Roads Go Ever On 22: Here’s a little of my soft underbelly
💻 what I'm up to 💻
I am a creature of routine. When I have a schedule or a plan and something gets in the way of said schedule or plan, I am not resilient. Not usually anyway. I’m more flexible if I’ve been keeping up with my meditation practice… which I have not been lately. But I am sometimes embarrassed by how a minor change can get in my head, derail my good intentions, and make me sad and/or super unpleasant and irritable.
I hurt my knee at the end of Labor Day weekend. Just a partial dislocation of my right kneecap from standing up (lol). It happened about three weeks after I’d gotten into this perfect for me fitness routine that 1) was making me feel better and less winded 2) was improving my mental health and 3) was the most I’d worked out consistently for, I dunno, six or seven years? I’ve struggled with fitness since my heart surgery and I was so proud of finding something that worked and that I kind of enjoyed--as much as I’m ever going to enjoy exercise anyway.
But with my dumb kneecap jumping out of place, I had to stop and heal. My knee injury also meant canceling a weekend with my sister and missing a trip to Walt Disney World for the 50th. Reader: I did not handle it well! Never mind that I had almost no pain and could still stand and walk (I wore an immobilizer for three weeks). I just felt so down about the unexpected loss of my precious routine and my plans. Not my plans! Picture me as a mildly depressed couch lump. (Except for a visit from a friend, a friend who was quite kind about doing all the driving and also doing a fair amount of sitting).
I’m better now. I’ve started physical therapy, I’m back to strength training a couple days a week at least. I can safely drive again. I’m not proud of how I reacted to a relatively small thing and I’m trying to learn from it.
📘 my book things 📘
You may have heard about delays in publishing recently. If not, let me tell you: publishing has lots of delays due to supply chain issues at multiple points of the line. If you’re buying books for holiday gifts, get on that now and let booksellers help you find alternate titles if necessary. And remember to be kind to said booksellers, please. They can’t help delays.
That’s all a preface to me saying that Star Wars: Battles That Changed the Galaxy is now scheduled for a November 2 release instead of the initial October 5.
📺 what I'm watching 📺
Only Murders in the Building
Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez make a fantastic team and I wouldn’t have guessed. This Hulu series is about the above trio and their eponymous podcast about a homicide in their grand New York apartment (condo?) building. It leans into all the best and worst things about true crime podcasts and enthusiasts.
Manifest
My sister sold this to me. I think she said something along the lines of it’s like Lost but won’t make you as angry?? It’s all on Netflix (and in fact Netflix gave the show a fourth and final season after NBC canceled it). The story centers on the mysterious flight 828, which left Jamaica, encountered a violent storm in flight, and landed in New York pretty much on schedule. Except not. Five years passed in the world between the plane’s takeoff and landing. Yeah, it’s dramatic and full of mystery and also Josh Dallas making a lot of Not Good decisions as he investigates what happened on the plane (he was a passenger) but also being a good dad and very charming. I’m 1.5 seasons in and hooked.
📚 what I'm reading 📚
The Bone Maker by Sarah Beth Durst
Boy did I fall for this book. It's a "what happens to the heroes after they save the world" story, and the world is one in which magicians who work with animal bones exist. Some magicians read the future in bones, some use bones to create fantastical constructs, and some use them to make talismans for strength or stealth. And some bone makers... well, they use human bones for nefarious purposes. It's a kind of slow burn story that's very focused on characters and the world, so the action comes slowly. But I don't care. I adored it.
The Midnight Girls by Alicia Jasinska
Okay, this book isn't out until December but in case you want to flag it on Goodreads or place a pre-order now... This is a YA fantasy about two young witches, Midday and Midnight, competing with each other to take the hearts of princes for their respective masters. These apprentice witches shine fiercely with their ruthless missions and their relentless feud.
I've also enjoyed How Do You Live? by Genzaburo Yoshino (Hayao Miyazaki’s favorite childhood book) and The Switch by Beth O'Leary.
🐳 something whalesome 🐳
I like wholesome things and the whale emoji is cute so: whalesome!
Meet Shiba-san, a Shiba Inu who went to work with his human Azumy at the Suzuki Tobacco all the time. He would slide the shop's window open and greet customers. He's now retired.
🍃 creativity corner 🍃
Here I’ll share tips and tricks that are helping me write, imagine, and/or stay productive.
I am not an artist. Even my loose sketches are a mess of squiggly lines that don’t look like anything. However, I love a diagram. Whether I’m designing a new spreadsheet or outlining an article or an idea, I jot down all my ideas/needs in a list and then turn that list into some kind of graphic representation that helps me organize and brainstorm. With a spreadsheet, it’s imagining how the data I need to include can be structured. With outlining ideas, it’s often a flowchart. GoodNotes plus my iPad Mini makes it easy to pluck ideas from my list and put them into a very sloppy yet helpful graphic.
📃 quote of the week 📃
“Write the tale that scares you, that makes you feel uncertain, that isn’t comfortable. I dare you — in a world that entices us to browse through the lives of others to help us better determine how we feel about ourselves, and to in turn feel the need to be constantly visible, for visibility these days seems to somehow equate to success — do not be afraid to disappear from it, from us for a while, and see what comes to you in the silence”. - Michaela Cole
Last month, Michaela Coel became the first Black woman to win an Emmy for outstanding writing for a limited or anthology series for I May Destroy You. Her acceptance speech soared and also included some lovely advice for writers. The last part about sitting in silence and seeing what happens… it hit. She dedicated her story and her win to survivors of sexual assault.
Feel free to reply and let me know how you’re doing! And if you feel so inclined, you can buy me a Ko-fi!