I encountered two books this spring that built their plots on spoilers for other books.

The first one I started reading and realized that a bunch of Agatha Christies were going to be spoiled for me if I continued reading the book, so I needed to stop, check which ones they were, weigh out how I felt about having a bunch of mystery endings revealed, and then read on. The books “spoiled” were mostly books I already knew, so it was a low annoyance. But considering I only started reading Agatha about 18 months ago, if I had encountered this book at a different time, it would have sucked. Especially because it wasn’t clear that this was going to be part of the plot until I was several chapters into the book.

The other book is built on the premise that someone is using the murders in famous mystery novels to conduct murders around town. You’ll be able to figure out which book I’m talking about when you see my monthly book review post tomorrow. (Hint: if you don’t want to know which book, skip that post.) The book also ruins another famous mystery by revealing the twist ending during a conversation between two characters in the book. So… one book ruins almost ten books.

As in, literally ruins them because why else do people read mysteries except to try to figure out the mystery? If you know everything before you start reading, it’s not really an exciting read. It’s like setting up a game of Clue and having the person tell you, “By the way, Professor Plum is going to use the candlestick in the study. Let’s play!”

Anyway, I knew which books were being ruined in that book (with the exception of the one that popped up in the conversation, which I had luckily already read), and I had to stop reading it in order to rush through one of the books on the list so I could enjoy that mystery before returning to have the ending revealed in the spoiler-laden book.

Most of the books being spoiled were pretty old, and in a bunch of cases, the author was no longer alive. But in one case, the book being spoiled came out while I was in college. So it’s old, but it’s not that old. I kept poking around online to see if the author commented on how she felt about her book being ruined in order to have another author’s plot work, but I haven’t seen anything yet.

Which brings me to the thing that kept running through my head as I read the spoiler-laden book. The whole idea felt shitty. Clearly the author would not like the ending of his mystery revealed, so why would he ruin many other books? I mean, yes, on one hand, you can go with the thought that people don’t deserve to have things be spoiler-free after X amount of time. And it wasn’t like the book was required reading. But the whole thing left me shaking my head, even though I mostly enjoyed the spoiler-laden book once I had read the one mystery that I cared about. Still, it shat on the golden rule of doing unto others yadda yadda yadda.

So readers spoiling books—it accidentally happens. But writers spoiling other books in order to create their book… what do you think about that?

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

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I learned a new term this week: allostatic load. It is “the damage on our bodies when they’re repeatedly exposed to stress.” It’s what is happening to your brain from living under the stress of Covid-19: either because you’ve lost your job or you’re in fear of losing your job or your job puts you in harm’s way or you’re working at home but you can’t really get work done at home or you’ve lost a loved one or you’re in fear of losing a loved one or you’re about to meltdown if you don’t get out of your home or someone has just asked you for something and you have nothing left to give.

All of the above.

And we don’t know when any of this will end. Or what the next three years will look like.

I wasn’t sleeping before the pandemic, but I’m really not sleeping now during the pandemic. I’m awake at least once per night, but sometimes up to four times. I have a lot of nightmares.

It would be really nice if the universe could give us a break.

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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 that are connected to businesses or are sponsored post.

It’s Mother’s Day. I’m assuming I didn’t just pee in your Cheerios with that reminder, and you knew it was Mother’s Day before I said it. But it’s not actually a given this year. I’ve missed the onslaught of Mother’s Day signs because I haven’t been out in months. And while there may have been Mother’s Day messages on social media, I’ve missed them because everything is pandemic, 24/7.

A silver lining?

So it’s usually an odd day that I have a lot of feelings about, but this year, it fell under the pandemic shadow, which swallows everything in its path leaving behind only the main mental event: Covid-19.

I usually spend the day with my mum, but we can’t do that. At least, not in the traditional sense. We are dropping off dinner at my parent’s house, so I’ll get to see them from afar. And THAT has been what has kept me going this week. I dropped off groceries at the beginning of the week, and usually I cry while I drive away because it is a very odd thing to have you parents talk to you from 18 feet away. But this time, when I got in the car, I thought to myself: “Oh! Mother’s Day! I’ll get to see them again very soon.”

It is so weird how this day that normally puts me in a blue mood was the one thing I looked forward to all week. The shadow of Covid-19 changes the colour of things for me, turning things that are usually happy shades (libraries!) into murky colours (the germs there!) and murky colours (Mother’s Day) into happy shades (a chance to peek at my parents from 18 feet away for a few minutes).

Even though I am so so so sad that I can’t hug them. Though I want to bring a sheet and do this.

Sending peace of heart to everyone who needs it today.

The twins’ final year of camp was canceled. They had been going to the same camp for nine years, and they were finally in the oldest group. So… no re-do possible. They’re taking it in stride; I mean, what is one more canceled event amid so many other cancellations?

School was canceled for the rest of the year. We expected it, but it was still strange to get the alert telling us that they’d be sheltering in place for the remainder of the spring. It’s unclear whether they’ll go back in the fall. Everything feels like a big unknown.

I’m in a numb stage this week. I’m reading all the announcements, but I’m not really emotionally processing them. It’s almost like I’m being told someone else’s dream. It’s interesting, but it’s not really mine, so I don’t really feel anything about it beyond a general sense of unease.

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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 in order 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. In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “COVID-19 Jubilee: Shame, Debt, and Mercy” (The Philosophy of Motherhood)
• “No Kidding 2020 Project: Day 12 – Accept” (No Kidding in NZ)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Dreaming of Diapers has a post about being the last one to be told about a pregnancy. She wasn’t expecting friends to be announcing their pregnancies in their 40s, but she had two who let her know recently. She writes, “The call was super uncomfortable. I mean, beyond. All of our other friends found out at 12 weeks… but me… the last one to know.” Everyone, do not do this, even if you think you’re being considerate of another person’s feelings. They’ll have to find out at some point. Better to know along with everyone else. Ugh.

Res Cogitatae has a post that pretty much sums up all of my feelings about food at the moment. I have never spent so much time worrying about ingredients, worrying about meal planning, stressing about cooking. She explains everything that is happening in their home: “The effort of making sure the right things are in the cart and the uncertainty of knowing what we’ll actually get when we go to pick up the groceries is producing stress for both of us.” I think many of us relate to this post.

The Road Less Travelled has a post about COVID-19 that is brilliant, summarizing the main things she wants to remember. I’m highlighting it here because everyone is going to want to steal her format. Especially the idea of revisiting the questions later to see how your thoughts change over time.

Lastly, I learned the word “sabai” from A Separate Life. She explains: “I have always enjoyed what the Danish call hygge – cosiness, comfort, content. It’s not unlike the Thai concept of sabai, though because of the different climate, sabai conjures less cosiness, but pleasure, a gentle cooling breeze, and a feeling of contentment or even bliss in a moment.” I love that she makes you think about your personal definition for hygge (or sabai). Mine definitely includes reading at the end of the day.

The roundup to the Roundup: Everything is canceled. 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 May 1 – 8) 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.

Carolyn Hax had some advice a week or two ago that was like a light bulb going off in my brain. The situation didn’t apply to my life—woman navigating her parent’s messy divorce—but Hax’s advice technically applied to… everything.

You don’t need to use one of your behind-the-paywall articles on this because she summarizes the long post in a single sentence: “When things go wrong or disappoint you or stir up new stuff you didn’t expect: Trust yourself to find your way through it.”

So keep taking chance and walking forward knowing you will be able to navigate whatever you encounter.

Or, I’ll apply it to general life instead of Hax’s divorce situation:

Information you have now + trust that you’ll get through the unknown = how to navigate any situation.

That when you don’t take chances or move things forward, what you’re saying is that you don’t trust yourself. You don’t trust your ability to get yourself through the situation. Despite all proof you have to the contrary. The reality is that I’ve gotten through everything so far. It hasn’t always been pleasant, and I’ve certainly had to mourn along the way, but I’ve gotten to this point, so I need to trust that I’ll get to the next point.

And that applies to you, too.