My 2022 Reading Year

Part of our New Years goal and wrap up is taking a look back at all the books I've read in the year and categorizing them. While I'm reading, I keep titles in a Google Keep list with the dates I complete them. Then, at the end of the year, I put it all into my journal. 

This wasn't a banner year for reading # of books, compared to past years. I read 77 books, which is low by at least 23 titles. And, when I went through them all, I wasn't as excited about them. I did have some longer books that were out of character for me and I had decided I didn't care if I read fewer books because of the choices I made, but sometimes those were also somewhat less enjoyable. 

Here are my numbers (categories have some overlap so they won't add up to 77): 

Total books: 77

Months with most books read: January and December, each with 9

Months with least books read: March and May, each with 4

Poetry: 1

Graphic Novel: 1

Realistic Fiction: 6

Historical Fiction: 7

Books Bryce Bought Me: 10

Nonfiction (essays and informational): 11

Young Adult: 13

Fantasy/Sci-Fi: 17

Twisty/Mystery: 23

Books by Diverse Authors/Themes of Diversity/Diverse Characters: 30

I had a couple stinkers in there. I almost abandoned Where the Bird Sings Best by Alejandro Jodorowsky (at one point I thought I was going to make a tally for how many times the word "pubis" was used) but then hit that point where if I abandoned it all the time I'd spent reading it would have been wasted. I kept hoping for it to get better. It didn't. Daisy Darker by Alice Feeney annoyed the heck out of me. I found it derivative and lazy, and felt that the author peppered the text with little sayings that were supposed to be "very deep thoughts" but it was like being interrupted by a million bumper stickers while reading. 

In terms of best books, there were actually quite a few, and it's really hard to put them in order. I wanted to keep going, but these were the ones that grabbed me first.

1) The Book of Delights by Ross Gay which I've already reviewed. It was, to be cheesy, simply delightful. (Essays) 

2) Without Children: The Long History of Not Being a Mother by Peggy O'Donnell Heffington. A post is forthcoming dedicated to this amazing book that will be out in April 2023. I got an advance copy from my favorite small indie bookstore, and WOW. So much good stuff there. Next post is all about it! 

3) The Aosawa Murders by Riku Onda. A really cool concept breaking down a horrific murder mystery through interviews. Well written and thinky. 

4) The Last Cuentista by Donna Barba Higuera. This is a Newbury Award Winner for YA fiction and is a really inventive speculative fiction book that also weaves in Mexican folklore. It's also a really satisfying compact hardcover format (just feels good in your hands). It feels a little Don't Look Up plus The Giver and has just really great storytelling in it.

5) They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera. Gorgeous. Interesting concept. I wept openly when I finished it even though DYING IS IN THE TITLE. It's not a spoiler! But it was just gorgeously emotional. 

6) The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey. Oh wow, so inventive and a mix of twisty + sci-fi. To describe it is to ruin some of the wonder. There is a pregnancy pretty prominently featured but it didn't bother me in this context. A thinker. 

7) Everything Is OK by Debbie Tung. A beautiful graphic novel memoir (or memoir told in comics?) that is part inspirational, part a delving into the experience of living with severe depression and anxiety. 

8) Little Weirds by Jenny Slate. Yup, they were little weird essays, but man, I related. They were funny and heartwarming and strange. I adore Jenny Slate and I adored her more after reading this book. 

9) The Hacienda by Isabel Canas. Straight up one of the creepiest books I read this year, and full of Mexican history. It felt a little like a combo of The Thornbirds, Jane Eyre, and The Haunting of Hill House. So good. 

10) The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix. I avoided this one forever because it was "popular" and I saw it everywhere. Oh man, was it fun. It was unexpected and quirky, sometimes creepy, and altogether a delight. 

For this next year, I want to read books I want to read, and I'm going to abandon ones that don't feel right to me so I can read the ones that are enjoyable. I'm going to aim to read one Bryce Pick a month, minimum. He got me some really good ones for Christmas and I have a bit of a back catalog going of unreads from him. Other than that, I want to continue diversifying my reading lists. 

What were your favorites of 2022?

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Looking Back, Looking Forward

Happy New Year! 

For the past few years, Bryce and I have spent time on New Years' Eve with three connected rituals. First, we do a roundup of the year -- what did we accomplish? What was good? What was shitty? Any notable events (including things like "bought a treadmill" or "hired a cleaning lady" or "started ordering Hello Fresh) go on the list. Then, we look back at last year's goals and evaluate -- what did we do? What didn't happen? What needs to be either abandoned or made into smaller, more manageable goals? Lastly, we make our goals for the coming year, broken down into categories (Home/Garden, Finances/Future Planning, Health & Wellness, Writing, PhD, School, Leisure, Family/Travel, and Things to Buy (like big purchases to plan for). 

The roundup is generally fun, especially now that we aren't regularly filled with angst. We referenced calendars and Google Photos for some of it. It's a good way to acknowledge the year that's ending and fully remember everything that happened, for better or worse. I did this sitting at the kitchen counter while Bryce made a Hungarian mushroom soup for our dinner (it was sooo good, creamy and tangy and forest-floor-y.)

Looking at last year's goals can be a mixed bag. There's pride about the things we managed to check off, and then a hint of shame about things that didn't happen, especially if they've been on the list for several years in a row. It made us realize we need to maybe do quarterly checks on the goals, so those pesky ones that aren't so fun (but are totally necessary) can finally get off the list. 

Setting the new goals is fun, and this year everything was about... SIMPLIFYING. Make them smaller, more attainable, but moving towards larger goals. Leisure had the most goals at 13, followed by Home/Garden with 12. I think this is because of the "on hold" feeling we've had from Bryce's PhD, and the anticipation of having that resolved. There will hypothetically be more time to "leisure!" We were talking about how everything we do that puts us "on hold" is a 7-8 year journey -- the PhD is almost exactly the same amount of time as infertility & adoption, and both put us in a holding pattern of sorts. Big difference...we'll have something to show for the PhD! Har de har har har. Ha. I'm excited about the projects to come.

I did start getting a little overwhelmed and anxious towards the end of our goal-making, and I couldn't put a finger on why. Maybe because there's change coming. Maybe because once the PhD is over, we can do more things. Maybe because we were thinking about travel, and all of a sudden all I could think about was COVID and war and fear fear fear. But, that's just something to work through. And something to consider... maybe the goals can be a New Years' Day thing, so we're not doing ALL the things at once. It becomes a reflection marathon.

It's good to have goals, but it's also good to not take them so seriously that they become stressors. I really love looking back at the year before we look forward to the new one. It's a good tradition that marks time and what we did with it, which I think is especially important as people without kids. Our milestones are important too, big and small. 

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Abandon Book!

It's been a long time since I've abandoned a book because it made me super mad. I'm not against book abandonment -- I used to doggedly finish every book I started until it dawned on me... Life is way too short and there is way too much GOOD literature out there to waste any time on something that isn't clicking for you. 

I wanted to read something light and fluffy for my last book of 2022, because I'd just finished a pretty unsettling (but excellent) read on 12/30, and I wanted a sort of palate cleanser. 

Okay, now that I'm looking at it that way, I'm not sure why I picked Stacy Willingham's All The Dangerous Things for that because while it's twisty and I really, really enjoyed A Flicker in the Dark, it is about a baby abduction (but also sleepwalking and tracking down the person responsible). Not exactly light material, but usually a sort of twisty, low-effort read. 

OH HOLY JEEZUM. 

I got to page 27 and read a line that made me instantaneously furious. I kept reading to page 51, but it just kept coming back to me. Taunting me. Pissing me off. Here is the offender, emphasis mine: 

"It's always the same: searching for them on Facebook, sifting through profiles and trying to determine where they might live. I look for childless women, maybe. Lonely souls with too many cats and too much free time..."

What. the. actual. FUCK. How insulting. 

And a boring, overdone trope. Ohhh, it must be the desperate childless woman sneaking into the nursery to get a baby of her own. GUESS WHAT, ASSHOLES? The person who climbs into windows and steals babies/children from cribs is pretty much always a man. And it has nothing to do with childlessness, or how many cats you have, or how much perceived "free time" you have, or the perception of loneliness. 

It was almost a throw-it-across-the-room moment, but then I just...decided. Would I rather end 2022 with a disturbing but well written book about an increasingly unhinged woman with mother issues? Or with a book that is diametrically opposed to EVERYTHING I STAND FOR? Even if it only shows (so far) in one line?

I started our Young Adult Book Club's pick, Eight Nights of Flirting by Hannah Reynolds, a light and fluffy (but longish) YA Hanukkah rom-com, knowing I wouldn't finish it. And resolved myself that my last book of 2022 was Motherthing by Ainslie Hogarth (again, excellent, but very much like Tender Is the Flesh by Augustina Bazterrica in that you have to sit and think in silence for a good 15-20 minutes after you finish it, and you feel a little like you need to jump in the shower, but you admire the ingenuity and the way it's written). 

I'm mad that my first post of 2023 is a rage against a book, but that's the way it goes I guess! 

Please, please, PLEASE authors... find some way to NOT be horrifically insulting and outdated with how you portray women that don't fit into a neat and tidy heteronormative mold. Ugh. 

Have you ever abandoned a book that made you mad? Or did you rage-read it to the end? 

Holidays, Our Way

I am so glad that the holidays aren't as painful as they used to be. I do think one reason for that is the way that we do them. 

It started with celebrating my mom's birthday, which we were originally going to do on Thursday (her actual birthday). They were coming over, and I was getting pizza and we'd have birthday and then family Christmas at our house by the tree. Then I'd give them the presents for my sister's family and they'd deliver them as they go up north to their house to celebrate the actual holiday. 

But, then this monster storm approached, and I thought maybe we should last-minute switch to Wednesday night so my mom and stepdad didn't have to drive Friday, when a flash freeze and snow and wind was supposed to whip across the Northeast, especially the Great Lakes region. So we did that, and while it was a little more harried getting everything together, it was a lovely evening. 

Thursday we got notice that we had a SNOW DAY on Friday, at noon no less! Snow days are the best. It's a truly free day -- unscheduled, no sub plans required, no appointments scheduled -- just pure freedom. And to know ahead of time! Literally you heard whoops and people running out into the hall when the email and text came through (not gonna lie, it was during my lunch and I was one of those people running out in the hall, cheering and hugging anyone who was nearby and generally causing a very distracting ruckus). It did pretty much kill any hope of getting anything remotely resembling work done, since it was officially "the day before break." The energy level was bananas after the kids found out, and frankly the adults were all crazed as well. I did manage to get students to play actual board games, which was nice ("Can we go on our computers or phones?" "NO! You can INTERACT with REAL LIVE HUMANS, and HAVE FUN without a SCREEN! BWAHAHAHA"). We'd already had our celebration during English, since it's the only time my group is all together, undiluted. We had donuts and hot chocolate and a Spongebob holiday special. I had to do it Thursday because the holiday hoe down was supposed to be Friday during English, so that turned out to be great timing. (My students are sad they rescheduled the hoe down for the Tuesday we get back, they were downright protesting having to square dance with each other.)

Friday was sweet, sweet pajama time. And a fair amount of stress over the winds. If you've seen the news out of Buffalo, it was absolutely apocalyptic there, only an hour west of us. We had high winds (sustained 50 mph, gusts up to 70) and a sudden drop in temperature that turned the roads into sheets of ice, but the blowing snow didn't accumulate hardly at all. I hate the wind. It is insanely stressful. Just pure chaos shrieking in the chimney and literally bowing in the windows. I actually hit the floor at one point because I was certain the windows in our living room were going to blow in. They didn't, but it did not make for a restful sleep later! 

Bryce made a request to change our routine for Christmas. In the past, I've been pretty tied to the following routine: 

1) open one present on Christmas Eve

2) have stockings with coffee but before breakfast

3) breakfast is pancakes and bacon and a citrus salad

4) then we open presents, one at a time, and take time to write down what we got from who so thank you notes are easily done. 

Well, what happens every year is that our family is all over the country, so we end up doing tons of phone calls and zooms, and everyone else is done with presents far before we are, so we feel like we are constantly in a state of interruption and stress and feel the weight of calls we should be making and then we get irritated. 

So, Bryce wisely suggested we do our Christmas on Saturday. Have a leisurely Christmas on the Eve, and then do our calls on Sunday without feeling stressed on either day. BRILLIANT. I don't know why we didn't do this before! (Well, I do... I hate change and can be a little, um, rigid...) It was glorious. We saved stockings for Christmas Day and presents that people wanted us to open with them, and I decided to scrap the citrus salad and sleep in a bit more. 

It's funny, because for a while towards the end of our family building journey, we preferred to go away for Christmas, to do it in Vermont where it was something different and less painful. That was in the house that we thought we'd be pregnant in, that we thought we'd bring a baby home to. The thought of coming down the stairs to a tree with presents and having no children, no extra stockings, none of that was too painful. 

Then, when we moved to our new house, we didn't want to go to Vermont for Christmas anymore. After, sure. But we wanted to celebrate the holiday our way, in our new house that fit our new life. Just us and the cats. 

This may seem strange. Why don't we get together with family on Christmas? Isn't it sad and lonely, just us two? Wouldn't it be in a way easier than all those phone calls and zooms? 

No. We enjoy celebrating around the holiday with people who are here, and having zooms or phone calls with those who aren't. To have a big family Christmas is pretty impossible, given that our family is so spread out and there would be no way to see everyone (both our parents are divorced, so there are 4 parental locations, not 2). It would also be a reminder of the family Christmas we wanted to have ourselves but don't. My extended family is even more spread out than my parents/inlaw situation, so there's no big family holiday with tons of little kids running around. Bryce does have a stepbrother with a young son, 4 or 5 (who we've met once). I think my mother-in-law would love for us to have a big family holiday all together, which is probably more of a fantasy thing than a reality thing, as the situation is complicated. And, frankly, I don't think we could do a tiny child's Christmas. We are well-adjusted(ish) in part because of the boundaries we set, the situations we simply do not put ourselves in. Grief is funny because there's no expiration date, and while sometimes it can sneak attack you unexpectedly, it's also good to know what you know will be triggering. No thank you, not for us. I am glad that they can have new traditions with a small human though. I'm also kind of glad I don't have to witness it too much. 

I love our quiet Christmas. I love our traditions and that we can mix it up if we want to. I love that we have established that we are a family, and we can connect with the greater family while preserving our own celebration and sanity. I hope the same for you -- balanced holidays and extra care for your hearts. 

Christmas Eve

Cozy Eggi

Cozy Lucky

Magic Pinecones make the fire all Harry Potter-y

2022 Holiday Card

In Defense of Fake Trees

I never thought we would be Fake Tree People.

I grew up going out and picking out a tree from a lot, tying it to the roof or in the trunk of the car. 

Bryce grew up in Maine, and real trees were everything. 

But when we resolved without children, we eventually got a fake tree. A 7 foot tall prelit beauty. At first it felt weird.

But then, it was...AWESOME. 

We could put it up and take it down with ease. There was no handling sap (it gives me hives). No vacuuming a neverending parade of pine needles. No worrying that the cats would drink the water and get sick. No worrying that it was a fire hazard. No dragging it out to the woods in January. 

And also, no picking out a tree out among families. No feeling like we're doing something we would have done with our children. 

It's nice to break with tradition and make new ones when you remake your life. This tree fits us and our life now. And it's beautiful.

Want to read more #Microblog Mondays? Go here and enjoy! 

How To Respond When Someone Says They Don't Have Kids: Medical Edition

Infertile Phoenix wrote recently about an experience at her mammogram that included a lovely response to the "no" when asked "do you have kids?"  It was refreshing to have someone say "I'm sorry" and end it there. In that case, the medical professional said she also didn't have kids, which was an additional bonus. It's lovely when you're not a total outlier. 

It reminded me that although unfortunately, I've had multiple experiences with medical professionals lately, they have all been positive on the no-kids front. 

Colonoscopy Nurse

When I got my colonoscopy last month, the office was in the same complex as the primary fertility clinic we spent time at to no avail. It was around back of it (ba dum-bump) and I could see it from the parking lot. It came up when they absolutely could not get my IV in a vein easily, and I said, "it's probably all the time I spent at Strong Fertility getting poked, my veins haven't really recovered from that." She said, "Oh, how long were you there?" and when I answered she said, "Did it work?" and I said "No." And steeled myself for a litany of things I could "still" do or should have done. 

But it didn't come! She just said, "oh, I'm really sorry." And I said, "Thank you, it was really awful when we were going through that but we have a beautiful life now." AND THAT WAS IT. There was no invasive magnifying glass into my personal life or choices. There was no overselling of having children in the first place. The subject got changed and we talked about teaching instead. It was glorious. 

X-Ray Technician at Urgent Care

When I left school to go to Urgent Care because my knee blew up, they did an x-ray. And you could have blown me over with a feather because THEY NEVER ASKED ME IF I WAS OR COULD BE PREGNANT. Before concerns about that come up, here's what happened: 

Bryce had met me there and was in the exam room, so as they got me on the x-ray table, the technician said, "Is that your husband?" and I said "Sure is!" She said, "he is very nice, do you have kids?" 

"No, that didn't work out for us." 

She looked at my chart before starting the x-ray and said, "You are not too old...maybe..." and I said "I don't have a uterus," and she said, "oh, okay." And then, she launched into a personal story.

"Oh, that happened to my sister! She got married at 35 and then found out she had the endometriosis, and went through the IVF but then was told she would never have a pregnancy. I was very sad for her, but she seemed like she just went in a different direction and she is very happy, so I am very happy." 

This led to a rare and wonderful conversation about how IVF fails ALL THE TIME but if we don't talk about it nobody knows and just sees the stories where it does work out, and clinics are certainly not going to highlight failures. That more people are talking about it and making it clearer that IVF sure does fail and you can end up without kids AND have a happy life. She told me about another person she knew who doesn't have kids and tried IVF. IT WAS SO REFRESHING! She ended by saying, "Well, he takes care of you and you take care of him, it's good you have a happy life." Amen. 

Not once did she ask me if I adopted or why I didn't. And she didn't make me feel like I was a sad sap. And, she made the inference that I'm not pregnant and didn't have to ask me explicitly! 

Orthopedic Visit

This is less a story about handling it well, and more about NOT ASKING AT ALL. When dealing with my knee, the aspiration, the cortisone shot, the fitting for a new jointed brace, and discussions about what I can do from a non-surgical standpoint at this time to mitigate the INSANE AMOUNT OF ARTHRITIS I have in that knee (pretty much bone-on-bone), no one asked me about kids at all. You know why? IT WASN'T RELEVANT. No one asked if I had them, there was no need to go into my medical history. I never even had to think about it. 

I do think one reason is because all of the appointments (minus colonoscopy) were through the same hospital system, and they have all my records there. Like, why ask me to fill out my long and sordid history if you don't look at it? It seemed like they actually did in all these appointments. Also, interestingly, the orthopedic appointment was with a younger doctor, and I feel like (generalizing of course) younger people are far less likely to ask about kids in part because they are generationally less likely to have them. 

So what do these experiences all have in common? 

• No one pried into my personal business. If it came up, it was because I brought it up. 
• No one offered me pity. 
• No one offered me "solutions," they accepted my reality.
• No one responded in judgment or examined my choices.
• When it wasn't relevant, no one asked. 

I wish all medical appointments were like these. I am increasingly appreciative of when I don't have lay out all my trauma, or feel judged, or have to explain why I didn't do this or that, or... it's assumed that I have kids. That used to happen a few years ago, where the assumption was that I was a certain age and married and so doctors would be like, "oh, you're running after your kids, that's why!" or "you grind your teeth like all mamas do!" Ugh. Glad that's not a thing anymore. 

I hope this is a trend, and people are realizing that a) not everyone has kids, b) not everyone wants to talk about why or how, c) we don't want your pity or suggestions, and d) it's not necessary to ask in every context. 

Pronatalism in Dirty Jokes

I have very...rambunctious students this year. Lots of immaturity combined with dirty jokes, and I am being tested in my ability to keep a straight face while cracking up inside. 

Today, I worked with three of my students while doing a lab on boiling point. I think they thought the tubing that ran from the test tube that boiled with the thermometer in the stopper to the empty test tube in cold water (for collecting condensation) looked somehow sexual. Which is strange as it didn't look remotely sexual. 

Anyway, they kept making veiled jokes about "D" this and "D" that, and I said, "okay, enough with the Ds. No more Ds."

And one of my spicier students muttered, "Well, then how did you get your kids?" 

I said "what?" and pretended not to have heard, and he said, "well don't you have kids?" I guess insinuating that I then needed a D to accomplish that and so could not ban the jokes about it without hypocrisy. 

"Oh, I don't have kids." 

He just stared at me. His mouth silently opened and closed a few times, but nothing came out. 

"Kinda takes the steam out of your joke, huh?" I said, laughed, and walked away. 

It made me laugh, in part because I think he thought he could shame me into being like, "yes, my children came from sex, sex with a D." But instead he ended up uncomfortable because I don't have kids, and so no "utilitarian" use for sex. With a "D,*." And I hid the fact that that made me cackle insanely inside, behind my straight face.

*In case you didn't figure it out, D = dick.

Want to read more #Microblog Mondays? Go here and enjoy!