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.

Posted by Claire & filed under Blog. This post has no comments yet.

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

Posted by Claire & filed under Blog. This post has no comments yet.

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.

Posted by Claire & filed under Blog. This post has no comments yet.

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.

Posted by Claire & filed under Blog. This post has no comments yet.

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.

Posted by Claire & filed under Blog. This post has no comments yet.

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.

Posted by Claire & filed under Blog. This post has no comments yet.

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.

Posted by Claire & filed under Blog. This post has no comments yet.

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) 🙂

Posted by Claire & filed under Blog. This post has no comments yet.

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.

Posted by Claire & filed under Blog. This post has no comments yet.

The Trespasser, by Tana French: I love that Tana French’s books are all set within the same world and threaded together via the main and supporting characters. You can generally read most of them without being spoiled about the rest, with the exception of In the Woods and The Likeness (which is still my favorite).

Oryx and Crake (reread), by Margaret Atwood: One could technically categorize 70% of this list as “post-apocalyptic,” leaving out only the police procedural, the WWII epic, and Elizabeth Strout. I reread this because it had been about 10 years and I wanted to read the other two in the trilogy.

The Flame Alphabet, by Ben Marcus: Language! I like the conceit of this, but I couldn’t help but compare it to The Word Exchange, which is probably my favorite in the sub-sub-genre of linguistic-end-of-the-world novels.

The Year of the Flood, by Margaret Atwood

MaddAddam, by Margaret Atwood: The other day someone said to me, “Is it strange that everything Margaret Atwood wrote…” and I finished with “…is coming true?” The wording wasn’t “Isn’t it strange that…” but rather a genuine question–is it weird that she’s so prescient, or does that just make perfect sense? Is it prescient, or just observant?

All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr: Lovely, lovely, and there’s often nothing more welcome than a giant book pieced into tiny sections. Unless you want to take it on the subway, but it’s a better evening-book.

Gathering Blue, by Lois Lowry: This and the other two Lowry books (all of which I read on my Kindle in Morocco!) are sequels to The Giver. I’ve never been disappointed when rereading a childhood favorite, but when you read a phenomenal children’s book or YA novel as an adult–sometimes it turns out just as you want it to, and other times it seems like you’ve missed the window of time that would not only have led you to love the book then, but would have allowed you to love it forever. In this case, I experienced the former, probably helped by the fact that, of course, I read The Giver fifty times growing up. The characters and their universe already lived in my brain.

Messenger, by Lois Lowry

My Name is Lucy Barton, by Elizabeth Strout: This is not nearly as famous (or I just missed it?) as Olive Kittredge, but I found it pretty transcendent. I didn’t start sobbing on the subway (well, it would have been on a mountain or a camel, not the subway) like I did when I read Olive Kittredge, though.

Son, by Lois Lowry

Posted by Claire & filed under Blog. This post has no comments yet.