Gaithersburg Book Festival

I went to the Gaithersburg Book Festival this weekend, and bought more books than I planned. (I always think I am less susceptible to paper books and then I remember I can give them as gifts and well, things escalate.)

I decided to not set an alarm. Well, Friday night me decided not to set an alarm. A prior me had set one, but put it at 8pm not 8am so it was not very helpful. But while there were people speaking at 10am I wanted to see there were also people speaking at 4pm I wanted to see. And so I went. Chatted with folks. Got food. Watched a panel. Bought books. Got some iced tea. Watched another panel. Took a look at the growing shuttle line to get back to metro and decided it was time to go home. It was a great day. 

Happy AANHPI Month

It is Asian American Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage month here in the US.  I've been writing about this for years, and each year it gets a little easier to find titles to talk about.  I'm a big fan of reading diversely.  Different genres, sure, but different viewpoints and perspectives also.  No, that doesn't mean you need to read books by or about anyone who thinks you or the people you love shouldn't exist.  But authors of different races, ethnicities, sexualities, immigration statuses, continents of origin, these are all ways that change the frames we use to see the world.  

I shared a few titles with my newsletter folks, you can read (and even subscribe) here.  But let's talk where to find reads.  

Pacific Islanders in Publishing is a great resource.  

I also maintain a list of Hawaiian writers, which of course includes me.  

We Need Diverse Books has an incredible list of resources for finding diverse books of all kinds, including Asian American.  

And one of the things I think it's helpful to know is that diversifying your reading list is hard at first.  But as you find authors and stories you love, all your recommendations start to shift, and it gets easier.  So it's a little bit of work up front, but it gets easier.  

Scheduled: Nothing

As the weather gets warmer I get so excited about the increase of things to do an see that sometimes I forget to have a day or two where I can just be. Or play silly phone games. Hang with my cat. Knit. Read. Just kind of be. Where the plan is no plan.

Productivity is great but what if sometimes I didn't focus on that. Sometimes creatives call this filling the well, and yes, that too. But I think sometimes naming it a thing that ties it to being productive again, even in the future, sort of takes away from the relaxing and not being productive. Yes, rest is a key part of productivity. But also restung is not just the precursor to working again. Rest is also rest. 

Books!

This past weekend was Independent Bookstore Day and Local Yarn Store Day (the weekend before Maryland Sheep and Wool too, someone hates my wallet). I roped a friend into doing the DC Bookstore Crawl with me. I had, because I apparently like to stack a day, also planned a vet appointment for my cat. So we did that in the morning and then headed out around lunch for books and yarn. The DC area is really having an independent bookstore moment right now. I can remember when hitting six stores (the minimum for the book crawl prize) would have involved at least two suburbs. And I know friends elsewhere often still have to drive two hours to get to an indie, much less a romance and other genre friendly one. 

So we started with Bold Fork, the cookbook and food book store. They also has some ice cream and drinks from some partners outside, along with a deal where you could take your receipt to two other local businesses for a discount.

Then we went to Lost City, where the romance is upstairs. This day involved more stairs than I remembered. 

After Lost City we went to Looped Yarn Works which was not officially participating in LYS day, but they are my LYS, so got some yarn. 

Then we stopped in Second Story which continues to have a wide selection of used books. Fantom Comics is right nearby but also involves stairs. 

Then we took a brief tea break before heading to East City. We made a bad transit choice, going above ground forgetting there was an event of sorts in DC that evening so more people than usual downtown (even though the event was actually closer to where we'd been before, people are weird). But we made it. And shopped a little there. Stopped in at Labyrinth Games to admire some things. And then to Little City, which I had ridiculously not been to yet. Little City was our sixth stop, so in addition to the prize wheel, we also got our totes. (Many of the stores ran out of the official prize totes, but offered up another tote, which was fine by me.)

And then we ended at Loyalty, where I found a lonely looking Independent Bookstore Edition of a book along with some other goodies. 

It was a lot of fun, if a bit exhausting. I find in spring I always sort of walk around a bit more (though not usually quite this much) and remember all these cute places that I love visiting. It's also so great to see stores packed full of bookish people. I hope the booksellers are recovered. 

I also took advantage of Libro FM's audiobook sale, so my TBR is good for at least a few days. 

End of an Era?

It was an odd year to be a Caps fan. After they exceeded expectations last year, they of course got rewarded with higher expectations, and did not quite live up to them. There's a business adage about under promising and over delivering, and it's because if you say it will be done Friday, but deliver Thursday, people will be pleasantly surprised. They sort of never talk about how next time, they will just subtract a day from whatever you say, that you can only under promise so much, before people expect constant over delivering. 

Each season is of course it's own thing. And then a player or three gets injured. Folks leave in the summer. And the calendar provides a different number of matchups. Plus of course the Olympics meant that the calendar was hard this year. Less breaks, less rest all the way through. 

And, as happens when you are an athlete of a certain age, they started talking about Ovechkin as old, despite the numbers he was putting up. As a person of a certain age, I am aware that age will make itself felt in recovery, in rebound, in speed loss. 

And then at the trade deadline, the Caps traded away two key players. Clearly they were planning for future seasons, not the one we were still playing. And, as Ovie has said in interviews, as a player that's hard. If you have twenty games left to play, but management already thinks you can't win, it's hard to play hard. To risk your body for that. 

I know we are closer to the post-Ovie part of the Caps than not. I hope he gets to finish out however he would like.