The Roundup is back.

There seems to be a lot of podcasts recently about infertility or loss.  I don’t know if going to listen to them.  While I love hearing other people’s personal stories, I don’t love reading or listening to a reporter talk about something they’ve never experienced.  To that end, one of them seems one-sided based on the description, and I don’t like my thoughts pre-chewed for me.  I prefer my reporting to be simply reporting, with conclusions drawn and not handed to the listener.  The other is probably well done.

In case you are interested in listening, the first is Reveal, which has an episode about IVF.  The second (which I’m more inclined to lend my ears) is IVFML, which is a miniseries on infertility, told by people who have experienced infertility.

Let me know how they are if you listen.

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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:

• “Adoption, Sex, and the Pursuit of Love: Why Adoptive Parents Need to Talk to Their Kids About Sex” (Diary of a Not-So-Angry Asian Adoptee)
• “Running the Race with One Leg” (Anne Heffron)

Okay, now my choices this week.

My Path to Mommyhood talks about the final moments of her family building journey, giving away the things they had amassed in preparation for a baby.  It’s a bittersweet post, but that’s what makes it an important read.  It’s about the parts of infertility no one thinks about when they scroll past a story about IVF in the newspaper or suggest that people should “just adopt.”  (Y’all know how I feel about that phrase.)  She writes, “It was overwhelming. The giant pile of things, of hope, of all the love and support, everything we had for a baby so very wanted and so very hoped for … gone.”  Abiding with her through this step, and I promise if you read it that it has a peaceful ending.

On the lesser discussed aspects of infertility front, ANDMom has a post about how infertility is still haunting her, even though she’s finished building her family.  It is a constant reminder of her own journey as people around her get pregnant naturally.  It never ends.

Lastly, Our Misconception has a post written from two points of view — husband and wife — about IVF during their surrogacy journey.  It’s funny and eye-opening (well, at least for the general public) and difficult, and it captures that world of hope and hurt well.

The roundup to the Roundup: Podcasts about infertility.  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 June 2nd and 9th) 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.

Yes, another one about Matthew Quick’s book, Every Exquisite Thing.  You don’t have to read the book to follow these posts and have an opinion because I’m using the book as a springboard to other mental spaces.  If you want to read the other posts I’ve written about this book, you can find them here, here, here, here, and here.

Do you ever think about the longevity of a friendship in its starting point?  Last week, my friend came over for dinner.  I met her on the first day of college in my first class.  I knew immediately that we were going to be friends, but moreover, I suspected even in those first days that we were going to be lifelong friends.

Before you applaud my ability to predict friendship longevity, I also had that feeling with another woman and we’re not friends at all.

I guess the point is that I usually go into starting new friendships with the hope that it will continue indefinitely.  And then a quote on page 169 of the book gave me pause.  Nanette (the main character) is in a session with her therapist, June.

June brings up the expression “a reason, a season, or a lifetime” in their last therapy session before Christmas, and Nanette says, “Booker quotes that in The Bubblegum Reaper. ‘People enter our lives for a reason, a season, or a lifetime.’”

“I know, but he didn’t coin the phrase. It’s a cliché,” June says. “And sayings become clichés mostly because they are true. People tend to repeat what they feel is real—authentic.”

First of all, I’ve never heard that phrase before: a reason, a season, or a lifetime.  Second of all, it made me wonder if we’re all seeking lifetime friendships but being okay (mostly) when they fall short.  Does anyone aim for a reason or a season friendship?  I mean, yes, we all understand that we sometimes meet someone for a reason (infertility) or a season (college), but is anyone aiming to just keep reason or season friendships contained in their moment and then move away?

I ask because what if I’m only seeking lifetime friendships but someone else is only seeking seasonal friendships?  How do we mesh?  Who bends to the other person’s timeline?

Or do we not know the outcome of friendship until we know the outcome of friendship?  Are all feelings of lifelongness just feelings until they’re truths?  Or does feeling it make lifelong friendships happen because we strive to keep the friendships we suspect have longevity?

Friendship.  Discuss.

Modern Mrs. Darcy has a fun post about making a to-do list for your to-do list, and I want to echo that I do this everyday.

My bullet journal is not realistic.  It contains everything that needs to get done; some of it immediately though some of it can wait a day or two.  (And then, separately, there is a monthly long-term project section.)

Looking at the list makes me anxious.

So before I close down for the night, I make two post-it notes and stick one on the front of my work bullet journal and the other on the front of my personal bullet journal.  (Yes, I keep two separate bullet journals.)  The work one contains meeting reminders and tasks that must be finished before the end of the day.  The personal one just contains things like “cook dinner” or “write blog post” or “clean Linus’s cage.”

That way I’m ready to go first thing in the morning.  I know before I go to bed what needs to get done.  And I cross off all the must-do tasks and sometimes a don’t-put-this-off-for-too-long task.

Then the whole thing starts over again.  Anything undone is transferred to the next post-it note, and all the new stuff is listed.

Looking at the whole to-do list is overwhelming and it’s hard to know what to do first.  So choosing three or four things that must get done while I’m feeling calm and ready to relax means that those three or four things will get done, even if everything else remains on the to-do list another day.

Ta-da!

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

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I read a super interesting New Yorker piece about a barbecue restaurant called Piggie Park, owned and operated by a white supremacist who decorated his restaurant in confederate flags.  Kathleen Purvis spoke for many when she said, “When I learned about Bessinger’s history, I stopped buying his products. I followed a simple policy on the Piggie Park: I didn’t go there. Ever.”

Then he died and his kids took over, removing the flags and their father’s political point-of-view.  Which brought about the question that drives the New Yorker piece: Is it now okay to go to Piggie Park?  Some felt the old man and his hate was gone, and it was okay to patron the place.  Others felt that the legacy of hate and the history of hurt should still be driving the decision to avoid the place.

I don’t eat barbecue — that whole vegetarian thing — so I had to think about this question in terms of a favourite space.  What if the owner of my favourite restaurant started to spew hate speech?  No brainer — I would stop patronizing the place.  What if she died and her kids took over, keeping the same recipes but changing the personality of the space?  Could I eat there?

I don’t think I could.  For me, the food is tied to the experience, and I don’t think I would have much of an appetite if I walked into the space, thinking about what had happened before that point.

What about you?  Would you eat at your own personal Piggie Park if that happened?

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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 like to imagine that when the librarians take a coffee break, they sit around a table in the backroom saying things like, “That Melissa is a great library user” or “Thanks, I will have a doughnut, and can you believe how reliable Melissa is with library books?”

Maybe they whisper it so the other patrons don’t get jealous if their voices travel out of the room, or maybe the librarians get together at night and dance joyously around the stacks with flowers woven in their hair, chanting, “Mel, Mel, book borrower Mel.”

Lest you think I’m exaggerating, I have actual PROOF of my trustworthiness.

I went to check out a book at the library self-service machine — actually three books because I had the twins’ stuff in my stack — and the machine wouldn’t register the third book.  So I brought it up to the desk, and the new librarian couldn’t get the computer to recognize the bar code, either.  She turned to the other, longtime librarian and asked what she should do.

The longtime librarian looked me up and down (actually, I was standing against the desk, so she only looked from a little below my chest to the top of my head and back down to a little below my chest) and then she gave a nod.  “Just give it to her.  She’s responsible.  She’ll bring it back in three weeks.”  And then, directly to me, “I’m trusting you.”

DID YOU HEAR THAT?  She is trusting me.  That means I am trustworthy.

When I was growing up, my mother told me that all a person has is their reputation.  She may have been talking about S-E-X, but I like to think that she was also talking about good library habits.  Guess what, mum, I have a good library reputation and an uncheckedout book to prove it.