In the inaugural month of my 2017 resolution to read a book a week, here are the first four, including brief synopses for those of you looking for what to read next yourself.
My January Reads
Category: Blog
Baby’s First Protest
The January 21, 2017 March on Lansing marked my first experience protesting. I showed up without a sign, without a hat, and without a clue what to expect. I worried I'd feel out of place, that there'd be chanting and I wouldn't know the words, that I'd be questioned about my motives and wouldn't have a strong enough political education to know how to explain what I was doing there--none of that happened.
Up North for the weekend
"Travel" has come to mean a very different thing to me since I moved home after my college graduation and started my first corporate job. I still daydream about sandy beaches, glittering city skylines, a backpack full of dirty laundry, and that rounded rectangular view out an airplane window. But for now, I settle for weekend getaways to old haunts that are within a reasonable driving distance.
18 Things I Learned My Freshman Year of College
When I first started college I found the whole experience somewhat perplexing. How do I keep up with all the coursework? How do I pretend to look interested in football? What even is a Student Union??? I attempted to track my progress throughout the year by listing my newfound knowledge in a Word document.
Things I Like
I submitted a list of things I like to Jessica Gross's happiness project, Things We Like, and she liked it too! Things We Like is an ongoing project aimed at collecting good vibes. Contributors compile a list of ten (10) hyper-specific little joys in their life.
Salon Etiquette
I wondered then, not for the first time, if Amy hated me. Why couldn't I be more like Barb at the chair next to me who knew exactly which questions were appropriate to ask her stylist about her bunions? For that matter, why didn't I just ask Amy a damn question?
A Young Girl and the Sea
The first memory I have of stealing a word was when I was ten years old. It came from a brochure crammed in the pocket behind the driver's seat in a shuttle bus that was taking my family to a beachfront hotel. "Waves crash rhythmically upon the sandy shoreline," it advertised. I plucked the word from the page and I tucked the brochure back into its pocket.
Bikes and Iced Lattes
My concert tee was tucked neatly into my destroyed jean shorts and my right leg was tattooed with bike chain grease. With my iced beverage in my left hand and my handlebars controlled coolly in the right, it occurred to me that I couldn’t look more like a middle schooler if I tried.
Prologue
I'm not very good at getting started. In fact, I've gotten up and done four unnecessary tasks since typing that first sentence. Two of those tasks were cups of coffee and two were the resulting bathroom breaks.
Sydney Hartle 