Author: MezzoSherri

Let the reading commence!

On By MezzoSherriIn Books Books Books, Life-Long Learning5 Comments

I had a profoundly, delightfully lazy New Year’s Day today. A little bit of puttering around, a little napping, a little bit of jigsaw puzzling, a little TV.

A LOT of reading. And a lot of spreadsheet-y getting organized for this year’s reading challenge. Which, since today is the first day of said challenge, it kind of makes sense that I should cough up my list tonight.

A soft focus shot, looking over the shoulder of a white, female-presenting human at the Kindle she is reading.

But first, some context. As I did 2 years ago, I’m focusing on the Goodreads community-driven challenge called Around the Year in 52 Books as my main reading challenge. Also similar to 2 years ago, I’ve created a master plan that cross-counts some of my ATY books against the annual challenge categories from PopSugar and from Book Riot’s Read Harder challenge.

What is DISsimilar from 2019 is how I’m not going to put any active effort into those other two challenge lists until I have a sense of how things are going with ATY. I mean, if I read a book that I’ve cross-counted for categories, I’ll mark off the relevant row in the other list(s): I’m not that single-focused! But I’m not even really committing myself to those other challenges until I make some good progress on the main one.

Especially since the prospect of Ed-doctor-school could blow all my fantasies of recreational reading out of the water….

Continue reading “Let the reading commence!” →

Laying some groundwork

On By MezzoSherriIn Life-Long Learning, Memoir, Stuff about Stuff, The Pressure to Fix Myself, The Voices in My Head1 Comment

It’s been a long time since I did “New Year’s Resolutions” (I wrote about that last year and the year before). Nonetheless, in these waning days of 2020, I find myself in a reflective state of mind, drawn towards the notion (fantasy?) of getting myself more centered/grounded/organized before 2021 rings itself in.

Part of it is that odometer-turning energy that gets me every turn of the calendar. Part of it is the positive side effect of allowing myself to really-and-truly check out of work—-something I’d not done since COVID started.

But let me be clear: NONE of this is irrational exuberance about 2020 turning into 2021. As far as that cosmic detail is concerned, I agree with this wisdom I’ve seen going around Twitter and FB:

Nobody claim 2021 as “your year.” We’re all going to walk in real slow. Be good. Be quiet. Don’t. Touch. Anything.

Solid advice, as far as I’m concerned.

Still, I find myself doing some preparatory things for this quiet walk into 2021.

Continue reading “Laying some groundwork” →

The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes

On By MezzoSherriIn Books Books Books, Life-Long Learning, Topics of StudyLeave a comment

Poor Jojo Moyes! I might have enjoyed her book some degree more had I not read Kim Michele Richardson‘s Book Woman of Troublesome Creek over the summer. Both novels explore the largely-forgotten history of the Depression-Era Pack Horse Librarians of Kentucky, and Moyes’ novel certainly pales in comparison to Richardson’s.

A black and white photo of a packhorse librarian, astride her horse with an armful of reading materials.

Though let’s be honest, here—Moyes is doing just fine without my fandom. She has best-selling cred and movie deals galore.* I can’t exactly imagine her crying her self to sleep amongst her millions simply because a certain Ms. MezzoSherri likes the other packhorse librarian book better than Moyes’.

And here’s another wee truth-bomb: I’m pretty sure I’d have given this book a 2-star rating, whether or not I knew about Richardson’s novel ahead of reading Moyes’s.

Continue reading “The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes” →

My grown-up Christmas menu

On By MezzoSherriIn Gratitudes and Thank Yous, Make Epic Shit, Memoir2 Comments

It’s amazing how much of being a grown-up is an endless cycle of facing new things that I’m not 100% sure I’m enough of an adult to handle adequately. Luckily, I also have enough foundational decades of adulting my way through everything I’ve faced thus far in life as to face each new adulting challenge with a core sense of faith that I will find my way through.

And sometimes I come out the other side feeling kinda proud of myself. Which is how I’m feeling tonight.

A bottle of white wine next to two filled wine glasses. In the background, a fresh-baked loaf of bread sits on a cooling rack.
Cheers to me!
Continue reading “My grown-up Christmas menu” →

White Too Long by Robert P. Jones

On By MezzoSherriIn Books Books Books, Life-Long Learning, Politics and Policy, Pop Goes the Culture, Spirituality, Topics of Study1 Comment

With a subtitle like The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity, you can safely assume that, yes, this as another one of my socio-cultural analysis reads of 2020. It was a completely random discovery, flashing by in the slideshow of newly acquired titles in my library’s online catalog. But it felt like a timely book about an important topic I could do to learn more about.

So I impulsively clicked the “Place Hold” button and this volume made its way to me from Haverhill.*

In this exceptional work, Jones mixes memoir, history and statistical analysis to build his case that—similar to so many other American institutions—racism and white supremacy are baked into the DNA of American Christianity.

At one level, this did not very much surprise me. After all, as outlined in so many places (The 1619 Project, Between the World and Me, Stamped from the Beginning) by so many people, white supremacy and anti-Blackness are woven into the warp and weft of this country. At another level, this particular lens of analysis was brand new to me, as a non-Christian born and bred in Christocentric USA.

Continue reading “White Too Long by Robert P. Jones” →

That’s DOCTOR bitch, to you

On By MezzoSherriIn Flagrantly Feminist, Life-Long Learning, Memoir, Politics and Policy, Pop Goes the Culture, Topics of Study2 Comments

I have—rather demonstrably—a potty mouth. I even lay claim to it in my tagline up there.

This propensity towards foul-mouthed discourse probably explains my love for T-shirts with provocatively foul–mouthed slogans.

Now, I’m actually too chicken-shit to wear anything so bold and brassy, but I continue to dream of myself as if I were braver. And there was a time, back at Penn, when I had a mildly foul-mouthed shirt that I loved.

Transcription: I'm not a bitch. I'm THE bitch. And I'm Miss Bitch to you.
I used to wear this. In public. Ah, youth!

I am, of course, musing on honorifics today on account of a truly execrable Op-Ed published in the Wall Street Journal some week-and-a-half ago. You probably know the one—I’m not linking it here—where Joseph Epstein, some retired lecturer I shall be calling “Joey” for the duration of this piece, lambasted Dr. Jill Biden for continuing to use the academic title (Dr.) relevant to her graduate degree (Ed.D.) and profession (community college professor). Since Dr. Jill Biden is not an MD-carrying medical doctor, Joey suggests, she shouldn’t put on airs by using any title beyond “First Lady.”

Honestly, I wasn’t planning to write about this. It was so obviously click-bait, something designed to provide outrage—which it quite deservedly and expectedly did, despite the follow-on article by the WSJ’s opinions editor saying how shocked (SHOCKED, I tell you!) he was about the liberal snowflakes over-reacting to the piece.

Animated gif of Jim Carrey over-expressing shock and horror.

So why give these douche-canoes more of the attention they were so obviously craving? There’d be better things to write about…

But then someone on a distant external ring of my professional circle commented in an email about how, ideologically and symbolically speaking, he and Dr. Jill Biden were equally under attack by this op-ed’s voicing of current anti-intellectual and anti-education beliefs. Him and Dr. Jill and their “fake degrees.”

And I nearly took his fucking head off. Which belatedly made me aware that I’ve been having some feelings about this all.

Animated gif of Kate Walsh making an angry face and lifting her clawed hands towards the camera.

So, time to come off hiatus and come back to the page.

Continue reading “That’s DOCTOR bitch, to you” →

Not really feeling it

On By MezzoSherriIn Books Books Books, Memoir, Meta-Blogging, Pop Goes the Culture1 Comment

I’ve been a very lazy blogger this week. Took Wednesday off—the dog was all snuggly in my lap and I didn’t have the heart to displace her. And honestly, most Wednesday nights, Mr. Mezz plays D&D with his friends, so I might just plan for that to be a semi-regular night off while I dog-sit.

A picture of our dog, Cinnamon, lying right on top of my calf and foot as she sits in my lap.
See how she lies down right ON my foot? “You’re not going anywhere!”

And then I took last night off, because…

Um…

What the hell were we doing last night?

I know we watched something on DVR together, and then I watched Grey’s Anatomy on my own. But what was it we watched together? It was more than a regular length TV show.

(This is not a great sign about my current headspace.)

Continue reading “Not really feeling it” →

Heart to heart conversations

On By MezzoSherriIn Memoir, Pop Goes the Culture, Practicing in the Heart, Topics of Study1 Comment

Every now and then SNL has a pre-filmed sketch that perfectly hits the zeitgeist. This past weekend is no exception:

I felt this one, hard. No, it doesn’t match the surface details of Christmas planning with Mr. Mezz and our extended family at all: we’re all in agreement about the proper, safe, course of action, so our Christmas conversations have already taken place without any of the comic guilt-tripping demonstrated here by Heidi Garner, Punkie Johnson, and Kate McKinnon.

So, we’re lucky in not needing this recent advice column about how to have the “Christmas conversation” in real life.

And yet. The distance between the Christmas I hoped for and the Christmas Mr. Mezz and I are creating together—it’s still painful, some moments.

Continue reading “Heart to heart conversations” →

The way we live now, part 2

On By MezzoSherriIn Gratitudes and Thank Yous, Memoir, Pop Goes the CultureLeave a comment

My car emailed me this morning with a low battery warning.

And that’s actually more of true a statement than not.

You see, part of my multi-pronged Verizon package* is a device called the Hum. I think of it as the poor man’s On-Star: a gadget/speaker-box that would allow me to call out for road-side assistance in the case of breakdown or accident.

A picture of the 3 OnStar buttons (phone, OnStar and Emergency) built into a rear-view mirror.

You see, when you’re classy, you get to have your tech built into the rear-view like in the photo above. Instead, my gadget just clips onto the visor like souped-up garage door opener. But even though I have the non-luxury version of this asset, it’s given me peace of mind to have this extra bit of equipment in the car as I’ve been commuting in snowy New England conditions these past several years.

But I hadn’t ever paid attention to this whole other diagnostic suite of features the Hum has.

That is: not until the Hum app emailed me at 16 minutes past midnight with a “Yellow” battery alert.**

Continue reading “The way we live now, part 2” →

Piece by piece

On By MezzoSherriIn Gratitudes and Thank Yous, Make Epic Shit, Spirituality2 Comments

I finished my first winter puzzle tonight after work.

A photo of a completed jigsaw puzzle depicting a cozy indoor winter scene.

I can’t pat myself too much on the back for doing this one semi-quickly. I’m sufficiently out of practice that I’m deliberately grading myself on a curve by starting with 500-piece puzzles. Once I’m more in the groove, I’ll drag out the 1,000-piece examples and really dig in.

Still, completing this puzzle—and being reminded of the joy that puzzle-making brings me—has me feeling grateful and a little bit celebratory.

And like it may be worth sharing a bit more about why this activity suits me so well.

Continue reading “Piece by piece” →