anxiety, audiobooks, books, meditation, reading

Audiobooks: A Cure for (my) Road Rage

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I’m a Lake Woebegone driver: better than average, and I know it for absolutely certain. Some of you who may have doubts as to how much anger this librarian actually holds in reserve, sitting in my passenger seat as I drive from red light to red light past the strip malls of  Route 1 would give you all the proof you needed that I have given myself an apt name. The fury I dredge up on the road heats itself from only two sources: lack of safety and lack of consideration. Of course, when driving a 2,000 pound vehicle in New Jersey, there are plenty of combinations of them both.

During grad school in particular, my road rage escalated. I was taking a full-time course load, working two on-campus jobs, and driving down Route 1 to a third. Among New Jersey drivers… The anger that I felt (and still feel) when the driver in the car ahead of me goes under the speed limit is the emotional equivalent of nails on a chalkboard, because I am no-passing trapped and likely going to be late. Like, come on man/lady/fellow human, why do you need to make me hate you? I don’t know you! I would like to like you, but I DO know that I need to get where I’m going and I didn’t allot sufficient additional time in my day to do so!

Note: this impatience is doubled during what some states call “extreme weather events,” or what THIS Midwesterner calls “rain” and “snow.” I understand that when it is raining, you do not want to tailgate someone, but it does not mean to drive 10mph slower. Barring a typhoon or broken wiper blades, these conditions occur OFTEN and SHOULD BE familiar to you.

Is this starting to feel like I am a compassionless know-it-all who lacks empathy for my fellow earthlings? Are you saying to yourself, “maybe the person is a new driver! Or maybe they are elderly!” Yes? I actually don’t know that those two exceptions make any difference to my opinion, because I generally think that if you cannot handle driving under safe and considerate conditions, you shouldn’t be on the road.

Well, for the sake of argument, let’s just say that this level judgment and anger, not to mention the muscle clenching, increased blood pressure and faster heart rate that occur simultaneously, just aren’t good for me.

Enter: audiobooks.

I cannot emphasize enough the magical soothing effects of listening to a story or learning about an interesting topic, often read by the person who actually wrote the book. Focusing on the book’s content occupies the portion of my brain responsible for being cranky and annoyed. Listening to books as I drive also makes me feel uber-productive, because I’m making progress in consuming ALL THE BOOKS while doing something repetitive and boring I had to do. #winning #nerdalert

I listen to a lot of audiobooks, and mentioned many favorites in My Best Books of 2017 but let me take this moment to shine a little light on another one I read before last year.

DH

10% Happier by Dan Harris made me think about meditation for the first time without rolling my eyes. I knew a thing or two about pushing my own limits, and about racing thoughts and often uncontrollable anxiety and anger. Listening to Dan’s newscaster voice was great, and his dedication to sticking with meditation impressed me. It impressed me because at no point during my time with his story did I attempt to meditate at all. I just thought, “huh. Meditation makes him 10% happier; that would be cool” and after I downloaded one app (Stop. Breathe. Think.) that had a meditation to help me fall asleep, I carried on my merry (or fuming) path of least resistance.

Enter 2017, a year I have most frequently seen referred to as a “dumpster fire.” Personal stuff and the news made me unhappy, and when I reached my 30th birthday, I knew I had to change something. There are plenty successful, well-adjusted people out there, some in my circle, who are not overcome by the news. They consume the same information as I do, feel just as strongly about it, but do not immediately spray obscenities into their surroundings, nor spike their blood pressure. I needed to be more measured.

I read another book: The Headspace Guide to Meditation and Mindfulness by Andy Puddicombe.

AP

This time…. I also didn’t do any of the suggested “practice” meditations as I read. But, I did put language to what I wanted: I want to control my emotions so that they don’t rule me.

It took pushing myself to attend a Kundalini yoga/meditation workshop at a local studio before I actually did meditate. And dang, people. It is not as hard as I thought. I don’t have to clear my mind or check in with every part of my body like I had always thought (and read). I just sit there and breathe (okay, okay, it is slightly more complicated than that). But it IS all in my head, all the roadblocks and the solutions. And the few minutes I set aside give me something to be proud of every day: I took the time to check in, to refocus, to decompress and lower my blood pressure. I took steps toward being one of those calm, cool people who don’t fly off the handle at the sound of 45’s voice.

I won’t start preaching, but I do think that we the (stressed) people need to take care of ourselves, and that meditation can help. It’s January and I’m still on the New Year/New Me train, but from here on out, I don’t want to rant, nor do I want to portray myself as a Pollyanna full of sunshine and rainbows. I just want to be 10% happier and re-gain my “edge.” Nerd/active citizen power!

And, if audiobooks and/or meditation and/or reading books about it still sound too hard, there are always tweets from the Dalai Lama.

Breathe easy, y’all. And leave 10 minutes earlier 🙂

books, reading

Read More in 2018

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Goodreads.com is my magical external brain, and the kind folks there emailed me today to tell me to “Read More in 2018!” If you are unfamiliar, Goodreads is a website that enables you to connect with friends, see what they are reading, and, most important to this librarian: keeps a digital shelf of all yo’ books. I’m talking books you’re reading now, books you have read, books you want to read. (Look into my book brain; view my want-to-read shelf of 300 and understand what it means to be a professional book person.) This is how I keep track of my reading life, which often means adding titles and more titles because there are too many books to read in a lifetime.

I used to read one book at a time. Since being a library school student, I have started to read in a variety of modes (audiobooks and ebooks joined, but did not replace, the physical books) and now I read between 4 – 6 books at a time. This means one audiobook going in the car, one or more for when I’m doing chores around the apartment, and maybe a hardcover to take with me on errands and a paperback by the bedside. Plus or minus an ebook on my (work–shh) computer for when it’s slow.

All this to say, I read too much and I want to read less.

“Nonsense!” you say. “That is sacrilege! That is impossible! Reading is the best, most noble and rewarding activity a human can do! For a librarian to say otherwise is hogwash!”

I disagree.

I read 170 books last year, and that was too many for me. I did in fact set a goal with the Goodreads “Challenge.” My goal was 100. Librarians are surrounded (physically and in our emails/professional networks) by books, usually the newest and the buzziest. Since I was finished with library school and had a job (two, in fact!) and my own schedule, I wanted to challenge myself. And thus the goal was born.

During 2017, which was a rocky, upsetting year for our country in general and me specifically, I turtled. I pulled myself into my shell and I tried to keep out the bad stuff, which was most often any news coverage not presented in comedic form. If any of you are familiar with anxiety and/or depression, and/or feeling powerless over circumstances beyond your control, you recognize this as a counterproductive measure. Instead of going to yoga or on a run outside, I read. Instead of taking calls from or placing calls to my friends and family, I listened to audiobooks in my room. I forgot to do things that bring me joy, because I was sucked in to this habit of reading.

Not only was I strictly consuming books (too fast to allow room for digesting them), I wasn’t doing anything with the information. Occasionally, I would find someone who had read the same thing and talk about a book, or talk with my long-distance book club, but for the most part, I just wanted to move them from the digital “want to read” to the “currently reading” to the “read” shelves.

I became the antisocial kid cool parents worry about when they see their kid reading rather than playing with others. Reading is my comfort zone, and I did not step out of it.

Though not harmful, my reading was not healthy. I used my reading challenge as an excuse to not challenge myself professionally, personally and physically.

This year, my challenge is to read 100 books. No more, no less. A notoriously weak habit-breaker, I am sure in June I will find myself beyond the 50 book mark [LOL book mark, GET IT?], but as long as I’m better balancing my time, more intentional with all activities reading and otherwise, it will have been worth it.

Because I need to do, create, connect, rekindle and re-center (and not feel hokey or indulgent admitting it). Actively engaged rather than passively consuming. I need to talk with people, new and old. I know that reading makes me a better person, but it did not make my life better. It did not heal my anxiety or my relationships.

Only people can do that. Starting with me. Likely outdoors. Definitely out of my bed. There are more books than I could hope to read in a lifetime, so I need to stop trying. Life is waiting. Off the page.

 

bookstores, giving, strangers

Bookstores before Christmas

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Let me begin by saying I love Christmas. I am Jewish, and I love Christmas. It is more complicated than that, obviously. Half of my family is one religion, Jewish, and the other is Catholic. At different times throughout my life, I have identified as a Cashew, or as Jew-ish. I’ll save my religious identity for some other time, because it has nothing to do with my love for Christmas.

Christmas, to me, is about presents. This comes from being raised in a household where religion was either forced upon us kids or nonexistent after we rebelled against it. (We were spoiled, and if we refused to go to Sunday school, we won!) We didn’t go to church, didn’t go to temple after second grade or thereabouts, but we still selected, wrapped, gave and received presents. I’m sure my conditioning as an American consumer also influenced my love for this most famous gift-giving day, but I prefer to think that I enjoy celebrating family, togetherness, and giving tokens of care to my family and close friends.

And, I love a sale.

There are two types of retail employees you’ll encounter at the holidays. When I was a bookstore employee, I was generally of the camp that is just SO FLIPPING EXCITED to be a part of holiday joy that no amount of snow or lack of parking would harsh my vibe. I was Happy to Help, and it helped that my position was mostly cashier and not customer service; that meant that I didn’t have to spend a great deal of time dealing with frantic people and trying to find whatever godforsaken item they wanted. I just got to take their money and send them on their way. With a smile! And sometimes forgetting to put their bookmarks into their bags! Bookmarks are small, you guys, and there is so much Necessary Cash Wrap Shit (manuals?? Yes. Gift card covers?? In spades. Random detritus, you bet!!) under the counter that you can’t see.

The other retail employee variety is sullen, angry, and resentful of all this joy bullshit because what the hell, there were no parking spaces and if one more person screams at me about a book that sold out in stores AND online, I swear to god… Given my anti-people tendencies, I could have ended up being this bah-humbug person, but I was spared by the mercy of seasonal work. I worked during breaks from college, and so got to recharge my batteries and surround myself with pleasant (or not pleasant, but at least non-Customers) people in my daily life.

Even when I was depressed, hated my first full-time job & my ex-boyfriend & my new city & myself–in the classroom and out, coming home and working over Christmas worked its magic. I dressed up in all the reds and festive dress and enthusiastically shouted “I can help you here!!!!!” with a little wave. I became the best version of myself I knew to be. Friendly, perky, helpful and funny. My managers had my back, my coworkers made me laugh, and there were no parent emails to answer. There were no children talking back, and if someone didn’t listen to me, I waited until they were ready, wasting no one’s time but their own.

Here, in addition to Customers, there were people who cared about other people and wanted to show them that through books (or stationery, or music, or puzzles or games or Lego). Here, there were people with seven extra dollars to donate to children who were spending the holidays in a hospital. Here, now, there was nonstop Christmas music, and the giftwrapping volunteers –hallelujah!– so we didn’t have to wrap cylindrical items with micromanager Customers watching like hawks, eager to interject!

When that same ex-boyfriend’s intimidating mother ended up at my counter due to some divine curse of timing, my face did not break its fierce smile. I squeaked through small-talk, nervous and an octave higher than I usually use, but I was polite and helpful and kind and I can’t remember but I probably said “give my love to everyone” or made a joke, or some such desperation. After all, it had been exactly one year prior that I had met her son, in the very same place. When her transaction was complete, I could not unglue my frozen smile from my face and in a jittery voice told my next customer, “that was my ex-boyfriend’s mother! Do I look okay? Was I cool!? Or weird?!” And she, a beautiful, friendly middle-age black lady, told me “you look adorable. I love your [red] skirt! You did great, honey!”

And that impulse towards kindness is one example of why I love retail. And bookstores. And shopping in brick-and-mortar buildings, with human people to Help you checkout and Help you be a human.

This week, I fear I have become a Customer. I called the bookstore yesterday, while driving there before work, and asked whether a book was in stock. As is now the custom, they placed it on hold for me so I could glide in and not have to dilly-dally, heading straight to checkout like a VIP. I was disappointed when I approached the counter to learn that I had gotten the non-cheery version of retail employee. She was not unkind, and did not rush me, but when my coupon didn’t work, I did the previously-detestable and walked out without buying what a bookstore employee had specifically taken the time to locate for me. I had turned my back on the retail codebook.

I mean, shit, I might as well have bought an Elf on the Shelf.

But, tomorrow is another day, and today, I received another coupon. So I’ll be back this week to redeem myself and buy that hardcover book because this gifty season is the only time I would ever consider doing such a thing. I might even blow $5 and get a peppermint mocha, with almond milk and maybe extra whip, and drink it while browsing.

And, you can bet your ass that when that beverage is empty, it will find its way to a garbage can. I have not forgotten everything I learned in retail.

audiobooks, books, lists

Best books of my year

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To be honest, I don’t usually write recommendation lists at the end of the year, except for my Aunt Sandy, who sometimes asks me to recommend books around Thanksgiving or Christmas. She is a delightful human and I like being asked for recommendations for books I’ve already read. Much harder is recommending books for people who don’t have my same taste, so… here, in my first attempt at a year-end roundup, I will avoid the challenging task and do the one easiest to me. That’s the privilege of having your own blog and not working at a public-facing desk!

Note: these were not all published this year. As is a running theme in my overall life and specifically my reading life, I often operate on a delay, reading bestsellers from three years ago because I can safely do so away from all the ‘popularity,’ and form my own opinion about a book. [Spoiler alert: I usually love them, so waiting to read them was just a pretentious waste of time when I could have been reading and enjoying it earlier.] I also am on a delay because I mainly get my books from libraries (shocker!) and sometimes wait a little bit longer because there is a queue and I don’t mind waiting for a FREE BOOK. MY POINT BEING: don’t get mad at me that I’m recommending books that aren’t brand new and trending.

Unless you and I don’t agree on politics, if one sounds like you might possibly like it and you only read one book this whole year, I think you’ll be happy that you picked the one you did.

Best of my 2017

Audiobooks (because if you aren’t listening to audiobooks at this point, you should try one):

 

 

  • Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty– turned into an HBO series, but I didn’t watch it. I listened to this too, and Moriarty is Australian so the reader is too! It made me want to drive all the time so I could listen to it. It’s a whodunit, mixed with family dramas and is SO GOOD.
  • Vacationland: True Stories from Painful Beaches by John Hodgman – I never really cared for John Hodgman or thought he was funny, and I have now been proven wrong. I laughed out loud the entire time. Not the part about his mom who died; that part made me cry, but the entire rest of the book was entertaining and self-aware and hilarious. Great essays and insight. Necessary reading if you love the East Coast.
  • Believe Me: A Memoir of Love, Death, and Jazz Chickens by Eddie Izzard – as  you will learn, I love books that make me laugh and are deep in the same breath. Eddie Izzard reading this book was everything I could have wanted. There was a whole separate book in the footnotes that he added on to the book text, so don’t read it– listen to him tell you about his amazing life. I love his standup, and his personality, and ugh five stars.
  • Al Franken, Giant of the Senate by Al Franken – I realize this appears to be a political choice given the controversy around him right now, but it was really good. I apparently like listening to books on politics (see next 2).
  • Our Revolution by Bernie Sanders – I’m listening to this audiobook right now, and it is giving me hope for politics/humanity. It is also making me very sad about how I voted in the 2016 primary.
  • A Fighting Chance by Elizabeth Warren – she writes about her life growing up in the lower-middle-class, as a professor and senator. She writes about her main focus, which has always been regular citizens and protecting them from predatory corporate abuse.
  • Born a Crime by Trevor Noah – I love his voice, and he tells his life story with such factual grace. Is he single? Does anyone know?

 

Reg’lar books – novels:

 

 

  • Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng – won the Goodreads Choice Awards this year for fiction. Novel about a mother and daughter moving to *my hometown!* and the wealthy family they rent their apartment from. My affinity for it is not due to it being set in my hometown.
  • Plan B by Jonathan Tropper – about a group of friends after they graduated college, one who is divorced, one who is famous and an asshole. Set around the year 2000, so a throwback to a pre-cell-phone era.
  • Some Kind of Happiness by Claire LeGrand – children’s book. A young girl whose parents are having marital problems gets sent to grandma and grandpa’s house for the summer, where she meets her cousins and tries to emerge from her imaginary world.
  • The Wednesday Wars by Gary Schmidt – happens to be written for children, but was nevertheless delightful for me as a grownup. It is set during the Vietnam War and the main character is a boy who tends to get into trouble and get caught.
  • The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart – a story about some mischievous goings-on at a boarding school. Great female main character.

 

Reg’lar books – essays/memoir:

 

 

  • The Moth Presents: All These Wonders, collection – Speaking of emotional books, this one is great! The Moth is apparently a storytelling group, and this collection is a selection of personal stories that had been performed at one point. Very moving and a huge variety of content.
  • The Rules Do Not Apply by Ariel Levy – autobiographical book about some of the best and worst times in Levy’s life, personally and as a journalist.
  • One Day We’ll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter by Scaachi Koul – 95% less dark than it sounds. Personal essays about her life: dating, immigrant family, visiting India. She is a writer for BuzzFeed and she is funny. Laugh-out-loud funny.
  • The Rainbow Comes and Goes by Anderson Cooper and Gloria Vanderbilt – I didn’t know that Anderson Cooper was part of the Vanderbilt family, and this book was lovely. He and his mom discuss the things they never discussed when he was growing up, and it is a touching book where they make sure to talk about things before it’s too late. I bought it for my mom. *This distinction will heretofore be an acronym: SITMM (sent it to my mom).*
  • We Are Never Meeting in Real Life by Samantha Irby – irreverent essays about topics like sexuality, poverty & adulting.
  • The Opposite of Loneliness by Marina Keegan – SITMM because she was such a talented, insightful writer. When this book was published, it was huge because she had died 5 days after speaking at graduation as the Valedictorian of her class at Yale. I enjoyed her essays more than her short stories.
  • My Life with Bob: Flawed Heroine Keeps Book of Books, Plot Ensues by Pamela Paul – this woman has had an enviable life (in my eyes!). She lived abroad, she works in Book Reviews at the New York Times… And she is an amazing writer. Book about books & life, just my thing!
  • How To Be a Heroine by Samantha Ellis – speaking of books about books, this one was amazing. Her essays… are so good. Read it.

 

Reg’lar books – learnin’ books (true ‘nonfiction’):

 

 

 

HOLY MOLY. It was so challenging to whittle down this list, even though it still feels massive. I read a LOT this year. 170 books and audiobooks, approximately, up to this date. I separated these into arbitrary categories, but I do think they all have an overarching, general appeal.

Let me know if you’ve read them or choose to! I love having mini-book club with another person who has read what I have. What were the best books you read in 2017? What should I read??

Thanks for reading!

writing

Late to the Party

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Are you happy, Mom?? I started a blog! And only after you’ve told me to do so for four years… Which started after blogging had been “a thing” for probably another four. It takes me a long time to come around. I’m the last girl standing who loves CDs, typewriters (Tom Hanks isn’t a girl) and will flip out when my VHS tapes or their player give out at long last. Three solid years passed when I was still printing out Mapquest directions and calling/texting my best friend from my flip phone, asking her to look up phone numbers or trivia using her fancypants Blackberry, then iPhone, when I was out and about. (Hi, Mel! Your first shoutout on the blog!) I joined Twitter in November 2016, and my Myspace profile still exists, but lest you think I’m a total loser*, that is true only because I forgot the password to the email address I used for the account and thus, literally cannot kill it.

I dislike change, and apparently that manifests in resisting innovation and new technologies, as magical and connective as they can be.

My reluctance to start a blog was lame and excuse-y but it lasted a long time. I loved writing one for a college course I took in 2009, but the audience was my professor and probably no one else. A fantastic gay guy, he gave us prompts, and always had effusive, specific and thorough comments on our work. With a personal blog, my reasoning went, not only was it unclear who would be creeping on my page, but also, I had to think of topics myself. I’m lazy! And I’ve read too many horror stories by and about people who overshare on the damn internet.

Plus, who cares what I have to say? There are plenty of people far more interesting and qualified to talk about anything I want to talk about: books, relationships, environmental activism, mental health, politics taking the world to hell, being a young adult (does being in your 30s still count as young?) who hasn’t gotten it all figured out just yet… Sarah’s Scribbles can sum up in concise, preciously insecure cartoons everything I feel about social interactions and body image. The beautiful, talented Allie Brosh’s Hyperbole & a Half sums up beautifully and talented..ly.. everything I ever wanted to say about depression and anxiety. The Daily Show and Last Week Tonight rarely ever cover anything I didn’t agree with 100%, so just watch those and you’ll know what’s in my brain!

But maybe there is more to say. Allie Brosh may not write again–her anxiety, depression and life circumstances have led her away from even Twitter. So someone–or many someones!– need to pick up the torch. My purpose here, which may have arisen from some not-mid-and-not-quarter life crisis (third life crisis? That makes me sound like a cat), is simple. I would just like to share my stories and opinions, and am willing to do the extra work of figuring out my own topics and balancing how private or open I want to be (which I assume is not a lot of work and I was being dumb that whole time). And in order to be the next Scaachi Koul or Mary Karr**, I can either go get a Master’s in journalism or creative writing… Or I can write this blog. As aforementioned, I’m lazy, so blog it is!

 

*because I care! I really do. I shouldn’t. But I do.

**aka if I want to write a book. I want to write a book. Or at least some essays that someone will read and say, “Damn! That was crazy!” Or, “I remember pogs–they were great.” Or, “I didn’t realize people outside of a psychiatric ward could be so emotionally fucked up, so maybe I’ll be more compassionate to assholes in traffic and in line at the grocery store. Or just all the assholes.” I know, just call me a modern day Plato. Except Plato was maybe even crazier than I am. Maybe not though, because I have never studied Plato and really only know the one quote. Am I thinking of Socrates? Who was the crazy one? I’m making a note to follow up on this.