📺 Watched The Mandalorian “Chapter 7: The Reckoning”

Made a less-paleo, less-vegan version of beaming baker’s 2 ingredient 5 minute homemade fudge, adding sea salt so it’s technically 3 ingredients. (The other two ingredients are chocolate chips and almond butter.) I was sad because the leftover holiday fudge is full of corn syrup. I’m avoiding corn since it makes me feel like garbage. This isn’t a perfect substitute, but it’s tasty in its own right. 🍫

M (3 yo): grabs toy phone, gets in toy car, waits for me to answer phone
Me: Hello?
M: Hi, it’s me.
Me: Hi, how are you?
M: I’m going to see the Empire movie but there aren’t going to be any villains in it, only heroes. Darth Vader isn’t going to be in it.

📺 Watched The Mandalorian “Chapter 6: The Prisoner”

📚 Want to read Because Internet by Gretchen McCulloch

I just realized that the frequency with which I suggest purchases for my local library makes me essentially a volunteer collections development librarian who contributes about 30 minutes of service a year. I’M SO HELPFUL.

📚 Finished reading: The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle 📚

📚 Read Why Johnny Doesn’t Flap: NT is OK! by Clay Morton & Gail Morton

📚 Want to read One Person/Multiple Careers by Marci Alboher 📚

📚 Want to read Refuse to Choose by Barbara Sher

📷 Leaning into the middle-aged librarian stereotype with a glasses chain, though apparently they were trendy in 2019 and are expected to continue to be so in 2020.

Watching The Empire Strikes Back for the first time in years & I’d forgotten what a delight Yoda is. So muppety, delightful goofy old mentor, so not here for Luke’s BS. 🎥

Between supplements & prescriptions, I swallow 24 pills every day, take 2 tinctures, 1 chewable/dissolving lozenge, 2 powders, & 1 nasal spray. This is what I do just to attempt to achieve homeostasis, before sleep, diet, hydration, exercise, & environment even come into play.

📺 Watched The Mandalorian “Chapter 5: The Gunslinger”

Escaped “The Green Room” at Tic Toc Escapes. 🔒

🔖 Read 100 things that made my year (2019)

Austin Kleon captures so many beautiful small moments here. I find myself inspired to keep a daily log like his to help me do likewise.🕸️

📖 Currently reading How to Be Everything by Emilie Wapnick 📚

📺 Watched The Mandalorian “Chapter 4: Sanctuary”

📷 Soul Expansion Spread by Lindsay Mack of Wild Soul Healing. 2020 is an Emperor year: structure and organization. Cards from the Moonchild Tarot by Danielle Noel.

  1. My card for 2020 - King of Cups. Rediscovering myself, leading from the heart.
  2. Where am I being invited to expand and grow in the new year? VII The Chariot - driving energy, getting it done, making it happen
  3. What gifts am I being called to share with the world? 10 of cups, radiance, passion, play, abundance. 🎴

📽️ Watched Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

Wasn’t sure how I would like it, given the responses I’d seen. I decided going into it that I would have fun. For the first 30 minutes or so, I thought, “Uh oh, am I NOT going to have fun?” Then things picked up and I DID have fun, but I also teared up because Carrie Fisher, because speeches about hope and working together and not being alone, because fan service services me, a fan.

Carrie Fisher is gone. But “what she stood for, what she fought for… that’s not gone.” 🎥

📖 Currently reading: The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern 📚

💬 Replied to

This toy-inspired cash gift packaging is amazing. Definitely saving for use with next year’s holiday gifts. 🎁

📔 Hi there! I’m considering migrating my WordPress site to micro.blog, and am playing with the post interface today.

📔 I know I just took a hiatus because of comps, but now I’m taking another one for the holidays. See y’all January 6!

📖 Read Frozen II (Midwest Film Journal) by Aly Caviness

I was going to write a whole blog post about Frozen II and why I like it better than Frozen (which I both loved AND only saw once, because TOO MUCH CRYING) but then I found this film review and can simply point to it and add a few notes.

The main thing here is that, as this review points out, this sequel is Elsa’s story in a way the first one wasn’t. I think many people, in light of the juggernaut that is “Let It Go,” don’t realize that Anna is the protagonist of Frozen. Yes, Elsa has an arc, but Anna is the one who goes on a journey, gets assistance, experiences betrayal, etc. The climax flips it a bit, but if we’re looking for Campbellian narrative, Anna is the one who gets it in the first movie. In one sense, Elsa is a MacGuffin as much as she’s a character.

Frozen II works beautifully in parallel with Moana.

“The call isn’t out there at all; it’s inside me.”

“You are the one you’ve been waiting for all of your life.”

I could go on at length about how people don’t give Anna the credit she’s due, how love is a power that’s not as impressive as manipulating ice but seems to me much more valuable. And maybe sometime I will.

(In one sense, Elsa is her parents’ love incarnate, but her magic renders that love inert in a way that is the opposite of Anna’s openness to love, Anna being, I feel, her parents’ love incarnate and activated.)

Anyway, I’ve just gone on longer than I meant to and will probably have more to say later. But really, read the linked review and you’ll get a good sense of how I feel about Frozen II. 🕸️