Time to read: 12 minutes
In this week’s newsletter:
The Timbit Times
Kate Film Club, 1 of 52: “A Bill of Divorcement”
Book of the Week: “Arsène Lupin: Gentleman-cambrioleur”
French Study
My Year of…?
Happy New Year, everybody! I hope the first week of the year was a gentle introduction to 2024 for you. Mine has mostly been ok enough other than the evening I smashed my shin on a cupboard then spilled my dinner everywhere as soon as I tried to sit down with an ice pack for my smarting leg. (Luckily the bruising wasn’t too bad.) I got some annoying and puzzling test results but I’ll talk more about those next time. I doubt they change anything immediately but we (my doctors and I) may have to return to deal with them later.
I like to set goals at the beginning of each year; I do a bit of a review of the past year and then make plans for the upcoming one. This practice started out as a discouraging exercise this year, however. I’ve been Big Sick for just over three years now (the phase transition from Medium Sick to Big Sick occurring in December 2020), and almost none of the goals I set for myself at the beginning of 2023 were anywhere near accomplished. Many of them were health-related goals that I think it’s just not possible to linearly work towards—at least not fully, and goals about writing that were overly ambitious given the state of my health last year.
There’s a specific structured notebook I love; this will be my fourth year using the same one. The year ahead goal-setting sections at the beginning of the notebook change a little from year to year, and this year they had a brainstorming exercise. Just free-form write down anything that pops into your mind as possible goals for the year. There were forty-some-odd lines and I was determined to fill them all. About halfway through I wrote down something like “what if I just fuck around and make this a year of fun?”. I’ve been mostly living off my savings since I had to leave full-time work in 2021 (with a brief stint of full-time work for about half of 2022). I’m incredibly fortunate that I’ve been able to make that work, and fortunate still that I’m not in danger of running out of savings yet. (It would happen someday if I don’t get somewhat better, but at least not yet.) And a thought occurred to me: if I happen to get healthy someday, and go back to a full-time daily grind, I don’t want to look back on the time I was living on my savings and realize I didn’t get to experience any of the fun of someone getting to live on their savings for a while in their 30s.
My body and illness place a lot of limitations on me right now, and probably for a while yet. But I’m at least better enough to be able to watch tv and read and do quiet, simple things like that most every day. I’ve even been able to start listening to music again in the past few months. So what would a year look like where I only allowed myself goals that were one: fun, and two: achievable within my current health limitations? Accepting that hey, for this year, maybe I’m going to continue to be this level of sick for a while. (I sure would like to be less sick, but that’s not entirely within my control, as much as I wish it were.)
So my official goals for 2024 (there are seven of them) include things like:
- Writing a weekly personal newsletter! I so enjoy reading the ones from Emily Gorcenski, it’s inspired me to pick up the habit myself. This first week’s update is a bit long since I had some prologue context to share, but following weeks will be shorter!
- Watching every Katharine Hepburn movie! Conveniently, there are 52 total. It was meant to be.
- Reading one book per week, along monthly themes. This goal is probably the most likely to get waylaid by illness surprises; we shall see.
With that said…c’est parti!
The Timbit Times
My big accomplishment for 2023 was that I bought a tiny house and moved into it! I’ve named it Timbit, in honor of the Tim Horton donut holes. Naming a tiny house after a donut hole felt like a fitting choice. People have told me they want more news about tiny house life and I’m happy to oblige!
My friend Natasha sent me quite possibly the funniest tiny housewarming gift—a tiny computer! It’s an Adafruit QT Py with a 280×240 pixel display. I think Natasha may have told me it also has a Wifi chip. Living in a tiny home means you need to keep an eye on indoor humidity—really, this is true of any new construction home these days, but the higher the humans-to-square-foot ratio the more critical it becomes. I’m considering getting a second Aranet for upstairs and having a little real-time graph on the tiny computer that combines readings from both devices. Or!, I might use the tiny computer as a reminder/tracking terminal for my complex daily meds schedule. To be seen which project I decide to tackle! Extremely excited to take this lil guy for a spin either way.
I also got a tiny printer thanks to my friend Maureen pointing me to journaling TikTok and someone showing how they print the covers of every book they’ve read in a year and stick them in a notebook for a kind of mini-library. (Using a mini printer and sticky backed photo paper.) This was because they’re mostly doing their reading via e-books but wanted the accomplishment feedback of a physical collection. For me, I prefer reading physical books but the size of my current home means I now need to be shrewd about what books I keep after reading, versus what I give away or sell back to Powell’s. So I got myself a Canon Ivy printer, which seems to have decent reviews. I think rather than having “library” pages, I’ll put the cover of the book I’m reading in my “week in review” journal pages, for a visual reminder of the book I’m supposed to be making time to read that week!
Kate Film Club, 1 of 52:
“A Bill of Divorcement” (1932)
In an effort to reduce decision fatigue, I’ve decided to watch Katharine Hepburn’s movies in chronological order. I can confidently say that “A Bill of Divorcement” is the oldest movie I’ve ever watched. It’s wild to think it was made almost 100 years ago! The lack of soundtrack was interesting; at times I found it startling and at other times I found it relaxing to be free to openly contemplate the drama without music telling me what I should be feeling. There’s more than a little ableism (so, content warning for that), but the story poses an interesting question that I think will stick with me for a while.
The gist is: a man who’s been in an asylum for 15 years suddenly becomes well and finds his way home. Only problem is, his wife has since divorced him and is now engaged to be married to someone else. (Katharine Hepburn is the daughter he didn’t know he had.) When people have lived separate lives for a long time, what reconciliation is available? On the other hand, the film makes clear that the wife was somewhat unhappy even before her husband ended up in the asylum. All of this echoes thoughts of mine on how the world is really living two separate lives right now: folks still taking pandemic precautions and those living in a false normal. And the pandemic isn’t really even the point—it’s that some people have always been ready to meet this sort of challenge, and other people less so. We were two groups of people before the pandemic and this cleaving of society simply shone a light on it. So what now? (To be clear: I don’t think either group of real life people maps neatly to either party in the movie, and I think it would be missing the point to try to establish such a mapping. It’s just the separate lives thing in general that’s sticking with me.)
Rating: 3/5 – An interesting film that might make you think, but your life probably won’t be terribly less full for skipping this one.
Where to watch: YouTube
Quote: “I married Meg, I fell ill. Now I’m well again, I want my wife.”
Book of the Week:
“Arsène Lupin: Gentleman-cambrioleur”
(English: “Arsène Lupin: Gentleman Burglar” — English translations of the book are available)
January’s book theme is: books in French! Originally I had hoped to read this entire book as my first week book, but, in the spirit of keeping my goals manageable this year, I’m going to break up this book over the entire month. (If I finish early and have time for a second book, great!, but that’s not what I’m aiming for.) The book is kind of a collection of 9 related but self-contained stories anyway, and I’ve finished the first 2 for this week’s update: “L’arrestation d’Arsène Lupin” & “Arsène Lupin en prison”. (English: “The Arrest of Arsène Lupin” and “Arsène Lupin in Prison”.)
I picked up this book for the reason I suspect others are picking up this book right now—the Netflix show Lupin. (The tv show is not an adaptation of the books, but rather about a modern burglar inspired by the books. It is superb, can’t-miss television. If you’ve never seen it, you should fix that tout de suite.) Anyway, there’s a whole series of Lupin books, and the somewhat confusing end of the 3rd season of the show made explicit reference to one of the later books. Fans of the show are currently scratching our heads at what to make of the 3rd season finale; I’m taking the hint to go read the suggested book while we wait for season 4. But first, I want to read the very first Lupin book before I dive deeper into the canon. That’s this one.
As for the two tales I’ve read in the book thus far, an experienced heist story connoisseur will anticipate some of the plot twists for sure, but Lupin’s convivial and puckish personality brings the fun nonetheless. You can’t help but like the guy. I’m wondering if Omar Sy used Lupin’s vibe in the books as inspiration for his own character (Assane Diop), because I am absolutely hearing his voice in some of Lupin’s lines in the book. Delightful good fun.
French Study
A bit quiet on this front this week (other than my book of the week!) as none of my late winter / early spring session classes have started up yet. I’m taking a conversation class though Coucou that starts next week, which I always have a good time with. I’m in the 6th of their 7 levels and the intention is that people park at this level for a while and keep signing up for repeat sessions. So you get to know each other, and it’s nice to see familiar faces. The subject matter is entirely student-driven; the instructor asks us what things we’d like to work on and figures out fun activities for us that cover the desired subject matter. No homework, just show up and practice speaking and listening. It’s great. I’m then taking a different conversation-based class via the Alliance Française of Boston (aka the French Library) that runs from late Feb through March. That one is a twice weekly review of the news and is a bit more structured, but also no homework. I’m trying to be conservative with my class selection the first quarter of this year since I’ll be starting antibiotic treatment for Lyme and Bartonella soon, and who knows how the early cycles of that will go. (I’m told it gets better over time, but can be rough at first.)
My Year of…Fucking Off? Fucking Around? Zero Fucks?
I’m in the market for what to name this!, don’t hesitate to send ideas my way. I suppose this week’s contribution to making 2024 a year of fun and ne’er-do-well-ism was simply deciding that it would be so, and only allowing myself to set whimsical goals for the year. It was difficult and grief-filled to decide to accept, for this year, that I might not ever regain my health, and so I should only make goals I could accomplish at my current level of ability. But on the other hand, I’m feeling an imp-ish glee at the prospect of mostly giving myself a year away from attempting to teleport myself out of illness through sheer force of will. I could use a year of fun, as much fun as my body and health will allow me. I’m not going to neglect my illness and hopeful recovery journey, it’s just not going to be a “capital g” Goal to get better. It’s just going to be a matter-of-fact daily thing I must deal with.
Kate Violette 