Let’s make a list. I’ll start.
I’m eating a really good sandwich. Soft roll, rotisserie chicken, crisp lettuce, a little mayo, gruyere cheese, candied jalapeños. Yes and amen.
Also, what… | anniemueller.com/posts/sma…
Currently reading: Furies of Calderon (Codex Alera, #1) by Jim Butcher 📚
You ever get 317 pages into a 653 page book before realizing you have, in fact, read this book before? Yeah? No? Me neither. Right. Yep.
Finished reading: The Optimist’s Daughter by Eudora Welty 📚
“But the guilt of outliving those you love is justly to be borne, she thought. Outliving is something we do to them. The fantasies of dying could be no stranger than the fantastic of living. Surviving is perhaps the strangest fantasy of them all.”
Finished reading: The Sea Wolf by Jack London 📚
I have a small circle of friends. I’m choosy. Within this small circle, two friends deal with chronic illness. Another with multiple serious allergies. There are some mental health challenges… | anniemueller.com/posts/how…
Finished reading: The Story Collector by Evie Woods 📚
Lovely and cozy while dealing with grief. Some difficult themes which are touched with a light hand. Magic, friendship, light romance, Ireland.
9You’re doing everything for the first time.
Every single thing.
Even the things you do over and over are new, because you’re always new.
Life might look the same on… | anniemueller.com/posts/lov…
Finished reading: In the Woods by Tana French 📚
Gorgeous writing. Good plotting. It unraveled slowly, and I got impatient, but I don’t think the pace was wrong. It fit in with the main character’s own unraveling. Heavy themes, violence, trauma. Sadness bordering on bleak. I was frustrated with several plot choices, including the resolution, but saying more will spoiler it. I’m also not sure they were wrong choices. In terms of doing what fit with the characters and themes, they worked, perhaps too well; I just hated what was happening (or not happening) because I wanted better outcomes for people involved. I want to read the next book in the series, I think. I don’t trust French enough to know where she’s taking me and if I want to spend the time to get there. But the writing is so good I’ll risk it.
An easy sidestep from Louise Penny to Tana French but with French, the cozy element pulls you in so the subsequent shattering of it hits even harder and all is not necessarily restored to order. No neat bow and calm conversation in a sunshine dappled garden at the end. Instead you’re left with pieces of a mess too great to be undone and forced to see justice and closure and neat endings as fantasy; reality itself is something layered, darker, still beautiful, but grim.
One thing I will not do: any sort of #notallAmericans bullshit. We’re a dying empire built on the blood of subjugated peoples. Those of us who benefited from that subjugation for a few centuries don’t get to act surprised now. Roll up your sleeves. We fix it or we don’t. Who’s responsible? We are.
Start by running out of toilet paper, or getting dangerously close. There’s living on the edge, and then there’s running out of toilet paper.
Perhaps you keep extra toilet paper rolls… | anniemueller.com/posts/how…
Currently reading: The Story Collector by Evie Woods 📚
Sarah had grown weary of trying to make things palatable for everyone around her.
Enjoying this one.
🥾❄️last week’s hiking church
🥾today’s hiking church.
The Mountain Between Us by Charles Martin Meh.
Read this in one day. It was easy to read and I ended up skimming a lot of boring parts (all the flashbacks… | anniemueller.com/posts/rea…
What’s the situation, and what can I do about it?
There are two steps I need to take when there’s something upsetting but complex to deal with: a situation outside… | anniemueller.com/posts/des…
Inconclusive neck region
““Wisdom is the reward for surviving our own stupidity.”
—Brian Rathbone”
Why is entropy so boring?
Here’s a thing that happens to me sometimes: I am doing something mundane, perhaps… | anniemueller.com/posts/inc…
Finished reading: The Nature of the Beast by Louise Penny 📚
Can’t go wrong with Inspector Gamache.
Urgencies are yappy little dogs
The law of urgency tells us this:
By default, whatever screams the loudest will get the quickest response.
Whatever generates the most discomfort (real or imagined) will get the most… | anniemueller.com/posts/urg…
Sitting on the balcony with the sun on my face. A bit chilly still but Absolutely Glorious.
Finished reading: The Warbler by Sarah Beth Durst 📚
Pretty writing, hometown magic vibe, slightly dark edges but happy resolution. No surprises, sweet characters. The emotional themes were hammered in about 40% more than needed, I felt. I skimmed a good bit.
current reads
