Oof, there has been a lot of brain flotsam this week. I haven’t been very good about notating it all, but hopefully I can get it all down.
One of my Instagram friends was very excited about a “hiking dress” that was being sold through Title 9. Don’t get me wrong. I love Title 9. They do good things—they’re women owned; they highlight cool women in their catalog, and they generally have good things. But when I saw this hiking dress I immediately thought, “Every dress is a hiking dress. Put one on. Go hiking.” For years my go-to hiking dress was a baby-blue ribbed number from Banana Republic. Pretty sure they didn’t sell it that way.
I read the Jen Hatmaker interview in the New York Times magazine. Hatmaker, who was a darling of the religious right before she decided to re-think her positions on LGBTQ rights, is quoted as saying, “I had always been good at being good.” This quote made my ears go up. What the heck is “being good,” anyway? It can’t possibly mean the same thing to all people.
We have been helping my in-laws to clean out their basement. We found a huge box of LPs, including these treasures. I am super excited about the Muppets one, shut up.
The Women’s Professional Baseball League had its tryouts a few weekends ago, and I am amped for the league to start up summer of next year. I want to go to a game or two in its first season. Baseball was one of my first American sports, and in Taiwan it has really caught on. (Taiwan’s little league team took home the trophy this year.)
This FAQ on its web site reflects the reality for a lot of women:
Will players have any flexibility in their schedules if they have other work or family commitments?I don’t know what to make of the answer:
“The league will discuss individual players’ circumstances on a case by case basis.”
Perhaps what bothers me the most is that the entirety of the leadership team is white.
But if you look at the WPBL’s social feeds, they’re highlighting majority women of color. Why is this a problem? Because you’re skating close to diversity as lip service, and letting women of color carry the hard work while not giving them representation in management. If you’re going to hire women of color to play on your team, they should be represented in leadership and management, as well. (The same goes for the WPBL’s advisory team.)
I’m not saying the people on the leadership and advisory boards haven’t earned their places either in baseball or here. But I do think they could have looked a little harder at themselves.
I have a Garmin Forerunner that tracks all my workouts, and an Evie ring. I used to get a kick out of making my step count and taking a look to see how I was sleeping, and even taking my heart rate every once in a while. But I’m abandoning my Evie, and while I’ll still use my Garmin for swimming and long runs (I can’t keep track of laps or miles otherwise) and okay, like, keeping track of what time it is, I’ve largely stopped worrying about how long it takes for me to swim a lap or run a mile or whatever.
I think in large part this has to do with my being tired. We’ve been caregiving for a family member who had a health event recently, and I’m still navigating leaving my beloved day job, and I’m working on two novels and two applications to relatively big prizes, so—I’m tired. I’m too tired to care about anything beyond just living and being and doing.
Wearables, for me, have just added to stress. That’s been an interesting thing for me to come to terms with, because I’m a big believer in data for good. I generally think, the more information you have, the better.
Alas, this is not the case with my wearables.
This might change in the future. I don’t really know. Then again, it might not, and I’d be okay with that, too.My friend Colin True has a podcast production company called Rock Fight. It’s great. Colin’s most recent foray is the brilliant, very entertaining Gear Abby (yes, yes, say it like, “Dear Abby,” get it? Get it? It took me ages to figure it out). Shawnté Salabert is an outdoor adventurer and writer, and you write in to Gear Abby with all of your burning outdoor questions. In their two eps so far, they’ve covered pooping in the woods, cowboy camping, and much more. And, Colin (who co-hosts) and Shawnté have great pod chemistry. You can listen to it wherever you get your podcasts.
I just got done reading Amazing Grace Adams,* by Fran Littlewood.
This one, for me, was complicated. There are three timelines. Two points of view. I don’t know that I loved or even liked the protagonist. (This isn’t a requirement. It’s just what I was in the mood for.) But I couldn’t put it down, and that’s saying a lot.
It’s also an incredibly moving picture of perimenopause, and a hard marriage, and Littlewood does a great job of spinning a plot, even if I could see some of the twists coming long before they arrived on the page. It doesn’t matter; you are invested in Grace.
*All book links go to my affiliate shop at Bookshop.org, and I earn a commission.That’s it for this week! See you all again next week. Maybe I’ll be a little less salty.
You’re very busy with things!