Category — Uncategorized

Darius Foroux was asked and answered 10 questions by a reader named Mary.  They’re 3 really good questions (and 7 less interesting questions), and he gives 10 answers.  What makes the 3 really good questions really good are that they spark answers that are useful to other people.  I mean, so much advice is really for ourselves; we give it to others, but it doesn’t really apply to others.  It applies to ourselves and it’s awesome that we know these things about ourselves.

For instance: “What’s the one quality that everyone must have?”  Well, Pascal already decided that earlier this week, but moreover, the answer is so personal and specific.  I mean, let’s say the person says honesty.  What good is honesty without self-restraint and circumspection?  I don’t think we really want everyone going around saying everything they are truthfully thinking at all times.

Foroux himself answers: “Persistence, perseverance, determination, grit—call it whatever you want.”  I can think of many situations where grace and the good thought to stop would serve you better.

But these three may contain an answer that is helpful to someone else:

2. What’s the one book you suggest everyone to read?

This is not a book I think you’ll enjoy; it’s a book I think you should read.  Big difference.  I mean, you may enjoy them, too (I did), but it’s really about recommending a book that will change someone’s life.

The book(s) I always recommend is the Magicians trilogy by Lev Grossman.  It’s not because it’s about magic.  (Though the magic is pretty awesome.)  It’s because it’s about growth.  It’s about facing uncomfortable truths about yourself and others and not looking away.  Or seeing what happens when you look away and then what happens when you don’t look away.  I know a lot of people find Quentin and the other characters annoying, and I think those people probably either (1) stopped after the first book and missed the point of the trilogy or (2) saw too much of themselves in the books and it made them uncomfortable.  Really good books should get under your skin and bother your brain.

To really get everything out of these books, you need to sit with all three books.  And you need to look at yourself closely, too.  I will say that if you get to this line in The Magician King on page 379 –“That was being dead, and this is being alive.  That was death, this is life.  I will never confuse them again.” — and you are not emotionally affected, tossing around that thought about how you have discussed or thought about living before (and maybe taken it for granted), it’s probably not worth it for you to move on to the third book.  But if that scene gives you pause, continue on and you will not regret what you learn about yourself in The Magician’s Land.

P.S. It really helps to have read all seven Narnia books, too, to understand the way Grossman plays with that narrative.  It will double what you get out of the trilogy.

6. What’s one thing that you regret starting late or wished you started earlier?

Learning about financial stuff: savings, investing, etc.  I read books and we’ve spoken with financial planners, but I feel like I’m in a space where I need to take advice rather than know the information myself.  That is the case in a lot of areas of life, but I wish I understood all the rules and regulations better; understood how decisions could impact me in the future.  And I wish I had saved more prior to this point, but I think many people will say that.

7. What’s one thing you learned the hard way?

That your memory is never as good as you think.  When we were going through the baby years, I couldn’t imagine forgetting any facts so I didn’t take the time to write most of them down in a single space.  I couldn’t imagine having tens of thousands of pictures and videos, so I didn’t organize them.  And now I have a big mess of information without any way to easily access it and enjoy it.  I wish I had kept neat photo albums I could slide off a shelf and baby books that contain the date of first words and first steps.

What about you?

I am aware that (1) a beach in the backyard is probably against the homeowner association’s rules, (2) would attract mosquitoes and not sea gulls, (3) would not look like the pictures after about an hour, (4) would require a lot of upkeep, (5) would probably destroy the lawn…

…but I want one.  I want a backyard beach.

I bookmarked this article in USA Today, and keep returning to look at the crystal blue water and white sand.  You can see larger images if you search for the construction company and swimming ponds.

They have filtration systems like a pool, but they look like a beach.  Like your own, private beach.  Like you’re Edward Cullen with his Isle Esme except that your Isle Esme is in an American suburb and not Rio de Janeiro.

I love the ocean.  I’m less of a fan of ponds, lakes, or rivers — and I’m aware this is closer to a pond than Chincoteague — but I love the idea of being able to access something that resembles a beach in my backyard.

I think Josh is going to nix this idea.

So I realized something interesting lately.  Sometimes when you know an actor off-stage/off-screen, it can be very difficult to watch them perform because you can see the performance.  Do you know what I mean?  If I don’t know an actor at all, I have no clue what is their personality and what is the character; it all feels seamless.  But if I know them, I can see how they’re acting as if they’re angry or acting as if they’re sad.  Does this make sense — have you experienced this?  Anyway, what this means is that I don’t really love meeting actors or knowing too much about them because I like to keep the illusion that they are the character.

The opposite is true when it comes to books.  I seek out books by people I know.  I am ten times more likely to give a new author a chance if the book was written by a friend, a friend of a friend, or a former classmate.  Even though I can see how they differ from their narrator (or, the opposite: how they’re the same), it doesn’t bother me.  It’s the opposite of the actor; I marvel at how they can construct a character so unlike themselves.

If I don’t know the author at all, once I’m a few pages into the book and I’ve absorbed the characters’ voices, I flip to the thank you page to see whom we know in common.  I sometimes look up the author online if I don’t know them personally to glean where they went to school or where they’re living now.  Gathering a mental picture of the author makes me like the book more.  Or… I guess sometimes less.  But usually more.

Is it just me?  Do you like to know actors off-stage/screen and then see them perform?  Do you like to know authors off-page when you read their books?

The Washington Post set this fact in front of the reader without comment: it is reaching 90 degrees in the Arctic Circle.  I saw it a few weeks ago and have seen the news repeated in various places.  It’s not new news; scientists have been pointing out that it’s warmer in the winter, warmer in the summer.  Scientists are not surprised, though I keep getting stunned every time I encounter this fact.

There is talk about difficult-to-live-in spaces becoming unlivable.  Of temperatures becoming too hot for humans.  If it’s 90 degrees in the Arctic Circle, what hope do traditionally hot areas of the world have?

*******

As we were riding through Glencoe in Scotland, our driver commented that Scotland has the most freshwater in the world.  This statement turned out to be wrong, but I mentally went with it at the time because he continued unpacking the idea.  “The end of the world is going to be a fight for drinkable water.  And when that happens, Scotland is going to need to protect itself because we have a lot of water.  Scotland is going to be one of the last ones standing at the end of the world because we have so much water.”

I instantly started panicking because I’m reading a dystopian mystery trilogy and that is exactly what happens at the end of the world: people are murdering each other for drinking water.  I started Googling things like, “How difficult is it to move to Scotland” from my bus seat.

It turns out that the UK as a whole is 54th in terms of drinking water.  I’d be better off heading to Brazil (#1) or simply staying home in the US (#3).  Though what does any of that even mean if the world is ending?

*******

The world is not ending.

*******

Except it feels tenuous.  It feels politically tenuous and environmentally tenuous.  It feels like it’s so large that you can’t see where anything begins or ends.  I feel like I need to spend some time today just staring at the ceiling and not thinking.

Every once in a while, you read something and think, “If I wasn’t infertile, my mind would have never gone here.”  But you are infertile, so your mind does go there.  You see the world through infertile-tinted glasses.

Sometimes that’s a good thing.  Maybe it makes you more sensitive to others because you know how you feel on the other end of a poorly-worded question.  Maybe you know how to give good comfort.  Or maybe it makes you more patient, more understanding, more grateful.

And sometimes that’s a bad thing.  You see dangers where there are no dangers.  You wonder how another person isn’t worried about their pregnancy because fretting is your second job.  You see meaning in innocent comments, lose friendships from jealousy, or avoid sections of the store as if your life depended on it.

The lens giveth and the lens taketh.

The article in question was about puzzles.  I was reading it because a friend passed it along.  I like puzzles — interactive fiction puzzles but also logic puzzles and escape rooms and jigsaw puzzles.  He sent it along because he knew I liked that moment when I saw how a puzzle came together.

But all I could think as I read it was about unexplained infertility and the inexplicable within diagnosable infertility.  How we think we can know the cause even without knowing everything about the body.  How many things we believe come with an explanation that we’ll look back on decades from now and marvel at how little we understood.

That’s what happens when you read puzzle articles with infertile-tinted glasses.