Wednesday reading

Current books:

– The Man Who Died Twice, second in the Thursday Murder Club series about a set of crime-solving friends in a retirement community. I found the first book in a Little Free Library shortly after a friend recommended it… and then I found the second book in a different Little Free Library the day after I finished the first book!

They give me a Golden Girls vibe but more sophisticated, I suppose like really good GG fic would be. And every so often a line slays me, like this when the team is gathered at Ibrahhim’s bedside reviewing CCTV footage on his laptop:

“And there’s the clue!”

The shortsighted lean farther forward, and the long-sighted lean farther away.

– Kevin Henkes’  brand-new picture book Is It Spring?

Betsy Bird’s excellent review

I think I read this ten times, while I was eating my lunch today. Once for the paper colors. Once for the rhythm (and I read it out loud too). Once for the pattern of text and boxes (with a two-page box when spring finally springs for real… so good). Once to see if everyone’s eyes are dots all the way through. And of course following the scarf, and flipping back and forth between multiple views of the yard. Just exquisite. I felt reluctant to put it on the back-to-the-library shelf and will probably pull it down and read it again before I return it.

– Best recently finished: Candace, the Universe, and Everything, by Sherri L. Smith. Older middle grade or younger YA. Time shenanigans involving a school locker and magpies doing their thing. Also intergenerational friendship among Black women, characters pursuing art and science, and shifting school friend groups where no one’s a villain forever. Reminded me of the elements I like best in Madeleine L’Engle.

Now-ish

More vegetables, more library books, more square dancing — and the weirdly mild weather continues.

pink rhododendron blossoms and their greenery

in January!

The avgolemono turned out delicious. Whole wheat orzo is slightly chewier than regular, but very suitable for the soup. A note for next time: the tempering of the egg and lemon with the hot broth worked fine, but the egg itself needs to be very well beaten first– a few scraps of unmixed egg white became apparent when they cooked. I might try it with leek broth, as we have leek tops more often than chicken bones to make broth with… maybe with a little less lemon because there’s less fat to mellow it out?

Yesterday I attended two, count ’em two, social events. Evening was the Black and White Ball edition of our club’s monthly square dance. I was more like “stagehand” in all black and not-at-all-dressy, but that’s what I got. This is the one month when I make a concerted effort to follow the theme– unlike the several rainbow months, it really stands out if I don’t.

And before that, in the afternoon I caught the bus to a New Year’s party for Oregon Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. I joined SCBWI before retiring (in the final burst of spending down my professional development funds) but this was my first in-person event. Kidlit people are so nice, you guys! Everybody was happy to talk and there were library-themed table decorations and name tags and plenty of snacks. I ducked out early to catch the bus home again, but life seemed brighter after going than it had before. Is this how extroverts feel? Now I’m thinking I’ll go to the one-day conference in May, in Hillsboro.

A routine is finally settling in with my own work. I’m more viscerally aware that it’s up to me to decide on and generate that work, and no one else particularly cares. It’s both freeing and unnerving.

Thursday I’m signed up for a bird walk down at the rhododendron gardens by the college. I’m a lackadaisical birder at best, but it’s a nice chance to see the gardens for free– I haven’t been there in years and will be curious to see if anything’s blooming early.

Now-ish, new year’s edition

Two days of Christmas left! I have two cards with enclosures to send, and presents to wrap (for the family gathering postponed to MLK weekend).

I took the traditional photo at the park on New Year’s Day; a light cold drizzle was falling and there weren’t too many people out, except a few walking their dogs.

a wet picnic table in a muddy park, with dark fir trees towering behind it

Yesterday we went to see Charlie and his owner, our former neighbor who now lives in a retirement complex a few neighborhoods away. I love that little dog so much! When I want to feel cozy at home I pretend I can hear him snoring again. As I begin to browse rescue dogs on the internet with a tiny bit more purpose than before, one of my mental filters is, “Can I see this dog being buddies with Charlie?”

After that we ate lunch at a Syrian cafe within walking distance of our house that we hadn’t tried yet. The mint lemonade is fantastic.

Here’s how my desk is looking these days:

a wooden table lit with banker's lamp and string lights, piled with books, a laptop, pens, and cords.
Progress is slow on the fic and risograph; today at the library I picked up a book I’d requested on how to paint travel posters, since that’s approximately the look I’d like for the riso.
I bought ingredients to make avgolemono since we have really good stock for it right now. And I think we’re in pretty good shape for the flood of CSA vegetables incoming on Tuesday.
Feeling a little old and creaky, as my lower back, which had been doing great after physical therapy this summer, started talking to me again. I will be gentle at the gym tomorrow; I wonder if it will be crowded with resolution-keepers?
In a mood to hide from the world and keep reading The Rose Field. And I got quite a few picture books at the library to dream over. It is still the quiet, quiet time.

Now-ish Sunday

a thick tangle of holly, with shiny green leaves and red berries

 

It’s the liminal days. I’m catching up on holiday correspondence and visits, restarting non-holiday things that got dropped (e.g. going to the gym), and eating a lot of delicious leftovers and improvised meals.

Sang and I watched Carol, and keep meaning to rewatch The Lion in Winter but also keep diverting or downgrading, twice to sample the gay Hallmark Christmas movies (The Holiday Sitter and Friends and Family Christmas so far), which are better than anticipated.

I’m working on a fic and a risograph print (they are not related to each other). There are many other things– piano, getting more flexible, drawing– that I’d like to practice steadily, but haven’t yet found where to work them in. I also browse rescue dogs on the internet.

I’m reading Philip Pullman’s The Rose Field and deeply happy that it’s 650 pages long so I get to read it for a long time. Conversely, all my favorite books of 2025 are picture books.

2025 has been a lot. My father died in February and was buried in a military cemetery; we also held a public memorial service for him in June. I retired from the university in September. Sang and I traveled to Japan for several weeks after that. My youngest aunt, energetic and vivacious as always in June, was taken down by pancreatic cancer and died on Thanksgiving. A less eventful 2026 would be just fine. I could find a lot of joys in homebody life with outdoor walks.

Autumn is coming

four pink cyclamen blossoms on slender stalks, growing amidst brown Oregon grape leaves and filmy spiderwebs
spotted in the back yard.

 

Yesterday was my last day working at the University– I took vacation leave today because I’ve already turned in my work computer, and as of Monday I will officially be retired with 30 years of service as an Oregon public employee. When I rode the elevator up to my office floor yesterday morning, it occurred to me that all my future rides up would be in a building where I used to work. That’s a very different feeling from a building where I work.

Today I feel myself wanting to Do It Right, not waste time, be productive. I want to read, write, and make things, and because jobs are what I know, I am making it feel like a new job. I think this will ease in time.

Sang offered to take me to the Delta for a celebratory drink last night, but I suggested putting it off until tonight so it’s her weekend. Turns out we’re going for pizza and a square dance tonight instead. Happy weekend!

D.E.A.R.

Happy Drop Everything And Read Day to those who celebrate! This is me in the 1970s:

a kid curled up on a sofa, reading a paperback copy of Beverly Cleary's Ramona the Pest

Lately I’ve been working my way through the Klickitcast podcast from a few years ago, in which Phil Gonzales and John McCoy discuss nearly all of Beverly Cleary’s books (so far they’ve skipped the picture books) in publication order. They read some as kids, read some or all to their kids, and are coming fresh to some (the YA novels, in particular). Right now I’m waiting for Socks to come in for me at the library, to reread before listening to that episode.

Other sustained silent reading that has sustained me recently: two picture books that absolutely lived up to their buzz, Paka Paka con la Papa (gave me field-scientist feels, would pair with Lab Girl) and Every Monday Mabel (an observation not original to me: Mabel is in a fandom and her intense feelings about it are shared by many! just not by those immediately around her. Her fandom is the garbage truck). And a Cynthia Kadohata middle-grade novel about international adoption that I somehow missed for ten years, Half a World Away.

Currently reading

  1. Rising from the Ashes: Los Angeles, 1992 by Paula Yoon, 2024. Nonfiction, marketed as YA but reads like adult nonfiction with meticulous detail and sourcing. I remember the Rodney King case and protests, but barely, as I was absorbed with the final semester of college and graduation, no regular TV exposure. The additional context of LA’s Korean community and the Latasha Harlins case was unfamiliar. This book treats every person with respect and explains complex background and contributing factors, with lots of quotes and photos from then and now.

  2. The Pushcart Prize XLIX: Best of the Small Presses, 2025 Edition. When I was a teenager in the 1980s I used to check out the Pushcart Prize volumes from the public library. I don’t think my library carried any of the small-press and literary magazines the poems and stories came from. All I knew was there was some weird shit in there and it wasn’t like reading other books and magazines. Friends, it is still good, and still gives me a feeling of something unfiltered coming from the minds of individual people that is a balm right now. I thought I would skip a lot more than I have.

  3. The Country of the Blind, by Andrew Leland, 2023, audiobook read by the author. I’m not very far in this one, although I think I previously read an excerpt I haven’t gotten to yet, about his training at Colorado Center for the Blind. Leland has retinitis pigmentosa and learned as a teenager that his sight would deteriorate drastically over the coming decades. I’m sometimes iffy on memoirs that alternate the author’s experience with related instructional anecdotes about people in other times and places, but so far this one’s working for me.
  4. Memory, by Lois McMaster Bujold, 1996. Sanguinity is reading this to me, usually while I’m cooking or preparing to cook. I like this one– mystery is a better genre for me than military SF. I enjoy Ivan, Illyan, and Galeni, and there’s even a few look-ins from Cordelia.

David Schiff / Fear No Music

This morning Sang and I were down at the college campus, listening to her former music prof David Schiff, who will be 80 this year, talk about his life as a composer. The program started with a performance of a piece he wrote for solo viola; continued with a conversation between Schiff and a longtime announcer from the classical radio station; and finished with a second performance of the same viola piece. I loved this format, and also the inclusion of coffee and pastries.

David Schiff grew up in New York in a not-especially-musical family that nevertheless met his request for piano lessons when he was four. Not long after, they subscribed to an offshoot of the Book of the Month Club that sent them a record each month. (Schiff’s parents had just acquired a state of the art Magnavox– AM! FM! three-speed turntable! –and needed to get some music for it.) The third or so record to arrive was Debussy’s La Mer, and David Schiff listened to it over and over and over, for years. As he began to compose, he was interested in music that somehow followed from La Mer, a new sound, whether classical or jazz. Public schools in the Bronx had good music programs then, and he kept going.

To follow the idiosyncratic loves that arrive in your life, follow them through decades, let them bring you together with fellow-travelers… making space for that for everyone feels to me like the opposite of fascism. And that is something I’m feeling for these days,–where to point my nose in the current moment when small and interstitial resistance is what seems possible. (Or maybe not that small: the hefty tasks of supporting public schools and libraries are part of it.)

Anyway, it was a beautiful sunny morning and the bathroom graffiti was wholesome as usual:

handwritten sign for an informal poll: "Who would win? 10,000 horses OR 100000000 ants?" Ants are winning with four hashmarks (zero for horses)

Mishka

cover of children's novel Mishka, red with an oval portrait of a small white rabbit snuggled against a human whose unzipped jacket keeps it warmRefugees and asylum-seekers are on my mind, of course, and therefore so is one of my five favorite books read in 2024– Mishka, by Anoush Elman and Edward van de Vendel, illustrated by Annet Schaap, translated from the Dutch by Nancy Forest-Flier.

I thought when I requested it from the library that it would be a picture book, but it’s a chapter book. 160 pages.

I love it for the bizarre details of rabbit ownership. I love it for Roya’s family of six (plus Mishka) and how they share and compete over the rabbit and how they take care of each other. I love how the book reveals bit by bit, in little asides almost, what a long journey it was (it took years, pre-Mishka) to go from their home country, to transitional, temporary homes, to their new home-for-keeps. Weirdly, I love it for Roya’s breakdown at school, because her teacher loves her, and her class understands what’s important.

Highly recommend this book and a browse through other titles at Levine Querido, which is dedicated to diverse kidlit.

let your heart be kindled by kindness

Today I re-started bike commuting. I love taking the bus and listening to audiobooks and podcasts, but now public schools are in session and the first half of my commute features a tightly-packed crowd of high-schoolers. And our covid rates are high right now.

I was #418 across Tilikum Crossing this morning, a higher count than I’ve seen for awhile. The last hill up to campus is steep for me, so I was walking my bike up the sidewalk when a guy yelled, “Nice helmet!” and pulled up wearing the same model I was– Nutcase, navy with white polka dots, and the first exact match I’ve seen in the wild.

navy-blue bike helmet with white polka dot pattern

Then he asked if my bike was okay. I thanked him and said yeah, I’m just out of shape! He rode away effortlessly up the hill on his acoustic cargo bike. Respect.

Anyway, bike commuting shows me a lot of kindness from people. From drivers too.