Breinthewild

Mug lore: Limited this month. I don’t even remember where I got this mug from. It’s affectionately known as Big Red and its continued success in our household is directly tied to the fact that it holds a LOT of liquid, much more than our other mugs.

What I’m drinking: Another cheap WinCo option I enjoy called British Blend by the company Tetley. I’m pretty sure it’s bottom-of-the-barrel vaguely “British” tea but I enjoy it. It has a lot of flavor and seems to pack a punch when it comes to caffeine, which has cemented its status as my go-to “I don’t wanna wake up but I have a lot to do today” tea. I rarely drink it without cream and sugar to temper the bold flavor.

What I just finished reading: I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy. A quick read, and a fascinating one that ducks most of usual salacious and gossipy trends of celebrity memoirs and acts as a snapshot of one deeply messed up upbringing that created a child star. Surprisingly funny and decently well-written, I found it a good read if a heartbreaking one.

What I’m reading now: Never Flinch by Stephen King. I’ve been on a King kick lately since Pet Sematary. I have a few of his books lined up to read, including a four-in-one collection of the Bachman books (his pen name for a brief period of time) but library books take precedence when they arrive because I only have three weeks (usually) to read them, especially if they’re newer releases and can’t be renewed. I got both I’m Glad and Never Flinch from the library so they jumped to the front of the to-read line.

I try to get books from the library whenever I can, especially new releases (for instance I waited several months to get my hands on Katabasis, which I finally read last month). There are three major reasons for this. First, I think libraries as a concept are awesome and I want to support them as much as possible. Second, I try to read around 50 or so books a year. Even if every one of those books was a flat $25 (and many are much more expensive) I would be shelling out more than a thousand bucks minimum a year just to try them out. When I get them from the library, that overhead drops to $0. Third, I don’t have the space to add tons of books to my shelves. Right now, the vast majority of books I own are either titles I’ve read and loved so much I knew I would read them again and again, or (increasingly) secondhand books from independent bookstores and thrift shops. (We just picked up a copy of 1984 for a dollar at one of these locations).

Some of the biggest downsides of using libraries, in my opinion, are actually upsides. Sometimes you can’t get the book you want with a single click. Sometimes, you have to wait. Sometimes, it requires patience. (And often with Libby, the ebook library app, this is negated and you don’t have to wait at all.) In addition, if you want to check out and read a physical book, you often have to go to a physical location. Lastly, there’s a time crunch. You only get the book for so long. For me, these are all bonuses. I have come to appreciate the physical activity of going to the library and often my wait for a book makes reading it all the more enjoyable. The time crunch forces me to actually sit down and read at regular intervals, lest the book get cycled into the tragic DNF pile. And of course, the library is one of the few remaining public institutions I can enjoy without shelling out a bunch of money on the spot just to access it.

What I’m writing now: 74k down and steadily marching toward the end of my current project. There comes a point, usually toward the end of writing a first draft, where I just want to finish the stupid thing so my brainpower can shift over to something—anything—else. I’m rapidly approaching that point with this project but I still have a ways to go.