1. Poetry: One Impatience from Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, The Weight of a Cloud and Homesick for Another Decade from Julie Barton, and Advice To Myself #2: Resistance by Louise Erdrich, and Where I’m From by Hugh Hollowell. And finally this one from Vicki Rivard: 

2. Why Introverts Are Happier With Fewer Friends.

3. Compared to what? from Seth Godin.

4. Dope Kitchen has a new website, with lots of good recipes to try.

5. Bluesky is growing so fast it’s racing to get hold of more servers, its COO says. You won’t find me there, because this:

6. Why so many families are “drowning in toys.” “America is in toy overload, and it might just be ruining fun.”

7. The 25 Most Important Recipes of the Past 100 Years. “A century of American braising, baking, and imbibing, in one nation-spanning list.”

8. A $12,000 Surgery to Change Eye Color Is Surging in Popularity. “Keratopigmentation could be dangerous, doctors warn. Patients say it’s worth the risks.”

9. Wisdom from The Tyranny of Tidiness, “& the artist Anna Brones on the fertile mess of a creative spaceAndréa Ranae” from The Isolation Journals with Suleika Jaouad.

10. Gratitude for Difficult Things from Satya Robyn on Going Gently. “What I am sharing is that sometimes, after months or years or decades, we do begin to see glints of treasure in the darkest of our times. We find that, afterwards, we feel more tenderness towards others. We see that our troubles gifted us the ability to finally speak up for ourselves. We see that by showing us our edges they encouraged us into the arms of something vast, wise and loving.”

11. It’s OK to Skip the Holiday Gatherings This Year on The Beautiful Mess by John Pavlovitz.

12. Playful, intricate Japanese leaf art – in pictures. “Almost every day for the past five years, the Kanagawa-born artist Lito has drawn an image on to a leaf – usually a jaunty scene from the animal world involving, say, a biker-dude rabbit or a frog in a phone box – and carved it out with a scalpel before posting a photograph to social media. A painstaking process, it nonetheless suits Lito’s ‘propensity to devote long hours to detailed work’ – a diagnosis of ADHD aged 30 was what prompted him to quit his corporate job and start carving leaves for a living. And a living it is: he’s sold 300,000 copies of his leaf-art books to date and exhibits his work throughout Japan. The combination of playful Studio Ghibli-esque imagination and exhaustive attention to detail is central to the appeal.”

13. Guided Somatic Meditation for Emotional Release. (video) “‘Movement itself is a great tool for expressing emotion.’ Join dance psychotherapist and somatic practitioner Jennifer Sterling for an eight-minute immersive movement oriented meditation. Here she uses Simon Hantaï’s Untitled [Suite ‘Blancs’] as an entry point to building somatic awareness. ‘There’s no right or wrong way…We learn to use our bodies as a tool for information gathering.’ As Sterling invites you to orient, meditate and move with her, reflect on what feelings are present in your body. Artful practices are tools that can translate to everyday life to help soften distress, increase joy and support overall well-being.” 

14. Rest as Resistance.

15. How we can meet the challenges of authoritarianism. “This is not our first rodeo with authoritarianism. Americans have collectively risen to seemingly impossible challenges in the past, and we can do so again.”

16. The great Facebook unfriending of 2024 from Rita on Rootsie. “Applying the idea of ‘fewer, better things’ to online life.”

17. 7 Gentle Permission Slips to Help You Reset, Let Go and Thrive from Courtney Carver on Be More With Less.

18. ‘I couldn’t look away!’ The rapid, runaway rise of ridiculous Christmas romcoms. “It’s that season again, when the streamers bring us hot snowmen and heroes who still believe in Santa. Why are they competing to make the most ludicrous movie possible – and why do we keep watching them?”

19. 99 Ways To Show Love Besides Gifts This Holiday Season.

20. Winter is coming … but don’t panic! 54 expert tips on getting through the cold, dark months ahead. “How to survive the season – with mood-lifters, skin-savers, life-changing layers, and ways to have fun in the rain.”

21. Inside Job: An Exhibit of Staff Artwork at the Met.

22. Are you tired all the time? Me too – but I think I’ve worked out why. “Biting back anger, holding in tears: we use a huge amount of energy trying to avoid our emotions. And it’s exhausting.”

23. No One Ever Said You Must Wear Tight Pants…“and 49 other lessons learned during my half-century on earth!”

24. 10 Things We’ll Regret When We’re Older If We Don’t Stop Now by Courtney Carver on Be More With Less.

25. Forget ‘flattering’: comfortable clothes make me feel most like myself. “In midlife, I prioritize roomy designs that helped me move with ease. I had been searching for that freedom all along.”

26. Why Introverts Retreat to Their Bedrooms.

27. Without a Doubt, the 70 Weirdest & Most Genius Things Under $30 on Amazon.

28. Percival Everett wins the National Book Award fiction prize.

29. How France uncovered the mystery of the forbidden photos of Nazi-occupied Paris. “‘It’s the story of a normal man who tried to fight, even if he was in front of the biggest army of that time, in front of colleagues who could be traitors,’ he says. ‘It’s the story of courage, of the love of his wife who wanted to know what happened to him. So it’s a universal story.'”

30. I thought when my mother went into aged care my daily work would be over. I was wrong. “You can be as diligent and thorough as you like when you visit a facility but there are things you cannot know until your loved one is in there.” *sigh*

31. And finally, this random collection of things I saved on my phone this week.