Modern Mrs. Darcy sent a newsletter in June that was one of those magical notes that you are so grateful that another person wrote. She was commenting on a picture of her library fines receipt and was taken aback that other people were surprised that she ran up library fines. She wrote, “I was surprised that some of you expected me to somehow be above the run-of-the-mill hardships of the reading life.”

She goes deeper into this, explaining that she is a reader, just like all run-of-the-mill readers, and she therefore goes through all the struggles that readers go through. She has to make reading decisions and she’s strapped for time and she finds books she loves and books she doesn’t. She has “should reads” and “want to reads” and sometimes she drops one for the other: “I read four books on vacation, but only one of them did me any good—if you’re talking about crossing titles off my TBR, or racking up books I can talk about on the podcast or Modern Mrs Darcy.”

Thank you.

I really struggle with the should reads and want to reads. There are plenty of books I feel I should read, either because they deserve attention or they contain information I want or I want to support the author, but I’ve written before about feeling guilty turning more often to my Want to Read list. Currently, they’re period-piece mysteries like Her Royal Spyness or The Mitford Murders. Not really mind-expanders but good fun that I feel like picking up at the end of the day. And I felt so down in France because I was slogging through a book I didn’t want too read but felt obligated to read.

I’m grateful she wrote, “I don’t always get this reading thing right, but I know this: rarely does a day go by where I don’t talk to some reader, somewhere, about some aspect of their reading life—and in all this talking I’ve found that we readers can be pretty hard on ourselves.”

That made all the difference. I’m not saying that I won’t feel guilty from time to time, but sometimes we just need to hear, “me too!” and not feel alone.

What are you reading right now?

Many years ago, I wrote about the Wishing Tree at my camp, and how I used my wish (at 8 years old) to make what my friends all said was a terrible wish (it was for a 12-year-old boy at the camp, who didn’t acknowledge my existence in any way, to kiss me) and how it came true years later.

I had to drive through his old neighbourhood last week when we got stuck in traffic coming home from camp. I didn’t think I’d remember how to go, but my hands turned the wheel at the correct times, and we ended up exactly where I wanted, bypassing the traffic. Driving through there made me wistful for my high-school-aged self, even though his parents moved away years ago, and the boy (who is still a peripheral friend) now lives on the west coast.

There is a tree in Germany with similar powers. You don’t run through the split trunk and kiss the air, but the tree has “magical matchmaking powers” and receives dozens of letters per day of people making wishes from afar. The Atlantic article is the best story — you really need to read the whole thing because it will make you cheer and cry and cheer and cry — and it made me think of my Wishing Tree.

The kids asked me if I had any regrets about using up my wish on that kiss. Zero regrets. It doesn’t matter that it didn’t work out and we only dated for a few months. We stayed friends for almost 30 years since that kiss, and beyond that, it just makes a great story.

Sometimes stories are worth just as much as wishes.

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

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I just came off a week feeling very stressed out by the clock. The twins were at a camp, which was about an hour away with traffic. Every day, I had to leave work to pick them up, driving an hour to get them and an hour back. This meant the first part of my day was truncated to five hours, and the second part of my day was a balancing act of trying to finish work and make dinner and take care of everything else that needs to get done in the evening.

I hated the clock.

There is a town in Norway that is trying to get rid of the concept of time in their community. The people of Sommarøy figure that they’re already living off the traditional clock since the sun doesn’t rise and set in the Arctic in the same way that it rises and sets in the rest of the world. But reading that article made me realize that I still need my clock despite feeling strangled by it.

How do you feel about time right now?

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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.

I recently read about a Danish organization––Ventilen––that is working to alleviate loneliness by connecting people.

Ventilen currently offers 21 venues in Denmark where young people looking for companionship can meet one another. There are 15 gathering places for people aged 15-25, and six KOMsammen, or “Fit for Friendship” places, which focus on food and movement for those aged 15-30. The essential services its venues offer are straightforward, and yet can be so elusive: a place to go, things to do, and people to do them with.

I don’t think it’s an actual cure for loneliness. Popular people with many friends are sometimes lonely. It’s possible to be lonely in a crowd. And while you can put yourself in spaces where connection is more likely to happen, it also sometimes doesn’t happen for another individual, even if the people not connecting with them are equally seeking emotional connection.

Every human knows through experience that people need friends. But we also know that every human also rejects some people, even though we’re all armed with that knowledge.

Anyway, it’s a step in the right direction. It’s creating a space where connection could happen in a purposeful, mindful way. And it’s doing so with sensitivity. It just sounded like a great organization, one that takes the American idea of a buddy bench a step further in usefulness.

There is a place in LA that has VR massage chairs. As in, you get in a massage chair, strap on a VR headset, and watch relaxing pictures while a machine kneads the knots out of your back. 30 minutes for $45.

At first, I was obsessed with the idea of heading to LA. Then the Wolvog pointed out that I could get a massage pad for $150, strap it to a chair, and put on his VR set and have essentially the same thing for as long as I want, no flight necessary.

Then, as I researched massage pads that strap onto chairs, I realized that I kind of wanted to skip the whole VR thing and just close my eyes and bliss out. I’m not sure why I never thought to get myself this. Is it as good as professional massage? Probably not. But is it an inexpensive way to make myself feel relaxed for 15 minutes any time I want. Well… yes.

We don’t have a lot of space, so it has to be either a pad that attaches to an existing chair or a folding chair (yes, they make foldable massage chairs!). Anyone have an experience with these?

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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:

• “Giving Comfort” (Stirrup Queens) — thanks, Jess!
• “Tiny Glass Bowl of Bread” (Stirrup Queens) — thanks, Jess, again!
• “Inheritances” (No Kidding in NZ)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Dreaming of Diapers is in the middle of an out-of-state FET, traveling from AZ to LA to transfer her final embryos. She is thinking positively because while this may be her last shot, it’s also her best shot. So go send her off with a lot of good thoughts.

Infertile Phoenix has a post with a thought-provoking opening: “Recovering from infertility without getting to raise children is a long, hard undertaking.” And I love these opening thoughts that kick off an amazing ending, “Who am I now? A changed person. Healing from the loss of motherhood.” Go read the whole thing.

Lastly, Bereaved and Blessed returns to an old post and updates a single word, subtly changing the meaning of her original thought. She also added in the perspective she gained from the year, and performed the piece in a reading series. I featured the original post last year, too, so go over and see the changes. (I love the new insights.)

The roundup to the Roundup: I want to get a massage pad. 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 July 26th and August 2nd) 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.