Weekly Journal 5.10.26

Reading

I'm nearly to the end of the growing season written about in Barbara Kingsolver's lovely Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. This book is a nice companion to Zach Galifianakis' new This is a Gardening Show, which my husband and I have watched together. Both authors/hosts (auteurs?) maintain their own home gardens and are advocates, however quietly, for an agrarian future to basically save our souls and our society. They've got my feeling hopeful and excited for the prospects of my own garden. Blueberries, still green and hard, are showing themselves on the squat bushes along the edge of our yard. The raspberry canes are lush with prickly leaves and starting to flower. The seeds we planted in the past two weeks for carrots, beets, peas, broccoli, and garlic all sprouted eagerly within days of entering the soil.

But this is not a gardening section. I confess, I got some happy news this week that put me in a distracted state of mind, which lent itself to more social scrolling and less long-form reading. In honor of Mother's Day, I enjoyed this affectionate essay by Heather Haldeman called "Pick up the Phone!"

Watching

I'll give another shout-out to DTF St. Louis, since I've progressed from finding it interesting to actually loving it, four episodes in. The dialogue is truly odd at times, but paced and delivered in such a deadpan way that it's hilarious. I think I see where the story is going to end up, but this show will probably surprise me.

I'm also devouring my rewatch of Somebody Somewhere, which is delightful and sweet the whole way through, except for the parts when Sam is being a stubborn asshole to Joel. Bridget Everett does so well at portraying a person who's emotionally wounded and guarded.

Cooking

Making lunch at home is not something I do regularly, even during the week when I'm actually working from home. I like going to restaurants and cafes if they're quick enough to serve and cash me out within an hour. It breaks up the day with a change of scenery. But this week I had a dozen farm-fresh eggs, a fat bunch of asparagus that needed using up, and a rare block of Swiss cheese, which seemed great for a lunchtime omelet. My omelets do not not usually come out omelet-shaped, but they taste good anyway. I ate this one on my deck, so technically I did leave the house for lunch.

Doing

Lots of writing, revising, and daydreaming. Sometimes I'm too far into my head to care enough about other tasks that need doing, but I'm doing a respectable job of keeping up with laundry, baths for the kiddo, grocery shopping, and cooking. I got a good haul from the farmers market this weekend, and from my local food buying co-op earlier in the week. There's a giant head of cauliflower in my fridge waiting to be hacked up and pureed for dinner.

Listening

Jon Batiste seems like a strange genius. He always seemed like an odd fit as Stephen Colbert's late-night bandleader, and he was wacky on Ina Garten's show recently, but he exudes joy and love and incredible talent. I've listened to his album Big Money a few times now, and it's a great mix of soul plus a little blues-country and even reggae. This is one of the most beautiful songs from the album.