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I have been trying to make a conscious effort to weekend better. I’m sure it won’t stick — life has a way of getting in the way of plans — but we’ve been able to string together a few weekends in a row of watching soccer, reading books, visiting friends or family, and eating uncomplicated meals. I felt so much better after we did it once that I’ve been trying to build it in, week after week.

It feels like weekends keep coming up as a theme. There was a piece on how weekends are important because everyone is off at the same time, so it’s a way to cement your network. And another in the Times on French Sundays, as opposed to British Sundays, which sound close to American Sundays.

The author writes:

One of my favourite expressions in French is faire la grasse matinée. It means “to lie in”, but translates literally as “to have a fat morning”. And that is truly the way to do it. This Sunday, why not give the French way a go? Turn off your alarm, go for a stroll with no destination in mind, stop at a coffee shop (no matter how cold the weather is, you must sit outside) and watch strangers go about their business. Go on, eat two croissants instead of just one. Dilly-dally.

That sounds lovely. Yes.

If 1 dog year equals 7 human years, then a 14-year-old dog would be 98. That’s a very good, long life, and it wouldn’t be a shock (though it would be very sad) if it died. An 8-year-old dog, on the other hand, would be 56. That’s middle-aged, and you would expect (though may not always be lucky) that dog to live many more years.

I’ve been trying to figure out my phone’s age in mobile years. If most iPhones are unusable or dead within 8 years, we can set 1 mobile year to equal 14 human years. A 6-year-old mobile device would be 84. A 7-year-old device would be 98.

Our phones are not that old. Mine is about 4.5 years old, and Josh’s is about 5.5 years old. That would be 63 and 77 in human years. Not that old. Though it’s 63 and 77 years of rough, daily living. Like those devices are workhorses, whereas we have another device that is 98 years old in human years, though we use it less often, so maybe it will live longer?

The point: We are going back and forth on replacing our mobile devices. In the past, I was a run-that-device-into-the-ground kind of girl and only replaced things when they stopped working. But in recent years, I’ve become a replace-things-when-they-no-longer-help-you-do-a-task kind of girl. Our mobile devices are entering that era. Josh does not have a working home button anymore. My emails take 30 seconds to a minute to load. Our devices still have life in them, but they’re struggling. And part of me wants to get every last bit of use out of them, and part of me wants to replace them and have things be easy again. Part of me wants something that works exactly as I want it to work, and part of me doesn’t want to regret spending money on something unnecessary (and then not have that money for something necessary in the future).

It’s hard to know how much my decision is being influenced by the constant capitalist messaging that surrounds us, telling us that we need need need things that are new new new and better better better. And it’s hard to know how much my decision is annoying myself to push back against that messaging.

Remember eons ago when I asked if you had a bag you loved? I have since gone down a rabbit hole into bag land, to the point where ads for random bag companies fill my entire Facebook feed. I’m not even sure they are real companies. I’ve never heard of them. Just hundreds upon hundreds of ads for bags.

I measured the three bags I own and put the measurements in a spreadsheet. One is perfect but falling apart. It will not last another trip. One is too large. One is too small.

Every bag I put in the spreadsheet has a drawback on paper. It’s longer than the perfect bag (yay!) but has less depth (boo!). Or it’s the same size as the perfect bag (yay!), but it doesn’t zip closed, which doesn’t feel great for travel (boo!). Do you remember LeSportsSac from the 1980s? Did you know they still exist? I didn’t. But now I do, thanks to the rabbit hole I’ve disappeared into during my quest for a replacement bag.

I wish I could go into a store and see these bags. That is the drawback to online shopping. I used to go to a store with my current bag, try to fit everything into the new one, and see how it looked when it was full. Trying to judge the size of things from pictures is really hard.

But I have to make a choice soon.

If you read enough (or watch enough television or listen to enough music), you begin to notice patterns. A book (or show or song) will be successful, and other artists will try to copy it, putting out similar work. The theme I keep encountering lately is books with terrible characters.

I don’t mean poorly written. I mean that the writer designed a book where every person is awful. They think awful things. They take selfish actions. They are terrible to other characters. And all of the characters are equally awful. In these books, there is no one you can root for.

I know there is an audience for these books because publishers keep making these books. But now that I’ve noticed this pattern in multiple books, I’ve realized that it’s on me to stop reading these books when it dawns on me that there are zero characters I’m rooting for. When I’m okay with everyone losing, it’s time to put the book down.

The Guardian had an essay about an anti-worrying trick that I clicked on because I, as a world-class worrier, am a sucker for any anti-worrying trick.

The “trick” is that you do not allow yourself to worry past 6:30 pm, so your brain has about 12 hours (to 6:30 am) not to worry. You don’t immediately go cold turkey and not worry at all for 12 hours. You tell yourself you can’t worry from 6:30 pm to 7:30 pm, and keep pushing it back an hour. And then you’re asleep for a large chunk of the hours. So… it probably works.

Except I couldn’t see how I could make myself not worry in a certain time window if my brain was still actively thinking. The only way it could work is if I lied to myself and said, “There is nothing wrong,” which is the adult version of telling a kid who is crying, “You’re alright.”

Because yes, it is true. The crying kid is alright. Yes, they have a skinned knee. Yes, something freaked them out. But in the grand scheme of things, they are alright. They are safe. They are cared for. They have food and water and shelter. (Assuming they have all of these things.) And for the adult, unless you are actively going through a crisis (and not worrying about the potential for a crisis), there is nothing wrong. There will be wrong things in the future (not just potentially, but it is inevitable that we will all go through wrong stretches), but in the immediate moment, there is nothing wrong. Between 6:30 pm and 6:30 am, I don’t have to worry about the potential problems.

Maybe it will work? Jury is out on this one.