Weekly Journal 03.15.26

Reading

I took my son to the library to find Pokemon graphic novels, and then hurriedly picked out a couple books for myself to cut short my son's impatient tailgating along the shelves. I always zero in on New Nonfiction, but this time I thought I should have a fiction break in between books. So I'm reading Hot Chocolate on Thursday by Michiko Aoyama. It's a slim, episodic novel that bounces from one main character to another with interconnected vignettes. Not my usual cup of tea, but it is heartwarming.

Next up will be my new nonfiction library book, A Marriage at Sea by Sophie Elmhirst.

Watching

I'm on the second season of Fisk, which is even sharper than the first season, but still wonderfully absurd. Also I started watching The Big C, which I'd been curious about for a long time; it was recently added to Netflix and showed up in my recommendations. Laura Linney is great, although I can't help seeing Meryl, her character from The Truman Show, whenever she gives a smile that's just a little too big. At this early point in the series, she is still hiding her cancer diagnosis from her family, so fake nonchalance abounds. Fictional characters clinging to secrets is a stressful pet peeve of mine, especially during all those scenes when she's about to tell someone before a twist throws the conversation off course.

Speaking of cancer, the scenes with Roxie this week on The Pitt were hard for me to watch. I'm about the same age as that dying character, with a little boy I can't imagine saying goodbye to.

As for movies, I've casually raised to my son the idea of going to see one of the new animated movies in a theater—Hoppers or Goat—but he said no. He did, however, consent to watching The Dinosaurs on Netflix with his dad and me: a show I can tolerate much better than Pokemon.

Cooking

I splurged on some fresh seafood at the farmers market, including a big filet of Chinook salmon, which was super delicious sauteed with just salt and pepper. My kid loved the crispy surface bits that had contact with the pan. The salmon also needed a big squeeze of lemon juice at the end to lighten it up a bit, because I served it along with spaghetti in a homemade Alfredo sauce. I rarely make rich white sauces, since they don't always sit well with me, but I was still trying to use up some heavy cream so I decided to go for it. To cut the richness, I squeezed some lemon juice atop my own helping of pasta.

Doing

I'm trying to shift my approach to writing after encountering this article by Matt Trinetti on Substack. Section 7 contains a reminder to not "write and edit at the same time." I struggle mightily with this habit. Once upon a time, in my early-2000s blogging days, I would compose first drafts of essays on paper and revise them on the computer screen later. Self-censorship was much easier to avoid when I lacked the option to instantly delete something I'd just written. I'm too impatient to return to paper and pen, but I am forcing myself to forge ahead with stream-of-consciousness first drafts, even if I know, as the words are leaving my fingers, that they are bound to be changed later. Even if I cringe while writing them. It's hard work, but I think it's the right way to go.

Future plans: I pushed the "Purchase" button on a plane ticket to Chicago later this year. Actually I pushed the "Purchase" button four times, after receiving an error from Southwest the first three times telling me that I had to redo my flight selection. Now I'm monitoring my PayPal account to make sure I don't get overcharged, while researching Chicago hotels and dreaming about how to spend my three days there.