I do listen to (aka read) the news, as grotesque as it is these days, but I will say I prefer listening to people talk on the subway, like the pair of older women I sat next to the other night. They must have just come from a reading; one said “I’ve never understood singing–I mean, I understand why YOU would want to hear yourself sing, but why would *I* want to hear you sing?” The other shook her head and muttered, “Everyone just writes about orgasms these days. I’m tired of hearing about orgasms. They’re great–done. Write about something else.”

As we neared my stop and I stood to depart the train, I heard a snippet of conversation that ended with “So there he was, lying prostate on the floor…”

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Okay, it’s a lie. But I do love overhearing conversations like this:

Woman 1: They should make a movie out of his life story.

Woman 2: Would Troy be in it too? With all of his womanizing?

Woman 1: He is a SOCIOPATH.

Pause

Woman 2: Man, I’m going to go back to work and my fish is going to be dead.

Woman 1: You have a fish?

Woman 2: Just the one beta. You know, the kind that looks like it has a mohawk.

Woman 1: I thought you didn’t like anything breathing except humans.

Woman 2: Fish don’t breathe.

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Looking back through my (very…extensive) computer diary, which I started at age 16, I found an entry from my freshman year of college that begins, “What, March already? I’m going to wake up tomorrow and be thirty.”

OKAY THEN

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The Idiot, by Elif Batuman: Someone recommended this to me after reading my book-in-progress, though it would have been a delightful recommendation regardless. It’s my pick for my office holiday party book exchange.

A Man Called Ove, by Fredrik Backman: Very…treacly. Too twee for me, though I understand the appeal, I guess.

Underground Railroad, by Colson Whitehead: Brutal and brilliant. I LOVE the conceit of a literal railroad.

Prosperous Friends, by Christine Schutt: This was quick, captivating, and totally depressing.

The Story of the Lost Child, by Elena Ferrante: I finished this, the last of the Neapolitan novels, the same evening that I watched this season’s Rick and Morty finale, so I spent the remainder of my waking hours in existential despair. I want to reread the first two, but I think The Story of a New Name remains my favorite.

Man v. Nature, by Diane Cook: My former classmate’s short story collection–I LOVED this so much.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie: I’d never read this before, but recently assigned it to my seventh-grade student. I’ve been having her track the repeated imagery having to do with transportation, outer space, and natural disasters throughout.

Shakespeare: The World as Stage, by Bill Bryson: I came around to this by the time I finished, though I found it a little thin. Bryson is a very likable narrator, but I wasn’t dying to get home and read it. Also, the type is really faint! My eyes…

Ghosts of the Tsunami, by Richard Lloyd Parry: Really amazing, though the word “amazing” feels wrong, of course.

The Vegetarian, by Han Kang: Technically still reading this one. It’s the perfect subway book in that it’s slim, but because it’s short, I feel I have to take another book with me in case I finish it…so I guess that negates its merits as a subway book.

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I’ve never done very well with Novembers. It’s the darkness, the cold, and the lack of sparkly markers of time (I know–Thanksgiving–somehow it doesn’t have the same effect as Christmas lights). I tried walking around my room just muttering “hygge, hygge, hygge” as if I could summon it, but that didn’t do anything (YET).

So I’ve been playing scrabble online, reading, and whenever the temperature shifts back to the 60s, pretending that a) it’s still late summer b) climate change isn’t terrifying.

My Words With Friends opponent noted that he had almost played “steroid” for far fewer points than he gained for playing “asteroid,” and I realized I’ve never juxtaposed the two words before, or considered that they might be related. I mean–they aren’t, because asteroid is from aster and steroid is from…something else, but the possibility is interesting.

One of those hot nights back in October, I figured I would save money on electricity (and do my micro-assist against climate change!) by opening the window overnight instead of turning on the air conditioner one last time. It turns out this my version of “money-wasting things people do while trying to save money,” like driving around trying to find the cheapest gas, because the next morning I woke to find that a $13 harp string had broken due to the humidity. At least it was fourth octave and not fifth?

I think if I took a representative poll, January or February might beat November for least favorite month; people are really into Thanksgiving, and by the time February rolls around everyone is tired of snow…but I always feel better after New Year’s, pale blue instead of dark gray.

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the irony of doing an “overheard” post when my right ear has been stuffed up for two weeks.

Overheard…

on the street:

-No reason to cry, baby. There will be more fluffy stuff up ahead.

-You know what they say–when one door closes, another–another door’s gonna close.

-It’s a PHILODENDRON. That’s the name of that plant, bro. PHIL-O-DEN-DRON.

with my students:

-Solving for x is almost as good as eating a cookie…should I make that my motto?

-(while reading an English paper assignment out loud) Don’t read ahead! I want it to be dramatic.

on the train:

Guy 1: So you had breakfast with her, but you said it was brief.

Guy 2: Yeah, and–

Guy 1: Well WHY? Why was it brief??

in my apartment:

-Beard beard beard. How did you get so big?

-Activate urine!

-He appears to be highly ranked. He has a hat with a tassel on top.

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A few weeks ago I went to a yoga class with a live DJ (it was very hard to vinyasa rather than dance). I had a hard time paying attention to the poses because I was trying to remember all of the mash-ups the DJ created, and also thinking about what mash-up name I could give each creation. Such as (*denotes the ones I was fond of musically):

*”Don’t You Want a Bad Romance?” (Human League + Lady Gaga)

*”How Will I Know if I’m Dancing on my Own?” (Whitney Houston + Robyn)

“Call Me Semi-Charmed” (Carly Rae Jepsen + Third Eye Blind)

*”No Wiggity-Wiggity-Wonderwall” (Blackstreet + Oasis)

There was a nice audio/titular pun when he mixed “Dynomite” with “Under Pressure,” and then there was a weird marriage of the Red Hot Chili Pepper’s “Under the Bridge” and TLC’s “No Scrubs”–I couldn’t figure out why they were paired unless his thinking was something along the lines of “I don’t ever want to scrub…like I scrubbed that day”?

Finally, there was a mix composed of Bruno Mars’s “Locked out of Heaven” and George Michael’s “Careless Whisper” (I Carelessly Whispered in Heaven?), but that was wholly unnecessary because that Bruno Mars song already sounds like its DNA is half “Don’t Stand So Close to Me” by the Police!

Graphic designers: coming in next post.

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Immediate sidenote: I laugh every time at “May the best friend win.” What is that? It’s like a game we used to play in Latin class in high school that we (and our teacher) called “Who’s the better person?” That didn’t have anything to do with the rules or the concept, that was just the title…

I play Words With Friends with some actual friends, but mostly strangers–and I enjoy that, because it means I have more games going. Occasionally people message about the game, which is great, or to say “good morning” which is fine, but then you get things like this:

No…double word scores to me.

People know there is this thing called Tinder, right?

I thought my age would discourage this (very young-looking) person…

…but then he asked if I was a married lady. I tried to put a doorstop to the line of questioning by leaving it vague…

And then I resigned.

After this, I figured out how to change my Words With Friends profile picture to a gender neutral sunset.

This guy and I had played several games and the only non-scrabble topic he seemed to want to talk about was the Yankees…

Oh. There it is.

I just want to fucking play scrabble.

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A Visit From the Goon Squad, by Jennifer Egan: I liked the conceit more than the actual book, though I did enjoy it well enough.

American Girls: Social Media and the Secret Lives of Teenagers, by Nancy Jo Sales: I read this mostly on an airplane, and it was so depressing I started sobbing. Granted, I also thought I might have appendicitis and was afraid my appendix was going to burst somewhere over Nebraska.

Jungle of Stone, by William Carlsen: Oh man, this was a SLOG. I think I started it in the middle of 2016.

Between the World and Me, by Ta-Nehisi Coates: Required reading.

American Housewife, by Helen Ellis: This is the most delightful, and Helen Ellis is in my top five favorite people I’ve never met. She has a cat named BIG BOY.

The Grownup, by Gillian Flynn (Kindle single)

That Darkness, by Lisa Black

Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, by Elena Ferrante: I think The Story of a New Name is still my favorite, but that might change on reread…

Upright Beasts, by Lincoln Michel: My former classmate–these are bizarre and captivating.

Killers of the Flower Moon, by David Grann: Recommended by my dad, and fully made up for his previous recommendation (Jungle of Stone) 🙂

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A God in Ruins, by Kate Atkinson: I was still in Morocco and reading on my Kindle, and I wish I had had a hard copy of this so I could look back more easily. I don’t know if you NEED to read Life After Life before reading this, but I would recommend. And I’d recommend both.

Cities I’ve Never Lived In, by Sara Majka: This is really plain prose, and somewhat bleak. I was more interested as I went along, but it’s hard for me to recall much about it now.

Better Than Normal, by Dale Archer: I love to read about the brain but this seemed like a bit of a con job.

The Brain That Changes Itself, by Norman Doidge: This, on the other hand, was amazing. If you have any interest in brain plasticity, read both of these.

The Brain’s Way of Healing, by Norman Doidge

Wilde Lake, by Laura Lippman: I think Laura Lippman is one of the few authors in the world whose entire oeuvre I’ve read.

A Manual for Cleaning Women, by Lucia Berlin: Love. It’s hard to say if there are really multiple narrators–for some stories there are clearly different ones, but not most–or if they’re all semi-autobiographical versions of the author (or, okay, versions of one character) at different ages.

Willnot, by James Sallis

The Gloaming, by Melanie Finn

Mercies in Disguise, by Gina Kolata: I’m obsessed with prions.

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