jillsalahub

It happened again. It was another unusual Friday morning — it had SNOWED all day Thursday (campus was even shut down at 12:30 pm) and the sore throat that started on Monday turned into full blown crud. It was still snowing on Friday morning and I still felt yucky, so I decided that rather than working from home I’d take a sick day. I spent most of it on the couch, even accidentally slept through Ringo’s last nosework class of this session. I slept in the spare room last night so as not keep anyone awake with my coughing, and here I am using what will most likely be the only burst of energy I have today to write this post — then back to the couch for the day. Every one has been so sick this year, lots of strep throat and even pneumonia going around, and I’d been doing so good to stay healthy in that regard, but it finally caught up with me — the real issue is that I’m supposed to be on summer break right now but I’m working on a big project instead. It’s kind of like meeting someone running a marathon at the finish line and telling them in that moment of relief and collapse that they have to run another two miles to finish. I have nothing left, but I’m giving it all I’ve got anyway. That’s a recipe for disaster.

1. Sick days. And health insurance, a partner who will take the dogs out in the miserable mess, and dogs who are happy to keep me company even when I’m boring. Emergen-C, Advil, sinus rinse, Kleenex with lotion, a hot shower, clean pajamas and sheets, and even that two year old expired but I’m going to take it anyway cough syrup from the last time I was so sick.

2. Texting. For various reasons it came in handy this week, allows me to be connected even though I’m stuck on the couch or really really really far away from what’s going on.

3. Flowers in the bathroom. It’s a luxury, a privilege, totally unnecessary, but I love it anyway. Hopefully my peonies have survived the snow and the next batch will be from my own garden.

4. Sam and Ringo, keeping me company, being so sweet and well behaved when I can’t handle anything else.

5. Eric. Taking care of me, doing the stuff I can’t, worrying about me and loving me, texting me cute pictures of the dogs.

Bonus joy: Good tv, a comfortable couch, down pillows, being caught up on the laundry, the privilege of doing nothing, my good health (I haven’t really been sick since that last time two years ago), a weekend with no plans, healthy dogs, a healthy partner.

1. The middle of everywhere from Seth Godin. This is kind of blowing my mind.

2. Wisdom from Alexandra Franzen,

Your words, your actions, your art projects, your efforts, every small, tender, beautiful thing that you put forth into the world matters so much. So much more than you may realize. Every single day, as you go about your work, you have no idea whose life you could be impacting for the better—often, in ways you can’t even imagine.

3. It only takes a moment to make someone’s day, the story behind the Daymaker (“A person who performs intentional acts of kindness with the intention of making the world a better place”) project.

4. 18 Ways to Start the First Page of a New Notebook.

5. Women Behaving Badly from the wicked smart Rachel Cole. “When we are in an allied relationship with ourselves we trust our hungers and seek to feed them. When we are in an oppositional relationship to ourselves we mistrust our hungers and seek to numb, deny or minimize them.”

6. Feast On Your Life: A New Group for Not Doing, good stuff from Jena Schwartz.

7. The 20 Funniest Tweets From Women This Week.

8. Recipes I want to try: Curried Carrot Salad and Flourless Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Mini Blender Muffins. In related news, How to Make Salad: a Guide by Julia Moskin on New York Times. P.S. If you have any tasty vegetable recipes, send them my way!

9. To Stay Married, Embrace Change on The New York Times. After close to 25 years with the same person, this sounds about right to me.

10. These Southern Black Women Turned Old Rags into Masterpieces. “The people of Gee’s Bend, Alabama faced slavery, share-cropping, the Great Depression, flood, and a racist sheriff who cut off essential ferry access to the community. Nevertheless, the community persisted.”

11. Two good causes, Burg related: A Burgfectly Lived Life and Burg’s Place.

12. Maria Bamford’s New Special Is a Kind of Inspired Gibberish on The New York Times.

13. Japanese patience and precision By Kutani Choemon.

14. 20 Diversion Tactics Highly Manipulative Narcissists, Sociopaths And Psychopaths Use To Silence You. This is an older post I’ve shared before, but it’s worth another visit.

15. Wyoming Passes “Indian Education for All” Legislation. This is a great idea.

16. This Twitter Thread Perfectly Breaks Down How White Pop Stars Use Black Artists.

17. Dear straight allies, please don’t come to pride until you’ve understood these 6 things.

18. On Being Black, ‘Woke,’ And Dating White People.

19. The Subtle Linguistics of Polite White Supremacy.

20. I Know a Woman from Jena Schwartz.

21. Lia Kim Choreography. #movementgoals

22. Our Lady of Complicity, “The first daughter fails the Turing test with her self-help book.”

23. 20 slimdown diet tips! Lena Dunham on Instagram. Honestly, I don’t know how I feel about her, because she does some pretty dumb stuff sometimes, but then she does something like this.

24. 6 Ways My Parents Unintentionally Taught Me Disordered Eating.

25. Dear White Progressives…

26. The psychological importance of wasting time. And in related news, Happiness research shows the biggest obstacle to creativity is being too busy.

27. Why Don’t People Return Their Shopping Carts? I’ve always wondered, and this post gives some pretty good answers.

28. A Responsibility to Light: An Illustrated Manifesto for Creative Resilience and the Artist’s Duty in Dark Times.

29. Debunking the ‘Pull Yourself Up By Your Bootstraps’ Myth.

30. Cary Grant: how 100 acid trips in Tinseltown ‘changed my life.’ “At the height of his fame, Cary Grant turned to LSD therapy for help. He later claimed the drug saved him, but did it also spell the end of his career?” I had no idea.

31. These rare color photos of Paris were shot 100 years ago, and they’re amazing.

32. Fresh Air’s 10 Favorite Terry Gross Interviews. “This week marks 30 years since WHYY first took Fresh Air With Terry Gross national in the form we know today: a daily, hour-long interview show featuring an array of artists and newsmakers…To commemorate the occasion, I asked Gross for a list of her personal favorite interviews.”

33. Under Trump, inconvenient data is being sidelined.