Six months ago I committed to sending this newsletter weekly for the year. We're halfway through, and I haven't missed a week yet. (Many thanks to everyone else's newsletters, whose arrivals in my inbox have many times jolted me, Oh right! Newsletters! I have one to write!)
It was a new year's resolution, basically, as much as I abhor those, but I do love an arbitrary challenge, and I like a resolution—or any attempt at a new habit—that's additive: write a weekly newsletter, eat more vegetables, take your vitamins every day. Yes, it cam become a do-more sort of pressure, but at least that's better than all the subtractions we attempt to try to better ourselves.
I'm still battling with my cuticles, as I wrote about in January. Now, reunited with reading for pleasure after finishing the first draft of my book, it's mostly in the evenings, reading on the couch, idle fingers and no superego left after a long day to divert the habit. I declared in January that I wasn't going to worry about my cuticles, after, what, 33 years of this habit I would just accept that this was the way I am, but it does hurt sometimes! You've seen Black Swan, right? Anyway.
Last night around 11pm I heard a sound that, waking me up, sounded like a slab of snow falling off the roof. My husband, in the morning, said it sounded like something metallic falling on the house—or in the attic—some squirrel mischief probably. But we went outside and discovered a huge tree had fallen in our neighbor's yard. A tree exactly as tall as the distance from its base to his house—some outdoor furniture was crushed but the house was just caressed by the trees top leaves, totally fine. The neighbor said he's excited to go to town on it with his chainsaw. I tried to take a picture of the tree, mostly to remember it, but on my phone the impact of a whole fucking tree laid across the yard is lost—it just looks like foliage. This isn't a metaphor or anything, just something striking that happened, that a picture couldn't capture, and words probably can't, either.
At the end of dinner last night, the baby accidentally spilled his cup of water. I got up to put the cup in the sink and while my back was turned he dumped the rest of his dinner on top of the puddle on the floor. I turned around in time to see him throw his bowl down on top of it. His bowl being ceramic, because earlier in the meal he'd insisted on eating out of a grownup bowl like the grownups. And so one of our four grownup bowls shattered, nice bowls we bought a few months ago. So I bought another four-set of bowls; we'll keep the rest of the spares in the basement, I guess, for when this inevitably happens again.
Lotta stuff breaking lately! Still not a metaphor, I promise.
Anyway here's to another six months of stuff like this weekly, thanks for reading, truly, this would feel really stupid if no one read it!
Thank you for reading! Please pardon any typos or sentences that fade out half-way, they're what let me send this out free and weekly. If you enjoyed this newsletter and want to share it, or were forwarded this edition and want to subscribe, the link is tinyletter.com/jaimealyse. You can also follow me on twitter here, and when my book is done and ready to be preordered this is where I will tell you about that.