Category — Uncategorized

ChickieNob and I like to send each other pretty things. The Wolvog and I text back and forth links for video games, but the ChickieNob and I like to aim for things that make us scroll backward to look at again. Our latest find is Temple St. Clair. Look at this ring.

We text old Georg Jensen rings (Astrid Fog, 1971) and Cathrineholm dishes. It makes me happy when a text pops onto my phone, knowing that I’m about to look at something pretty for no other reason than the fact that it is nice to look at pretty things.

Show us something pretty.

While I have zero desire to read and then re-read Proust, I thought the idea of this book club focusing on one book (depth instead of breadth) fascinating. Thank you, Strong Sense of Place, for writing about this.

There are definitely books I re-read and gain new insights from each time I read them, but adding in the discussion element — continuously being exposed to everyone else’s growth and change and pouring that into a single book — and then being able to refer back to past discussions would be amazing.

I’m mildly interested in seeing the documentary about the 17-year-old book club mentioned in the article, but I’m more interested in which books could stand up to this kind of depth. There are plenty of book clubs built around a canon — Agatha Christie, for example — but few that are built around re-reading a single book.

I think it could work with Handmaid’s Tale, especially if you bring in current events. What other books could you see turning into a one-book book club?

This is a lot of fun. I cannot remember how many questions I answered to get to the final body count (67 for me), though if I did it again, I may have made other choices. But let’s say that I’m responsible for 67 fictional people.

The fun part is you can see what percentage of people answered the same way. About a million people have played so far, so the percentage breakdown is interesting.

Have fun. And learn something about where you stand on a bunch of absurd situations.

I can’t stop thinking about how I say, “I can’t stop thinking about…” a lot. (I then can’t stop thinking about how probably everyone who read this article silently said to themselves, “I can’t stop thinking about how I say, ‘I can’t stop thinking about…’ a lot.”)

The subhead: “On the Internet, where attention is the currency, obsession has become a default register.”

And musing on the statement: “This constant refrain is, in a way, the coyote howl of social media. It is used to point to something that the utterer is concerned or excited by.”

Yes.

It’s funny when you take a step back and think about the words, but they’re also true. Things I read on the internet move in my brain, swirling around and around as I chew on them like a stick of gum.

If you are bored, go on Twitter, drop “I can’t stop thinking about” in the search bar, and hit “latest” for tweets. I can’t stop thinking about how I just spent five minutes reading random things other people can’t stop thinking about.

An update about the car situation. The mechanic called us yesterday. I was correct. There was a gas smell. This was because a squirrel ATE THROUGH THE FUEL LINE.

The mechanic thought this was due to the fact that I don’t drive the car very often. Apparently squirrels like dormant cars. But I know better. A few weeks ago, a squirrel was being sexually assaulted by another squirrel in my yard. I ran outside, clapping my hands loudly, buying the one squirrel time to scamper away. I believe it was the bad squirrel who came back to mess with my car. I cannot prove this, but it helps me to direct all of my ire at that squirrel who attempted murder.

Because that’s the outcome of driving a car with a chewed through fuel line — it can potentially catch fire.

The mechanic is replacing the fuel line and has given us a list of things to try to deter squirrels, including driving the car. Imagine that. A friend passed along an article from the New York Times about rats chewing through car parts. And Josh found this article of a few more things to try.

Because I’m not going to stop coming out there to break up rough squirrel sex on my lawn. That isn’t an option.