Inputs
The Last Supper: A Summer in Italy by Rachel Cusk: RC’s perfectly nice life was feeling gray and stifling, so she and her husband sold their house, packed up the kids, and as suggested in the title went to Italy for a summer. It wasn’t long and RC is certainly readable but it took me a while to finish it. Yeah, I don’t know man, so weird, for some reason I couldn’t handle more than five pages at a time without benumbing myself with Instagram reels about how to knit jogless stripes in the round.
Shubeik Lubeik by: An Egyptian graphic novel about an otherwise normal world where wishes can be granted, sometimes with unexpected and unpleasant results. Gorgeous, brutal, hilarious.
Outputs
Both TLS and SL had a lot to say about uncovering what you want, thinking about how to achieve it, and ultimately evaluating whether or not it would actually make you happy. These are not factors that have weighed heavily on all of my decisions, in fact I avoid thinking about them whenever possible, because in the deepest kernel of my being I believe that feeling a little thwarted and resentful is the only way to be sure that you are seen as- to hell with actually being- a good person. TLS and SL do not see any nobility in that kind of willful ignorance, and for that reason reading them was not a comfortable experience. If wholehearted determination to take ownership of all my innermost needs and wants is not in the cards any time soon, though, maybe I can tell myself that at least acknowledging them will mean I would earn even more karma points by taking a good long look at what’s actually down in the cellar first before I slam the door shut.
Condiment Corner
My selection from the European Wall of Spreads at the supermarket in Helsinki. I think it’s mayo with a little mustard and some herbs. Like all Finnish products the label is in both Finnish and Swedish (the former overlord we love to hate on because hating on the other former overlord is getting a little too real at the moment), and neither was very enlightening in this case. It reminded me of the night we arrived, when my mom’s friend rattled off the half-dozen languages in which she is fluent to find a way to ask me if N could have ice cream without him understanding, while I shook my head over and over. Anyway, it’s been good in my usual Friday tuna melt but I’d probably pick up more of the mustard and herbs with turkey or something else a little more neutral.