We interrupt this intro to document three recent ancestor-shamings.
- I should not be able to take a selfie in my side mirror. Random idiots keep knocking my side mirror when I visit this parking lot, and I keep finding out about it when I’m already on the road. On this particular occasion I made a note of it on the way home from the bookstore after a closing shift, told myself to fix it when I parked, and then completely forgot about it until the next morning, when I went in for my opening shift and again DID NOT NOTICE until I was on the fucking highway.
- Looking for something in my house is like looking for anything in some crazy great-auntie’s house, only I’m the crazy great-auntie and I am begging myself to tell me where I put the Brita filters. They were in the cabinet over the microwave, which has not been opened since I put the spare filter there in the first place.
- There is no third. I don’t know why I thought there was.
Anyway, more snow! I must admit I did not actually believe in the snowstorm because we almost never get snowstorms, and Maryland weather had me thinking it would in fact be 70° and sunny on the weekend we were supposed to get snow and ice. I prepped Hector anyway the night before and it turned out to be a good thing I did, though I am kicking myself for not bringing my phone along when I went to dig him out the next day because I didn’t get a picture of his entombment. I think that Sunday might’ve been the first real snow day I’ve had in over a decade. It was glorious. And I am also glad I work for the kind of company that has the sense not to show up if there’s going to be potentially life-threatening ice on the road.
For a while I thought that black strip in the background was the road. It is not. It is a fence. The road was completely buried. At this point I would’ve been calling the store with my regrets if we hadn’t already preemptively closed. Hallelujah.
January Reading Stats
Books Finished:
- Weyward – Emilia Hart
- The Priest and the Shepherd – Chloe Gong
- The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More – Roald Dahl
- Mockingbird Court – Juneau Black
- The Zorg: A Tale of Greed and Murder That Inspired the Abolition of Slavery – Siddharth Kara
- Brigands & Breadknives – Travis Baldree
- The Enchanted Greenhouse – Sarah Beth Durst
- The Night Sister – Jennifer McMahon
Books Abandoned:
- Voices: The Final Hours of Joan of Arc – David Elliott
- Neurodivergent, by Nature: Why Biodiversity Needs Neurodiversity – Joe Harkness
Total Pages Read: 2,336
I might’ve had to fudge the dates a little (because StoryGraph counts midnight as the end of the day and I say the day doesn’t end until I go to sleep), but I read every day of the month and I am really crossing my fingers for that Kobo Clara. I actually managed to outdo myself by reading one more book than I did last January. Monthly highlight: The Enchanted Greenhouse narrowly beat out Brigands & Breadknives to become my favorite book for the month, and was slotted into the January spot on my 2026 book bracket. (Trying again with the reading journal.)
I’m very nearly caught up on the last of my review backlog; I have reviews drafted for Weyward, Mockingbird Court, and Brigands & Breadknives, and I am halfway through the Enchanted Greenhouse review. Then I just need to hammer out a review for The Night Sister, which should be easy because I hated that book and am skilled in literary demolition. This has the potential to be the fastest review I’ve written since I clawed Ariadne to shreds. I will not be reviewing the other books because I generally don’t review short stories, and I never review nonfiction. Suffice it to say that I did not love The Priest and the Shepherd enough to try to acquire a less damaged copy of the special edition Foul Lady Fortune. I was horrendously disappointed when the copy I ordered arrived like this, but did not regret my ability to return it. I literally don’t even know how this happened. I can’t imagine it getting that damaged during shipping, especially given that the packaging was fine, so I have to conclude that nobody is checking these things before they ship them.
Anyway, I really only wanted it for that one short story and I have now read that short story, and it’s a damn good thing I didn’t prematurely unhaul my regular copy of Foul Lady. As for Henry Sugar, the Henry Sugar story itself was fine, which is good when it’s the only reason I read the book. I loved the Netflix adaptation and am fine with the changes they made from the original story. The rest of the stories were awful and also A CHILD GETS SHOT?!?!?! I had no doubt that they were written by Dahl, but I think this was a Dahl at the beginning of his career, because they were quite dark and largely unresolved and not any particular pleasure to read. They were strange almost for the sake of being strange, without the buoyant whimsy that marks the books I have loved since childhood. I do not know why this anthology is filed under children’s literature. It is not suitable for children. Re: The Zorg, I don’t review nonfiction because I am not qualified to comment on other people’s research and I am blessed with the good sense to know it, but I do highly recommend this book. I read it a lot faster than I thought I would, and it kept me hooked from start to finish. I will be reading this one again.
Non-reading highlight of the month: finding out that sticker residue can be removed with an eraser?! Where the hell has this been all my life?!
I went ahead and bought The Sirens before I’d even finished Weyward, which turned out to be a good life choice because I loved Weyward, completely to my own surprise. I went in thinking I was going to DNF and unhaul based on the reviews of others, but joke’s on me, apparently. And I absolutely looooooove the sheer gorgeousness that is the Sirens hardcover, but there was a wrinkle: the damn Barnes & Noble stickering system (in which I am now complicit) left an ugly residue on my cover when the sticker refused to come off!!! T_T After some frantic googling for any solution that did not involve putting Goo Gone on a perfectly good dust jacket, this amazing tutorial informed me that I could get it off with an eraser, AND IT WORKED. Gods bless YouTube. Of course, I wish I’d seen the tutorial before I took off the sticker because I would’ve gone the hair dryer route when it became clear that the sticker was going to be difficult, but now I know that. It’s not technically my fault because BN stickers typically peel off quite easily, and I was not anticipating difficulties.
Currently Reading
Butter
Asako Yuzuki
Current rating: 4 stars. I started this mid-month, but I’m not even on page 150 yet and I don’t really know what to make of it. It is dense and slow, not necessarily in a bad way, though this might just be because I’m not 100% sure what’s going on (which is an effect of both the book and my molasses-paced reading sessions). I mentioned it to a coworker, who said she had the same experience with it, but that the ending was a real surprise. I do not want to still be reading this in a month and I am desperately hoping I will be able to finish it by EOD Sunday, so it is the only book I am reading at the moment. At least I have the twist of the ending to look forward to. I suspect I will not see it coming, because I honestly have no idea where this is going. All I know is that Yuzuki needs to quit it with the aggressive food descriptions that keep making me hungry. :’)
Blogkeeping Notes + Apartment Reorganization
I have been liking my Wednesday posting schedule, and will be keeping it for the foreseeable future. I have also added a series tag to mark every book that belongs to a series, because I wanted to add a series dropdown to the blog menu and I couldn’t do it without a series tag. =_= Anyway, I now have a series dropdown on the blog menu in addition to the site index, and it was a pain in the ass to create. My life would be so much simpler if I wasn’t crazy.
Speaking of problems that didn’t exist before I started fixing them, I recently (lol, a couple of weeks ago) did a kitchen and library reorg. I have upgraded my bookcases to a library. Technically a library is a collection of 1,000 books or more, but who fucking cares? It’s a library if I say it’s a library, and the library now has a series case for every series longer than a trilogy. It currently also has the Strange the Dreamer duology, but that’s only because there wasn’t room for that one on the children/YA case.
I was very pleased that there was still room for the odds and ends that wouldn’t fit anywhere else. With this reorg, the ARC collection moved to the top of the manga case, where hopefully it will stay for the foreseeable future.
I also reorganized Three Shelves and the kitchen bookcase, along with the freezer and the pantry (not pictured because they don’t look particularly organized to the naked eye). I am so happy to have a much better home for my instant ramen collection. Bonus: I now have a drinks corner on my kitchen counter, which is amazing. I am finally making the hot drinks I have been telling myself I will make for years. It’s quite nice. I might make myself a hot chocolate after lunch. I figured putting them out in the open instead of squirreling them away in a cabinet would force me to remember that I have them, and it worked.
Other changes: canned goods moved from the pantry cabinet to Three Shelves, the sauce collection was expanded and also added to Three Shelves, and the pantry cabinet was reorganized completely, again, to make sure I didn’t forget what I have. I found two cans of Thai curry paste in that cabinet and had completely forgotten that I had them, except for one moment when I was looking for one and couldn’t find it. But I’m not sure if that should count because I was also envisioning it as a jar rather than a can.
Reading Journaling, For Real This Time
I am a devoted fan of Erin Smith. I deeply admire and envy her work while at the same time knowing I could never do what she does because I am, as I have mentioned once or twice on this blog, insane. (See also: Exhibits A, B, and C.) I put one sticker on the front page of my planner on a whim and it is maybe one millimeter away from being correctly straight and I get upset every time I see it. This is one reason I can’t do a physical journal, but what I might not have mentioned is that I also have hands that shake like an earthquake, and my fine motor skills – in the context of this one very specific purpose – are almost nonexistent. I don’t think even those little gold sticker-placing tweezers would help. But since I’m crazy and since I’m packing professional graphic design software, and since I have a graphic design MA that has been collecting dust ever since my last real design job kicked me out, I have restarted the digital reading journal I was supposed to be keeping last year but forgot while I was in bakery hell.
I was going to do a new IG monthly post template every year, but now I’m thinking I’ll just use my monthly reading journal dashboards because I made them to square dimensions, because it’ll force me to keep up with my reading journal, and because I’m fucking lazy and I don’t see the point of making basically the same thing twice in one month. Work smarter, not harder.
Blind Dates with a Book
There weren’t any positions available at my Barnes & Noble after the 2024 holiday season, so when the 2025 holidays rolled around I figured I’d try again, and this time it actually worked. I am now a permanent BN employee, and I am so pleased with this turn of events. I celebrated by finally tricking out my nametag with the pins I’ve been storing but haven’t been using because I hate poking holes in my things, including the Thursday Murder Club pin I bought at the start of the season. I had previously only had that Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow pin stuck on a random spot on the lanyard, and it was quite sad. I did not realize that the pins would make the lanyard significantly heavier, but actually it’s nicer that way because it feels less like my nametag is just flapping in the breeze. As for the cat lady magnets, they were staring at me and I can clearly see that they include Archie, Hato, and Circe. Was I going to say no to them? Also I still don’t know why we have that aquarium, but we have fish and tiny shrimp now. This holiday season has been a roller coaster.
Sometime during the last month I started picking new books for the Blind Date with a Book display, and it is now my favorite thing to do. It got better when I discovered there were stickers. I will be sad when this display goes away. January blind date recs, in order of appearance in the pictures:
- Life After Life – Kate Atkinson
- These Violent Delights – Chloe Gong
- Gideon the Ninth – Tamsyn Muir
- The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue – V.E. Schwab
- The Fox Wife – Yangsze Choo
- Water Moon – Samantha Sotto Yambao
- The Unworthy – Agustina Bazterrica
- Three Bags Full – Leonie Swann
- The Spellshop – Sarah Beth Durst
I of course have opinions about almost all of these. Opinions on the other two are coming, pending my actually reading the damn books.
2026 Resolution Update
I’ve got into a bad habit lately of leaving dishes piled in the sink overnight. There are dishes piled up there now. I’m pretending they don’t exist.
Other than that, I think my resolutions have been going okay? I haven’t been eating out (much), I’ve been reading, and I’ve been blogging. The rest still needs work, but it’ll come. I hope.
January Eats
It’s been a month of a little cooking and a lot of leftovers, which isn’t a bad thing. On the other hand, I only just finished off that Thai curry within the last week, which means now I get to cook new things. I love Thai curry but there was such a lot of it and I am one person. x_x Highlights from this month’s food adventures:
- Buldak salmon, made with the leftover sauces from Moribyan’s Buldak-inspired chicken. Even more delicious with a fried egg.
- First visit to Chopt in a long time. It was good.
- Instant ramen. Because I don’t mind memorializing my own laziness and shortcuts. I like good food and instant ramen is good food, and sometimes you just need something stupidly easy.
- Mapo tofu with stir-fried napa. Had to use up the extra napa from the new year’s ozoni.
- Finally finished off one of my containers of less-loved wheat noodles. That made a lot more noodles than I thought. There were leftovers.
- Tried Wegmans soft Italian sandwich bread (because it was $2 cheaper than my usual bread) and canola oil in a squeeze bottle because Inga Lam uses oil out of a squeeze bottle and I am absurdly easy to influence. Results for both are favorable. Naturally tested out the bread with a butter and jam sandwich immediately upon returning home.
- Frozen tteokgalbi. Not bad, not my favorite. Might try making my own. Primarily got the frozen ones so I could see what they were like before I committed to making them.
- First attempt at snickerdoodles! I still have a container of leftover cinnamon sugar. I will be making these again. Mostly because I had to buy cream of tartar for them and I have no other use for it at the moment.
- Kimchi udon hotpot round 2, this time without the spillage or the screaming.
- Thai curry and egg noodle pad see ew with my brother, plus Wegmans Boston Cream Cake and Culinary Class Wars which I keep cursing out at the end of almost every episode because they keep leaving me on a fucking cliffhanger.
- Chocolate-backed cow cookies and a caramel macchiato from H Mart. I have never tried those little iced coffees, but this one was delightful. The cow cookies were grabbed at the last minute because I needed a fifth item. They weren’t bad.
- New cooking pan! My mom couldn’t use it anymore because it doesn’t work with induction and I have always loved that pan, so I figured I could find a home for it even though I literally have no room for extra pots and pans. I regret NOTHING. On the same visit my dad baked baguettes, so I picked up some cheese on the way back. At the Starbucks next to the market, the barista saw my Gir wallet and left me a message that I unfortunately did not see until I got home with the empty macchiato cup. I don’t think I’ve ever been to that Starbucks but now I have to visit them again because that barista is clearly a person of elevated tastes.
- Dinner with my second cousin! She had the most amazing rooster pitcher that we used for the gravy. She also made bread with blueberries and nuts, and since it got packed off with me I still have some in the fridge and it is absolutely divine with cheese.
- A rare cooking fail, which is more of a storage fail: the wontons I found in the back of the freezer during my cleaning burst were disgusting, and I will be throwing away the rest of the bag. 🙁 A lesson in not letting shit sit in the freezer for years. They tasted like dust.
- Chocolate chip pancakes, which were supposed to use up the rest of the snickerdoodles’ leftover cinnamon sugar. They didn’t.
Kitty Corner
The gallery is reserved for kitties who behave. >:( This is a category that does not always include my own kitty, because I would like to report a murder. Unsub still at large and unremorseful.
If you see this cat, please tell her that I just want to talk.
In more positive news, Circe is currently obsessed with the toy I brought back for her from a Japanese market in New Jersey as a peace offering during a month of extended travels, during which she was boarded twice. Keep in mind that this was two years ago. That toy has been sitting in her toy basket for the last two years because we played with it when I got home from the first trip and she loved it for about five minutes, until I accidentally clocked her in the eye with the surprisingly heavy bell charm on the end of it. She squinted out her left eye for the rest of the day and ran away every time I tried to reintroduce the toy, until I finally gave up. Fast forward to mid-January, when I tried again on a whim and she went wild for it, so I guess she’s either worked through or forgotten whatever trauma she had. I think this cat is on the spectrum with me, because she definitely goes through phases the way I do and right now that bell is it.
Random Happiness
Because we could all use some of that. I bought this bag from Poshmark last May after failing to find it anywhere else. I was hoping I could get it new because the seller clearly stated that it was slightly blemished, but in the end I figured I could live with the blemishes because the bag was relatively cheap and looked to be in good condition. What the seller didn’t mention was that it smelled like someone had spent years blowing smoke all over it. Well, I hung the bag on the hooks over my front door and low-key forgot about it, but then I wanted to use it for an errand so I gave it a whiff and that smell was completely gone. I was hoping it would dissipate over time if the bag was left in the open air, especially when I typically leave my windows open when the weather is good, but I hadn’t realized it would work quite that well. It now has, at the very most, a slightly greasy and lightly floral scent. I am more than okay with this. I will be adding this bag to my rotation. :’D
