some random things I'm thinking about

and a writing workshop

I’m going to be offering a 4-week writing workshop if you’re interested specifically aimed at new writers. Send me a message if you’re interested.

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These days all I can do is write some thoughts that don’t cohere. They are thoughts I have been collecting with no container.

Like the fact that it has come come to my attention that I can’t be trusted with the dish washer. I am a maker of chaos in the dish washer arena. At first I get my back up. But then I think of the last load I assembled where bowls and spoons were facing every direction and realize that yes, it’s true. I do not bring care to that task.

“You just want water to get through to each dish,” someone says and I think, “Oh, that’s what we want?”

Sometimes I fail to consider the entirety of a task. I only read half the recipe, half the instructions. My mind is somewhere else. I am being expedient as I seek to get back to other things. Things like reading and writing and walking around and dreaming of how I could improve a piece of writing probably. Anything but the dish washer.

Next! The fried papaya salad at Som Tom Jinda. I think about it often. I’m trying to maneuver my way back the restaurant which is right downtown and hard for me to get to. We went there over Christmas with the kids when we were staying at a hotel to use up some travel points. I made us all try a restaurant that everyone slightly wasn’t into. And because I could feel the micro-resistance to the new experience, I worried the whole time. Are you cold? Is the food too spicy? Are we facing the wrong direction?

There’s really so much to overthink if you lean that way.

Now I want a redo. The no-worry-full-spice-moment-with-the-papaya-salad. By myself. I will drive there for a Monday lunch when traffic is slow. I will order a salad just for me, savouring every bite that both nourishes and burns. I will love the duality of that moment and I will celebrate that I made it there all for my own purposes.

Speaking of one’s own purposes: my mom discovered squishy toys. She uses them to destress. Or she did it twice and I declared it a habit. I like to improve other people’s lives.

Hack: Sometimes when we are at the farm, we spill things on the living room carpet and because the texture of the carpet is so thick or dense (or rude!), it takes 11 years to dry. I have taken to putting one of those large foam rollers under the carpet to give it some breathing room. And then when people walk by they ask why the cat is perched on a mountain in the living room. And I say because she loves a good view.

We go see Wicked as a family of 9; we watch Black Doves—the original 4; Simon and I watch Emilia Pérez as a duo. We also watch the Swedish murder mystery series The Breakthrough about a Swedish detective who takes 16 years to solve a case. For some reason are compelled although I’m not exactly sure why. It’s told in a very linear way, the characters are not particularly attractive and once 16 years have passed they start playing with their glasses constantly to show that they had “aged.” Simon said he appreciated the genealogist’s immaculate beard. So there’s that.

I read half of a book called Brat by Gabriel Smith. The protagonist is very unlikable and picks off his skin in sheets. He drinks too much. He goes up to the attic where his dad keeps his marijuana plants. He waters them and then visits his mom at her long term care home where she sits in an ugly chair. These are basically the storylines. I don’t feel any urgency to finish this book even though it was recommended to me. I decide to abandon it altogether and when I see it still in my library shelf, I scroll past it like a friend I no longer talk to. Instead I get engrossed in Sally Rooney’s Intermezzo. I like the complex relationship of the brothers. They want to forgive each other but don’t know how.

I read this interview with Ethan Hawke.

I make cranberry chicken with orange slices, banana bread with almond flour and 300 other ingredients and tofu with gochujang and grated pear. These recipes take me hours. People come and go and I’m still cooking.

I take 3 baths on the days I’m not teaching and I need a softer mind. My children come looking for me in the bathroom assuming that’s where I’ll be. When I’m not in the bath I think, “I should be in the bath right now” or at the very least wearing these:

Violet and I talk about how good we are at forgiving each other.