This article on tourism was making the rounds a few weeks ago. Well, really about overtourism. And it starts with the premise:

The stigma of overtourism is contingent on the sense that a place without as many tourists is more real, more authentic, than it is with them … Overtourism is also a subjective concern based on a feeling: It’s the point at which your personal narrative of unique experience is broken, the point at which there are too many people — like yourself — who don’t belong in a place.

So, Iceland, for example. And the article asks this question: “If fully one-fifth of humanity are traveling away from home, then how foreign are tourists, after all?”

But there is another question the reader begins to ask herself. If it’s not authentic; if your visit to a country is not the experience that someone who lives in the country would have on a normal day, is there a point to tourism?

I think there is, but I am cognizant that the experience I have in the country rarely mirrors what a resident of the country experiences or even picks up on from the world around them. Even when I am staying with people in their home, eating homemade food. I know that it’s true based on the opposite: that I can spot the DC tourist or recent transplant within seconds. It’s what they’re not picking up on from the world around them; the subtle cues every area holds. Therefore, I assume the same is true when I’m moving through the streets of another country. There is stuff I am missing because I just don’t know.

So what is the point of tourism if your experience is always going to be surface-deep? I think, for me, it’s about being a witness. It’s observing. It’s sitting in a space and trying to understand a portion of it. There are things that I want to see up-close vs. in a picture.

And sometimes it’s about meeting other people on the road. I once met this amazing woman when I was walking around Barcelona, looking for a museum that had unknowingly closed after the publication of my tour book. (See, kids, that’s how we lived back in the old days, with outdated information.) She was from Massachusetts, also visiting Barcelona at the same time. I ended up spending two days with her before she left to go back to the US. Was it an authentic Barcelona experience? Not at all. But it’s hard to feel sad about that when you’re hanging out with someone fun.

The twins took out a cricket for me this week. I didn’t even have to ask them. They saw it upstairs, alerted me of its presence, and then sucked up the cricket with the vacuum. They learned the SAT word “tenacious” from the experience when I thanked them for their tenacity in hunting down the cricket when it tried to hop behind the dresser. And this thing was huge. It was the size of about half a doorknob. Which means that it felt like it was the size of a truck.

I know some parents brag about their children’s grades or awards. But do those things really hold a candle to cricket hunting? Not in my world.

They immediately followed up the experience by confirming that I would be making them their own batch of cookies as a thank you gift.

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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:

• “The Experience of a Lifetime” (LindsayMader)
• “Cultivating Gratitude” (Infertile Phoenix)
• “Baking” (Inconceivable!)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Empty Arms, Broken Heart tries to blow some adoption myths out of the water when she sees a cousin’s thoughtless post, though her words were ignored. Still, they’re important to say. She writes, “I think if anyone is going to promote adoption they should do it with their eyes wide-open to reality. There are beautiful sides to adoption but there are also hard truths that can’t be overlooked.” Thank you for expanding the story.

Baby Ridley Bump has a post about postponing her IVF cycle. These are the types of posts that people need to read when they cavalierly speak about IVF as if it’s the easiest solution in the world. She writes, “Sometimes when I think about it I think to myself, such is life–there will never be a perfect time with no stress and nothing going on, I realize that, but there will be a better time, a time when things are a little more settled & I think right after the holidays, first of the year will be exponentially better for us.” It’s a post about listening to your gut and knowing that it rarely steers you wrong.

Slaying, Blogging, Whatever… has a post about missing writing in her space. I love this (not the fact that her year has gone off the rails, but because I also give myself stern lectures): “This year has gone off the rails so fast and we have never really recovered. I told myself that I would steer into the slide, and with each new road block, I have found myself having a harder time having the emotional (and sometimes physical) energy to steer. Okay, self. Enough!” I related, which is why I love blogging: When you connect with another person’s story because it reminds you of your own.

Lastly, The Next 15000 Days suggests practicing acts of kindness and including someone on the sidelines. She writes, “I realized why it has been so hurtful to go through life unnoticed and excluded – just because I am a childless woman. I stopped counting how many times I was excluded from conversations just because some people assume I have nothing to say (just because I don’t have children of my own).” Reach out today to another blogger.

The roundup to the Roundup: The twins are braver than I am. 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 November 8th and 15th) 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.

I missed the New York Public Library’s Instanovels when they first came out, maybe because I’m not big into Instagram. It’s a whole book, beautifully laid out, as an Instagram story. The pages turn like an Instagram story, but you can control the timing by placing your thumb over the icon (it’s unique to each book) in the bottom right corner.

There are only five books right now, and it’s not clear if they’re going to make more. They are so gorgeous that I hope they do.

Which books do you wish they’d make? I know they’re pulling from the public domain at the moment, but I would love to read Lev Grossman’s The Magicians series this way. I mean, wish big if you’re going to wish for things.

P.S. Scroll all the way down the website. It’s fascinating.

Before I tell you my situation, I should preface this conundrum by saying that I’m firmly on the side of the American Library Association. As an author, as a reader, as a human.

In case you haven’t been following the story, Macmillan, one of the biggest publishers, has been putting restrictions on libraries in order to try to drive sales. Their most recent restriction was to state that libraries were only allowed to purchase one copy of an e-book for the first eight weeks. Macmillan believes — based on anecdotal evidence — that 8% of people will purchase an e-book if they can’t obtain it easily. So they’re hoping that ridiculous wait lists for popular titles will drive people to purchase their own copy. After eight weeks, libraries can purchase multiple copies, though those copies cost a lot more than personal copies and the license needs to be continuously renewed.

So that’s the situation. Some libraries — including libraries in our area — are responding by not purchasing any Macmillan e-books. Some are not purchasing e-books ever, and some are waiting a certain amount of time. Still others are not purchasing any Macmillan titles, period––e-book or paper. Instead, they are funneling that money towards publishers that are willing to work with libraries and keep books accessible.

So this is my conundrum.

I started reading a trilogy. It’s by a lesser-known author, and her books are well-received but not big sellers. I love the books so far.

She is published by Macmillan.

Our library has the first two books in the trilogy. It doesn’t have the third book, which came out a few months ago. I can put in a request to have them purchase it, but doing so means that I am asking the library to fiscally support a business that is treating libraries and library patrons poorly. Our library’s policy at the moment: “Macmillan Publishers has recently introduced a ‘1-copy only’ embargo of all their new eBook titles for the first 60 days of publication. Because of this change, we will not be purchasing any Macmillan titles until 60 days after publication.”

So, technically, it’s after the 60 days. But. I don’t feel right putting in a purchase request for the paper book or the e-book.

Which leaves me with a few options.

(1) Purchase the trilogy. That was my original plan before I found out the third book was missing from the library. I would like to own the trilogy AND I would like to support this lesser-known author because I think her voice is important. BUT purchasing her books means that I am giving money to Macmillan.

(2) Stop reading the trilogy. This is what I normally do when a book is difficult to get. There are too many books on my to-be-read list. I can just skip to the next book in the pile and never make a dent in all the stories out there that I want to consume.

(3) Purchase the books from a used book shop. The author doesn’t get any extra money but the publisher also doesn’t get money. The drawback is that these books aren’t big sellers, and it will be difficult to find a copy in a used bookstore. Abe Books has copies for sale online, though I’ll be purchasing the books, sight-unseen. Which always makes me a little nervous with used books.

(4) An unknown option that I haven’t thought of yet but which you may supply in the comment section.

It’s a really hard decision. The author in me wants to go with option 1. It’s what I hope other people would do for me. After all, she has no say over her publisher’s choices and these choices were made long after she started working with them. She doesn’t have clout at the publisher; she isn’t one of their cornerstone authors. She is exactly the type of author who is hurt the most by things like this.

What would you do? And what do you think of this whole Macmillan mess?

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

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There is a reason why I usually don’t give myself downtime. It is so much harder to get back into work after spending most of the weekend lying around in my pyjamas, reading books and watching television. And eating crap. And sleeping whenever I felt like it.

It’s like I have a relaxation hangover after imbibing too much relaxation. Whereas on a normal weekend, I imbibe a moderate amount of relaxation, so the afterward isn’t quite so drastic.

While the weekend was lovely, I’m finding it very difficult to be back in regular clothes today.

How was your weekend?

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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.