Well hello there, happy Saturday!

This weekend is a fully at-home weekend for me (after a late Friday night out attending a local college production of Kiss Me Kate!) ~ last weekend was go go go, this week was full, and I’m traveling next weekend, so I’m more than ready for time in my house!

We had a wonderful time in Madison last Saturday taking the oldest and her girlfriend to an apple orchard, out to dinner at Fabiola’s (what could be better than a restaurant that shares an entrance with a BOOKSTORE?) and then an after-dark adventure viewing the light art installations at GLEAM at Olbrich Botanical Gardens. We met my sister’s family for dinner and GLEAM and it was such a fun visit!

Ponderings on Friction

I have mentioned a few times lately about the work we are doing at my school to thoughtfully put friction between kids and screens, and I love that my personal work in this area has become so relevant. Since 2018 I have been slowly untethering myself from social media, making my phone much more boring, and two years ago, FINALLY deleting my email app from my phone.

My daughters get annoyed with me when I say I can’t do something when we’re out and about because I don’t have email on my phone ~ they’re like, “but you CAN!” and honestly in my mind, I CAN’T. I can’t go back to always being reachable and constantly checking.

The friction became even greater a few weeks ago when a thunderstorm took out our satellite internet (the only option where we live) and I had to use my phone hotspot to use my laptop for over two weeks. Cell service isn’t great in our house, so to do much, I had to sit out on the porch and “just checking quick” for email or shopping had enough lag time that I just didn’t bother much of the time.

Yes, I complained about the inconvenience a bit and whined once about not being able to print Poshmark labels, but life truly just … went on. I did my consulting and newsletter stuff as efficiently as possible and used high-speed connections elsewhere when needed.

When we finally got our service restored, we found out our current provider had declared bankruptcy and we would need to find another option ASAP. Another installation had to happen and then … the guy said we would have to cut down trees to make it work and he can’t come back for a few weeks. I told my husband that honestly, if he doesn’t want to cut down trees, we can go without home internet totally … the hotspot works enough to get what I actually need to get done, done, and everything else can be done at the library, etc. It really seemed kind of dreamy.

Alas, my husband LIKES cutting down trees and stated that he wanted to cut those old walnuts down anyway, so maybe real internet will happen. We shall see.

But the friction that brought me back to the dial up days, the lag time, the inconvenience, the need for planning, the days we were tethered and limited … that friction is welcome.

The Price of Fame

When I read one of my most-anticipated novels of the year, it was such an instantly-perfect pairing with another recent read (a memoir) that it launched my feelings about the memoir about five notches just by association. These two books richly depict the price of fame, the loss of privacy, and the lack of trust in such complementary ways that I can’t NOT put them together.

Hollywood, Ending by John Green is supposedly Green’s foray into adult fiction, but he really didn’t move far from his YA roots. The protagonists are in their early 20s and this is firmly a coming of age story, with a deeply movie-biz setting and hefty heaps of remembered trauma woven throughout.

I don’t tend toward loving this type of book, and the trauma was a LOT, but Green’s writing and characters let me forgive all of the stuff I normally would shy away from. I alternated between print and audio and was SO happy to find the extended interview with Green and the audiobook narrators at the end of that version! If you read this in print and happen to have Spotify premium, take advantage of being able to just dip into that interview on the audio version!

Famesick by Lena Dunham is a memoir with two main themes ~ fame and chronic illness. The title does a great job covering both! This is a hefty book, and it goes way more in depth into famous people than I actually care about, but I ended up loving how it wraps into the topics in Hollywood, Ending regarding predatory people in show business, being launched into fame too abruptly, and the quest to keep chasing more fame after every success.

If you have any experience with chronic or mysterious illness, you will very much appreciate Dunham shedding public light on the agonies and frustrations of living with unexplained and unfixable pain.

Also, I would be remiss in failing to mention the constant thoughts in my head while reading Hollywood, Ending about similarities between that protagonist’s story and Jeanette McCurdy’s memoir I’m Glad My Mom Died. If you really want to read on this topic, add this one to make a trio!

And that’s all for today! I hope you all get to read and rest to some degree this weekend, and if you missed Tuesday’s newsletter, be sure to save a few minutes to read about all of the rest of my reading from July - September!

I’ll be back in your inbox on Tuesday with the first Wintering newsletter for my supporters ~ these pieces will include quotes, personal reflections, and some questions to ponder each week.

NOTE: Next Saturday’s newsletter (the 17th) will be brief since I’ll be preparing to travel this week and then gone the 16th - 20th. I’ll have a few books to share, though!