Salisbury.Fake Weekly Update, writing

Writing Journal #1

One of the things I plan on using this blog for now is a kind of writing journal, where I drop all the stuff I’ve worked on during the week/day/lifetime/etc. For this inaugural entry, I give you:

  1. Finished chapter three of the third book in the Maker series (first draft)
  2. Wrote a personal essay that may or may not be a future blog post
  3. Doodled little scenes between two of my main characters.
  4. Outlined in my head a few ideas for a romance novel I’m looking to get printed this year. It won’t be offered for sale, but I want a few people to have it, so I’m going to do that one for myself.
  5. Considered once again putting together a compendium for the language I made up

And that’s all the tales I have for you from this week. I did start chapter four of the third book (Lazarus Rising), and I’ve started with the perspective of a different character for this one. Usually it’s Frankie being front-and-center, but this time we’re starting with Fogg, baby. The first section of the book will be his perspective, and we’ll see some of his backstory and some of the current events being unleashed now that certain things have happened.

Thank you for stopping by. I hope you are doing well, and if you are not, I hope it stops being a beshmapasen for you soon.

Salisbury.Fake book review

Logos by Nicholas Nikita

Image taken from Amazon.com e-Book

First read of the year and it’s a dang doozy. I found this while browsing the genres in Kindle Unlimited and the premise intrigued me enough to pop it in my library. It was a quick read in that I was able to read it in a few hours. The time it took me to read it should not detract from the quality of the story being told.

Logos follows an unnamed boy for the majority of the book as he survives a primal land. He loses his parents to the night-beasts, and saves his newborn brother. The first part of the book covers the brothers purely surviving the harsh landscape as they travel to the mountains, where the eldest believes their parents are waiting with the sun god, Aeos. It shows the desperation of people simply trying to live, where water and food are dangerously scarce. The boys are attacked by men and beasts over the course of their journey, and when they finally reach the mountains, the boys are old enough to be considered young adults (or that’s how I read them to be). Lightning strikes a tree and starts a fire. This fascinates the boys and they cultivate the fire, feeding it so it stays alive. The youngest convinces his brother to keep it large enough to be a signal to others in the vicinity, hoping their curiosity about the light and smoke will bring people to them.

The rise of this community is such a fascinating look at how socialization works. The boys are considered gods because they can hold the fire (on a stick, without burning their hands), and they can carry the fire. This sets up a dichotomy between them where the eldest becomes the more determined to build solidarity, to have sameness. Make sure people can speak the same language, ignoring the fact he’s bulldozing over other languages and practices in favor of his own creation. The boys are given names, Leos (the younger) who wears the skull and fur of a lion he killed, and Ra who wears the skull of an eagle (or some other large bird) he battled.

There is an inevitability toward the end I won’t spoil, but what I liked so much about this was how clear the progression of understanding and coherent thought became as the story went on. The boys grew into men and their minds became their own, and that strong characterization showed how even when the world is full of unknown dangers and death, the more their minds worked, the more the world made sense.

I don’t feel as though I’m properly explaining myself because it felt like recognizing something from before, like there’s an inherent desire to be. The brothers went in different directions with their curiosities and understandings of the same world they were presented. The eldest had far more experience in the danger than the younger, and so his was caution until it became maniacal. The youngest had the innocence of curiosity unfiltered by those experiences.

I think this was a solid book to start the year off with, and I recommend it. It is rather dark and depraved in places, but I found that added to the primitive nature of the world in which the brothers lived. When one exhibits too radical a deviation from the comfort of routine, the other offers a balance and a command to return to familiarity. By the end, it’s a book about a boy trying to do the best he can for his little brother. It’s a deeply thought provoking book. I give this 8/10 stars.

Salisbury.Fake book review

Books of 2024

I figured why not start with a bang and go into the books I either liked the most or had a lot of thoughts about in 2024. My grand total of books read was 93. I did not, in fact, finish reading The Fires of Heaven by Robert Jordan like I promised my brother I would, but we’ll get into that later. The books I’ve chosen for this list are the ones that stuck with me throughout the whole year. Most of these I read months ago, and some I finished far earlier in the year, and they still stick with me.

1. Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica
I feel like I need to say that if you are not the kind of person who reads heavy topics, this is not the book for you. A lot of the reviews I read of this said that it was disgusting and horrific and I feel like they missed the point of it. This book is not one to enjoy, necessarily. It’s one to make you think way too deeply about the state of humanity. It is a plunge into how people treat others, and that is such a superficial approach to it. It’s societally accepted cannibalism. There are humans bred specifically to become meat for other humans to consume. There are laws in place to “protect” the meat, and there are other things surrounding the “rights” of the ones being used to feed the masses. It’s told from the perspective of a production plant manager (I don’t remember his title officially) who’s dealing with his father going through Alzheimer’s, and a host of other issues both personal and professional. I will say that by the end of this book, I felt like I’d participated, and if you’ve read it, you know what I’m saying because the ending just left me bereft for a few days. I immediately recommended it to some of my friends. It is a purposeful calling out of people who mistreat others and also a scathing commentary on how society is structured. I gave this book 9/10 stars.

2. The Man in the High Castle by Philip K Dick
This book is on the list because it disappointed me and I’m still thinking about the ways it did and how it could have been better. I’ve not read any of Dick’s work before, so this was my introduction, and I was left wanting. He presented this incredible “what-if” scenario and then left it to the imagination for most of the events happening. So much of it occurred “off-screen” and I found that incredibly lackluster for such a stunning approach to alternate history. Especially since it’s for WWII, which has been a topic of debate ever since people realized they could theorize about the “what-ifs” of history. I started reading it because I watched the first episode of the show of the same name, and this is one of the few times I’ve uttered “the visual media is better than the book.” It gives substance to the ideas Dick presents in his book. It shows us the battles, the intrigue that’s hinted at within the subtleties of the writing. I’m glad I read it so I could see what it was, and I’m glad I watched the show (haven’t finished that yet) to expand on what the book could have been. I gave this 5/10 stars.

3. Everwild by Neal Shusterman
The second book of the Skinjacker trilogy by Shusterman made this list because it was the one that stuck with me the most. I think one of my favorite things about Shusterman’s storytelling is he invents new ways to approach death, which is such a difficult topic for anyone to discuss, but especially young adults. I do think sometimes the romances are a little unfinished and rushed into, but if that’s the only critique I have of his writing, I’d say that’s all right. I don’t know if it’s my appreciation for his writing that makes his books appear on my “that’s my favorite” lists, but there is something about his approach to illuminating the dark places of sadness that keeps me personally afloat when I could very easily sink. The trilogy as a whole is a stunning tale of lost children, and some of the ways they “go into the beyond” left me nearly weeping. This story is one I will think on, much like I think about his Arc of the Scythe series. I gave this book an 8/10 stars.

4. Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
Ohhhh, this one broke my heart. This is the journalistic telling of Christopher Johnson McCandless, the young man who went into the Alaskan wilderness with nothing but a ten-pound bag of rice and serious hopes and dreams, and ended up losing his life due to some unconfirmed circumstances. He wasn’t murdered, but there is speculation he ate some poisonous seeds while he was already weak from malnutrition and he couldn’t survive. Krakauer retraces Christopher’s journey to this epic adventure, and he meets the people who were impacted while the young man was finding his way to his eventual demise. Several people called him an idiot, saying he had no business being in the wilderness with so little experience, some called him noble for following the passions of his heart, and his parents and family missed him terribly. Christopher burned bridges he didn’t need to, for reasons only he knew, and I think the hardest part of this story was seeing how his determination to do what he saw as necessary only alienated him from people who genuinely cared about him. It wasn’t so much the societal obligation of family, his parents legitimately worried about him and his sister lost one of the people she was closest to for a myriad of unknowns. Some people criticized Krakauer for glamorizing this tale, and I can see where they’re coming from, but for me this wasn’t a glamorization. It was a caution to be passionate, but be intelligent in passions that can kill you. Even the most experienced of wilderness dwellers can run into situations of extreme danger, and they will need to rely on their in-depth knowledge to survive. I admire Christopher’s drive to be who he was. I just wish the world had gotten more of it. I gave this book 9/10 stars.

5. If We Were Villains by M. L. Rio
If you don’t like Shakespeare, this is not the book for you. The characters quote it pretty much every page and it is a serious, dark tragedy being uncovered throughout the course of the story. It’s told in flashbacks, with present day scatterings throughout, and that format works well for this. A group of theater students at an exclusive college for the arts forms a tight bond. Their friendly rivalries become dangerous, however, in the last year. The opening night of their final performance, something horrible happens, and one of them is killed. Was it an accident? Self-defense? Malicious? Even flipping through it now to write this post, my throat is closing up on tears trying to escape for the sadness inside this book. One of my quotes for the year comes from within the pages, said by a character toward the end: “Nothing is so exhausting as anguish.” I loved these characters, and I was broken hearted by the time I finished this book. It was beautiful and I gave it 9/10 stars.

6. We Only Find Them When They’re Dead: Book One, the Seeker by Al Ewing and Simone Di Meo
I love science fiction. Once I discovered how vast a genre it is, my entire world opened up. Reading, yes, but also writing-wise. It encompasses the biggest part of being human: curiosity. There is curiosity in most genres, but in science-fiction, there are literally no limits. You can go into space, you can dive to the deepest pits of the ocean, and you can give it all a name that only makes sense to you. What I don’t love about science-fiction is how people tend to send their characters into space and then have them get spicy on a spaceship. There are several other things I dislike about modern science-fiction, but that is for an entirely different blog post. What this book did for me was give me the delight of curiosity I’ve hungered for. Humanity’s only food source is the bodies of dead gods that appear throughout the universe. One captain decides to find out where the gods are before they appear. This trilogy of graphic novels is stunning, both in art and storytelling. The characters are diverse and multi-faceted. They bring humanity into space and do something with that instead of arguing solely about politics and who owns what. There is some political arguing, but that’s simply the nature of the genre. I loved this series, and this part of it was incredibly magical for me when I first read it. I gave it 10/10 stars.

7. All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews
Have you ever put a book on your list to read only to let it fester because you know it’s going to take a lot of your energy to read it and you don’t want to give those emotions much space just yet? That was this book for a few years. It’s been on my to-be-read shelf for at least three years, and I finally decided to read it. It’s about two sisters, one a concert pianist with a determination to die, and the other a single mother trying to keep everyone around her alive. The book hits on themes and thoughts I personally have had, both sides of the disease of depression, and I think I knew reading this one would be hard for me. It’s freeing to see your own thoughts on the page written by someone else, but it’s also incredibly exposing and leaves one feeling vulnerable to everything horrible. I read this book hoping it wouldn’t end the way I expected it to. I won’t say whether it did or not, because I don’t want to spoil it, but I will say it is worth the difficulty of being seen. I gave this book 9/10 stars.

8. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
Even typing the title, I’m trying not to cry. The moment I finished this book, I wanted to ask Henry if he’d read it. McCullers published this when she was 23-years-old and I have never read anything by anyone that young who understood what it is to be human so clearly and purely. I initially wanted to read this book based on a quote I read probably a decade ago, “the way I need you is a loneliness I cannot bear.” I have it on an index card hanging on my wall right now, and it’s been on every wall in every place I’ve lived since I found the quote. It’s haunted me, and now that I have the context for it, I am not entirely shattered from it, but I am a different person in some ways. This is, without hesitation, one of the best books I’ve ever read in my life. It is about surviving life alone, surrounded by so many people. It’s about being a kid without understanding why the adults are so serious, until one day you do. It’s about wanting to be heard, but no one can fully know the depths of your knowledge because they don’t have the experience you do. It’s about trying to do right by children who grew away from everything you taught them. It’s about love, the purest kind, and it’s about longing. To be held, to be seen, to be. This book is a gift, and I will love it always. 10/10 stars.

And that is the list I have. This is a long post, and I probably could have broken it into parts, but that’s not how I feel like living life today. I have reading intentions for the year ahead. I wanted to read 5 non-fiction books this last year, and I did. I want to continue that and make it a tradition this new year. I want to finish The Fires of Heaven because I do want to read the whole Wheel of Time series, but this one is the least compelling of the ones I’ve read so far. Rand is so annoying. I’ll probably post some book reviews this coming year, and I will absolutely be returning to the blog more frequently.

If you made it this far, I hope you are doing well. If you are not, I hope you are able to find some peace, inner or external, either one I wish upon you. You were not born to this world to suffer. Thank you for being here, and thank you for taking time to read this list of books that made my 2024 a solid year.

Until next time, friends.

Salisbury.Fake book review, Life

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

“You might try then, as I did, to find a sky so full of stars it will blind you again. Only no sky can blind you now. Even with all that iridescent magic up there, your eye will no longer linger on the light, it will no longer trace constellations. You’ll care only about the darkness and you’ll watch it for hours, for days, maybe even for years, trying in vain to believe you’re some kind of indispensable, universe-appointed sentinel, as if just by looking you could actually keep it all at bay.”

Johnny Truant, October 31, 1998 (House of Leaves introduction, page xxiii)

I’m going to start out by saying this book is not for everyone and I don’t think it was meant to be. It’s meant for those who need it most. I was recommended it years and years ago by one of my very good friends, and I just never got around to finding it. It is a book that must be found. It is, without hesitation, my new favorite book of all time.

Let me explain.

House of Leaves is a story within a story within a story. It begins with an introduction by Johnny Truant, who finds this manuscript in the apartment of a dead man. He then becomes obsessed with the story of a family who moved into a house with bigger dimensions on the inside than were possible. But is it his obsession or is it the dead man’s? Zampano, the writer of the manuscript, has his own story, and through Johnny’s footnotes, we get a glimpse of what Zampano’s life was before he died. So, we have the story Zampano wrote–which by all appearances is an academic treatment of the mysterious film/photographer William Navidson–and we have Zampano’s story told to us in pieces by Johnny, and then we have Johnny’s story included in pages long footnotes at times.

The beauty of this book is you become part of the story. You are shoved into your own obsession with the Navidson brothers as they try to explain this house that cannot be explained. It’s a psychological horror of which I’ve never seen before, and it takes you on a circular journey of your own past as you work through the mysteries with Navidson. Not only that, you are given insight into a very tragic character in Johnny Truant. I think I felt a platonic love for him by the end of the book because of his story, all of which I cannot verify if it was real or not. And by that I mean within the confines of the story. Was he telling me the truth or was it drug addled nonsense? Either way, I wept for Johnny at several moments.

I would like to go further into the symbolism of the house, but I feel like that trudges into spoiler territory, so if you’d rather not have spoilers, please skip away from the page.

The house is a pleasant enough place at first, set up in the middle of nowhere, Maryland. Inside the house, the family consists of Will, known as Navy, Karen, and their two children. The children each have their own rooms, and then Will and Karen have their room, and as all beginnings are, this is a hopeful place. A place of renewal.

A hallway appears first, connecting the bedrooms upstairs, creating a void of light. And then the door arrives in the living room, the door on the outside wall. When the door is opened, another hallway is revealed, and throughout the course of the story, Navidson ends up exploring it with his brother and one of his friends.

To me, the entire book from Zampano, to Johnny, and even the Navidson crew, it’s not about the house. It’s about the ways we try to keep ourselves hidden from those we love most. Those who would know when something is wrong just by looking at us. It’s about knowing oneself so painfully well that every interaction with a new person will go nowhere because we know we aren’t going to meet their expectations.

It’s grief.

It’s encompassing fear of the unknown.

It’s love.

I feel like I’m not giving the words justice. I feel like I’m not explaining just how deep of an impact this book had on me. Saying it’s my new favorite book of all time feels dramatic, like I’m making bold claims after only having read it once, and it’s a book that almost requires multiple reads. It’s formatted like someone went after it with a hammer and super glue, bending pages to fit into whatever origami felt right at the moment. There are footnotes within footnotes. Some of the text is backwards. Some pages only have two words, some have one. Entire spaces are condensed into a haphazard mess of black Xs across red strikethrough.

It is chaos, just as the house is chaos.

And yet, it’s home.

*******I read the 2000 Random House full color remastered paperback edition*******

Salisbury.Fake book review, Life

Here I Am by Jonathan Safran Foer

Who am I? I asked myself this question immediately following the finishing of this book and I feel like if Foer knew that, he’d either be pleased or he’d find me pretentious. But I didn’t ask it out of anything other than a gut reaction to the book ending. Foer is able to wield emotion like a sword, but with enough subtlety that it hits you after you’ve gone by a few pages, and you have to pause and sit in the feeling for a moment before you can go forward. It took me a bit to get into this book. I honestly didn’t remember why I picked it up (it’s got a sticker from the bargain bin on the back, so that’s the most likely reason, and I know I like his writing style, so I solved my own mystery), and as I read about the marriage of Jacob and Julia, I questioned even more why I grabbed it. It was about a loveless marriage, but also a marriage full of too much love. The kind of love you think is stagnant, but is actually hiding behind hurt. Unspeakable only because to voice the hurt would make it known to those who haven’t hurt you, but those you love and you don’t want to show them your vulnerability.

That kind of love is my favorite. And as I was slowly absorbed into the unfolding of this marriage, the explosion of a worldwide crisis of possible war, the outlook on Jewish people by the rest of the world, it all settles together in such a way you forget you’re reading about something heartbreaking. I think love is the entire theme of the whole book. There’s familial, romantic, platonic–it’s all in there. It’s the love that hurts, but the impermanence of pain is what draws me to it. It’s the understanding that while what I feel might be in the realm of anguish, it is not forever and I will be okay.

I told a friend of mine about some of this, my reaction to the book. But it was 3 a.m. and I’d had to read a brain numbing romance novel to get my head to calm down (seriously, all those people need to do is talk to each other. The lack of common sense and communication in those books is astonishing, but then I realize it’s real life in a way we aren’t ready to admit to, which I also know sounds like the opposite of calming my brain down). A sense of yearning took over, and I was filled with wanting. To be enough, to be wanted. And the part that makes my heart break is I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to accept that I am already good enough. I am wanted. Just as I am. It causes an ache in my ribs. When I breathe. I inhale, almost like when I run, and the life that fills me also takes my breath away.

The last time I wrote in my physical journal, I started a list of resolutions and I will expand on it offline. I know you might be wondering why this has anything to do with the book of this post, but I’ll get there. A person I follow on YouTube was talking in a recent video about how she calls resolutions her “intentions.” What does she intend for herself? The start of a new year, the reset, the fresh feeling. Some part of me that lingers in my self-hate is disgusted by the positivity of it.

But I think about a sunrise. A sunrise after walking all night, being so stuck in my head, unable to fully see even though all I’ve been doing is looking.

The sky lightens, letting the earth know what’s coming, but it’s that first burst of bright. That explosion of color that scars the sky and yet whispers hello.

My hope lives there. In that moment, that crack of a new day. Flash in the pan, almost. It holds me, though. Gives me enough courage to approach life one day at a time until a year passes and I am no longer witnessing the sunrise, I am the sunrise.

That’s who I am. I am hope, burning across the morning dimness with a gasp of colors. I am not ending. I am beginning and I am afraid. Afraid of understanding. Afraid of seeing. Not of failure, because I’m not failing.

I am becoming.

And that’s what this book did for me. I don’t know that I would say Foer is my favorite author, but he writes in a way that helps the world make sense as I see it. While I’m not a middle-aged Jewish man, or his wife, or their three sons, I have felt at times what they have, and seeing emotions I know so well, written in a way that feels like I’ve been flayed while saying thank you is something I don’t know I’d get from anyone else.

I give this book an 8.5/10

*******I read the 2016 Farrar, Straus and Giroux hardback edition*******

Salisbury.Fake Life, writing

Small Update

Hey!

I published my first book. It’s out there in the world now, and that’s why I’ve been gone for so long. It went live on Amazon back on May 31st, and I kind of forgot this blog existed until a few days ago.

I probably should share a link to it, so I’ll do that at the bottom of this post. It’s available in paperback or on Kindle. There are some minor errors in the printing, but you know what? I care, but not that much. The story doesn’t suffer from those small errors, and there aren’t any glaring spelling issues so I’m leaving it as it is. I’m not intending to make it big, just wanted to tell a story I love.

So, that’s what I’ve been up to. I’m currently working on the second book, The Keeper of Time and that has been smooth sailing (which is difficult for me to accept sometimes because it technically took me about fifteen years to write Fulcrum).

I hope you are well! Thank you for sticking with me. I think I’ll attempt to make more of an effort at updating this blog from now on, but please do forgive me if I go on a hiatus for no reason other than I forget.

If you’d like to read the prologue of Fulcrum and the first bit of the first chapter, it’s available as a “look inside” feature on Amazon. You can find all of that here:https://www.amazon.com/Fulcrum-C-D-Kleeberg/dp/B0B2TBJC56/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2DO6GGUROXZFD&keywords=fulcrum+cd+kleeberg&qid=1658454699&sprefix=fulcrum+cd+kleeberg%2Caps%2C324&sr=8-1

One day I’ll figure out how to make those links look like nice text instead of gibberish, but it is not this day.

Salisbury.Fake book review

January Book Dump

Okay, listen, I know I’m behind. I know, I know. I’ve decided to do a quick “hey, here’s what I read, maybe you’ll like it, too” post because while I could go through and review each of these individually, some of them are too short for a full post, and the others I don’t want to ramble as I’m wont to do.

Kicking things off here we have two books I received in a book subscription box probably almost five years ago and I started them but never finished them. So, I told myself not to let them sit unread on the shelf any longer, and wouldn’t you know it? In one, I only had ten pages left of it to read. Good job, past me. Fantastic work. Livin’ that dream.

Blue Fox by Sjon

This book follows a hunter on his trek to take down an elusive fox. The air is absolutely frigid, and the sun is harsh. It’s a stark, desolate sounding landscape, and yet there is life within. Sjon creates an atmosphere so well, one can almost see their breath while reading this book. It may sound trite and pretentious, but I thoroughly enjoyed the hubris of it all. A quick read if you don’t take five years to finish it.
******I read the 2008 Farrar, Straus, and Giroux paperback edition******

Gutshot by Amelia Gray

Another quick read, this is full of short stories, almost flash pieces (some are definitely not flash). When I first started reading it, I was enthralled by it. When I finished it, I was disturbed. This is not to say the writing is bad. It’s very unique and has a way of sticking into your brain after finishing one of the pieces. I felt like I’d witnessed something I probably shouldn’t have, and kept walking, left to ponder the choices I’ve made in my life to this point.
*******I read the 2015 Farrar, Straus, and Giroux paperback edition*******

So You Don’t Get Lost in the Neighborhood by Patrick Modiano

I found this book on a trip I took with my stepmom and I picked it up because the title was so intriguing. It’s translated from French, and sometimes I worry that the translations can miss the nuances of the original language (I’m lookin’ at you, Witcher books). What can be lyrical and absolutely beautiful in one language can sometimes be stilted and jarring in another. That is not the case for this book. I’m going to say it’s very French, something I have only my preconceived notions about what is “French” to back me up on, but it’s charming, somewhat dark, and left me wondering if I solved the mystery or if I just needed to enjoy the ride. It follows the story of a man trying to figure out a distant memory from his childhood, brought about by a mysterious man who shows up with a folder and a name. The name brings him back to memories he’d tucked away for later, maybe never again. It sets him on a small trail of wonder and intrigue. It’s a lovely told story. The ending is kind of unclear, but I also finished it when I was really tired, so that is probably on me.
*******I read the 2015 Houghton Mifflin Harcourt hardback edition*******

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

This book left me for dead. I know that sounds really dramatic and kind of problematic, but the amount of weeping I did after reading this is almost embarrassing. It is beautiful. It isn’t for everyone, but if you are ready for a look at sexuality, race, immigration, prejudice, a whole slew of things, please read this. So many moments in this are heart wrenching, but there is always this underlying hope. A potential for it to end well. It is stunning.

Written as a letter to the speaker’s mother, the young man tells the story of love and loss in such a way that leaves you breathless. It asks why, hypothesizes the answers, but then never fully commits to one, letting you work on it for yourself.
*******I read the 2021 Penguin paperback edition*******

Salisbury.Fake Life, Weekly Update

33

If I appear to have lost my zeal for posting on here, I haven’t. I’ve decided to approach this blog as more a tool for myself and less a desire for validation from strangers on the internet. It’s always been for me anyway, but to those of you who’ve been reading my nonsense, thank you. I do appreciate you being here. Cliche as it may be, it’s nice to know someone out there sees the things I say.

So that brings us to today. Today is my birthday. I turn 33. Holy frickin’ cow, dudes. It always catches me off guard and it always hits me in the face at the same time. Never one to appreciate attention on myself (which is where my need for validation on the internet becomes an internal eternal struggle), I’ve never been a fan of my birthday. I’d much rather spend it doing things with others and helping them. So I took some vacation time, hahaha. I am a firm believer in the idea that no one should work on their birthday. I realize that comes from a place of privilege and I wish it didn’t.

Every month in my bullet journal, I pick a quote to kind of guide my thoughts, and this month I chose something out of one of my very favorite books, The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery.

“If someone loves a flower of which just one example exists among all the millions and millions of stars, that’s enough to make him happy when he looks at the stars. He tells himself, ‘My flower’s up there somewhere . . .’ But if the sheep eats the flower, then for him it’s as if, suddenly, all the stars went out. And that isn’t important?”

I chose this quote because while the obvious reminder is that the little things matter and what’s important for someone else may not necessarily be important to you, it’s more a reminder of going back to the things that matter. I love this book enthusiastically. It’s a classic, and it’s such a lovely little tale about learning the way the world is, and it reminds me to think about what truly makes a difference in my life.

So, what’s been different this past year? I think the thing that startles me the most is the change in fitness. I began running, something I talked more about last blog post, and I stopped eating so much and I lost about 40 pounds. I’m not to my goal yet, but hey. I lost 40 pounds. It’s easier for me to keep up with Caboose, and it’s easier to jog after a piece of paper I dropped in the parking lot. I have a new way of controlling my thoughts, which is probably the most important thing about running for me. I’ve set a goal with one of my best friends to run a 5k next year. For the fall, though, because running in summer sounds like a fresh hell, or maybe a hot hell. Either way, a pass for me. But last year I wouldn’t have even considered such a thing. I would have thought it impossible.

Finding balance has been tough. Finding a way to shut out the bastard that lives in my brain and coax the small child forward who wants to be everything and anything is difficult as all get out. I hear a lot that I’m strong, and while I appreciate that, I don’t think people really know how exhausting that is. Mentally, I’ve not been well. The month leading up to my birthday is one of the hardest of the year for me because quite honestly, I’m always surprised I’m here. Kind of a “well shit, now what?” moment. And every year, I remember “oh yeah, keep breathing.”

I was going to go camping this year, but I decided not to because the idea of the effort took so much energy. Just the thought of it. I’m still going to go to my favorite park and hike, because that’s the thing I look forward to the most every year. The picture for this post is from a few years ago, but it’s the only one that I like of myself. It reminds me that I’m insignificant in the best way. That the world is so, so vast and I am so, so small in it, but that doesn’t negate my importance. I am necessary. I am a vital part of the system I created around myself, and I did that without even knowing I had.

So, the point of this post really is to just mark another notch on the bedpost of life. I survived another round, and I’ll survive until the next one, the sun willing. But it’s going to be more than survival. It’s going to be living. It is such a cliche to say there’s a difference between survival and living, and while yes, I know, it’s obvious, it is another thing entirely to fully realize that.

Paint your sunset. Read that book you’ve read fourteen times before and it still makes you weep at the end. Watch the entire season of a bad show in one day. Smile at babies. Give flowers to your mom, or your dad! I’m sure he’d like it. Tell someone you haven’t spoken to for years that you remember something specific about them. The world is so full of life and you have the right to have it.

Let yourself have it.

Until next time, friends.

Salisbury.Fake book review

Everyone Brave is Forgiven by Chris Cleave

Everyone Brave is Forgiven grabbed me by the title and I pulled it from the shelf without much other thought. From the cover, it looked like it was going to be about London during WWII, and I was correct, but I still put it on my to-read shelf and forgot about it. I don’t know if I’ve ever said so on here, but WWII is one of my favorite times to read about, fiction or not, and so I tend to gravitate toward those stories. So many of them are similar, and yet all of them are different. I find sometimes they can be a bit predictable, and while at times this book was to me, I still enjoyed what I read.

What I liked about this book the most was the main female character, Mary. She comes from an upper middle class family (fairly more well-to-do than a lot of people), and when mobilization begins, she decides to join up in the form of becoming a spy. Well, they don’t need her to be a spy, but they do send her to a school to be a teacher. She has no experience in this field, but she takes to it easily, loving the children instantly. She becomes a teacher right before the evacuations took place and children were sent to the countryside of England.

Mary befriends a black boy, Zachary, and she promises to write to him while he’s away. Racism is a theme in this book, and while Mary sees nothing wrong with being friends with Zachary (he’s a small child), her family and friends tell her she’s being impertinent and socially incorrect. There’s quite a bit of language used that made me uncomfortable, and I know it’s “how they talked at the time,” but it still gave me some pause as I read it.

Zachary is abused by the people in the country, and eventually he’s brought back to London where he goes back to school with Mary as his teacher. Mary has a unique talent for getting what she wants, and when her class is evacuated, the first thing she does is go to the man in charge of her district and asks for another class. He tells her there isn’t anyone to teach, but she points out those who were left behind for “difficult circumstances.” Sometimes Mary’s privilege shows when she can’t understand why certain things are done the way they are, but by the end of the story, she’s learned. Mary is vibrant, sarcastic, and determined. Her enthusiasm for doing what she believes to be right is never quite squashed by the bombs dropped on her city.

There is heartbreak and absolute tragedy throughout the story. Depictions of violence and some graphic details of war wounds and building devastation. It all adds up to a well told story that by the end of we are possibly just as tired as the characters. The few moments where I was dragged out of the story because of my stretch for belief were few, and hardly significant past the moments they were.

I give this book an 8/10.

*******I read the 2016 Simon and Schuster hardback edition*******

Salisbury.Fake book review, Life

The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

Technically I haven’t finished reading this, but I reached the appendix and the notes, so I’m going to discuss my thoughts on this book today. When I picked this up, it was kind of on a whim. The title caught my eye at the store, and the yellow grabbed me, too. I’ve been struggling with personal habits lately, so I thought this would be an interesting perspective to read through. I was right. This book is incredibly readable. Typically when I grab non-fiction, I struggle to read it because it’s very factual and very thoroughly researched (hopefully, anyway). That’s not to say this isn’t well researched or full of facts, because it is that, but Duhigg approaches it from a reader perspective. Something I feel non-fiction writers tend to forget is how to appeal to readers of all genres and types. They get caught up in the truth they’re telling and the presentation is much like a lecture hall PowerPoint by someone at the end of their career and they’re waiting for retirement.

This is not the case for Duhigg. He starts with a story of a man with short term memory loss who can’t tell you where he lives, but he can go on a walk at 2 pm every day and still end up at home without knowing why. There are several intriguing studies presented throughout the book that made me realize I know very little about my own brain. He goes through how Febreeze became a household name, and how stores can predict your buying habits by going through your purchases when you scan your rewards cards. Something stores may not want put in the public eye, but while that’s creepy, it’s also incredibly fascinating.

The first part of the book focuses on individual habits, why we do what we do (which is the sub-title of the book). We create what’s called a “habit loop,” which consists of three parts: a cue, a routine, and a reward. As we receive the same cue, then follow the same routine, and expect the same reward, a habit is formed. This is true for negative habits, too, which makes sense because even though we don’t typically think of the negative outcomes as rewards, they become ingrained as part of the routine, so we follow them. Sometimes unwittingly.

I’m not saying this book has changed my life completely, because I still have habits I consider unhelpful to the person I want to be, but it’s certainly opened my mind to a new realm of understanding. One of the key factors in habit change is belief. Duhigg uses the coaching style of Tony Dungy to approach the topic of belief and he talks about how no matter what Dungy did, the teams would revert back to their old habits in times of stress simply because their belief in the new ways faltered. This is honestly the stage of change I struggle with the most.

This last year I’ve been trying to revamp my thought processes–before I read this book, even more so now–and the process has been almost excruciating. I’ve spent almost 2 decades hating myself, and trying to switch gears and think differently feels like an impossible thing. But that’s the thing about it all. It isn’t impossible because I’m doing it in small ways here and there. I’ve talked about how my depression manifests itself as dishes to wash and laundry I move from hamper to mattress back to hamper. Well it still does, but not as badly. My dishes are never more than a few days left unwashed, and I fold my laundry within a day of doing it. I don’t know specifically what changed my brain to do this, but somehow I’ve convinced my depressive side that this is unacceptable and there needs to be something different we do when I get caught up in my head for too long.

I think this book is worth a read if you’re interested in habits, but I don’t think it’s a book everyone should read. Some people are living their best lives and have no need to go this far into their own heads. I give this book an 8/10.

********I read the 2014 Randomhouse Trade Paperback edition*******