I walked down through the college campus this morning. One of my last chances to do so for awhile: next month campus will close to casual public traffic because students are coming back in person.
A weathergram is ephemeral, but these days it feels on the long side of ephemeral. This one was hung in October for the inauguration of the new college president; I wonder what it will mean by the time it’s delivered.
Gradually, Then Suddenly
A couple of weeks ago I was proofreading a newsletter for my co-worker, and it felt strange that Black wasn’t capitalized when talking about people. I didn’t correct it, because it was consistent and I follow Chicago Manual of Style instead of APA for that newsletter, but sure enough a few days later the CMS confirmed my spidey-sense and announced the change in their recommendations. The AP, and therefore the website formerly known as my local paper, too. It was definitely less than a year ago but feels like ancient history that seeing Black capitalized meant I was reading something from the 1970s or a social work article.
”Is it reflex or sickness?”
I can’t remember how I got there—probably from Twitter—but I watched this five-minute video about asemic writing by Ananda Naima González, and gave it a try. Mine came out like this:
Looking back at the translation I wrote shortly afterward, it does reflect my state of mind on the day I wrote it. My favorite line: “is it reflex or sickness?”
If I try it again, I might write right to left, since I don’t usually get to do that and as a lefty it might feel good.
.
Love from A to Z, by S.K. Ali
Just finished the audiobook of this Muslim YA romance and it was so good! In the middle I was getting big Pride and Prejudice feels—they needed to work through their different outlooks on life, for real, but it was never the annoying “just a big misunderstanding” romance trope.
Then I was heading out for a walk and there was 45 minutes left in the book, and Adam and Zayneb were in love and trusting each other and communicating, and I thought, “Is it going to be 45 minutes of how things worked out happily?” and reader, it pretty much was!
I loved Adam’s family in particular and also now want to visit Doha. Islamophobia is a topic in the book, but not in the characters’ families or between Adam and Zayneb, It’s more about thinking through how to be yourself and not lose joy in your life even though haters are lurking.
There is a meant-to-be, Happily Ever After vibe much like the one in When Dimple Met Rishi, but it didn’t feel limiting to me like some YA romance does when it goes that way. Maybe because they weren’t high school boyfriend/girlfriend.
Anyway, it was a balm and just what I like in an audiobook.
Three More Things Wrap Up a Post
…well, by achieved I mean reached. I took the day off work to mooch around and think about life, which I have done, largely in the back yard. It’s a good day. And sanguinity’s going to pick up Thai food and ice cream for us this evening.
For those who know him and have not heard elsewhere, I’m so sorry to report that Stephen, aka leboyfriend, died last night. He was in England, hospitalized with Covid-19 and other complicating factors, and passed away in his sleep.
I wish he’d gotten to marry his fiancee Imani and live for many more happy years. His is the most generous spirit I’ve ever known.
I started working at home on Monday. Remote Desktop is so neat— the laptop I checked out from work controls my office computer, so I have my desktop, all the files, software, et cetera. Some things still take much longer because of the switching back and forth between windows on the laptop screen instead of spreading out over two monitors.
Work was very busy this week, payroll deadlines and a grant proposal and I’m also filling in for someone in our sister department who’s off having a baby. Sang and I can go for a walk at lunchtime and eat together.
I’m expecting Portland to issue a Shelter in Place order any hour now, but it won’t change my plans or activities, as the grocery store and walks are my only destinations now. Trader Joe’s on Tuesday morning was very cheering. There was a line waiting for the store to open, a very long line, but that was because people were queueing up six or more feet apart. Staff controlled how many people entered the store at once, and seniors got to go first. There was a two-per-item limit on everything but frozen food and fresh single items like bananas (oh, and one-per on toilet paper). As soon as the staff announced that, I felt great relief, because I wasn’t competing with the people around me and decision-making became much easier. And everyone was kind and upbeat. It made me feel really good about my neighborhood.
I registered for another class in the graduate publishing program this spring, Publishing for Young Adults. Unexpectedly taught remotely, of course. I am practicing my Zoom skills. But I think it’s going to be really good for me; look at my coursebooks that I’ll be reading instead of the news. 
I am extremely fortunate to be so well set up going into this, and very worried about those who are not. Wishing for health and safety for us all.
I used to adhere to a “never pay for parking” philosophy. It meant, for instance, parking at the big movie theater and riding the light rail across the river to go downtown. (Oh Fareless Square, you are not forgotten.)
Now I feel relief that I’ve let go of that and am both able and willing to pay for parking. And I’ve decided not to sweat the five cents for a paper bag, either, if I didn’t bring enough totes to the grocery store.
Middle age, I guess.
What you would see next if I hadn’t run out of steam:
because we happened to have some Swiss cheese. A batch makes two bowls plus two packed lunches. Needed nine packed lunches. So on to pasta puttanesca, one of our workhorse lunch recipes. I keep thinking it’s vegetarian and then remember the anchovies.
It is still dark when I walk home from the bus, evenings. I was not expecting a glowing rabbit on Harold Street.
I like January’s honest cold, better than the frequent chilly setbacks of springtime that start in February around here. Still, the last several photos I took on neighborhood walks seem to be of fences with a certain aesthetic:
when Halloween decorations are too good to take down
not sure which holiday this was for
strange…how exactly?
Turns out The Bread Book is an anarcho-communist manual. I tried the first few pages but it wasn’t for me.
On a brighter note, this morning I checked Twitter and remembered it was ALA Youth Media Awards day! I live on the west coast and am not a librarian, so I will probably always experience it in silence, sipping coffee in my bathrobe while feeling celebratory bursts.
My favorite book of 2019, Sal and Gaby Break the Universe by Carlos Hernandez, won the Pura Belpré Author Award! 
I don’t read a lot of picture books, but one I loved, Infinite Hope by Ashley Bryan, won a Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor. It’s autobiographical, with many excerpts from Bryan’s letters home during World War II, when he was in an all-Black company stationed on Omaha Beach during D-Day, burying fallen soldiers and shuttling out to the ships to unload gear as a stevedore. It’s also about how he stayed alive as an artist in the face of racism and war. A treasure. 
And this was the first year that the American Indian Youth Literature awards got announced at this event, instead of separately a month or two later. The Middle Grade Book winner is Indian No More, written by the late Charlene Willing McManis (Umpqua/Confederated Tribes of Grande Ronde) with Traci Sorell (Cherokee), and with this beautiful cover art by Marlena Myles (Spirit Lake Dakota, Mohegan, Muscogee Creek): 
In it, Regina is a kid when her nation loses federal recognition in the 1950s, and her family ends up moving away to LA, where the other kids only know about Plains Indians, through the distortion of TV and movies (so they think she’s weird and fake). Its publication was a collaborative labor of love among several Native and POC women, and seeing a kids’ book about disenrollment (and near where I live) feels important.
Stonewall honor!
my Christmas Eve book won an Alex award!
Newbery Honor: I haven’t read this one yet but asked the library to buy it and they said yes!
Traditional new year’s photo of the park:
It may not look as inspiring as it has other years, featuring neither snow nor sunshine, but after the nasty cold that consumed a week of my life, I was happy to get out on a walk and see it.
I pulled together my 2019 reading list yesterday, and my favorites were all kidlit:
I read Mao and Me again, last night and this morning. It’s a picture-book memoir of the Cultural Revolution, seen through the eyes of a boy age 3 – 13. I love the art, with lots of black ink and several images together on a page.
But most of all I love how somehow amidst the big events and big emotions there is room to sit there quietly beside the author with it all. The ending is part of this:
For a number of years now I have lived abroad, but I return to China regularly to see my family. My parents have not moved. The city of my childhood has changed a lot, yet my apartment building has stayed the same and the tree in the courtyard is still there.
I don’t know if this has explained it at all, but I’m not that much of a picture book person and I haven’t been able to bring myself to take this one back to the library. (I mean, I will. There are limits on renewals. So I will, eventually, buy a copy and take this one back.)
The view from my office window this morning…was there a backup at the airport, or what?
ETA: there was a backup, but at SeaTac, where fog necessitated spacing the planes more widely. Portland was the holding pen with-runways-if-necessary
This had been sitting on my bookshelf for a few months. I think I’d been passing it over because it looks like a standard-issue wacky middle-grade buddy novel, plus it’s a Disney imprint, so…
But then I saw it had six nominations in the Heavy Medal mock Newbery listings, and there was probably a reason it was on my shelf in the first place, so…
It was so good! It’s funny, and it kept surprising me, and something about the logic of it all reminded me of Daniel Pinkwater. Not directly in style, but if there were a Pinkwater Award for humorous middle-grade fiction, this would win it.
Catnip: arts magnet school, supportive families, alternate universes. Plus Miami Cuban culture and Type 1 diabetes representation. Thanks, Rick Riordan, for reading the author’s adult short-story anthology, calling him up, and inviting him to write for kids! I mean, that’s fantasy fodder all on its own.
And I love living in the future, because just as I got towards the end, I saw news of the sequel on Twitter:
Submitted my novel edits for Sal and Gabi Fix the Universe!
It was like playing Cow Clicker for a week straight, except, instead of clicking on a cow 7,000 times, I pressed “accept” on Track Changes 7,000 times, while thinking, ” @SOLurie must think I’m a frickin’ idiot.”
— Carlos Hernandez ???? (@WriteTeachPlay) November 6, 2019