At work last week we had to go around the circle and share one happy thing, and I initially panicked because I couldn’t think of a single thing to say, not one single happy thing. “Welp,” I thought to myself, “Time for therapy, followed by leaving my family to go find myself in a country I can use for personal discovery/fulfillment in a condescending and problematic way!”

But after a little more thought I realized I DO have lots of happy things, I just don’t have a bunch of the kind that work well to share with co-workers in a going-around-the-circle type exercise. Like, “I did laundry last night so I am wearing my favorite jeans today, and it makes me happy that today I’ll be working in THESE jeans instead of the ones I have to tug up every five seconds!” That feels weird to share in a group of co-workers, and I don’t want them sneaking peeks to see if my jeans-favoritism is justified, and/or noticing in the future how often I really do have to pull up the other ones. “I got new salt and pepper shakers so that Paul will stop taking the set from the stove to the living room while I still need them for the dinner I’m cooking.” Sounds more like a thinly-veiled Spouse Gripe, even though I was delighted to have an excuse to buy new shakers. Oh, or what about: “This morning I woke up at 2:00 and realized it was colder than it should be, and panicked that we’d run out of heating oil, and thought we were going to wake up this morning to a freezing house and no hot water and a big hassle—but actually we still had fuel and the house was warm and there was hot water, and probably I just felt cold in the night because peri-menopause seems to have broken my internal thermostat.” Too long. Overshare. Boring. Weird. A non-negative stated as a positive.

Plus, at work we’re not allowed to say anything political or religious. Not that there’s much I’m happy about there. But it keeps me from using things like “Today I felt a brief glimmer of hope when….”

I do think there is a shortage of happy things to think about right now. I tend to wake up in the middle of the night and have trouble getting back to sleep, and when that happens I used to have lots of things I would think about to soothe myself back to sleep: I would imagine shopping at Target, or I would think about baby names and/or babies, or I would think about yummy foods I might bake/eat the next day, or I would think about the book I was reading, and in that way I would fall asleep again. Recently I’ve been finding myself lying awake being literally unable to think of anything like that. Incredulously, I go through my mental topics file and find nothing but worries and agitations under every heading. Or, if I do find something good, it leads quickly to a worry/agitation: e.g., I’ll think about how Rob and William will be home for spring break in a few more weeks, and then that reminds me of some of my frets about Rob. Or I’ll think about the book Little Women, which I’m re-reading and which ought to be a happy comfort, and instead I end up thinking about how Marmee apparently has this colossal daily struggle with her temper but, unlike me, manages it so well that her children think she is Never Angry. And so I lie there fretting at a time of the night when frets seem larger and harder to subdue.

Do you have tricks you use to get back to sleep in the middle of the night? Do you have any Happy Things To Think About that I could borrow?

I feel like all my online areas are currently rife with fighting and bickering and panic. In one online social group that used to be a considerable source of comfort and joy, a few careful and skillful people are subtly sowing strife, and it is relentless and it is proving very effective and everything is falling apart and I don’t see how anyone can stop it. I read a book on sociopaths awhile back, and it was basically like “The way you can tell when you have one or more in your group is there will be endless tempests in teapots, and it will seem inexplicable, but it will keep happening, and the only thing that can fix it is the sociopath getting bored and choosing to move on—which they will only do when the group has fallen apart and they need a new group to play with.” The sociopath can be one of the main players, twisting and feinting until no one knows which way is up—OR they can be behind the scenes manipulating others into performing the drama, which can make them very difficult to detect and remove; in those cases they’re mostly visible in other people’s unexpected and baffling behavior. It’s the kind of thing I wonder about now, when I see a group of people who used to get along very normally and enjoy each other, but then start to disintegrate in dozens of ways for what seems like no good reasons. Our group is having inexplicable and endless tempests in teapots, and there have been outbreaks of unexpected and baffling behavior, and it seems like the group relationship is disintegrating for no good reason. The whole mess is breaking down some good people, and it is hard to watch, and it is such a shame, and it is hard to know what to do when everything anyone does just gets turned into more tempest fodder.

On Twitter, there is of course the endless real-time news of the Senate impeachment trial, but also there are several HUGE and seemingly endless debates about other issues—things where I am seeing TONS of stuff in my feed from people I DON’T FOLLOW, just because I DO follow one person who is very active in the discussion. [Edited to add: I should clarify that I’m talking about people I follow but who don’t follow me or read my blog; they’re people I’m following on purpose to learn more about issues I’m not very familiar with.] And they’re the kind of discussions where I DO want to see an OCCASIONAL tweet by the person I am following, but I DON’T want it taking up HALF MY FEED and keeping me permanently riled. It is very much time for me to figure out how to block discussions. In fact, I am going to do it RIGHT THIS SECOND, while I’m thinking about it.

…Oh. So it was as easy as choosing “Mute this conversation” from the upper right-hand pull-down menu of one of the tweets in the conversation. What held me up on figuring this out earlier was that you only get that option in the pull-down menu AFTER you click on the tweet. If you’re just seeing the tweet in your feed and you click for the menu, there isn’t an option to mute. So I kept hearing about “Mute conversation,” but when I clicked the menu I saw only this:

…Oh, I can’t show you because it puts the user’s name in all the options. I tried to use one of my own tweets as an example, but of course the options are different for that because I have tweet-ownership options. ANYWAY THIS IS BORING, my only point is that if you FIRST click on the tweet, THEN “Mute this conversation” will appear in your pull-down menu options. That’s if you’re using regular desktop Twitter like I am.

(And I know there are various apps and so forth that can make all this better. But you are talking to someone who still views Twitter ONLY on a desktop computer, AND only just figured out how to mute a conversation after nearly a dozen years, so efforts to improve my life are likely to be wasted. ONE DAY I will suddenly get motivated, and on that day I WILL remember that there are better options.)

While I was re-shelving books at work the other day I thought of a dozen things I wanted to talk to you about, but do I remember any of them now that I am home at my computer? Do I hell!

We evidently have a friendly library spirit and/or helpful library patron, and by both of those tactful terms I mean we have someone who is leaving us Pointed Corrections, but those Corrections are Correct, so it’s hard to be critical. The other day, for example, I found a parenting book set flat on the shelf near the travel guides. I picked it up with a contented/irritated sigh (there is almost nothing in this life I love as much as putting a lost book back where it belongs, but I am still theoretically opposed to people putting books in the wrong place; but back to the first point, if someone IS going to put something down in the wrong place, putting it flat on the shelf is absolutely great because then I notice it and can put it where it belongs, so I do approve of that)—but then noticed the number on the spine WOULD put it smack in the middle of the travel guides. But…it was a parenting book, and not a travel-related one. Further investigation revealed the spine sticker was incorrect, something that hardly ever happens because the people who put spine stickers on books are the most meticulous people I have ever known. I don’t know how long it would have taken us to discover it if someone hadn’t set the book aside like that.

I mentioned this on Twitter but I think not on here: my brother is an extra in the 2019 Meryl Streep / Emma Watson / Saoirse Ronan / Laura Dern version of Little Women. He’s the flute-player in the wedding scene, and I went to the movie knowing he DID appear in it for a brief moment, and I kept my eyes wide open and did not blink at all during the wedding scene, and I did not see him. His wife’s entire family went, though, and they ALL saw him, so! Flute-player! Wedding scene! My brother! Good luck!

I thought this movie version of Little Women was really good for someone who has read/loved the book Little Women, but I didn’t feel like it would be as good a fit for my family members, who have not read the book. The movie is like a series of “Hey, remember this?” and “Remember THIS?!”—without actually showing the details of each THIS. And it switches back and forth between Past and Future, which can get a little confusing even if you are like me and have read the book many, many times.

And so we are getting the family ready to see the movie. Paul still reads to Henry each night, so he is going to read him Little Women next. And in the meantime, we have watched the 1994 Winona Ryder / Susan Sarandon movie version of Little Women, which I had never seen; and also the 2017 miniseries starring Maya Hawke who, amazingly to me, is the child of Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman. I remember reading the issue of People magazine that mentioned her birth. And now here she is, being Jo.

Of the three versions of Little Women I have seen (1994, 2017, 2019), my favorite is the 2017, in large part because as a miniseries it has more TIME so it covers more STUFF. But also because I was distracted by the versions with familiar actors. I kept seeing Hermione instead of Meg, and Winona Ryder instead of Jo, and Susan Sarandon / Laura Dern instead of Marmee. (And BOB ODENKIRK instead of Mr. March, what the HECK.)

It’s been interesting to see which movies (I’m going to refer to all three as “movies,” for simplicity) leave out which parts of the book. The book is like a dozen movies, so SOME things have to be left out. It seems like there is general agreement to be brief with Meg’s married storyline. One movie told the silk dress / greatcoat story, and one referred briefly to the jam story, but none of them did the husband-brings-home-friend-unexpectedly story. Amy’s limes ALWAYS make it in. Burning the book / falling through the ice is always in. Marmee’s temper is always in, but with more/less time devoted to it. There is always the story of the piano, but told differently. The Professor Bhaer storyline is VERY DIFFERENT in each movie; I can’t remember for sure, but I think all three incorporate an umbrella, but not in the same way the book did. More like they’re saying “Remember there was an umbrella?” Laurie shaming Meg is overdone in one version, skipped in another, dealt with oddly in a third. Laurie’s bad behavior is underplayed in all three, though one version does address it a little.

I have enjoyed all three versions very much, and now want to re-read the book.

I always stay in 2-star motels/hotels, not because I am choosing that many stars on purpose, but because that is my price range for motels/hotels. However, recently there was a localized dip in motel/hotel prices that brought a 3-star motel/hotel (I don’t know when to use “motel” and when to use “hotel”) into the same range as the 2-star ones, and so I went ahead and booked one. Here are the things I noted (though keep in mind that this is one single 3-star motel/hotel against MANY 2-star motels/hotels):

1) On-site restaurant instead of complimentary breakfast. Not a fan of this. I would rather have complimentary bagels and coffee (and some 2-star hotels have much more: waffle-makers, yogurt fridges, eggs/sausages, fruit, juice/coffee/cocoa) than a sit-down restaurant with waiters. I can see how someone else might want it the other way around, though.

2) Better towels. The 2-star motels/hotels generally have small, cheap towels. The 3-star motel/hotel had towels like the ones I have at home.

3) Larger shampoo/conditioner/bodywash, and better quality and nicer-smelling. The 2-star motels/hotels have teensy sample sizes you can barely get a single serving out of, and they generally smell like coconut air-freshener. The 3-star had much larger portions (like, enough for 2-3 uses), and they smelled nice.

4) Larger bathroom. This one was a draw. The 2-star places usually have a toilet/shower in one room, and the sink out in the main room, which is nice in its own way; the 3-star place had a more typical toilet/shower/sink bathroom, which was nice in its own way.

5) GLASS glasses, with paper lids that turned into coasters. I could see that this was supposed to be an upgrade over plastic disposable cups wrapped in plastic, while not actually wanting it. (I get nervous that I will drop/break glass glasses, and I don’t like the way glass feels if it taps against my teeth.)

6) Bottled water in the room. We were too nervous to use it, because of sneaky mini-bar charges for things in motel/hotel rooms and not knowing if these were in that category.

7) Metal ice bucket instead of plastic. We did not care about this, but we noted it.

8) Working ice machine. We very much did care/appreciate. Except we had the room right across from the ice machine AND the elevator, which was…non-ideal.

9) Prettier/fancier hall carpeting. Does not matter, but felt worth noting. It really was very pretty/fancy.

10) Big intimidating fancy lobby / check-in area. Did not like. Felt out of place.

11) Ballroom / conference rooms. Did not use, but felt important to atmosphere. Subjectively negative, because it made me feel like maybe we shouldn’t be there.

12) Better pillows. Both 2-star and 3-star motels/hotels have about four pillows per bed, but the 3-star ones were fatter/plusher/better. Not a LOT better, but somewhat better.

13) More TV channels, and more ways to spend money on movies. But I do not want, so. And the TV kept cutting out / digitally reloading every few seconds, just like in the 2-star places.

14) Big startling mirror in the elevator. Seemed deluxe. Startled us. Draw.

15) Noisy heat/fan. Same as 2-star, but felt more irritating because we were in a 3-star. Nice for blocking out sounds of ice machine and elevator.

16) Same room carpeting that feels like maybe you shouldn’t step on it with bare feet.

I just dropped one of my kids back at college, and Christmas is over, and the get-together I was looking forward to this weekend as a post-holiday pick-me-up is over, and now I am An Entire Mood.

Add to that Mood the fact that we are now in An Election Year. William is 18, and so last week he registered to vote. He knew more than I did about our president’s recent decision to assassinate a top Iranian commander, and mentioned it in the context of being worried about being drafted. I decided NOT to attempt to comfort him with something I read about how we don’t actually need to worry about another draft, because all of us would die from nuclear explosion/fallout LONG before there would be any call for involuntary soldiers.

I have been having a weird few weeks. Christmas is always a little fraught anyway, with all the work and stress and expectations and so forth, plus of course the pressure to reduce work/stress/expectations and Really Be In The Moment and Truly Cherish the Things That Truly Matter and so forth. My two college kids were home for winter break, which was a strange mix of SO DELIGHTFUL (having them near; seeing them safe and well; patting their tall flannelly shoulders as I passed by; hearing them talking with and teasing their siblings; having Christmas and New Year’s with all seven of us together) and very non-great (hearing their cynical takes on my parenting; worrying that one of them is literally up all night and sleeping the entire day away and also talking to himself at a level that might be fine or might be An Early Warning Sign; being irritated/enraged that I guess I still have to tell them NOT to leave their nighttime cooking dishes for ME to do). I pre-mourned bringing them back to school, and now I am at one-half still pre-mourning plus one-half present-tense mourning. While simultaneously looking forward to getting back to normal, and feeling stressed that “normal” now means “without 40% of my children.” It is all such a rich tapestry. And we never did do gingerbread houses, and the bags and bags of supplies are taking up space in my china cabinet.

Listen, do we feel like we can hang on until Galentine’s Day? It’s only five and a half weeks away. Last year I had friends over, and we did a classroom-style valentine exchange, and for my valentines I taped little paper Wonder Woman valentines to cans of sparkling seltzer in pink/red flavors, which I’m going to do again this year, and which I recommend if you are looking for an idea. Furthermore, I highly recommend THE WHOLE THING: I highly recommend hosting a Galentine’s party, and inviting your gals, and seeing if everyone can get rides so that you can drink a lot of cans of spiked seltzer. (You will have leftover non-pink/red flavors.) (Especially if you deliberately buy a bunch of non-pink/red flavors.) Make it an appetizer/dessert potluck. Bring a big heart-shaped box of chocolates.

I couldn’t remember if I made resolutions last year, so I went back and found last year’s New Year’s Eve post which reminded me we were still neck-deep in the move and I was pretty busy thinking about how if Paul were to die suddenly I could move back to my old house. That was not the right head-space for making resolutions.

I do have a resolution this year, and it’s to put up wall art. I have put up three things total, all on nails that were already in the walls when we moved in. I have not put in a single additional nail, because I don’t know which walls are horsehair plaster (it’s most of them, but some renovations allegedly were done with sheetrock), and I also don’t know if we have the kind of horsehair plaster walls that do okay as long as you’re gentle / use special horsehair-plaster-coddling techniques, or if we have the kind where you try to hammer in a nail and a baseball-size chunk of the wall falls in powder to the floor, and then as you look on in despair, a crack begins a slow gradual spread from the chunked place outward across the rest of the wall. One of the kids rocked an upholstered chair too hard and it bonked into a wall and left a deep shattery powdery dent, which makes me think it’s likely we have the latter kind of wall.

But Paul has said that if I tell him which wall art and where I want it, he will figure out the nails. And I think wall art is important—or at least, I know each time when I took DOWN the wall art when moving, the whole apartment/house suddenly felt bare and echoey and generic and sad. I think putting up my familiar wall art would make this house feel more like mine, and it seems like a bad sign that it’s been more than a year and I haven’t done it. So I would like to do that this year.

We are going to an afternoon, kids-invited-too holiday party today (we are bringing one kid, the one who is friends with one of the other family’s kids), and I am still trying to decide what to bring as a little hostess gift. Normally I would bring a bottle of wine, and I do think that’s an excellent back-up idea, but for an event that includes kids and takes place in the afternoon I’d wondered if I could think of something a little more familyish. I’d thought we were all set with our idea to bring a box of chocolates from a local chocolate shop, but then I looked around at our own house and I thought probably everyone else is also drowning (happily! but plentifully) in an abundance of treats.

We don’t know the other family well, which makes it more challenging. But also: we’d LIKE to know them better, and we are taking this invitation as an indication that they feel similarly, so it adds a little to the fun of this mission: it would be neat to find something that made them like us more or think we’re cool. *wrings hands friendingly*

Flowers, maybe? I have a bunch of inexpensively-acquired vases, so I could bring flowers in a vase they could keep; or I could bring a potted plant. I’m not saying either of those are cool ideas, but they’re classics, and maybe I should save cool for when they know us better and I can say “Here, I brought you these scented candles someone else gave me, plus a box of the fancier kind of crackers I thought we’d need over the holidays but we didn’t.”

Would coffee be a nice hostess gift? There’s a nearby place that does their own roasting/grinding and sells the coffee in cute overpriced locally-labeled jars. I could choose a couple of jars. What if they don’t drink coffee? What if they don’t drink wine? What if they’re allergic to plants? Now I am getting a little unnecessarily fretful. There is no need to get all fretty here: they will give away what they don’t/can’t use, and they will not think we are dumb for not knowing.

What do you like to bring as a hostess gift? Has anyone brought you a hostess gift that was unusual or interesting or made you think they were cool people to be friends with?

Let’s have an end-of-year fundraiser check-in. Ever since I posted the fundraiser back in July, one of my primary “lie awake fretting about it” concerns has been that I will FORGET TO SEND A TOKEN, or that I will send a token and IT WILL GET LOST IN THE MAIL. So let’s check in at this point: if you were supposed to have received something by now, but have not, you should LET ME KNOW. It will make us BOTH feel better.

Calendar Twins should have received their calendars last week. I chose Birds, which has since been marked down if you want to be calendar twins with us. If you signed up to be a Calendar Twin and you didn’t get your calendar and I have just ruined the surprise, you should email me: swistle at gmail dot com.

All cloth napkins have been sent out. All favorite Christmas books have been sent out. All favorite baby-naming books have been sent out. If you signed up for cloth napkins, a favorite Christmas book, or a baby-naming book, and you haven’t received them, you should email me and tell me so: swistle at gmail dot com.

Postcard subscriptions have been going out as scheduled. If you are on the monthly plan, you should have received one every month starting in July (six postcards so far); if you are on the every-other-monthly plan, you should have received one every other month starting in August (three postcards so far). (December postcards might not have all arrived: I was a little later than I expected to be, and second-class mail takes longer.) If you are a postcard subscriber and you’ve missed a postcard, email me and let me know. (If you happen to know which month you missed, I’ve kept track of which one I sent each month, so I may be able to re-send the very one you were supposed to have received. If not, I’ll extend your subscription by a month.)

If you signed up for a greeting card with a delivery date of Christmas or earlier, you should have received it by now. If you didn’t, you should email me. (If you signed up for an “anytime” delivery, you may or may not have received it; I realize this is not helpful. I will do another check-in post later when EVERYTHING should have been delivered, so you’ll have another chance.)

If you signed up for a care package or treats box with a delivery date of Christmas or earlier, you should have received it by now. If you didn’t, you should email me. (If you signed up for an “anytime” delivery, you may or may not have received it; I realize this is not helpful. I will do another check-in post later when EVERYTHING should have been delivered, so you’ll have another chance.)

If you signed up for a piece of my SUBPAR POTTERY or a SWISTLE SKIRT, it should have long-since arrived. If it has not, you should email me.

If you signed up for BEE STICKERS, BEE EARRINGS, and/or a BEE ORNAMENT, it should have long-since arrived. If it has not, you should email me.

Just to address another of my lying-awake fears: If you email me about this and you don’t hear back from me, THAT IS IMPOSSIBLE and means I am for whatever crazy reason not getting your emails. Try me on Twitter, or from a different email address, or leave a blog comment, and I WILL get back to you.

In fact: I responded to allllll the contributions at the time to confirm that I got the email, so if you sent a contribution (even if you didn’t want a token) and didn’t hear back from me at the time, THAT ALSO IS IMPOSSIBLE and means for whatever crazy reason I didn’t get your email. Try me on Twitter, or from a different email address, or leave a blog comment, and I WILL get back to you.