Wellness Wednesday – The Thing About My Body

Posted on November 3, 2021 by Thistle

A month ago, I went on a week-long vacation through multiple state and national parks. It was an amazing vacation. Jason and I had lots of fun and saw incredible things. We were active, outdoors, and having adventures.

But this is the social media side of vacation. The happy photos. The triumphant photos. What this doesn’t show is the struggles. The difficulty of doing these things in a large body. The fear when you don’t know if you’re going to make it back up out of that chasm you just climbed down into. The need to stop to gulp in air even though it feels like you’re hardly moving. The pain of sore feet, the ache of an overworked heart, the flushed skin and joint stiffness that gets worse the longer you go.

I’m being facetious here, putting up the unflattering photos to contrast the first set, but this IS the reality. In reality, lowering yourself onto a sled without just plopping onto your butt while the sand shifts around you is HARD when your body is very heavy and your joints are stiff and your boobs block your ability to see your feet. Trying to climb up a mountain, even with a gradual elevation, makes your heart race and your lungs gasp. Hip stiffness and belly fat make it difficult to lift your leg high enough to climb up that four-foot-high boulder. Your feet and back HURT when you “walk” (aka mostly stand) as you leisurely make your way around the 1.5-mile path through caves. In reality, when you realize you’ve chosen poorly on your first hike in a week of adventures, you start choosing the safer, easier trails even though you really want to go with the fun, life-changing paths. (And this doesn’t even begin to discuss the psychology and cultural biases and medical care issues – that’s an entirely different issue!)

It’s very disheartening, and it’s not just while on vacation or trying to exercise. Feet hurt when you need to stand in line for a long time. (And yeah, this happens at all sizes, but I’ve been every size within a 100-lb range in the last decade alone, and I can tell you it’s MUCH WORSE the heavier you get.) Excess fat and skin get in the way of everything. When you’re big-chested like me, your breasts get in the way even when you’re thin, but it’s particularly bad at this size. It takes an incredible amount of strength just to move the excess weight on your body around, and stay mobile. If you aren’t at a BMI considered “morbidly obese” (BMI of 40+), figure out what that weight would be for you and then try to carry around the difference between that weight and your current body weight. For me, I carry a lot of that weight on my upper back and shoulders because of the way my body is built. So imagine slinging that extra weight, whether it’s 20 lbs or 100 lbs, across your shoulders and then hiking up a mountain. It’s tough. And yet that’s every day of my existence as a larger-bodied person.

The above collage is from a year ago, before the weird medication from my ex-doctor caused me to start gaining weight again. I weighed 30 lbs less in those photos, which are a combination of both flattering and unflattering so that it’s not just the highlight reel. Before a year ago, I’d kept at that same weight and those same measurements for about 4.5 years, since the weird 18-month gain of 75 lbs that no doctor could explain. (It abruptly ended in March 2016, out of no where, with no changes on my part, the same way it began.) And at that weight I maintained for 4.5 years, things weren’t always comfortable. My feet did tire faster, my body was less mobile than I liked, my joints hurt from time to time, etc. But I didn’t also hesitate to climb trails with heavy elevation, or scramble up high boulders, or run for miles in my local park. I’d worked hard to build the strength to support that size of body, since no matter what I did, I couldn’t decrease my size or weight.

I am intimately familiar with a very large weight range on my body. I can tell you exactly what weight line I cross when people treat me like a human being (under the line) or not (above). I know the line where back pain from my breasts increases/decreases significantly. I know where my body feels healthiest (and hey, I’m still considered “overweight” at this (pictured) size by BMI and doctors), and every spot on the scale at which my body holds onto weight for awhile as it physically adjusts to loss or gain. I know at which weight I begin to struggle with hormone issues and hypoglycemia. And I know the weight at which everything in my body spins wildly out of control. That last one comes about 8 lbs higher than where I was a year ago, and about 10 lbs under what is considered “morbidly obese” for my body. This is when my liver enzymes, cholesterol, glucose, estrogen, blood pressure, and heart rate start to go out of whack. Because believe it or not, I was perfectly healthy in those photos from a year ago, despite being obese. And I am NOT healthy now, no matter how well I eat or how much I exercise.

Here’s the thing. I want to lose weight – or more accurately, size. If I replace fat weight with muscle weight and get smaller, that’s fine. The weight on the scale isn’t the important part. Anyway. I want to get smaller. I want to be able to get on an airplane again without fear of the difficulty squeezing into a seat. I want to be able to see my feet when I look down. I want to run or hike difficult trails without destroying my heart or joints or feet. I want to be able to shop in regular stores for clothes. I want to stop having conversations about my size (with myself, and with others). I want to FEEL GOOD again. None of this is about a goal weight. Sure, it would be nice to lose 100 lbs and be back to where my body feels best, like in the above picture. But if I lost 70 lbs and my body was in good health and shape (photo with green shirt), I’d be good with that. Hell, I could lose 30 lbs and be back to where I was a year ago and I’d be much, much happier – and healthier.

Unfortunately, no amount of wishing and wanting is going to change what my body is doing. And also unfortunately, no amount of doing all the things you’re supposed to do to lose weight is going to change what my body is doing, either. When something is wrong inside my body, it no longer acts like a body. Doctors can tell me all they want that it’s “impossible” for me to gain weight while on a medication that makes me eat less than 1000 calories a day, or when my large intestine is so inflamed that everything I eat goes right through me within an hour for weeks on end. “Impossible” isn’t a word my body knows. My body holds up a Go to Jail Do Not Pass Go Do Not Collect $200 card if something has gone wrong inside it, and until I figure out The Thing That Is Wrong, weight loss = the only kind of “impossible” my body will recognize.

And this is frustrating as all hell, because I don’t know what tf to do about it. I can eat well, track my food, exercise regularly, blah blah blah, but nope, nothing I do changes a damn thing. This has me angry and hopeless and determined and despairing all at once. I feel like I’m bouncing around in an ever-shrinking room and can’t find a way out.

So I keep going to doctors. In the next month, I’m scheduled for an endoscopy, biopsy, colonoscopy, thyroid ultrasound, and fibroscan, in addition to my regular lab work. Soon I’ll also finally see the rheumatologist I scheduled with all the way back in April, as well as a urogynecologist. It’s possible food allergy tests will be performed alongside the plethora of GI procedures (that will all come the week before Thanksgiving, yay?), and if not, it’s back to the allergist for those. I can’t even begin to count the number of doctors, specialists, and procedures I’ve had done in 2021. With no results whatsoever so far. Sigh.

But you know, I just have to keep going. Keep eating well, keep exercising, trying to build strength and prevent injury, keep going to doctors, keep seeking answers, keep looking for the key that will unlock my body’s ability to be a body again. All the while trying to manage that emotional bouncing chamber that keeps shrinking around me.

Posted in Wellness | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments

October 2021 in Review

Posted on November 1, 2021 by Thistle

October! Spooky month, the month of temperature changes, a month that I normally shove a lot into and overextend myself. Happy to say that I didn’t do the latter this year. I knew I’d be coming back from vacation early on, and I didn’t want to try to do too much. I’m glad I didn’t, because it’s been a rather difficult month in terms of my brain. Things haven’t been hard externally, but a big chunk of October was spent changing my anti-anxiety medication, and any time you change medication like that, you have days of brain fog and adjustment. My doctor and I have gone slow, though, so it hasn’t been too bad. Side effects have been minimal – which is good, as the last time this medication had to be adjusted, my previous doctor went too fast and the side effects were some of the worst I’ve had! Brain zaps = no fun!

Even with my attempts to keep things slow, it was a busy month. Vacation, obviously, in the first few days. Laurence was in full-on rehearsal mode for the play he was in, with nights extending past 7pm almost every day, and then the play opened up on the 27th. There were a bunch of doctor visits, especially in the second half of the month. We had two family birthdays as well, including my oldest son’s 21st birthday. And at the end of the month, we did a fundraising walk for the ALS foundation with my friend Natalie and her husband, who developed the first early symptoms of ALS in March and has progressed far more rapidly than anyone can explain. Add to that the new phase of gardening (more below), Gherkin’s spay surgery (though sadly, her new family pulled out of the adoption, boo!), Halloween, and my personal attempts to improve my health this month, and it’s been…a lot more than I wanted it to be. I don’t regret it, though. I’m just looking forward to getting through all the medical portions so I can go back to focusing on better things!

Books
I actually read quite a lot in October because it was full-steam ahead on my TBR culling project. Did I enjoy all eight books I read? Nope. I was quite angry with some of them, and probably I ought to have quit reading at least two. But I did enjoy some, and my favorites of the month are definitely The Ex Hex (in terms of enjoyment) and One Great Lie (in terms of enrichment).

Goals
A big part of me is already looking ahead to next year’s goals, especially as I’ve basically given up on 2021’s. I also don’t want to (aka shouldn’t) start making goals because I have no idea where I’ll be medically at the beginning of 2022. I’m dealing with so many issues and starting to get swamped by them. It feels like drowning on dry land, physically and mentally. I actually took several photos this month trying to portray the feeling.

Health
More doctor’s appointments, more scheduled procedures, more medication changes. Also, I’m tired. Very, very tired.

House
The weather is starting to turn toward cooler temps, hurrah! We finally got someone to come put gutters on the back of our house (previous company we were working with kept saying they’d come, but after three months of not coming, we gave up on them). Once that was done, we were able to plan for the next phase of work on our yard. There’s still quite a bit to do! We had a few priorities to start with this month: planting the overcrowded aloe into the ground; getting more plants to fill out the front beds; and working to stabilize the side yard against erosion. And this went fairly according to plan. The succulent garden is planted now (far more than I originally intended or planned for!), and there are a few new plants to help fill in the front beds (not enough, but some), and parts of the side yard have been stabilized. I’ll post more about the succulent garden in its own dedicated post.

Favorite photos
These are excluding any photos from vacation, since those were already shared in other posts. As always, these photos are taken by me and aren’t always the best photography, just the ones I liked best for one reason or another.

Top, left to right: Jojo and the candy; fire; Angy-boi cuddles
Middle, l to r: drowning on dry land; he put himself into the recycling
Bottom, l to r: moon; Ghost in the window; fairy watching over the garden

Highlights of October
Again, these will exclude vacation or they’d be overrun, heh.

  • seeing my babies on returning home from vacation!
  • new couch (the old one actually had its arms fall off!) and a new armchair for my bedroom
  • getting my 3rd covid dose!
  • finally getting the Halloween decor up
  • good news from Jason’s employer
  • starting a new phase of xeriscaping our yards
  • cold fronts!
  • getting good photos of the moon
  • seeing an easter tiger swallowtail, which I hadn’t yet seen in the garden
  • the ALS walk with Nat and Chris
  • Laurence’s play, which was highly disturbing (a retelling of Dracula called The Transylvanian Clockworks, in which L played Dr Van Helsing, a gaslighting and murderous old psychiatrist)
  • seeing my mom for the first time in ages, and watching her play with the kittens – Angus, who normally avoids strangers the most, came right out to her to play and get pets. I’ve literally never seen him do this with anyone not in our household!
  • giving out full size candy bars on Halloween!

Coming up in November
This will be a heavy medical month for me. I’m not looking forward to having three intestinal procedures done a week before Thanksgiving, eek. But it is what it is. Hopefully they’ll at least figure something out. I also hope we can find new homes for our little kitties soon.

Posted in Personal | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Sunday Coffee – Wrapping Up RIP XVI + Halloween!!

Posted on October 31, 2021 by Thistle

It was a weird RIP season for me. I really started reading much earlier than usual (and technically before the challenge started), and then ended up culling most of the books on my original list. Normally, I read tons of books in September and October, because this challenge kinda invigorates me, but that didn’t happen this year. In the end, I only read eight books for RIP (and only if you count the few I read prior to the challenge officially starting). In order of when I finished:

  • Survive the Night – Riley Sager
  • All Our Hidden Gifts – Caroline O’Donoghue
  • Devil’s Night – Todd Ritter
  • The Drowning Kind – Jennifer McMahon
  • Ghosts of the Tsunami – Richard Lloyd Parry
  • The Haunting of Gillespie House – Darcy Coates
  • The Ex Hex – Erin Sterling
  • The Postscript Murders – Elly Griffiths

And of those eight, it was a pretty mixed bag, with five that I enjoyed and three that I didn’t. Even those I enjoyed broke down into two that I loved and three that were good but not phenomenal. Beyond those eight, I literally cut another nine from the list, read one from the list that didn’t end up being RIPish at all, and was unable to get my hands on four in time for this challenge. Oh well. Best books of the challenge? All Our Hidden Gifts and The Ex Hex.

As for bingo…

I hadn’t actually looked at this card since the challenge started, so I’m pleasantly surprised by how many categories I ticked off! No vampires or masks or creepy fungus (I read that book last year, ha!), wasn’t into the group book, and I don’t cook so I didn’t make any meals. But I got 19 categories plus the middle freebie, for quite a few bingos along the way!

*******
As for Halloween itself, it’s been a rather enjoyable, if subdued, spooky season. Decor got up a little late, but it happened. Pumpkins also acquired late, but acquired. Jason bought me Day of the Dead mugs and a spooky light projector and ghost lights for my bedroom. Laurence and his friends decided to go trick-or-treating dressed up as witches (complete with pointy hats and black skirts). I didn’t read as many spooky books as usual, nor did I watch many spooky movies. But I discovered a new spooky podcast (Uncanny), and I’m hosting a spooky haunted Halloween hike tonight in addition to giving out treats. We had fire pit s’mores on cool nights and took amazing photos of the full moon. For a year when my mental health hasn’t been great, this slow-speed holiday season was kind of exactly what I needed.

Posted in Book Talk | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Quarantine Diaries – Weeks 83-85

Posted on October 29, 2021 by Thistle

So I’ll be honest. There’s been very little news. We’re in a lull portion of the waves of this pandemic. Not much to report. I’m sure there’ll be another upswing again with people refusing to get vaccinated. Another variant will come roaring in and upend everything. In the meantime, I’m once again closing out this series the way I did in June. Maybe in a month I’ll start again, or maybe I won’t have to. Who knows? But as for now, this is the news from the last three weeks.

Week 83 – Oct 8 – 14
Week 84 – Oct 15 – 21
Week 85 – Oct 22 – 28

The following numbers are current, and I’m not going to backdate them with three individual weeks’ worth of data. Things have been calm and steady enough to combine the info. All numbers are as of 10/28 unless otherwise specified.

  • Cases: 321,013 (+6,828 in three weeks)
  • Deaths: 4,814 (+255 in three weeks)
  • Seven-day rolling average: 200
  • Positivity rate: 1.9%
  • Cases per 100k: 12
  • Hospitalizations: 241 patients; 100 in ICU
  • Vaccinations: 92% eligible and 76% total population have one dose; 76% eligible and 64% total population are fully vaxxed

(I forgot to track the numbers from our school these last few weeks.)

The biggest news from the last few weeks is another move by Abbott to become Dictator of Texas. All that stuff about how government shouldn’t control businesses? Yeah that only works for Abbott if the government control is doing things he doesn’t like. Literally, in August he said, “Private businesses don’t need government running their business,” and then he put out an order this month that prohibits ALL private businesses in Texas from vaccine mandates. This is, of course, in direct contradiction to the new federal mandates that say vaccine mandates are a requirement for any business with 100+ employees. As you might imagine, lawsuits are already flying everywhere, and frankly, a lot of businesses in TX already gave Abbott a one-fingered salute and said they would ignore him. He’s a f-cking embarrassment to the state and the country. VOTE HIM OUT. Ugh.

He’s also called a special session to pass a law to this effect, after which he’ll rescind his “emergency” order. And the special session will pass it, because the GoP controls every part of TX government, due to gerrymandering. (Which has, off-topic, now gotten worse, after the government voted to change the lines to give heavily democratic areas and populations of color less of a say in representatives. That, also, has been pelted with a bajillion lawsuits.)

Not much else beyond that in the news. The TX Supreme Court temporarily blocked SAISD’s vaccine mandate just hours before it would go into effect, pending trial outcome. Local covid briefings have dropped down to once a week. Jail inmates are getting a $100 commissary card incentive for getting vaccinated, and that is working very well as an incentive. Mix-and-match covid boosters have been approved, and many of my friends are getting theirs. Kids’ vaccines are coming very soon. And there’s studies on a new anti-viral pill that might help combat covid cases, which is good news.

Closer to home, there’s also not much news, but the news I do have is sad. I mentioned a few posts back that a friend’s loved one was in the hospital with covid pneumonia despite being fully vaccinated. Unfortunately, that loved one passed away early this month. This was a completely preventable death, if people had just gotten their damn vaccines, which makes it even more tragic. I also heard from a cousin this month. She’s so immunocompromised that her doctor got her both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccine back in the spring, even though she’d already had covid in January. And with all that, she got covid again last month. This. This is why people need to get the vaccine – because people like her are so susceptible.

But, you know, you can’t make people be kind. You can’t make them want to do the right thing. And this is where the divide in our country comes from: the people on one side saying that this is why we need to force the right thing (or at least make it very difficult not to do the right thing, with vaccine mandates in businesses, and vaccine passports, etc); and the people on the other side who say we should all have the freedom to be a$$holes if we want to be. Eyeroll.

Posted in Personal | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Grandma Gatewood’s Walk, by Ben Montgomery (audio)

Posted on October 28, 2021 by Thistle

Emma Gatewood through-hiked the Appalachian Trail in 1955, at the age of 67. She was a robust woman who trained by walking ten miles a day for months leading up to the hike, and who knew how to survive on the bare minimums after decades of hard living. As she went along the trail, she gained notoriety, and eventually became known as the Queen of the AT. Much of what she said and did during that walk influenced policies going forward about the AT, and helped to turn it into the trail that it is today. This book is a mini-biography, focusing primarily on Emma’s hike, but also going back through her life and into history in general.

TW: domestic violence

I’m in two minds about this one. On the one hand, I admire Gatewood and the things she accomplished, not just on that hike but throughout her life. She was a very fascinating person that could run rings around most of us. I’m also enthralled by the Appalachian Trail, and have been for many years. I doubt I’ll ever be able to hike it, especially not thru-hiking, but it calls to me. (Likely because I spent time in nearby mountains as a child, in North Carolina, and remember those times very fondly.) So reading about all that was great.

Less great was the deviations that the author kept taking. It was like there wasn’t enough information to write a full book about Gatewood’s hike across the AT, so there were tangents about her earlier life, the history of the AT, the liquor laws that affected much of the Appalachian areas, the controversies of other people’s hikes, extensive information about hurricanes over many years, etc. If I’d been reading a physical book, I would have skipped those sections. With the audiobook, I just wanted to scream get on with it!

Toward the end of the book, the author suddenly inserted himself, apparently going along Gatewood’s hike as accurately as possible (a difficulty, as the Trail itself has been reshaped and moved in places). There’s a possibility that he mentions this at the beginning of the book, but by the time I’d gotten to the end, I’d completely forgotten, and it really pulled me out of the book to have the sudden insertion. Especially as the author decided to refer to himself with words like “pantywaist,” which have such sexist connotations that I literally winced.

So I found the content – when it was on point – to be interesting, and the writing to be pretty cringeworthy. Also cringeworthy: the narration. The audiobook is read by Patrick Lawlor. It’s my first experience with him, and his style isn’t one I enjoyed. I actually encountered a similar narrator a few years back when I read Real Food Fake Food, and described it in my review as a cross between a game show and a shocker news program. That’s a spot-on description for this one, too. But while it was just annoying in RFFF, it was kinda horrific in this one. You know how, in fiction, a big action scene is often narrated in higher tones, faster pace, and with enthusiastic vocalizations? It helps get the reader into the story, and ramps up the tension. Well…this book did the same…only the “action” parts…well, they were when Emma’s husband was beating her. The narrator sounded excited and frankly almost turned on while reading these sections, and it was utterly horrifying. Add in all the really exaggerated southern drawls, and it’s safe to say that I downright hated the audio narration. (Why didn’t I return it to Audible and read the print version? Because frickin’ Audible is making it 1000x more difficult to return books these days, and so I just dealt with it. But this is beside the point.)

In the end, I half-recommend this book. Skip the audio, and read the book if you don’t mind the sort of biography that goes off on tangents and skips around in time. But skip the book if that sort of thing bothers you. Just make sure to go read something about Emma Gatewood, because she’s downright incredible.

Posted in 2021, Adult, Prose | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Wellness Wednesday – Sucker-punched

Posted on October 27, 2021 by Thistle

Early last week, I was having a stressful, exhausted afternoon and decided to take a nap. I was woken from that nap by a voice in my head. It was an incredibly distinct voice and sounded like someone had spoken in my ear, except that I knew it was in my head. The voice said, “Her name is Joana.”

There are multiple sleep phenomena in the world that can involve sleep interruptions by sounds. A common one (which I don’t have) is exploding head syndrome. I say that I don’t have this, but this is the closest thing I can find to what I experienced. Granted, I haven’t spent a lot of time researching, as I rarely experience this kind of sleep disruption. However, this isn’t the first time. I can remember instances all the way back to early childhood, but they are few and far between. Actually, I’ve had three incidents since July 2020, which is roughly the same as my entire life before July 2020, at least that I can recall off the top of my head.

I bring this all up because of an incident in September 2014, my most significant ever. We were living in Boston at the time, and early one morning, my dreams were interrupted by a song. The song was an old country song from the 90s that had gained special significance to me in 2007 when it was played at my grandfather’s funeral. This song interrupted my dreams with an abruptness and clarity that could have been a radio switched on suddenly. It cut through the static of my brain and jolted me awake. And I knew immediately that my aunt had passed away. She lived over 2000 miles away from me, but I knew she was gone. Was her death unexpected? No. She’d been battling cancer. But did I know how close she was? No. I hadn’t had any updates in several months. So yeah, I knew it could happen, but that night, with that song, I was absolutely positive. When it was late enough in the day to politely make phone calls, I contacted my mom. My aunt had died the same hour that song interrupted my dreams. (Photo taken on that day, when I was grieving.)

Back to Joana. The reason I bring up the 2014 incident is because each time this kind of thing happens, I get a presentiment of some kind. Sometimes it’s vague, sometimes it’s more specific. Sometimes it amounts to nothing, sometimes it definitely means something. So early last week, I heard those words: Her name is Joana. I only know of one Joana, and she’s the woman who bought my family’s home in 2014, when we moved to Boston. We’d lived in that home since early 2006. Our boys grew up in that home. And I’ve regretted selling it almost from the moment it sold. Every day for years now, I’ve opened the Trulia app on my phone to see if that house has been listed for sale. Silly, right? It’s been seven years. I’ve been through five homes since then. I even like my current home. But that home…it was special. I’ve talked about this before, the instantaneous falling in love with a house, when it just feels right. That was our home. In my mind, it will always be Home.

That day, I looked on the Trulia app, because I just had a feeling. The feeling, of course, came from the name Joana. But there was nothing on Trulia, nothing on web searches, nothing anywhere. And tbh, I dismissed the incident as a muddled waking brain after that. My last two incidents had come to nothing, so why should I think this one would? A few days later, as I was eating lunch, I opened up my Trulia app like I do every day, and it was like being sucker-punched.

My home is for sale.

My home. My home. I saved all 35 photos that were on the various realty websites. I looked at all the changes Joana’s family has made, and saw all the little things that hadn’t changed. The oak sapling we’d planted in 2011 (pictured just after planting) has grown into a whole real tree that actually shades the windows we intended it to shade. There was this little wooden chicken the before-us owners bolted into the wall beside the dishwasher, with a sign hanging from it that flipped to say “clean” or “dirty.” The sign was lost by the time we sold the house…and that stupid little chicken with a missing sign is still there! So is the hideous old linoleum and metal leaf light-switch cover in the laundry room (both also predated us). Silly things. Things that made me tear up and laugh at the same time.

I want to go see it. I want to walk through it for the first time in seven years. And a part of me is dying inside, because I know I can’t get it back. We bought our current house less than two years ago. The housing market has gone insane. (They’re literally selling the house for $100k more than they bought it for.) And frankly, I know it would be better NOT to buy back the house. I know exactly what problems that house has. I don’t miss the two ash trees in the front yard, or the constant shifting of the foundation that causes cracks in the walls, or the a/c system that is so old that it’s barely holding on (unless they’ve replaced it, but I doubt it, given the listing would emphasize that if they had). It would be a lot of time and work and money to revert back the things they changed, like putting a bathtub back into the master bathroom, or replacing the flooring that they changed to what they liked, or repainting everything. And it would never be the same. You can’t go back. You can only go forward, and this current home is my forward.

Still feels like being sucker-punched, though. And I still want to walk through it. My emotions have been bouncing all over the place, making me very vulnerable right now.

*****
After talking with several friends over the weekend, and doing some soul-searching, I decided to take a very definitive step toward the present instead of the past. Jason and I planted our succulent garden this weekend. Two very important things went into this garden: the aloe that my dear friend Nat gave to me in 2018, and mixed into the soil, Ash’s ashes. I know that may not sound like much to someone else, but for me, that was a very symbolic act, one that says, I am here, I am home, this is home now.

Posted in Personal | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

It’s Kind of a Cheesy Love Story, by Lauren Morrill

Posted on October 25, 2021 by Thistle

Ever since Beck was born – in the bathroom of a local pizza joint – her life has been defined by that moment. She’s the Bathroom Baby or the Pizza Princess, with free pizza for life, a yearly birthday party with her photo in the newspaper and on the wall of the restaurant, and a guaranteed job at Hot n’ Crusty when she turns 16. She doesn’t want the job – hell, she wants nothing more than to never be associated with HnC again! – but she needs the money. And it turns out that working at the pizza joint might just be her way of finding herself and learning how to live outside of the shadow of her birth-fame.

Note: If you don’t like spoilers, please don’t read the back-of-the-book or Goodreads description of this novel! There are things mentioned that don’t actually occur until nearly 300 pages of the book. This review, as well as my synopsis above, contains no spoilers.

Okay, now that that’s out of the way…

Sometimes, I just want to give Lauren Morrill a big hug. Not all her books are perfect for me, but they’re very much comfort reads and bring me back to my own adolescence (in a good way!) even though these characters are living several decades later and refer back to “in the 90s” the same way we referred to “in the 60s.” Ha! Morrill does a great job capturing the neurotic, anxious teen girl, and all too often, I find myself connecting with her main characters even though I’m 42 years old now. It’s not just emotional connection, either. Whether it’s a swimmer on a study abroad program (me!), a cruise setting (my fave!), or growing up in distressing levels of poverty (also me!), there’s often some personal aspect that I connect to on a very personal level. Ditto this book: my first job was in pizza, so a lot of the chaos that goes on at Beck’s job is very, very familiar. On that touchstone, a lovely story blossoms.

This is a story about a girl afraid to be herself. A girl questioning her friendships. A girl dealing with a crush that may or may not be healthy. A girl juggling two lives before she even realizes it’s happening. A girl embarrassed by her past, her choices, her likes, her job, etc. But it’s also about a girl with a supportive family. With friends who make mistakes like anyone, but who are trying to be real friends. With complicated romance and good people. It’s about found family and learning to embrace yourself.

I won’t pretend that Lauren Morrill’s stories are entirely realistic. They have happy endings that probably wouldn’t end so happily in real life. But they make you smile, and laugh, and cry, in all the best ways. These are huggable books, and when I’m feeling sad or down, they’re the perfect ones to pick up and remember that trials can be overcome. Or at very least, an escape for a few hours in pleasurable reading.

Weird thing, though, that has nothing to do with the book and more to do with the editing. Near the end of the book, twice a character is misnamed. Molly (a reporter) is referred to as Tamsin (one of Beck’s friends), and then someone named Lena just appears out of nowhere in one scene (I’m guessing it’s meant to be Julianne, and the character’s name had been changed from Lena in earlier drafts?). I’m not used to the editing missing things like this in Morrill’s books!

Posted in 2021, Prose, Young Adult | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Sunday Coffee – 100 Happy Days, Part 2

Posted on October 24, 2021 by Thistle

I’m halfway through this 100-day photo challenge to capture a happy moment from each day. Days 26 to 50 go from Sept 26th to Oct 20th, and the first big chunk of them were during vacation. There were days when it was tough to choose just ONE happy photo! Back at home, and still suffering from a lot of mental health issues, it’s been tougher. However, I keep trying to find little pieces of joy. The following photos are from the Day 26-50 time period, but skip vacation days, as I’ve basically featured those in posts already. So really, this is from October 3rd to 20th. In no particular order:

From 10/12 – Some days, you just need a chocolate muffin.

From 10/16 – Jason and I have begun the next phase of planting in our yard, and while we were out at the nursery, they had fall bouquets for sale. I loved them so much and definitely got one. Despite doing pretty well in terms of a garden in our yard, I actually have a black thumb. The garden thrives purely because I let it do its own thing and don’t mess with it! So I’ve never been able to keep a potted plant alive. I don’t know how this one will fare, but at least it’s pretty in the meantime.

From 10/5 – There’s nothing particularly remarkable about this photo, but there was something pretty remarkable about this moment. Nimi was sitting in my lap getting her afternoon pets. She’s a very cuddly cat with a personality that is completely different from the traditional idea of torties. The kittens began sniffing around, wanting to get pets, too. Nimi gave this little huffing sigh, stood up, and shuffled over to occupy only a single leg of my lap, so that there was room for the littles to climb up. It was the sweetest thing ever and I would’ve given her a big hug except she’d hate that. Instead, I took a photo.

From 10/9 – This skeleton has been making the Halloween rounds in our house since 2018. Back then, our entire beautiful xeriscaped yard had been ripped open to the bedrock in order to fix a plumbing mistake made in the mid-90s when the house was built (why????). And frankly, when your yard gets ripped up and is nothing but dirt and rocks in September, you’ve got to make the best of it. So we bought this skeleton and some skeleton “parts” and buried them in the yard for Halloween. Before this skeleton was buried, he performed hamlet (2nd photo at that link) in our living room, and ever since then, Ambrose has positioned him into various poses throughout October. Whether he’s planking on the living room floor, giving birth (3rd photo at last link), or watching TV like in this photo, this little guy enjoys life. (At present, he’s outside with arms outstretched for Halloween, a scraggly shawl tied over his shoulders.)

From 10/17 – We had a beautiful cold front this weekend, so made a fire in our fire pit in the evening. The moon, not quite full, was so beautiful with thin clouds in front of it. I’ve never been able to get a good photo of the moon, and after trying with my phone, I got out my full tripod and camera with telephoto lens to see what I can do. The whole process was frustrating – I could see every bump and crevice through my viewfinder, but the photos were coming out as nothing more than a coin of bright light! A friend sent me at article that talked about tips and tricks for taking these photos, so I followed them…and this is what I got! It’s an incredible photo, and I got several others. It made me so happy to get a really good photo of the moon!

Hopefully with more cold fronts on the way – and a tweaking of my medications after a doctor’s appointment to discuss my lethargy this week – things will start to feel a bit better. As always, if you want to follow along and see all the photos, I’m posting them both on Facebook and my Instagram. (My instagram is currently on private, however, so just send a follow request!)

Posted in Personal | Tagged , | 2 Comments

The Original (audio)

Posted on October 22, 2021 by Thistle

by Brandon Sanderson and Mary Robinette Kowal

Holly wakes up in the hospital, confused and disoriented. She demands to know what happened to her, and suspects that she has died and been replicated. Except, she has no memory of the moments leading up to her death. That’s when they tell her the truth – she’s a provisional replica, alive for only four days, with one purpose: to kill her original self, because her original killed her husband.

This is a very short little novella, but it packs a major punch. PR Holly has very little time to process the information given to her: that in her former life/body, she killed the husband she loved so much, and then went on the run. In addition to the disbelief she feels at the idea of killing her husband, she must deal with the grief of losing that husband, who is with her in her last memories, plus the added pressure of killing her original. How do you find yourself, in a literal sense of the word? And what do you do when you find her? Can this all be a mistake? Can the government that created your provisional life be trusted? When the entire world bends to a technology that manipulates reality, is anything really trustworthy left?

This book was brilliant. First, I want to say that despite it being written by two authors, I never would have known it was a collaboration. This isn’t like some books that have different chapters or points of view written by different authors, or even a round robin style book like The Chopin Manuscript. I don’t know how Sanderson and Robinette Kowal did their collaboration, but it’s flawless all the way through. Second, because I know Sanderson’s work so well (having read, um, 28 of his books at least once apiece so far…), I suspected that not all is as it seems at the start of the book, and that there would be twists and revelations – ones that should be obvious from the beginning but somehow never are. And yeah, I was right. I suspected everything under the sun except what actually came to pass. Sanderson wins again. Third, this is how you do an ambiguous ending. I got literally chills as I listened.

PS – Clearly I need to read something by Mary Robinette Kowal, which I haven’t done up to this point. If anyone knows any of her books, please pass along suggestions!

Performance: Julia Whelan reads this audiobook. Whelan is kinda hit or miss for me, but when she’s hit, she’s brilliant. This was one of the brilliant ones. Her narration was perfect for the book. I can definitely see myself re-listening in the future!

Posted in 2021, Adult, Prose | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

The Woods are Always Watching, by Stephanie Perkins

Posted on October 20, 2021 by Thistle

Best friends Neena and Josie are about to be separated for college. As a last hurrah – and attempt to cement their friendship – they decide to go backpacking and camping for three days in the Appalachian Mountains. Of course, neither of them are outdoorsy, and their preparation is more academic than practical. What could go wrong?

Book TW: rape, sexual assault, mention of sexual abuse, loss of a parent, loss of a limb, discussion/threat of necrophilia, discussion/threat of torture.

Oh god, y’all. This book. It was…just no. I mean, at first I liked it. The first hundred pages or so was about these two girls getting their butts kicked by nature and hiking because they were completely unprepared. The message was clear: Don’t be this kind of stupid. And of course, because the girls are hurting and cranky, it provides a perfect stew for their resentments to come to life and boil over, so they bicker a lot. All this is fine. May not be every person’s book, but I get it. I’m cool with that part.

Then comes the turn towards a “waking nightmare” as the book jacket describes it, and the book descends into a cross between Deliverance and a Road Runner cartoon. It was that bad, y’all. It doesn’t help that, due to the cover and the fact that people were reading this for RIP, I expected the turn toward nightmare to involve something spooky, occultish, ritualistic, or otherwise Halloween-dark. No. There is nothing RIP-like about this book. It’s a thriller that plays on stereotypes and leans heavily on gory images for tension. I mean, yeah, it’s scary that bad people exist and do bad things, but that doesn’t make the book a “dark thriller” or in any way RIP-ish. It also doesn’t warrant a spooky cover that plays off paranormal packaging. So don’t let the cover fool you. This is a straight up YA thriller that isn’t all that well-executed.

The rest of this review will contain spoilers, because I need a place to write these thoughts down. This book was so maddening! So skip the rest if you don’t want to know. Also skip if you don’t like mean reviews. I normally try to stay very neutral about books, even ones I dislike, but sometimes, books deserve rants, and this is one of those times.

Continue reading →

Posted in 2021, Prose, Young Adult | Tagged | Leave a comment