no good reason to leave the house. Plus, in fairness, I kept myself busy all day yesterday. I woke up and prepped a salad for later, then went to the JCC to do some Zumba followed by some weights and a sauna, popped back home long enough to dry my hair a bit before meeting friends at Simone’s for lunch followed by a viewing of The Librarians at the downtown public library and a bit of a discussion circle (my friends were from our documentary group, and a couple of other attendees joined us, too). Then it was back home quick to meet up with Cute W and finish up our salad to take over to a potluck dinner with S’s other host moms. So I was busy enough on Saturday, and I deserve a Day of Rest for Sunday.
Our rough plan for the rest of the day is to sample that Bolognese and probably play another round of a new-to-us game, Artistry, which Cute W got because he tempts me into game-playing by finding games with aesthetics and topics that I’ll find appealing, and this game is super-gorgeous.
We played it for the first time on Friday as part of our gala celebration of Cute W’s birthday, and we agreed we should play it again this weekend to get the basic rules down in our brains.
What else is going on? Not too much! I went to my first “Fearless Fridays” protest, which is a standing weekly protest against ICE happening at the corner of Nott Street and Balltown Road from 5:30-6:30 pm.
If you are local to me, I highly recommend it. Making my light-up sign was definitely laborious (I poked holes into the signs with a skewer and used lights from battery-powered and solar-powered strings of lights I had in the house, which are taped to the back), but I was happy with the effect. But more than that, it was a great way to spend an hour. I met some new friendly neighbors (I’ve blocked their faces here), some kids were handing out brownies and Rice Krispies treats, and another protester brought a big speaker and played music. As the protest wrapped up, someone had paid ahead at the Stewart’s for anyone who wanted to stop in and get a coffee or hot cocoa, and a bunch of us walked over to Catrina’s for Mexican food. Even at the restaurant good vibes continued, when two different patrons stopped me along the way to thank us for protesting. I predict that as the days get warmer and brighter, this will become an even better way to meet up with neighbors and start the weekend off right.
Oh! I made a little lifestyle tweak that feels good. For the last few years, I have been listening to tons of audiobooks as a way to shut down my brain from spiraling about Covid and politics and, well, you know, everything. Specifically, I’d gotten into the mode of listening to a lot of silly romance audiobooks, including at bedtime, when I’d set the Libby timer so that I could fall asleep to a story instead of, say, spiraling about efforts to suppress the vote in the upcoming midterm elections. But this was not an altogether great solution. First, it was hard to find exactly the right level of light romance that was easy to keep up with even as you’re falling asleep without it just being really too stupid. They are out there (Mimi Matthews and Kate Clayborn are two authors with books I tend to like consistently), but many of the books would veer a bit too much into smuttiness for me or they’d just be so formulaic that it would drive me nuts. So much so that I created an ongoing list for “Romance Book Bingo” with overused items like describing the guy’s voice as a “rumble” or “like gravel,” or providing a detailed description of the protagonist’s outfit before a pivotal scene. All of which was vaguely excusable when I was just so deeply stressed that I needed junk food for my brain, but it’s just become way too tiresome. Second, I hadn’t been sleeping all that well. Part of that is just natural perimenopause stuff, but I thought that my chronic audiobook use might be interfering, too. So, for bedtime, I switched to going-to-bed meditations. It still distracts my brain from bedtime catastrophizing, but it’s definitely helped me sleep better. And since I’m no longer listening to audiobooks while half-asleep, I figured I’d try nonfiction books for a change. It just feels more productive. I’m hoping that I’ll have some to recommend soon.
Update:
