A Whole New Variety

I've gone back and forth with how I feel about novelty.

Variety can be a good thing when it's an add-on, but things get a bit precarious when it's used as the missing piece of your puzzle.

I spent the day packing and unpacking some stuff from my recent move. Thanksgiving weekend is always quirky for me... I'm never sure whether to lean into rest, socializing, or digging into some kind of project. But I don't really get the whole Black Friday hype.

Even if I hadn't been dealing with sorting through my own boxes and bags today, I wouldn't have been out shopping. That's mostly because crowds stress me out, but it's also because I don't really need more gadgets-and-gizmos-a-plenty? To each their own. I'm all for treating yourself and leaning into what you like; shopping's just never really scratched that itch for me.

I like to add variety in different ways. For example, I just got a new book from an author I haven't read before. I've started it, but tomorrow my only plan is to read as much of it as I want. Pretty wild, right?

I really am excited about it, though. It's called Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman. I've been on a fantasy kick recently, motoring through the Mistborn trilogy by Brandon Sanderson, so I needed to switch things up. I also recently started reading No Bad Parts by Richard Schwartz (yep, I'm that person who reads more than one book at a time).

These books actually go together quite well, which I hadn't expected. I didn't get them at the same time on purpose. Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine follows a likable but weird character who's long struggled with navigating social norms, and No Bad Parts outlines the "parts work" of Internal Family Systems—the concepts portrayed in the animated Inside Out movies from Disney.

Rest is essential for working hard.

Resting takes practice.

Tomorrow, I'll be hard at work practicing my rest and recuperation skills. That's unfortunately novel for me, but it's the kind of variety I want more of.