Last month, I read Ian McEwan’s new book, What We Can Know, which is a literary mystery, an environmental nightmare novel, and most of all, a reminder that other people contain multitudes and are sometimes real bad. It concerns a researcher 100 years from now who is studying a poet from the 1990s-2030s era, who, on the occasion of his wife’s birthday, wrote a corona (a series of sonnets), which has never been found. Between now and then, the world has flooded (enter the environmental nightmare) and has made historical research more difficult, though the cloud has made it easier: everything the now-people texted or emailed is available to pore through in the future times. Anyway, it’s great and I loved it.

The narrator, who is on the hunt for the lost corona, ruminates on the nature of biography and history and of chasing the past. He also references Richard Holmes’s book Footsteps: Adventures of a Romantic Biographer, in which the author attempts (in 1964) to recreate a journey that Robert Louis Stevenson took across France in 1878. Obviously, I tracked down a copy because what else is there to do in this burning world?

Holmes is in Langogne here:

But here something strange happened. The feeling that Stevenson was actually waiting for me, in person, grew overwhelmingly strong. It was almost like a hallucination. I began to look for him in the crowds, in the faces at the cafe doors, at hotel windows. I went back to the bridge, took off my hat, rather formally as if to meet a friend, and paced up and down, waiting for some sort of sign. People glanced at me: I felt an oddity, not knowing quite what I was doing, or looking for. The twilight thickened; bats began to dart over the river. I watched their flickering flight over the gleaming surface, from one bank to the other.

And then I saw it, quite clearly against the western sky, the old bridge of Langogne. It was about fifty yards downstream, and it was broken, crumbling, and covered with ivy. So Stevenson had crossed there, not on this modern bridge. There was no way of following him, no way of meeting him. His bridge was down. It was beyond my reach over time, and this was the true sad sign.

Keeping up with current events is bringing me down. The constant barrage of evil deeds done by the truly stupid people in charge makes me want to sell all my belongings and retrace Richard Holmes’s footsteps tracing Robert Louis Stevenson’s footsteps. Then, 50 years later, someone else can retrace MY footsteps and so on. It’ll be an Escher of footstep tracing. An infinity scarf of melancholy nerds tromping around France looking for connection with ghosts.

Conundrum: do I dash someone’s dreams by correcting an assumption or find a technically not-lying way to just roll with it? This problem has rendered me temporarily mute, or whatever the email equivalent of mute is. (I’m already mostly mute.) Someone thinks their small contribution is the sole reason something is happening, and it’s both adorable and heartbreaking that they think this. It reminds me of this time that a friend called me, breathless, because her friend’s mom was friends with Brad Pitt’s mom and she thought she had a chance. (Obviously this was in 1992, because Brad Pitt: yuck.)

Yesterday at one of my jobs a coworker pulled up a 2012 fantasy name generator website that is at once both fascinating and lame. Isn’t that the twenty-first century summed up in two adjectives? Let’s say you’re writing a fantasy story and everything’s going great until you’re suddenly stumped by what to name the pizzeria in the village. Or what to name the village! Or anything at all, really. (Maybe you should rethink writing a fantasy story? You’re kind of bad at this.) Well, this website is for you, because the world deserves to know about the town of Emethnore and its famous Grimnora Reservoir, home to the evil Alabaster Rathmore! Will Oostaf the Jolly save the day? That’s up to you, friend! While this was interesting in its own right, I recommend getting another coworker to read aloud the very dumbest offerings in a slightly British wizard voice.

While I’m not going anywhere anytime soon, I’ve just applied for my first passport! Sure, my large teen child is about to go to freaking EUROPE on a SCHOOL SPONSORED TRIP while I sit here in Mississippi and guffaw over Oostaf the Jolly, but soon, it’s at least possible that if I were magically awarded a pot of money, perhaps in a scheme wherein I thwart Alabaster Rathmore, I could at least book a flight to Paris and get the hell out of here.

We have sad news to report from the Nordan household: our cat king is ill, and in a real bad way. The mobile angel of death is coming to the house tomorrow (we do not put KINGS in CARRIERS to meet their DEATHS) and lo, there is much weeping. I am not sure how I will manage without the world’s best and most beautiful Kittyboy, but I guess I will find out.

I am going to start redoing my childhood dollhouse this year, so be warned: I plan to make that fact my entire personality. My previous personality was going to Dirt Cheap (RIP).

Great news, everyone: my latest purchase of dollhouse furniture and accessories is on the way from the finest purveyor of dollhouse goods, Minimum World. Like the size of the items they offer for purchase, the amount of effort put into their company name is small. Did I order a set of tiny ice cubes that were on sale for FORTY FOUR CENTS? Yes. Will the ice cubes soothe my soul? Unknown!

After 20 years at the research emporium, this summer it was determined that I was no longer needed. I wasn’t part of those discussions, and just came in on the tail end to hear the news. Kind of like watching the end of the episode of Dateline to see the verdict without hearing any of the evidence. Shock, yes, but surprise, no. Things had deteriorated in terms of norms and standards–not unlike what’s happening in the government–and to be honest, it was very tiring being one of the only ones trying to keep the ship steady, especially because what do I know about sailing? Nothing!

Anyway, that has made for an interesting bump in the road. Things are now fine and I have gainful employment in an industry about which I know very little. They knew I didn’t know anything when they hired me, so it’s basically their fault that I’m dumb. I also have a part-time job that I absolutely L O V E and I do some freelance stuff, too.

It has surprised me how okay I am with all the chaos and changes. I have to credit my internal voice, which does this cool thing when someone criticizes me or something bad happens: it says, internally and silently, of course: “Nuh-uh. That’s dumb.” My internal voice basically has the vocabulary of a first grader, but it’s effective. I recommend having a lil bestie in your head that thinks everyone but you is an idiot!

Here’s how it works:

Person: You suck and are terrible.
Internal Bestie: Pfffft. That’s dumb!
Me (bolstered by Internal Bestie): Ok.
Person: Seriously awful. I’ve never seen anything like it. Pee-yoo, etc.
Internal Bestie: This person is the worst person in America. It’s actually a compliment that they don’t like you.
Me: Ok, thanks. Bye.

Self-reflection comes later, but in the moment, this is extremely helpful.

Did you like how I started with the dollhouse furniture and then told you about my radical life change moment?

I said “radical life change,” but you know what? I changed jobs. That’s all. People do it all the time. The fact that I wasn’t consulted about it was lame, of course, but I lived. Cue “Gooch’s Song” from Mame: I liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiived!

I had a dream last night that I was in a public bathroom at an event and not only did this large warehouse looking stall have two toilets in it, but there were piles and piles of poop stacked all around. Then I looked closer and it was just stacks of potatoes. Oh, silly sleeping brain!

About this time last year, I had a freakout and changed the status of every single post on this website to private. Man, what a dumb idea! Now they’re all here somewhere, but restoring them is going to be a pain. The world will probably get by without knowing what I ate for breakfast in 2006, but how will I?

1. I was Target earlier returning a shirt that was cute, but was for someone else’s life. I sneezed, and since it’s not socially acceptable to hold one’s urethra closed in public, I braced myself so I wouldn’t pee and in so doing, pulled a muscle in my back.

2. Speaking of returning things, I also returned a dress to Dillard’s today. It was also the kind of dress that doesn’t go with my life. I bought it yesterday and when I got home and tried it on for my teen child, he said I “looked Amish, and not in a good way.” (The fact that I asked for his opinion reveals that I knew all along that it wasn’t right for me.) Also, when I was shopping yesterday, in pursuit of a new dress/life, they played “This Charming Man” over the speakers. The Smiths are now Dillard’s music? Oh, Manchester. So much to answer for.

3. Just to round out the returning-things thing, I also returned a dress to TJ Maxx (nothing was super wrong with it, and the teen did not roast me when I tried it on, but it just kind of looked like it cost $25 and that’s not a compliment) and a pair of pants to Old Navy. They were linen-blend elastic waist pants, but I am between sizes so the crotch kind of hangs low. Look, I have enough problems without having to keep up with a rogue crotch.

4. On Thursday, I did perhaps the most-me thing: I left my library book at the gynecologist’s office. While I am not usually one to lose things, when I do, I try to make the situation as embarrassing as possible. You try calling your gyno and asking if anyone has found a library book and see how confident and together you feel. (The book is The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan. I hadn’t even started it!)

5. Speaking of books, the best book I’ve read recently is The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley. I laughed, I cried, etc. Elements: time travel, bureaucracy, love.

6. Bye!