Field Notes, vol 5

Last time we talked, I was marvelling at the end of January. Now I find myself wondering where the last fortnight has run off to! Of course, with my chronic illnesses, I was bound to have a flare-up some time or another; this one was particularly long, though. Ah well, I’m fortunate enough to be in a position that allows me to just curl up and weather through the bad times without worrying about outside responsibilities. The blog suffers, though.

The funny thing is, I have quite a selection of drafted posts. I’m not sure why I didn’t just schedule them to auto-post in my absence; it somehow felt strange to me to imagine my blog marching steadily on regardless of my condition. Which is silly of course, because if I don’t schedule them I’ll never manage to tell you about all the books I read! So I will be autoscheduling from here on out.

I was delighted to find this lamp for my bathroom while thrifting: it fits perfectly with my plans for the room’s final style.

My reading has been sporadic: a burst at the end of January (and several slimmer books) saw me finish the month with forty reads. In contrast, this month is over halfway through and I’ve gotten to nine books, three of them read within the last couple of days (and two of those were just one hundred pages each). It’s always frustrating that I can’t read more during flare-ups, not because I’m worried about the numbers, but because without books I feel at sea.

I’m easing my way back into this, so I think I’ll finish up for now with a request: who are you favourite ‘comfort’ POC (=people of colour) authors? By comfort, I mean books you pick up when you can’t handle thinking about the world’s problems or the evil of humanity and your brain can’t follow a complex plot or stream-of-consciousness writing or an abundance of ‘literariness.’ When I’m in a flare-up, I need fiction that’s mainly about the story and that leaves me more happy than sad (my serotonin levels drop, which means I’m already more prone to feeling down without depressing books), but it seems almost all of my go-to authors are white, which leaves me feeling frustrated. I’d love any suggestions you have to offer, because I need to diversify my list!

P.S.: I’ve finally been able to sort through my Mexico trip photos (the arthritis gloves are magic) so I’m able to revive my little travel blog. Today I wrote about one of the many reasons I loved Mexico!