I’m going to see Kinky Boots for a second time this weekend. I went a few weeks ago — it was my first time seeing the play — and I loved it so much that I’m going back. That show proves why we need art. Because it can change a mood. I went feeling blah. I came out feeling elated. All from two and half hours of drag queens dancing on a conveyor belt in thigh-high boots. It was glorious.

Similarly, I’m just waiting for season 3 of Ted Lasso this week. I want to spend a half hour per night watching nice people do nice things and win.

It’s a hard news cycle. Happy art can make a happy heart.

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Stop procrastinating. Go make your backups. Don’t have regrets.

Seriously. Stop what you’re doing for a moment. It will take you fifteen minutes, tops. But you will have peace of mind for days and days. It’s the gift to yourself that keeps on giving.

As always, add any new thoughts to the Friday Backup post and peruse new comments to find out about methods, plug-ins, and devices that help you quickly back up your data and accounts.

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And now the blogs…

But first, second, helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week. To read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• None… sniff.

Okay, now my choices this week.

The Next 15000 Days encounters a bizarre growth mindset conversation. Click over to see the most frustrating use of the word “yet.”

Lastly, It’s Inconceivable takes us through some infertility observations. She sarcastically asks: “Did you know that when you get to be a woman of a certain age you become invisible? Not only does your hair fade to grey, so does your personality, attributes, opinions, dress sense – everything apparently.” But really, click over to read the whole thing because she taught me the term: “the most Selfish Fuckstick in living history.”

The roundup to the Roundup: Go watch something fun. Your weekly backup nudge. And lots of great posts to read. So what did you find this week? Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between March 3 – March 10) and not the blog’s main URL. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week. Read the original open thread post here.

This is about work, but it applies to every life situation. It’s about not taking on other people’s anxiety. Ever. Their anxiety gets to be their anxiety, and your anxiety gets to stay your anxiety. He writes,

Anxiety is conductive. It wants to travel from one person to another person. And once it sees itself in another person, it feels justified in being in that first person. … To put it another way: once a client becomes anxious, their primary goal becomes to make you anxious because that justifies their own anxiety.

Don’t worry; he also explains how to contain the anxiety to the other person. Stay calm, listen, reassure that you will look into the problem, and report when you know something. (And he doesn’t mention one thing: communicate, communicate, communicate.)

I really love this idea of diffusing anxiety by not fomenting fear.

I loved this Substack from My Sweet Dumb Brain about allowing yourself to dip into life and be okay with what you are doing vs. what you’re not doing. She writes:

We live in a world of endless information and expectations. You will never read, watch, or listen to everything that you want to … Life is an endless scroll. We will never reach the endpoint that we’re looking for. I find liberation in knowing that there will never be enough.

Isn’t that kind of perfect?

Accepting the limit of 24 hours today.

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

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Despite being a bit of a neat freak (for instance, I even bleach the inside of the dishwasher), I don’t make the bed. Pretty much ever. We shake out the blankets and make it two seconds before we sleep in it at night, but the bed is left unmade during the day. It means I can collapse in bed briefly without feeling like I’m messing things up.

Lifehacker had an article that while you should make your bed (sorry, Lifehacker), you shouldn’t make it first thing in the morning. You’ll throw up a little reading why. But read it anyway.

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Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts connected to businesses or sponsored posts.

We finished Fleishman Is In Trouble this weekend. I’m glad we stuck with the show (it’s also a book) because the last two episodes were phenomenal. It’s about growing old and changing and wishing you were still the person you were when you were young, even though you want all of adulthood, too. While I don’t share Libby’s thoughts about life, she felt familiar to me, as if she were someone from my Israel trip or Hillel experience.

We followed the final episode with seeing old friends the next day. It was the group’s last Bar Mitzvah. Meaning the parade of B’nai Mitzvot started about a decade ago, and we’ve been steadily attending (or, one time, hosting) them every few months until today. It was the youngest child of the friend who married us, so while we’ll still have B’nai Mitzvot in our future — my friends still have younger kids, and I have cousins, etc. — it was the final one for this group. Next up is weddings.

Which feels like a weird fact. I am still so young. There was an article making the rounds last week about how we don’t feel our age. I definitely don’t. I feel like I’m barely an adult. Like we’re all still the same people we were 20+ years ago when we’d host dinner parties where most people would sit on the floor because we didn’t have enough furniture. When we’d nap on a Saturday afternoon because we had zero responsibilities, and then go out at night during an hour when I’m usually now in pyjamas. I am still that person at heart, even if I don’t see her when I look in the mirror.

Spending time with people who remind you who you are is nice.