I See What You Meme

Welcome to a new year, although as many have noted, 2022 just seems to be starting like a variation on the past two years in so many ways (I almost used the word variant. That seems a little *too* on the nose) . Collectively, I think we are all tired. We are drained. We are exhausted. I admire anyone who feels renewed and reflective right now because (gosh darn it) the last two years have been something else.  Somewhere in the last week of 2021, the #10yearchallenge started popping up on social media. I'm not sure who started it or why it surfaced again. I remember this came up as 2019 turned over into 2020, which made sense. The turning of the decade and that nice round number always gives us something to cling to in a nostalgic way.  Did this one start as a bit of fun as people started confining themselves in quarantine instead of roaming off to New Year celebrations? Or is there something more nefarious  involved with the trending meme?  Who knows!? Either w...

I have to say that my latest literary choices have not quite lived up to expectations.  I trudged through Franzen's Freedom only to be relatively disappointed in the result.  Then, at the recommendation of many, I jumped head first into Joan Didion's memoir The Year of Magical Thinking. Didion is an accomplished writer whose career has offered her the opportunity to turn her recall of the grief process into another job opportunity. The book won the National Book Award so it certainly seemed like a safe bet.   After almost 40 years of marriage to her husband ( John Gregory Dunne , a similarly accomplished writer), Didion finds herself widowed when her husband collapses from a suddent heart attack. To add complications to her grief, Joan's adult daughter, Quintana, is hospitalized with a life threatening septic infection at the time of her husband's death and she continues to deal with Quintana's recovery and relapse throughout the course of the book.   O...