Observables #22

on ugly Christmas sweaters, a deep squat, and my true love: books on writing

Ugly Christmas sweaters. We made a trip to Value Village to find this one. It took a lot of searching until we landed on Dear Santa. But when we took it to the cash, the woman in front of us was buying the whole store and there was only one cash open. I didn’t know why she couldn't just put the whole store on the counter efficiently. Like you’re buying the whole store, is there so much decision making required at this point? The answer was yes. She had to do multiple examinations of every item from so many angles, while the line grew behind her.

I was getting weaker and weaker from standing in my boots that Violet had already told me looked wrong with my sweat pants, until finally I collapsed into a heap on the ground (or perhaps I just did a graceful squat). Regardless, I was lower to the ground and Elsie suddenly had to go “look around.” Me too, Violet said, trotting after Elsie. I waved from my squat and proceeded to double inhale, until finally the sweetest teenager appeared to open a second cash. She loved the ugly sweater and redeemed the moment for me with her high-spirited chatter: “This is a great red! Can you tell I like red?” I love red too, I said. I also love you.

So yes, it’s been a week. Or a couple weeks. Or a year. I mean for everybody. One night Violet heard me crying. Then she handed me this note:

Boy do I feel loved. Loved as I cry :)

When I’m sad, you know what makes me feel better? Books about writing. What do you like to read about when you’re sad? Or maybe you don’t like words at all in those moments? Instrumental music maybe? Hard bite chips? Love Life on Crave? I recommend.

My favourite book about writing right now is Several Short Sentences About Writing by Verlyn Klinkenborg. It’s in the vein of George Saunders’ A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life, which I read a couple months ago and also loved. Both of them emphasize the thousands and thousands of micro-revisions that are writing. George Saunders has his own substack now. Joy! It’s like your own MFA in a newsletter.

Happy weekend. Wait, it’s only Tuesday. Let’s keep going then. See you next week.

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Sister On! is reframing the idea of holiday (haligdaeg!) on tomorrow’s episode. Don’t miss it!