Briefly | I spent almost all of this week in the middle of a gross winter cold, but didn’t admit that I needed rest and quiet until I basically fell apart on Thursday evening. After a couple of good nights of sleep (thanks, cold medicine) I’m finally on the upswing, but it’s been a rough week.
Time and Place | About 8:45 a.m. on my couch, snuggled up with a cat and a blanket
Reading | Because of the cold, I had a quieter reading week. I finally finished up Flappers: Six Women of a Dangerous Generation by Judith Mackrell (so great!). Then yesterday afternoon I sat down and flew through The Girl Who Fell from the Sky by Heidi Durrow (really beautiful and interesting) and finished up Gretchen Rubin’s upcoming book on habits, Better Than Before (March 17 from Crown — I read it as a egalley). I was not impressed with this particular book, but I’m still sorting out exactly why — Kelly Jensen’s review on Goodreads gets at some of my issues.
I just started reading The Lonely War by Nazila Fathi, a memoir/reported look at the challenges of modern Iran. I’m only about 50 pages in but I have high hopes — her introduction provided the most succinct and clear summary of the Iranian Revolution and the fall out that I’ve ever read (and I’ve read a bunch of books on Iran).
Watching | The boyfriend and I started watching Larry Wilmore’s new show The Nightly Show this week and we both really like it! I think the format (a desk segment, followed by a panel discussion) is going to work, and I’m glad that he’s been taking on big topics right away.
Blogging | Because of my sick brain, I only got up one review this week, a look at The Romanov Sisters by Helen Rappaport (spoiler, I really liked it). I’m super behind on comments, but the plan is get caught up this morning.
Reminiscing | This Vox piece on Mathnet took me straight back to my childhood. I remember watching Square One with my mom in the first house our family lived in.
Loving | Everyone at work is in a cleaning and organizing mood, which inspired me to get rid of a bunch of old notebooks I’d been hiding in a riling cabinet — goodbye city, school and county board notes from early 2012…
Avoiding | I need to go to the grocery store today… but I don’t want to leave my house. I’m hoping we can scavenge until tomorrow.
Anticipating | This week is the Minnesota Newspaper Association annual conference, which is usually a fun couple of days away from work. Since it’s in the Twin Cities, I usually get to couple going to the convention with a trip home to see my family before I hunker down for the month of February.
Happy Sunday, everyone! What are you reading today?
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I’m notorious for letting colds go to- sometimes I think a stomach bug or flu is better, since they totally knock you on your ass for a few days and you have no choice but to just do nothing but lay there and recover.
I’m still chugging along, and loving, Station Eleven.
I was thinking that a bit this week. At least if I had the flu I could just lay around until I felt better. It’s hard to feel justified doing that when you just have a cold… but if you don’t at least a little bit, the cold can get a lot worse! Basically, we’re just not good at being sick.
Aw, I loved Square One! Still think about it, sometimes. Such a great show.
I’m glad you’re on the upswing! Being sick is the worst.
Nasty colds this winter. I hope yours just disappears and doesn’t linger forever the way mine did. So frustrating.
Glad you enjoyed The Girl Who Fell From the Sky. I loved it too! It made my year-end list of my favorite English language fiction.
In case you might be interested, here’s a link to my review from last year:
https://maphead.wordpress.com/2014/06/26/about-time-i-read-it-the-girl-who-fell-from-the-sky-by-heidi-durrow/
Thanks for the link — I’ll check it out!
Awww. I hope you feel 100% soon. It sucks being sick. I wasn’t impressed with Rubin’s second book. The beginning talked about The Happiness Project a little too much. Those first pages could’ve been massively cut. I’m going to read Kelly’s review. I hope you have an easy week ahead of you.
I didn’t love Happier at Home as much either. A lot of it felt repetitive, or at the very least not much of a stretch from what she was doing in The Happiness Project. The more I think about it, the more I agree with Kelly’s main concern — Rubin gets in her own way.
I remember having to clean out notebooks from file cabinets when I worked for newspapers. Even after I left the papers, I still had notebooks in boxes. I think I’ve finally purged them all because who needs those notes from meetings 10 years ago?
As for what I’m reading today, I’ve been working my way through Sunday Salon posts this morning and might get to the second in a series by Ann Leckie called Ancillary Sword, but we’ll see. It’s more likely after catching up on all these blog posts that I’ll have a nap as my wife goes to a play practice.
I’m definitely not taking my notes with me when I leave this job — no one needs that! I should get into a better rotation for disposing of notes and whatnot, but it’s almost more fun to just fill a recycling bin every once in awhile.
I hope you feel better! I am not leaving the house today (I hope) but my excuse is I am just TIRED. The day to night sleep switch between the hour changes has left me groggy. With the time change I went through January 22nd twice so really – it was an 8 day week 🙂
That time zone switch is a doozy — I hope you enjoyed a relaxing day at home!
I hate admitting that when I am sick because I always think that if I don’t acknowledge it I will feel better. As if the cold really didn’t exist in the first place. Sorry that didn’t work for you this time but I’m glad your beginning to feel better.
When I get sick I try to ignore it and deny it is going to get me down, until I collapse. So I understand. Winter colds are awful, and everyone has them so they just keep going around and around. I did the grocery avoidance thing today as well. I spent the whole day in the yard and by the time I came in and took a shower, there was no way. We’ll just have to survive until tomorrow!
There’s been some sickness going around our office. I tried to hide out in my office so I didn’t pass my cold on to anyone else, but I’m not sure if I was successful in that endeavor.
We went to the grocery store tonight because we MAY have a storm on the way and I don’t want to go anywhere near the grocery tomorrow… Otherwise we would have went without for a few days because even when I got there I wasn’t feeling the shopping…
I’ve been looking at The Romanov Sisters. Thanks for your review. I had read a negative review and then didn’t pick it up. Isn’t it funny how a negative review can change your mind about reading something?
I don’t think it’s a biography for anyone. I think it’s a bit nontraditional in scope, focusing so much on the Romanov’s family life, but that’s why I liked it.
I’m glad you are on the road to recovery! I think grocery shopping is one of my least favorite chores, especially when you aren’t feeling well. I hope you have a better week!
I hope you succeeded in scavenging the food you needed and didn’t have to go to the grocery store. I am a reluctant grocery shopper even when the weather is perfect out, and when a grocery trip also involves coats and things, it just really is too much.
I normally don’t mind the grocery store — I think it’s kind of fun to pick out food — but I was just not feeling it over the weekend. Maybe tomorrow 🙂
We have tiny corner stores which seem to literally stock everything one needs. Certainly easier than going to a supermarket. Hope you feel better soon.
That’s nice! I live in a small town, so we just have one big grocery store, but it’s really not that overwhelming to visit.
Aww, that cold sounds awful. I’m glad you’re starting to feel better!
Yay Flappers! I have to admit that I’ve been having trouble focusing on it, through no fault of it’s own.
I’m a little late, but I hope you’re feeling better. Have a great week!!