They don’t look green up close, but from a distance they are green!

Scattered all over my brown lawn, they’re really cute!

what's new this month

• Ever Your Affectionate is coming! I’ve written the last few changes and am carefully threading the new elements through the book. I’m going to post an excerpt this weekend to my personal blog. Want an early peek? Subscribe to my blog so that it gets delivered to your mailbox! Don’t worry, I don’t post to the blog that often; I reserve it for off-topic random thoughts, book excerpts, and my ongoing work-in-progress, Meg.
• I’m doing a spring clean of this newsletter. Over the next several weeks I’m using email service provider tools to look for subscribers who are either not receiving my emails or not opening them. Because it’s hard to know which statistics are trustworthy (i.e. sometimes you might open an email but it doesn’t “register” with my service provider) I am running several processes that should be helping to get some of the emails that gmail and other providers are suppressing back into inboxes (they do this when people stop opening emails from a particular sender), but this might mean that you won’t see an email from me for a couple of weeks, especially if you have a gmail.com address. What I’ve decided is that for the next couple of weeks ONLY, I will be posting my newsletter to my personal blog. Last week’s Friday email is already up. But if you have a gmail, hotmail, outlook, or other “free” email address, you might not see me in your inbox for awhile. You can check my blog for possible missed newsletters, and you can also sign up to receive blog posts in your inbox.
• I’ve almost completely stopped looking at social media. As I mentioned last month, this has been coming on over the past how many months, but I hadn’t gotten to the point where I’ve decided to take my social links off my email or website. I’ve also kind of gone “off” ebooks, to be honest. I’m reading a lot of print books. I just don’t want to be on a screen all the time. BUT...today I opened up Instagram for whatever reason, the first several posts I saw were from accounts I really love. And then I remembered why I follow them. So I may be dipping a toe back into Instagram, but with a different angle. I'm enjoying super-theme-specific photos nowadays (like flowers, antique books, even fountain pens). What about you? Have your social media habits changed? Do you rely on it to follow your favorite authors? What are you looking for when you click on a social media link?

books & culture

• Fates and Furies, by Lauren Groff. This was one of those “I-liked-it-but-“ books. I guess as a writer I’m always asking, “whose story is this?” And to be honest in this book I just wasn’t sure. Fates and Furies is about a married couple, Lotto and Mathilde, who seem to be madly in love and have a successful, long-lived marriage. After some lean years, Lotto is a successful playwright. Mathilde, who has been supporting them both by working at an art gallery, can eventually leave that job and live comfortably. I won’t spoil the story here, but if you want spoilers, I’m going to link this review in the New Yorker, because the reviewer does a great job analyzing the story (he likes the first half, and thinks the second half doesn’t deliver--warning, he gives you ALL the spoilers). I am not quite there with saying the second half “doesn’t deliver” but as a story I found the message disturbing. Maybe it hit a little too close to home, as Mathilde gives up any professional goals for herself in order to support her husband, which is what I also did. Except I wouldn’t characterize that choice so viciously for myself. But I don’t see the idea of a male-female marriage as starkly and as negatively as this author does, so perhaps that’s why I can’t quite get behind her argument. It was a good read, just a bit nerve-wracking when I consider the subtext.
• The Face: A Time Code, by Ruth Ozeki. I was eager to read this one, as Ruth Ozeki is a Buddhist priest and wrote this book as an accompaniment to an exercise where she stares at her face in the mirror for three hours. I know, I know, it sounds weird, but actually it’s not. She gets this idea from an art professor who makes her students do this with important pieces of art. I think it’s substantially the same as writing a thesis about a literary work. You “stare” at the artwork for a long time in order to learn everything you can about it. Why not your face? Every line and every freckle has a reason to be there. Your genetic history is there. Your environment is there. The hours of your day are there. It made me want to undertake this project myself!
• A Tale for the Time Being, by Ruth Ozeki. I’ve always wanted to read something by Ruth Ozeki, and this month I read two! She is American but her mother was Japanese so I imagined that maybe we’d have something in common as novelists. This was a fascinating book, as she did something I don’t think I’ve seen before. It’s fictional, with the story being told from two points of view. A diary washes up on the shore of an island off the coast of western Canada, so the first point of view is that of the diary writer, a Japanese teenager. The woman who finds the diary is an American of Japanese descent named Ruth, a woman with much the same personal history as the author, Ruth Ozeki. Yes, Ruth and her husband Oliver mirror the novel's main characters. Interesting! Fact and fiction are blurred in this book, and I quite enjoyed this aspect. However, as I mention below regarding Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko, it’s really difficult to write about something that you participate in, even if you are also a spectator. Some aspects of the Japanese story in this book don’t quite work for me, because it’s as if she had googled “weird Japanese stuff” and then put all of them in the book. She makes Japan sound really bizarre, and it’s not balanced with a similar bizarre portrayal of the U.S. or Canada, if that makes sense. But I found the book cool, and the plot was gripping. Toward the end I couldn’t put it down. I’m eager to read her latest book next!

what I’m watching

• I saw a great movie in the theater a couple of weeks ago when I was in Indianapolis with my younger daughter (she was at NCAA nationals! yay!). It’s from Japan, and it’s called JUJUTSU KAISEN:ZERO. I couldn’t believe that this movie was in a normal American theater! There’s even an option to see either the dubbed or the subtitled version. It’s based on a well-known comic book series in Japan, and there’s also an animated television series that you can watch (free) on Crunchyroll.com. That’s where I first encountered it. If you enjoy animated movies, this one is really good, but it’s kind of gory and features monsters, so it’s specific to that kind of taste. I might go and see it again in an IMAX theater this time! The music is also fabulous; it’s by King Gnu, a Japanese group I’ve talked about in the past. Here’s the trailer.​
• I’ve also just started the new Apple+ series Pachinko. Some of you may remember that I read the book by Min Jin Lee some time back. You might even remember that I had some problems with it. It’s always hard to write recent historical fiction, and it’s complicated when you share some of the history because then you’re a participant. This is one reason I’ve hesitated to write Japanese historical fiction. It’s hard, and I’m sure I’ll get things wrong, and I care a lot about the subject. I’m sure I’ll get there, but this is why I don’t want to criticize Min Jin Lee. I’m glad she wrote a best-selling book about Koreans who live in Japan. It’s a subject that needs discussion. The series looks pretty good so far! They’ve put a lot of work into the authenticity of the costumes and set, and the actors are very good. You can check out the Apple+ trailer here.
• I’m engrossed in the Apple+ series Severance. As I said to my weekly list last week, it’s a series so it’s still possible that it might end up a disappointment, but for now it’s fabulous. If you’re into sci-fi and suspense a la Homecoming (another great series, it’s on Amazon--two seasons!), you’ll love it.
• Surprise favorite right now: Somebody Somewhere, on HBO! Have you seen it? A wonderful, kooky group of people living in a small farming community in Kansas. Very warm-hearted! Love it! I just finished watching the first season and I really hope there’s a second season. Take a look.

what I'm celebrating

• Getting back into a good exercise routine! I’ve had to drop a couple of yoga sessions per week but that’s okay. I’m back on the rowing machine and working up a good sweat, after a winter spent mostly on the bike. And I’ve added four weight lifting sessions per week. Yay!
• I had the most amazing shopping trip at my favorite Main Street boutique! Hurray for small owner-operated stores! I’m so glad my store survived COVID.
• I’m still practicing my new shamisen almost daily!

finally...