Reading post: Zadie Smith in January

Zadie Smith: by David Shankbone, CC BY 4.0,
via Wikimedia Commons

So, January is over (or will be in a few hours) and it's time for a reading post. For my first author-focus of the year I chose the British writer Zadie Smith, who I'd never read before. Her books didn't sound like my thing: too busy, too loud, too sprawling. So why did I decide to read her this year? I think it was because of her latest book, The Fraud, which got good reviews. But, I thought, I shouldn't read her sixth novel if I've never read any of the others...

Then I read an essay by Smith in The New Yorker about when she was a mopey teenager and accidentally fell out of a window. I was amused -- I liked the authorial voice. I should read her, I thought to myself.

Further motivation came from one of our neighborhood little free libraries, where I found On Beauty, Smith's third novel. When I added that to a stack of books that I offered to my book club as possible next reads, they chose it. 

So, OK, let's do this. To start with, I checked out her first novel, White Teeth, from the George Reynolds branch library and her second novel, The Autograph Man, from the main library, and ordered her third book, a tiny collection of short stories called Martha & Hanwell, from Amazon.

1. White Teeth (2000). Smith won a contract for her first novel when she was an undergrad at Cambridge and it was a huge bestseller & critical success. The description of it never appealed to me, and when I started reading it, very quickly I thought, oh no. But after 438 pages I decided that it hadn't been a complete waste of time. It's the interlocking stories of two men who fought in World War II, Archie and Samad, their much younger wives, their three children (all born in 1975, the year Smith was also born -- Archie and his wife are based on Smith's parents), and various other friends and relations, all of whom live in North London. Many of the characters are either from Bangladesh or Jamaica (or descended from people from those places), with some white people thrown in, including Archie. There's a lot of talk about race, which is interesting to read from a British perspective. You can tell the author is very young, and I don't really enjoy reading family sagas by very young people -- but writers have to start somewhere, and this was an impressive debut, despite it not being quite to my taste.
   
   
2. The Autograph Man (2002). Like most second novels, this one isn't as good as the first, and since I didn't love Smith's first novel... It was an interesting concept: her main character, Alex-Li Tandem, is half Chinese, half Jewish, and I think many of the other characters are also Jewish, some being Black and Jewish. I say "I think" because I gave up on the book after about 60 pages. It seemed as though it was written by an even younger person than the one who wrote White Teeth. I found an article about how to read Zadie Smith that said "Most people pretend The Autograph Man never happened, and you probably should too." So I said fine, and dropped it.
   
   
3. Martha & Hanwell (2005). This itty-bitty volume contains two short stories (written in 2003 and 2004). I liked them pretty well, although they still struck me as the product of a young mind trying to reach beyond its knowledge. But they were OK, even moving.
   

After I finished (or gave up on) the first three books, I considered ending this month's challenge, but I still needed to read On Beauty, for the book group (we're not meeting until early February). So I thought, OK, I'll give her another chance. I also got Changing My Mind (a book of essays) and NW (her fourth novel), from the main library, and settled in for another round of Zadie Smith.

4. On Beauty (also 2005). For the first few days of reading this book I didn't think I was going to make it. I don't have to read it, I thought, but of course it was the book for the book group, so... I didn't like the characters, I didn't care about their situations (academics are so boring), I'd never read Howards End, which the book is an homage to. But then at some point I started to turn around. The characters got more interesting, rounder. I started wishing I could see pictures of them, especially Kiki, the mom, even though I could see her in my head. I read the last 150 pages in one day, and while I was ready for the book to end, I won't forget the characters right away. It is an interesting book, and in it, Smith really starts to sound like a grown-up (she was 30 when the book was published).
   
   
   4a. Howards End by E. M. Forster (1910). Yeah, I figured I owed it to Forster to read On Beauty's inspiration. The only Forster I'd read before this was A Passage to India, which I didn't love, but I definitely enjoyed this. It's very readable. And of course I kept thinking about On Beauty as I read it -- oh, that's where that idea came from, huh, so they go to hear Beethoven in this book and Mozart in Zadie Smith's version, and on and on. My only problem with the book was that I didn't fully understand it. Forster is talking a lot about class, and I just didn't get the distinctions he was making. Maybe it's a British thing, or also a 1910 thing. It got worse toward the end, or maybe I should say more important. It was odd to be reading sentence after sentence that made no sense to me. Still, I'm glad I read it. I might get the movie from the library and see if that helps me understand.
   
   Post note: I did watch the movie and I believe I understood it, but whether that means I now understand the book more... I don't know. The movie made it almost seem as though the ghost of Mrs. Wilcox was driving the plot inexorably toward Margaret acquiring Howards End, as she was supposed to. Also there seemed to be a lot about how good intentions go awry and how hard it is to "help" anyone. I still didn't understand what Margaret sees in Mr. Wilcox, but maybe that's a problem with the original book. Anyway, good movie, very enjoyable. Thank you, Zadie Smith, for making me read Howards End and see the movie.
   
   
   
5. Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays (2009). While I was struggling with On Beauty, I started reading the essays in this volume between chapters. I didn't like many of them -- so much of the time I felt as though Smith was showing off. I'd like her better if she'd calm down a little, not constantly showcase her erudition. But I was interested in her essays on Kafka and Nabokov, and two essays about her family were very moving.
   
   The last essay, and the longest, is about David Foster Wallace... She mentions that DFW "was my favorite living writer" -- and right there, I thought, is a good explanation of why I'm having trouble reading Zadie Smith. DFW doesn't interest me. It might be because, as a depressed person myself, I don't have a lot of interest in the ruminations of another depressed person (though I was amused by his story "The Depressed Person," but that's supposedly not about him, it's about the woman who wrote Prozac Nation). For most of her essay Smith talks about DFW's ideas as if he's a rational person, and only at the very end does she admit that, since he killed himself while she was writing the essay, maybe her view that his longing for "the infinite" was "purely philosophical," was "wishful thinking on my part." I'll say. Well, anyway, I managed to finish her book.
   
   
6. NW (2012). I took a break before reading this, because I was kind of Smithed out, but I did want to read NW, since it's supposed to be her best novel. I definitely liked it better than her other books, although the long section about the character of Keisha/Natalie got tedious and Smithy. I liked the Leah section and the Felix section, and the last two short sections were good. As one reviewer said, Smith takes a big step forward with this book. It's experimental, in a good way. If I were going to do this month over, I'd read NW and On Beauty and leave it at that.

Oof. That was a difficult month. Not a nice thing to do to myself in January. But I got to experience Zadie Smith and I learned that, in fact, she's not my type (as I suspected) and I may not read anything else by her. I'll see. I might eventually try to read The Fraud.

I also learned something about this year's challenge and it is this: do not try to read more than 3 books by the author of the month. If I like the author, I can read more by them LATER. Reading too much by one author can make you nauseated. Maybe that's not true if you fall madly in love with them, but that doesn't happen often. I am going to enforce this rule strictly from here on out.

Since it was January I also read one book from the piles by my bed (Mixed Company, a book of short stories by Jenny Shank -- I got it from a little free library and was not expecting to like it, but I did like it, a lot) and I started but did not finish a gigantic presidential biography (it will be my companion throughout February). And a few other things, but mostly it was a hard reading month.

In February I've chosen a very different writer to focus on: J. M. Coetzee, the Nobel Prize-winning South African writer (I think he lives in Australia now, though). Coetzee was born in 1940, so he is the same age as my oldest cousin. He has written roughly 18 novels, but I am only going to read #1, #3, and #4. I already have them all, sitting on my nightstand. Fortunately, they are all short. I also get to read two Barbara Pyms, my usual February indulgence, and I'll keep chipping away at that biography.

Winter dreams

Because I have sleep apnea -- or sleep hypoxia, or whatever, but anyway, problematic sleep -- I wake up a lot during the night, so that I can breathe. This means, I think, that I remember more dreams. 

Last night I had the saddest dream! I dreamed that Rocket Boy and I were getting married. I don't think we were as old as we are now. It could have been 10 years ago, maybe. We were already living together, so we didn't register for anything, though people did give us (odd) presents. No kids, of course. 

We got married in a beautiful old house, like an old Palo Alto house. I was in a bedroom on the first floor, having just washed my hair, when I heard the wedding march starting to play. Oh no, I thought, and opened my door. The house was full of people and the minister (an old Native American man) was starting to speak. I came out to play my part, but then looked down at myself. I was wearing a ratty old t-shirt and a skirt, and my hair was wet. "Give me a minute, I'll be right back," I said, and retreated to the room. 

Frantically, I brushed the water out of my hair (a neat trick) and then tried to find something to wear. I had noticed that Rocket Boy's tie matched the skirt I was wearing (he had on a beautiful suit). So I found a blouse in my closet that also matched -- a sort of red, yellow, and blue plaid on a black background, so garish -- and I put it on instead of the t-shirt. (The photo shows my attempt to paint the fabric from memory.) I knew the colors weren't flattering and the outfit didn't fit well, but I had no time to look for something better. I went out again and we went through the ceremony, even did some dancing. I was happy to be marrying Rocket Boy, but the whole time I felt so bad -- what kind of bride doesn't even have a dress to wear? what kind of bride doesn't fix her hair ahead of time? what kind of bride wears these colors? etc., etc. Nobody said anything about it, but they also didn't say anything complimentary, so I knew they were thinking bad thoughts.

When I woke up -- to catch my breath -- I still felt terrible, but gradually I began to puzzle over the dream. Why would I dream something like that and why would it make me feel so bad?

It was like a school anxiety dream, where you haven't studied and don't know where the classroom is, only this was a wedding anxiety dream. Why would I have that? I got married 21 years ago and have no intention of ever doing it again. I don't have any events coming up that I'm nervous about. I lead a quiet life. Google says that these types of dreams mean we are worried about being judged by an authority figure. Do I even have any authority figures in my life? I think I mostly just judge myself.

Before I went to bed I was thinking about the problem of my clothes, so maybe that was enough to trigger the dream. My clothes are so awful. I wear the same six t-shirts every week, old, raggedy shirts from Kohl's that cost less than $10 each, long ago. On Monday I wear the medium green one, on Tuesday the navy blue one, etc. Today I'm wearing the dark green one (not in the picture).

If the high that day is supposed to be below 35 or so, I'll wear a long-sleeved shirt instead, and if the high is supposed to be above 75 or so I'll wear a tank top. But most of the fall, winter, and spring I wear those same ratty t-shirts. They're very comfortable! But they don't look good, not after all this time, and not originally either, to be honest.

My "winter coat" is a big, shapeless sweater. It's made of acrylic and is extremely warm and comfortable, and it has a hood (though no fasteners). If it's really cold outside I'll just put some layers on underneath. The twins think it makes me look like a homeless person and I think they're right. I've caught a glimpse of myself in mirrors at Target and I do look homeless.

It's funny how easy it is to look homeless. When you're older, that is. Also when you're fat, although that seems wrong. Lots of homeless people are skinny, due to lack of food, etc. But it's that general sense of being in poor condition. Being thin and addicted is one way to give that impression, and being fat and old is another way. There are a lot of old homeless people, or perhaps they just look old after living on the street.

In one of the Zadie Smith books I read this month, On Beauty, there is a character, Kiki, who is in her 50s and very fat. She also sounds beautiful, though the other characters (mostly) just refer to her as fat. In an early scene, Smith describes her getting dressed in a collection of colorful scarves, and later someone she meets tells her she looks like a sunset. "Kiki, you're setting!" I found myself getting jealous of a fictional character. I wanted her clothes.

Maybe I should make another New Year's resolution -- to work on my clothes. I could work on a different aspect of my clothes each month, because they're all a mess -- shoes, socks, underwear, everything. When you get older, if you're not a real clothes horse, i.e., you don't replace your clothes constantly, this can happen. My panties are so old they're shredding.

When I got up this morning, I went online and ordered two shirts. Off eBay. They're used shirts from Kohl's. I'm not sure that's progress -- we'll see when they get here. But if they're nicer (or at least newer) than the shirts I wear every day, that can be my January clothing achievement.

I'm really glad it's almost February. January just about did me in. Only three more days.

Winter funk

It occurs to me quite often that there is nothing wrong in my life. I have a very nice life, as I told my dietician earlier this week, when she was talking about how stress might be affecting my digestion. What stress, I said. 

There really is none. I have a very pleasant little life, I told her.

Of course, there are the litter boxes. (Note the attractive picture of a litter box. All the photos today are of things I should be doing.)

Do litter boxes count as stress? Today, Sunday, I decided that I was going to take it a little bit easy. I wasn't going to do everything that's part of my usual routine -- I was going to cut a few corners (including the litter boxes).

This is my usual morning routine:

1. Alarm goes off at 7 am (on the weekends it doesn't go off, but I often wake up around the same time). I get up (eventually), go to the bathroom, brush my teeth with water, and put the stupid rubber bands on my braces.
2. I go back to my room and get dressed. If there's time, I play Wordle and Connections -- otherwise I do them a little later.
3. At 7:30 I wake up the twins. On Wednesdays I wake them up at 8:30 and on the weekends I don't wake them up at all, but four days a week I wake them up at 7:30.
4. I make the tea, wait for the twins to come staggering out to the kitchen, fix them breakfast if they want any, and eventually get them off to school (they usually leave the house to catch the bus around 8:05). Once they leave, I watch the bus I think they've taken on the "Next Ride" app until it reaches their stop. I feel as though this will somehow keep them safe. (Teen B sometimes texts me to tell me if they are stuck in traffic, or if they took a Dash instead of a Skip.) They get to their stop around 8:20-8:25 and then walk the rest of the way to school, which starts at 8:35.
   
5. At 8:30 every day, regardless of what else has been going on, I feed the cats.
6. Once the cats are eating, I fix my cereal and leave it there to sit and get soggy (because of the stupid braces).
7. I put away the clean dishes from the night before.
8. I start a load of laundry. If I didn't manage to finish yesterday's load, I put that away first, then start a new load.
9. I do a 10-minute stretching video (my new thing).
10. I eat breakfast and take five pills (Metformin (2), Rosuvastatin, CoQ10, and either Vitamin D or Vitamin B complex -- I take Losartan and more Metformin after dinner).
11. I brush my teeth and put the stupid rubber bands back on.
    
12. I do the breakfast dishes and anything left over from the night before.
13. I either clean the litter boxes or I do a quick bathroom clean (I alternate between the two).
    

At that point, around 10 or 10:15, I'm ready to start the day for real, and I usually try to begin with cleaning, though after all those little tasks I've already done I usually don't want to. It varies. Sometimes I clean, sometimes I sit and play card games on my phone.

I've tried moving cleaning to the afternoon, and sometimes that works, but more often it just doesn't get done. It's better to do it in the morning and then I can say phew, that's over.

Today, it being Sunday, as I said above, I skipped some steps. For example, I didn't put away the clean dishes. And there they sit, still in the dishwasher, with some breakfast dishes and other miscellany on the counter above them.

I will have to put them away eventually.

Maybe soon.

Things I did do: I put on my bands, got dressed, fed the cats, made my breakfast, let it sit, ate my breakfast and took my pills, brushed my teeth and put the bands back on.

Then I took Teen B to Starbucks, because that's the special Sunday task. 

When we got home I started a load of the kids' laundry because they both wanted their sweatshirts washed before Monday.

And there's the laundry, sitting in the dryer. It's not actually ready to be put away yet -- I started the dryer up again to run another cycle. I don't know if it's the cold or what, but the dryer is not doing a great job of drying things these days. I have to run most loads twice, sometimes even three times.

It's impossible to have a calm, quiet Sunday. I shouldn't even try. I should try to have calm, quiet Tuesdays instead, something like that. But there are always things that have to be done on Tuesdays.

Sunday is homework day, and I've already done some homework with both boys. Teen A is reading 1984 by George Orwell for Language Arts, so we read some of that together and worked on answering some questions (he has to answer 13 out of 18 questions -- we did 3). It's interesting to re-read 1984 -- I don't think I've read it since I was in 10th grade and I've mostly forgotten it. But it definitely resonates differently in 2024 than it did in 1975/6. For instance, back then we were actually nervous that things might change substantially in the next 8 or 9 years. Now, the year 1984 is in the distant past -- but some of the things in the book are weirdly closer to coming true.

After Teen A's homework I took a break and went to both libraries (Main and George Reynolds) because there were books I wanted at both libraries. I'm currently reading four books at once (not a recommended reading strategy) and the last thing I needed were more library books. But there was a hold waiting for me and another book I decided I wanted to read by the end of the month, so...

Home again, now Teen B had math homework, and I've told him repeatedly that I don't remember enough about Algebra 2 to help him, but he keeps asking. Call Dad, I say, but he won't.

So I said, how about if I sit with you in the living room and read my book while you work on your math. He agreed to that plan, so I brought out Woodrow Wilson, my enormous biography that I'm on page 47 out of 675 pages.

He started working on a problem, said it was too hard, gave up, and stuffed the problem sheet back in his math folder. No, no, no, I said. Here, how can I help? I ended up not doing any reading, but instead calculating square roots and looking up cube roots and helping him read the instructions and we ALMOST got it done except that the last problem sort of threw us and he got mad and put it all back in the folder. But at least we made progress.

Unlike me with Woodrow Wilson. Wilson is a complicated president and I can already see that I'm going to have trouble with him. Such a racist, so sexist, but so intellectual, too.

So, just now I took a break and did some more homework with Teen A. Then I put away the clean dishes and did the breakfast dishes. It took me less than 10 minutes. I'm almost done with my "morning routine" (it's 6:35 pm). One thing I skipped was my 10-minute stretching video, which I've been enjoying doing all week. Kind of a stupid thing to skip, since I like it, but I was determined not to do everything on my list.

Here is something else that I didn't do today. Officially we leave our tree up until February 2nd, but I really feel like it's time to take it down. I took all the ornaments off last week, so it's just the lights and the tree itself and the cloths underneath. It wouldn't take me very long to get it all put away. Maybe I'll do it this week. There are two issues.

1. I like having the lights in the evening -- it makes a pretty glow. The kids like it too, and in fact Teen B complains when I don't turn it on.
2. HOWEVER, Baby Kitty likes the taste of the tree and keeps chewing on it. Also, he has discovered that candy canes are fun, and keeps climbing the tree to look for the few that are left.
   

So, it'll be sad to lose the lights, but it's probably time to take the tree down.

But not today.

This blog post has been mainly an attempt to convince myself that I have an easy, non-stressful life and that I should therefore not be depressed. But, as we all know, depression has nothing (or almost nothing) to do with what's actually going on in one's life. I mean, it can -- if someone dies, you can get depressed about that -- and of course money problems are depressing, and problems with friends and loved ones... but none of that is really happening to me right now. I'm just in a funk and there's no getting away from it until it's ready to leave.

Phooey.

Last night the phone rang (the home phone) and I checked the caller ID in the kitchen and it was Rocket Boy's brother. About half the time when Ralph calls I don't answer, but the other half of the time I do, so I answered. He just wanted to chat for a few minutes. We talked about his trip to the grocery store that day and about the cold. He seems to mainly like to talk to me about food. He tells me what he bought at the store and we tell each other what we're going to have for dinner that night. I'm not very interested in food, but at least it's easy to talk about.

After a while I said I had to go and he's always fine with that, even if I can't think of an excuse (which I couldn't yesterday). And when I had hung up I did what I usually do, which is to sigh and say, oh Ralph, honestly. Or maybe it was oh god, Ralph. Something like that. It's an expression of exasperation that I have to have these conversations, as well as a comment on how odd they are.

And then I had this little epiphany. I thought, who are you kidding. Ralph is exactly who you should be talking to. Rocket Boy has a number of sort of odd friends (a certain manic Norwegian comes to mind), and while my friends tend to be more normal, I think it's true that I often end up talking to people who other people might not want to talk to. And I'm comfortable with that. I'm a little odd too. So is Rocket Boy.

It was a moment of revelation. Embrace who you are, I thought. Claim your people, don't reject them.

I thought that realization might cheer me up today, but it hasn't.

Tomorrow, Monday, I will try to get back on track, do my stretching video, clean the litter boxes, follow my whole routine. My day of relaxation was OK, but it'll feel better to go back to my normal, pleasant, non-stressful life.

The joys of January

The New York Times had an article last week about how wonderful January is, because you don't have to go to any parties (the implication being that in December you have a lot of parties to attend). As someone who did not have any December parties to attend, this comparison was lost on me. 

Also, and I wrote this in a comment to the article, the main thing that happens in January (in Colorado) is shoveling snow. For those who enjoy shoveling snow, January in Colorado is fab. Also February, March, and even April. May, once in a while.

But that's life in a cold climate. I used to love it. As I get older, I still enjoy cold weather, but it's harder on me. Harder to shovel the snow, harder to breathe the icy air. Harder to negotiate icy sidewalks and driveways. Does this mean that I want to leave Colorado? Where would I go? I certainly don't want to live anywhere hot. Probably I'll just stay here, coping. It's not that bad.

Also, just now I went out to take these pictures and three magpies flew by! Magpies, that's why I moved here! They even sat in a tree for a little while so I could take their picture. Magpies don't mind the cold -- they like it.

I went back inside and told Teen B about the magpies and he said oops, there's a dead magpie in the backyard, Baby Kitty killed it, blah blah blah. The kids do not appreciate my love of magpies.

Said kids went back to school last week, but only for four days, and now we are having a three-day weekend, thank you Dr. King, so we have another four-day week ahead. I think all weeks in January should be four-day weeks. Teen B has come down with a cold of some sort, and I assume I'll be next, because I have a slight headache (though it could be caused by the stupid bands on my braces), so I'm trying to think of what I could do to make the coming week easier. I'm going to go to the grocery store this afternoon, maybe in an hour. Have to plan some very easy meals for this week. I don't usually cook on Sunday, but this is a funny week. We ate out Friday instead of Saturday (ahead of the storm), I cooked Saturday, might as well cook tonight. Let's see, how about...

• pizza grilled cheese tonight (Italian bread sandwiches with mozzarella, tomato sauce, and pesto)
• chicken soup (sans chicken) for Monday
• salmon & broccoli & leftover couscous for Tuesday
• macaroni & cheese (my mother's recipe) & mixed veggies for Wednesday
• Brenda's sticky tofu & rice & leftover broccoli for Thursday
• I don't know what for Friday, maybe leftovers
  

There, that looks like a good plan. Lots of comfort food, and not very difficult to make. Now I just have to get to the grocery store. And back.

***

OK, I'm back. I got everything I needed except tofu (sometimes our grocery store completely runs out of tofu, very frustrating), so instead of Brenda's sticky tofu I think I'll use up those Beyond Meatballs that are in the freezer. Brenda's sticky fake-meat meatballs, we'll call it. Should be lovely.

I don't think it got up to 11 today, as they predicted it would. According to weather.gov it's 3 right now out at the airport (-3 on our front porch -- we have a very chilly front porch). Tomorrow's high is predicted to be 6, with a few several more inches of snow. I didn't shovel today. I should have -- I feel bad -- but we only got an inch or two more. Yesterday afternoon, after I had shoveled, there was a knock at the door and a middle-school-age boy stood there, offering to shovel my sidewalk and driveway. I said, "Well, no, I already did it," and he looked behind him and said, "Oh, OK, sure," which I felt was a comment on my shoveling job, but I DID shovel. Anyway, today I didn't, but I'm sure tomorrow I will. It doesn't say when it's going to snow tomorrow, just that it is. Sometimes they're very specific, like, 80% chance of snow between 5 and 7 pm.

I can't remember anything else I was planning to write about today. It was a week. I had some depressed days and some better days. I did a little writing and a little work on a genealogy project and a little filing. I made dinner. I vacuumed, dusted, did laundry, took out the trash. That kind of stuff.

Looking at my resolutions, I should note that I did stretching videos two or three times this week, so that was good, since it isn't very good walking weather (freezing, icy, snowy). I'm trying out different YouTube videos. I found something called AIM Fitness for Adults 50+, that has some good videos. It's Canadian, so they're calmer than American YouTube videos. Peaceful, even. A good time to do a short video seems to be right before breakfast, while I'm waiting for my cereal to get soggy. I get the kids off to school, feed the cats, fix my cereal and let it sit, put away last night's clean dishes, start a load of laundry -- and do a 10-15 minute video.

I did not manage to do a hike last week, and now I'm already worried about when I'm going to do that this month. Maybe next weekend. January is so problematic. If Rocket Boy were here, we would go for a hike. 

On the plus side, I started taking down the Christmas tree. So far I have removed my mother's old ornaments and my glass-but-not-animal-shaped ornaments (my ornaments go in very specific boxes). I thought I might get all the ornaments off but leave the lights on a few more weeks. The problem is, Baby Kitty likes to chew on the tree and it's bad for him. I probably should just get it down.

I did not take a load of stuff to Goodwill. Too cold, too snowy, etc. It's too cold in the garage to sort through the stuff I've stashed there. I have to leave the door to the garage open at night -- all day, actually -- so that some heat from the house will get in and the pipes won't freeze. This means it is always cold in the living/dining room/kitchen AND the furnace runs most of the time, trying to warm up our little house. As someone on my neighborhood listserv said, this is not the week to be worrying about saving the planet. It's the week to worry about your pipes freezing.

***

In the week ahead, I have two distractions: my parent group on Tuesday and a dietician appointment on Thursday. There's a concert I could go to on Tuesday night, but I don't think I will, even though it's going to warm up to 35! Whoo-hoo! Positively balmy. 

I read an article in the NY Times today about how people feel the cold differently, depending on what you're used to, and how meteorologists predict the weather differently depending on people's tolerances. So, for someone in Texas, 35 degrees would be cold, and the meteorologists would post warnings about it, but for Colorado it's a warming trend. Something to do with your body learning how to deal with the cold and warming (or not warming) your extremities based on whether it believes it will be able to keep your core warm. Every winter I can feel my body relearning this. 

Also, they said in cold climates people would own more sweaters and things. I am actually quite lacking in cold weather gear -- no boots that fit, no hat that fits except my pussy hat and I don't always want to make a political statement when I go for a walk. I don't even have a winter coat that fits -- I mostly wear a big sweater, that doesn't even have fasteners. I just sort of wrap it around myself and hope for the best. 

The twins don't have proper winter gear either -- they go off to school in hoodies and sneakers. I've given up buying them warm coats -- they won't wear them. What is wrong with us? you'd think we lived in Texas or something.

It's supposed to be in the 50s by next weekend. What will my body do then?

New year, new resolutions

So it's January 2024 and that means it's time for plans and goals and resolutions. I admit I'm already feeling the January swoon, the drop in my mood, the feeling that life is sad and nothing's going to get better. I didn't feel that way all fall -- I was cheerful and reasonably energetic and I got some things done. Why do the January blues have to exist? I try to think of them in a positive way, like, now is the time to let my body rest a little, take things more slowly, all that. The trees and bushes are resting, I should too. Hmm.

One thing that's making me gloomy right now is that the orthodontist decided it's time for bands on my teeth -- and I've discovered I can't sleep with them. They make my sleep apnea worse. The one night I tried, I woke up over and over again. Not good. So I can only wear them during the day. You're supposed to wear them at least 20 hours out of 24, and the most I've been able to do is 14. The orthodontist is going to lecture me about them at my next appointment. I keep playing the (imagined) lecture over and over in my head. We're going to have to talk about sleep apnea. Maybe that's a good thing -- maybe I should have brought it up with him when I was first diagnosed. I'm dreading it, though.

But back to resolutions. Last year, for the first time, I didn't make a real list of resolutions, just a vague plan to do something each month. It didn't work out very well. 

So this year I went back to writing a formal list on a piece of paper that I can attach to the clipboard where I have all my other resolutions, dating back to 1984. Forty years of resolutions!

First, of course, on the left side of the page I wrote down my 2023 achievements. These were mostly the usual: 

• read 121 books (including about 61 from our shelves), saw 19 movies (counting a season of a TV show on DVD as a movie), went to 5 concerts and 3 plays (all school-related) and 1 funeral, wrote this blog regularly, and managed to finish a draft of my first middle-grade novel. 
• In house-related stuff I did all that yardwork this summer, and in rental-related stuff I transitioned to an owner-managed system and got a bunch of repairs done. 
• We took two family trips and I went on another with my sister. 
• After a lazy winter, I walked regularly all summer and fall, and in the fall I started seeing a dietician to help with my blood sugar. 
• I got the kids through Driver Ed and started on their 50 hours of driving practice, 
• and I gave away a bunch of money to charity, plus -- finally! -- Teen A's trombone.

Now, on to 2024. As I think ahead to the rest of this year, I don't have a lot of specific, major goals. No big repairs to the house, no big changes for me or the kids. The biggest things are getting Rocket Boy home to Colorado and figuring out where our income is going to come from after that happens. If he gets a job in Colorado, as he's hoping to, that will be our income. If he moves home without a job, he'll start taking social security -- and I will need to look for a job. I'd prefer not to job-hunt until after I get my braces off, so that puts me in kind of a holding pattern for now.

I wrote my resolutions in eight categories -- and there may end up being more. Sometimes it takes me a few weeks to finish this list.

1. Reading & writing & culture: read at least 52 books, read biographies of at least 3 presidents (Wilson, Harding, Coolidge), see at least 24 movies, go to at least 12 special events (like concerts, plays, etc.), keep on blogging, and write another novel.
   
   
2. Self care: take a walk every day and also do a stretch video every day (or at least one or the other), take a hike every month, follow my orthodontist's instructions to the best of my ability, work on lowering my blood sugar, get a shingles shot, and start using the Waterpik I bought a couple of years ago (sigh). Note that there is no mention of weight loss: I have given that one up.
   
   
3. Twins stuff: help the kids with school, keep taking them driving and see that they get their licenses, help them get summer jobs, and generally keep the household running so that they have a little calm space in their lives.
   
   
4. Outside house stuff: get our trees pruned and the volunteer elm in the front yard removed, keep doing yardwork regularly, fix up our backyard -- new grass? -- and clean up the mess on our porch and our back patio.
   
   
5. Inside house stuff: buy a new mattress for our double bed, keep working on the files, try to get rid of one file cabinet and make space for Teen B to have a desk. Clean up the kids' closet, give away a lot of toys, and set up a sewing center for me in their room. Related to these: make one trip to either Goodwill or CHaRM (Center for Hard to Recycle Materials) each month.
   
   
6. Rental house stuff: get the major HVAC repair done, possibly hire a gardener and/or landscaper in the spring/summer, remove the volunteer elms in front & back yard.
   
   
7. Social/travel stuff: plan and take two to three vacations, stay in touch with all the various friends and relatives I've been in touch with recently, and maybe others.
   
   
8. Money/jobs: help Rocket Boy retire and move back to Colorado, possibly get a part-time job (unless he finds a job in CO).
   

So that's the big list. But how do I break it down into manageable tasks for the month?

January...

1. Reading & writing & culture: I'm reading books by Zadie Smith this month. I also have a Woodrow Wilson biography out of the library -- it's not the one I'm planning to read as my main book, but Steve of The Best Presidential Biographies says it does a good job with Wilson's early life, so I thought I'd read the first six chapters while I'm waiting for the bio I plan to read to arrive via Prospector. When the kids go back to school on Tuesday I can go back to working on my novel. We went to see a movie this week ("The Boy and the Heron"), but I don't anticipate going to any cultural events -- unless I go to a Faculty Tuesdays concert. I might.
   
   
2. Self care: We've been having pretty good weather, cold but dry, so I've been taking walks in the afternoon, all bundled up. I haven't done a stretching video yet -- maybe when the kids go back to school. I need to do my January hike while we don't have snow. I thought I would hike somewhere flat and open, someplace it wouldn't be fun to hike in the summer. Maybe the Dry Creek Trail, out on Baseline. I could even do it tomorrow.
   
   
3. 
   Twins: We've reached 50 hours and 2 minutes total driving time (out of 100), which is amazing (see photo of cake). When the break ends we'll go back to weekend driving. I need to pay more attention to the kids' schoolwork 2nd semester. Their 1st semester grades were a little disappointing. Need to get Teen A to apply for a Boulder TEC course for next year (applications open in late January), and we should start thinking about summer jobs.
   
   
4. Outside house: Nothing. It's January.
   
   
5. Inside house: When the break ends, I'll get back to work on the files. I should also start working on the kids' room. The trip to Goodwill could be any time this month -- I should put it on the calendar.
   
   
6. Rental house: I should call the HVAC people and at least get them out to look at the rental house, give me a quote, all that.
   
   
7. Social/travel: I need to contact the husband of my friend with Alzheimer's, set up a phone call for later this month. I have another friend or two I should call as well. I went ahead and bought the plane tickets for our spring break trip to St. Louis, so those will be paid for long before we go. My sister is requesting time for us to take a baseball trip in August. For our hoped-for California trip this summer, too many things are up in the air to do much planning. I assume we'll try to go right after school gets out, and stay about a week, but... will we drive or fly, where will we stay, will we go to both northern and southern California, etc., etc. A lot depends on (a) whether Rocket Boy is still in St. Louis OR if he's in Colorado with a new job OR if he's in Colorado and retired, and (b) whether the twins have summer jobs. Will have to be patient.
   
   
8. Money/jobs: I finally called the Daily Camera and canceled our subscription, because they raised the cost to $136/month. Very sad about that, but the paper is on its last legs, so, oh well. I also need to start looking for other ways to lower our expenses, or at least take a closer look at how we're spending our money (in preparation for having less of it later in the year).
   

And I think that's it for January. Of course I'll keep doing my usual cleaning and cooking and pet care. But that's enough. January is a quiet time. This will be plenty.

What I read in 2023

My goal for 2023, as usual, was to read at least 52 books (one per week). Instead, I read 121, which I think is my third-highest total ever. Many of these were books that I did not really want to read (books from our bookshelves), and I don't know whether that made me read them faster or slower. Roughly 68% of the total were fiction and 32% were nonfiction.

In 2024 I hope to enjoy my reading more, but we'll see. It kind of depends on whether I like the authors I choose to focus on each month.

Here is a review of what I read in 2023, by category.

Children's Books. Except as noted, everything on this list I read aloud to the kids. We are moving away from this category, but sometimes you find a kids' book that's just right for teenagers. Some of these are about teenagers, but I put them in this category because I read them as a kid and they seem more aimed at children.

Although of course I love the Laura Ingalls Wilder and Maud Hart Lovelace books, I think my favorite this year was our Halloween book, Small Spaces. Very spooky and recommended -- but for older kids only (the characters are in middle school).

• No More Dead Dogs by Gordon Korman
• Jason's Quest by Margaret Laurence (read to myself)
• Little Town on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
• These Happy Golden Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder
• Heaven to Betsy by Maud Hart Lovelace
• Betsy in Spite of Herself by Maud Hart Lovelace
• Small Spaces by Katherine Arden

 

Young Adult (YA)/Teen Books. Except as noted, I read these to the kids. Most were a bit disappointing. Things That Are wasn't as good as the first two in that series, Paper Towns isn't the best John Green, Rip Tide wasn't as good as the first book, and the kids HATED The Catcher in the Rye (times have changed too much). I think my favorite was Orbiting Jupiter, even though it was so very sad.

• Things That Are by Andrew Clements
• Paper Towns by John Green
• Rip Tide by Kat Falls
• The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
• Jackaby by William Ritter
• Whirligig by Paul Fleischman (read w/Teen A for school)
• Orbiting Jupiter by Gary D. Schmidt (read to myself)

 

Books for the Book Group. My beloved book group continues, and as usual we read a completely random assortment of books, some of which I liked and some of which I hated. Sometimes we read nonfiction, but this year it was all fiction. My favorite was probably Pigs in Heaven. I often don't like Barbara Kingsolver, too preachy, but despite some problems with this book, including a way too happy ending, I gave in and let her transport me. 

 

I hated Stolen and The Dictionary of Lost Words, thought Jurassic Park was kind of silly and struggled through The Death of Artemio Cruz. I liked all the others to varying degrees.

• January: Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton (chosen because Karen went to Costa Rica)
  
• February: The Forgery by Ave Barrera (trans. from the Spanish by Ellen Jones & Robin Myers; chosen because Karen went to Chile)
  
• March/April: Loving Little Egypt by Thomas McMahon (a book from my shelves)
  
• May: On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong (chosen because Lecia went to Vietnam)
  
• June: The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams
  
• July/August: Stolen by Ann-Helen Laestadius (trans. from the Swedish by Rachel Willson-Broyles)
  
• September: Pigs in Heaven by Barbara Kingsolver
  
• October/November: The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese
  
• December: The Death of Artemio Cruz by Carlos Fuentes (trans. from the Spanish by Alfred MacAdam)
  

 

Mystery/Thriller. Usually a long list, and this year some came from my project to read books off my shelves. My favorites were probably Windy City Dying, a very strong entry in Eleanor Taylor Bland's mystery series, and Three Bags Full, which I just loved. Now every time sheep show up in something I'm reading, I think, oh, those sheep are smarter than you think (which is probably not true).

• Windy City Dying by Eleanor Taylor Bland
• Started Early, Took My Dog by Kate Atkinson
• Fatal Remains by Eleanor Taylor Bland
• The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club by Dorothy L. Sayers (again)
• The Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart
• The Davidian Report by Dorothy B. Hughes
• Killer in the Rain by Raymond Chandler
• The Dawn Patrol by Don Winslow
• The Thief Taker by T. F. Banks
  
• The Mary Roberts Rinehart Crime Book (The Door, The Confession, The Red Lamp) by Mary Roberts Rinehart
  
• Three Bags Full: A Sheep Detective Story by Leonie Swann (trans. from the German by Anthea Bell)
  
• The Way of the Bear by Anne Hillerman
• The Nine Tailors by Dorothy L. Sayers (for the umpteenth time)
  
• Tailing a Tabby by Laurie Cass (found in a little free library, read to the kids)

Supernatural Mystery/Ghost Story. I only read one Phil Rickman book this year (there's one more in the series, but I'll have to request it from Longmont), so this category is a bit thin. The Coates book was good (and gave me a new ghost story author to explore), but Nantucket Hauntings was really scary. Enjoyed it a lot.

• All of a Winter's Night by Phil Rickman
• Wicked Things by Thomas Tessier
• Nantucket Hauntings by Blue Balliett
• Gallows Hill by Darcy Coates

Science Fiction/Fantasy. Not my favorite category, especially not this year. I thought I'd have something good to choose after exploring books in our collection, but not really. I didn't like The Stone Sky as much as the other books in the Broken Earth trilogy (the first book is the best), but I liked it better than anything else I read in this category this year.

• The Stone Sky by N. K. Jemisin
• The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna
  
• The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy by Megan Bannen
• The Sword in the Stone by T. H. White
  
• The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien
• Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

Poetry. I like poetry! Why didn't I read more of it? One of my reading resolutions in 2024 is to read more poetry. As for a favorite, I didn't love Leaves of Grass, although some of the poems were wonderful and I'm certainly glad I read it. And I was glad to read Sonnets from the Portuguese, too, but again, didn't love it. So it'll have to be Early English Poems, which I didn't love either, but which was an important reading experience.

• Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
• Early English Poems edited by Henry S. Pancoast and John Duncan Spaeth
• Sonnets from the Portuguese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

General Fiction. I read quite a bit more general fiction than usual this year, on account of my project to read books from my own shelves. Some of my favorites were There There, Burmese Days, Black Rain, and Cold Earth, to cite four that could not be more different.

• Waterland by Graham Swift (again!)
  
• Bengal Nights by Mircea Eliade (trans. from the French by Catherine Spencer; originally written in Romanian)
  
• Crampton Hodnet by Barbara Pym (again)
  
• It Does Not Die by Maitreyi Devi (trans. from the Bengali by the author)
  
• Some Tame Gazelle by Barbara Pym (again)
  
• There There by Tommy Orange
  
• A River Runs Through It and Other Stories by Norman Maclean
• True Confessions by John Gregory Dunne
• The Moviegoer by Walker Percy
• The Sentence by Louise Erdrich
• Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck (read w/Teen B for school)
• Justine by Lawrence Durrell
• Gigi and Selected Writings by Colette (trans. from the French by various people)
  
• The Thing in the Snow by Sean Adams
• Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
• Burmese Days by George Orwell
• Memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar (trans. from the French by Grace Frick & the author)
  
• Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov
• The Emperor of Ice Cream by Brian Moore
• Black Rain by Masuji Ibuse (trans. from the Japanese by John Bester)
  
• Phallos by Samuel R. Delany (enhanced & revised edition)
• The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver
• The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho (read w/Teen B and later Teen A for school)
• North Woods by Daniel Mason
• Cold Earth by Sarah Moss
• Leonard and Hungry Paul by Ronan Hession
• Portuguese Irregular Verbs by Alexander McCall Smith
• The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan
  

Christmas Books. This was a funny year for Christmas books. I planned to read some -- I was going to alternate between books from the scifi/fantasy shelf and Christmas books. But all the "Christmas books" I read were not really Christmas books, they were just set during winter or in Greenland or whatever. I wasn't in the mood to read anything sappy, and I didn't have time to seek out any non-sappy Christmas books, which are harder to find. 

 

In the end, the only Christmas book I read was this one, stupid, children's book, to the kids and Rocket Boy. Progress was slow because we had to keep stopping for someone or other to say, "How could a mouse do that?" (It's not a very realistic story.)

• The Great Christmas Kidnaping Caper by Jean van Leeuwen (read to the kids and Rocket Boy)
  

Graphic Novels/Memoirs/Whatever. The first three did nothing for me, but I picked up Going into Town at the library on the next-to-last day of the year and I loved it! I couldn't stop thinking about my wonderful trip to New York for Christmas in 1976. I used to want to live in New York. Don't want to anymore, don't like big cities anymore, but still, great memories...

• Killing and Dying by Adrian Tomine
• Shortcomings by Adrian Tomine
• The Witch Boy by Molly Knox Ostertag
• Going into Town: A Love Letter to New York by Roz Chast
  

Memoir/Diaries/Autobiography. This year I decided to divide what once was one category (Memoir/Biography) into two. Thus, this section is for books that people write about themselves, which really is quite different from a book written by someone about someone else. It comes down to lying vs. guessing. So these are the books that involve remembering and (perhaps) lying. Of them, my favorite was probably I Really Should Be Practicing. That was my father's book, so I enjoyed thinking about him reading it too.

• Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah
• Becoming by Michelle Obama
• We Were Amused by Rachel Ferguson
• The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank (read w/Teen A for school)
  
• Of Solids and Surds by Samuel R. Delany (Why I Write series)
• Surprised by Joy by C. S. Lewis
• Adventures with a Desert Bush Pilot by Sylvia Winslow
• I Really Should Be Practicing by Gary Graffman

 

Biography. ...and these are the books that involve researching and guessing. The Whitman biography is the book that motivated me to divide these categories. It's been widely praised, but I don't know. So much guesswork, so many unanswered questions. A memoir/autobiography really is a different animal from a biography. I didn't love any of these, though they were all interesting and worth reading. None were really what I wanted them to be.

• The Man Who Knew Too Much: Alan Turing and the Invention of the Computer by David Leavitt
• Walt Whitman: A Life by Justin Kaplan
• Caught in the Web of Words: James Murray and the Oxford English Dictionary by K. M. Elisabeth Murray
• Great Harry by Carolly Erickson

Presidential Biography. ...and as before this is the more specific category of books about American presidents. I only made it through three presidents this year, and barely even that because I was so caught up in my other reading project. I didn't read a separate biography of Taft because there aren't many (any?) good choices and The Bully Pulpit gave a lot of information about his life. He deserves a good biography all about him, though. I liked both The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt and The Bully Pulpit, but I had a harder time getting through the latter -- I think Doris Kearns Goodwin maybe tried to cover too much ground in one book. So I'm going to choose the Morris as my favorite. But they were both good, and if you want to know more about Taft, you have to read The Bully Pulpit.

• William McKinley and His America (rev. ed.) by H. Wayne Morgan
• The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris
• The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism by Doris Kearns Goodwin

 

General Nonfiction. Some of the books listed here could be considered memoirs (The Discovery of Yellowstone Park) or biographies (Magnificent Rebels), but I chose to put them here because I think they are more about a concept or a thing than a person. I liked a lot of these, so it's hard to choose a favorite. I think I'm going to go with The Birder's Bug Book, which was such a surprising pleasure to read after seeing it on my bookshelf for so many years.

• Magnificent Rebels: The First Romantics and the Invention of the Self by Andrea Wulf
  
• The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson
• Mules and Men by Zora Neale Hurston (includes a lot of fiction!)
  
• Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts: Seven Questions to Ask Before (and After) You Marry by Les and Leslie Parrott
• The Discovery of Yellowstone Park: Journal of the Washburn Expedition to the Yellowstone and Firehole Rivers in the Year 1870 by Nathaniel Pitt Langford
• Sitting in Darkness: Americans in the Philippines by David Haward Bain
• The Dancing Wu Li Masters: An Overview of the New Physics by Gary Zukav
• From the Yaroslavsky Station: Russia Perceived by Elizabeth Pond
• In Leningrad by Joseph Wechsberg
• Love, Medicine & Miracles: Lessons Learned About Self-Healing from a Surgeon's Experience with Exceptional Patients by Bernie S. Siegel, M.D.
• Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell
  
• The Search for the Giant Squid by Richard Ellis
• Girls and Their Monsters: The Genain Quadruplets and the Making of Madness in America by Audrey Clare Farley
• The Starship and the Canoe by Kenneth Brower
• The Desert Year by Joseph Wood Krutch
• The Coming Quake: Science and Trembling on the California Earthquake Frontier by T. A. Heppenheimer
• The Birder's Bug Book by Gilbert Waldbauer
• Colorado's Iceman and the Story of the Frozen Dead Guy by Bo Shaffer
• The Sea Around Us by Rachel Carson
• Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia by Sabrina Strings
• An Invitation to Old English and Anglo-Saxon England by Bruce Mitchell
• On Becoming a Novelist by John Gardner