squirrel, sloosh, squeak

Well I guess part of the power of resolutions is that they sometimes, indeed, do get you to do things.

Last year I resolved to write a weekly newsletter, and I did. This year I resolved, vaguely, to "read more," and so far I have been, but I don't want to let this newsletter go, either.

I have been, though, publishing my writing elsewhere. Part of why this newsletter was so good for me last year was that for so long all of my writing was for my book, squirreled away into a Scrivener file whose contents won't see the light of day for another year still! I didn't want to feel invisible, but I also wanted to write things other than what was going in my book.

Lately, though, I've been doing that the old-fashioned way (in articles that get published). I do want to share those with you: I wrote another craft essay for Catapult, this one about how, to use the piece's title, Teaching Freshman Comp Was the Best Writing Education I Ever Got. I also wrote an essay for Slate about, well, The Agony of Parents With Kids Under 5.

That piece was something of an exorcism. My boss asked if I wanted to write it, and out poured a primal scream. I felt rough and raw for a day after. But then, weirdly, I felt fine. I'm sure part of it was the relief of turning in my book edits the first week of January; once that was done, the prospect of a 10-day daycare classroom closure was logistically tricky, not existentially bad. And even less directly, once my book edits were in, my life felt a little lighter, so the weight of pandemic parenting was easier to bear. I did worry I was tempting fate, though, and sure enough, this Monday morning came word that a classmate was presumed positive. But then, reprieve: the classmate had a negative PCR, and back to school the kids went, and the rest of the normal week now felt, not like vacation, but again, a little lighter. I'm still sitting here as I write this with a heating pad around my shoulders (the kind contoured for neck-and-shoulders, strongly recommend) because I tweaked my neck this morning... somehow, life these days priming necks to be more easily tweakable. But the dog is snoozing next to me and I'm listening to cars sloosh by as they drive down our street in the rain, and it's okay.

Another way my brain has been taking advantage of this lightness is with reading. Books! Amazing, who knew! But for the first time in years I have the time and space and mental energy to read nonfiction again for pleasure, and it feels amazing, both because the books are good and because my ability to enjoy them tells me my mental health is doing ok. The resolution doesn't hurt, either! I sit on the couch after dinner, after the baby's bedtime, and no longer have to anesthetize myself with hours of scrolling instagram. Now I scroll instagram for just a few minutes, and then actually find myself wanting to open my book. (Quite pleasurable to the sound of sneakers squeaking on a basketball court as a game plays on the tv in the background.)

I'm also toying with reading multiple books at once—it's not something my brain has ever liked before, but lately I'm finding it nice to have a few different books for different moods and situations. I'm reading some Le Guin novellas from a massive collected-novellas tome, listening to Lab Girl on audio, and just finished a nice hefty nonfiction book which I read mostly on the Kindle app on my phone. The only downside is I'm very behind on podcasts, but that'll work itself out in time.

Lab Girl, by the way. I know this book is several years old, and was a huge hit, and no one needs me to tell you about it, but maybe you also haven't read it yet, have just heard it's good and big and whatever. I haven't finished it yet and will probably write more about it here when I have, but let me just say: It is the most astonishingly good audiobook I've ever heard. It's not enough that Hope Jahren is an accomplished scientist and gifted writer, she also reads her work with so much poise and emotion and humor? Big how-dare energy, except I'm loving the book too much to be mad.

I also just finished The Urge, by Carl Fisher, and between that and Isaac Butler's The Method, which I read last year but came out this week, I am just awash in the kind of pride you have in your friends even when you have no right to be proud of them, they're adults and professionals and clearly talented writers, but you knew them back when—back when you were novices in a science-writing group, or back when you were theatre bloggers trying to find your place in the world and spending far too many workday hours talking about your lives on gchat, respectively—but these books are both so good, a weirdly suited pair: deeply, thoroughly, masterfully researched; vividly and engagingly told; and at their cores, stories about how we figure out what it means to be human and experience the pain and beauty of the world.  

Finally, since it's been a while, a little bit of promo:
My one-day class at Catapult about hacking your way to an expert's writing process has had more spaces added.
I was on Slate's Mom and Dad are Fighting podcast.
I'm guest-hosting Strange Bedfellows (with my husband!) while his cohost is on paternity leave. This week we talked about The Charm Offensive. Next week we're talking about one of my absolute favorite movies of all time, and I believe the last movie I saw in theatres before the pandemic... and to this day, jesus.

Be safe, more soon.