3. Paying attention

I just now went back and retroactively numbered the last two posts here, from yesterday and the day before—because two days, that's a trend, right?—1 and 2. And now I'm at 3. And I should damn well be able to find something interesting, inspiring, beautiful, or maybe infuriating to write about every day. (Infuriating for sure, but it's hard to put fury into comprehensible words. And I'd rather focus on the positive.)

So today, I'm just going to make a few notes about my day yesterday, Friday: things I paid attention to, things I enjoyed. May not be interesting, inspiring, or beautiful, but I'm pretty sure it won't be infuriating either.

I started the day with a ripe-Camembert-smeared everything bagel. And coffee, of course. While perusing the headlines. The pleasure outcompeting the disgust.  

At 10, I met a Oaxacan friend at the library for English tutoring. She's been in this country for 30 years, and she wants to get better at English so she can gain citizenship. We've been meeting for a few months now, and I don't know how much better she is at English—she only works on it for this one hour each week—but we enjoy getting together, chatting, looking things up in the dictionary, on Google Translate. Taking an hour out of our normal reality to read about the practice book's Jack and Billy and puzzle out fill-in-the-word exercises. To share a bit of friendship. I hope she doesn't become a victim of ICE.

Back home, I corresponded with an editor at Yale University Press about a potential job, a book about tubers. I bit—it looks well written, and I might learn something. I've got various jobs coming in in the next few months, which I'm glad about. It will help give some structure to my day. Earn me a bit of money (which I've already earmarked for a trip to Australia, Tasmania and Queensland, in September 2026, woot!).

Our afternoon walk with the dog took us to the Highway 218 construction site, where the building of an underpass is basically complete; now, they have to build the bike path up and out of the underpass and, on the other side, build an approach. It's been fun to inspect the construction every week, see the progress. I look forward to the entire project being complete. In another year or so. (Patience.)

We then walked (sans chien)  to the local Safeway to pick up some things for dinner—the key ingredient being rhubarb, which they had! 

And then I cooked said dinner, sweet Italian sausages with a rhubarb–Swiss chard, not sauce—it wasn't thin. I'm not sure just what to call it. There's probably a French word. I'll do some research. In any case, it was delicious. 

As I cooked, I listened to a podcast: the New York Times's Ezra Klein and Ross Douthat in conversation. Ezra being liberal, Ross Christian conservative. I don't like reading Douthat's columns—I'm not persuaded by him in writing—but I did enjoy listening to these two talk. They shifted my perspective a bit on the awfulness that currently prevails. As in, put it all in a bigger perspective. I still think what's going on here is awful, but I am beginning to understand a bit better how all of this resides in history writ large. There really was nothing "normal" about the world I was born into. Or grew up in. Or have taken for granted. History occurs in tides.

Still doesn't mean there's anything whatsoever good about Trump. 

We finished the evening as we always do: in front of the TV. Tonight, a silly British mystery, Ludwig (silly is awfully salutary right now), and the last two episodes of The Pitt. I hate finishing up an excellent series, and The Pitt was definitely excellent. But what's done is done, and tonight I'll have to find a new series to help me forget the awfulness of our reality. A friend recommended The Terror, about the search for the Northwest Passage. Okay, a 180-degree turn from ER emergencies, but I'm sure there's plenty to get engaged in, up there in the icy arctic. 

There: a day in the life. (I left out my bad habit of playing Free Cell on my phone.) Does this even count as a blog post? Maybe later today I'll encounter something that encourages me to erase this, and post something really interesting. I can only hope.