I have this new nighttime routine called Wake Up In The Middle Of The Night To Worry About Dumb Shit. I fall asleep just fine but then I wake up to pee and — BAM — my brain leaps into high gear. 

Actually, last night was a little different. As soon as I stepped into the bathroom, my mind said, “Can you imagine if the house burned down?” (there was another equally horrid question, something about a body in the bathtub, perhaps?), but I was like, “Jennifer, are you freakin’ serious right now? Do not EVEN,” and then I fell right back to sleep. Miracles!

But an hour later I popped back awake to problem solve because that’s what my brain likes to do best in the dead of night: pick a problem and then worry it into submission. My brain switches on and, right on cue, my body tenses and I get to work think-think-thinking. 

Last night my brain didn’t shut off until nearly 4:00, but then I only dozed intermittently because my husband had entered his twitch-sleeping stage and kept waking me with all his involuntary jerks and shudders, one of which, at 4:44 am, yanked me wide awake, at which point I vocalized loudly, ripped off my sleep mask, and shot out of the room. 

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When I was a child and had trouble falling sleeping (or didn’t want to fall asleep), my mother would chirp, “Think happy thoughts about Jesus.” 

One of my friends keeps five happy scenarios on tap. If she has trouble sleeping, she pulls one of them up and ponders it until she falls asleep. Which she does promptly. 

But my brain wants drama, terror, and angst. Tossing it a happy conundrum when it wakes ravenous for complications to detangle is ineffective and slightly dangerous, like attempting to satisfy a junk food craving with celery. Once the munching starts, it doesn’t stop. Watch out.

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I have no solution. Some nights I treat myself to a Ibuprofen PM. About once a week, I’ll take some CBD tincture or Bigfoot Glue that a friend made. Once in a blue moon I’ll have a piece of the special chocolate that my daughter brought me when she moved back from Massachusetts. 

The lack of sleep doesn’t seem to be much of a problem, really. I drink my cup of coffee, take a Ibuprofen to ward off the no-sleep headache, and get on with my day.  

And some nights I sleep just fine. For example, two nights ago I dreamed the owner of an enormous cruise ship was in love with me and we were sailing up the Hudson into New York City. I’d never been on a cruise ship, in real life or in a dream. It was magnificent.

This same time, years previous: sex after menopause: Meredith, age 74, draft two, the great courses, collard greens, kitchen sink cookies, the quotidian (2.15.16), the quotidian (2.16.15), chocolate pudding, buses, boats, and trucks.

Quotidian: daily, usual or customary;
everyday; ordinary; commonplace

Dark winter mornings and the blessed coffee corner.

Dried fresh cranberries have almost zero flavor. Why?

Strawberry ice cream with crunchy oat crumbles.

When cheese cheeses.

Stacking up.

Nature’s palatte.

Ice bath #1.

Ice bath #2.

About three steers in and I’ve finally stopped overcooking the steak.

The burgers, on the other hand….

18: I no longer have any minor children.

Welcome, Remus! (Our first night birth, which we missed, of course.)

Farm tag.

Me and Grace.

This same time, years previous: the spiced onyx, Dear Daughter, how we homeschool: Amber, snake cake, the quotidian (2.12.18), bits and bobs, chasing fog, one-pot macaroni and cheese.

I’ve never considered myself a skilled soup maker, the kind of cook with a grounded intuition about herbs and acids (like the head chef at Magpie who is an actual soup goddess), but I think I may be improving. This year I’ve done more riff soups, kitchen-sink soups, and non-recipe soups than ever before and most of them have been quite fine. Some have even been splendid.

And then a couple weeks ago, Adam Roberts did a post about soup over at Cup of Jo. His approach is both practical and inspiring, the exact sort of slapdash, there-is-no-one-right-way philosophy that opens me up to explore and grow, and now I feel liberated to soup* with even more abandon and conficence.

*Make soup, make verbs. The sky’s the limit.

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Isabel Wilkerson’s book Caste was my favorite book of 2020 and now it’s been made into a movie.

I haven’t seen it yet (have you?) but I’m eagerly awaiting its release on Amazon Prime.

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Two weeks ago, we scored three free tickets to Drum Tao, a Japanese drum and dance ensemble.

The physicality of the show was absolutely mind-boggling: a little bit like Cirque du Soleil but with drumming and martial arts, flute playing, acrobatics, chanting, and an enormous variety of drums and sticks, some as big as baseball bats. At first I was a little edgy — the way they were wailing on those drums just a few feet from my precious noggin! — but I soon realized that these were some seriously skilled people who had a good handle (literally) on what they were doing. 

Our seats were in the very first row, which I didn’t know until we arrived (squee!), and then another attender told me that the tickets had sold out within 24 hours of going on sale: There’s nothing like a good scarcity story to make me feel lucky!

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I’ve always been in awe of Rosanna Nafziger’s writing. Our parents were friends when we were children (I have fuzzy memories of gathering around their kitchen table, big loaves of her mama’s brown bread, and us kids running around their hilly West Virginian yard), and back when she had a blog, I followed along religiously (and still mourn its ending). She’s been writing essays, though(!), and her recent piece about money and poverty and giving and religion is both honest and generous, a balance which can be hard to strike as a writer. Highly recommend.

***

I have not read many books in recent months but I devoured Feast by Hannah Howard, pun intended. The food, the stories, the inside look at kitchens, the excruciating detailing of disordered eating — it was truly a feast.

Note: I recommend the book with one caveat. Even as a person with a pretty grounded relationship with food, some of the descriptions of her eating disorder were difficult to read. Know your limits.

***

Wise words from Tim Minchin.

What will you do with your one meaningless life?

This same time, years previous: labor pains, a family milk cow, the quotidian (2.4.19), twelve, the quotidian (2.6.17), loss, cheesy bacon toasts, eight, in which we enroll our children in school, travel tips.