This collection of essays and short pieces about PEANUTS was very hit-or-miss. Most of them were too much in the weeds (giving me “weed claustrophobia”?). There was even poetry, FFS, which of course I skipped. I liked the section written as a comic strip.

OK, might as well add my own boring essay. I was reading PEANUTS books when I was just learning to read. Taught me a LOT of vocabulary. They were interesting, plus my big brother loved them, so I wanted to be like him. Sometimes we’d even act out a comic together as a skit. Sometimes I tried to use the punchlines on adults.

Sample thing I did as a cute 4- or 5-year-old:
Me, to neighbor visiting: You wanna know what the trouble with you is?
Neighbor, eagerly, thinking I’m adorable: What? What’s the trouble with me?
Me, perturbed: No, say you don’t want to know.
Neighbor: OK! No, I don’t want to know.
Me: The trouble with you is you don’t want to know what the trouble with you is!!!
(Big laughs)

Snoopy was like my big brother. Self-confident and sarcastic. I’m very partial to the strips where Snoopy still acts like a dog. He was thinking thoughts and being very funny, but he still kept all four paws on the floor, and whatever he was thinking or doing, you could still imagine it really being done by a dog. The Red Baron stuff just lost me, because, did the kids around him still think of him as a dog? How could they, if he was wearing a costume? It’s jumping the shark, and it happened pretty early in the strip’s history.

by Chip Conley

Starts strong, but definitely meanders. I found the beginning really speaking to me, e.g.:

“The midlife unraveling is a series of painful nudges strung together by low-grade anxiety and depression, quiet desperation, and an insidious loss of control… It’s enough to make you crazy, but seldom enough for people on the outside to validate the struggle or offer you help and respite. It’s the dangerous kind of suffering – the kind that allows you to pretend that everything is OK.”

This quote is attributed to “Brene”. I am unable to find in the index, bibliography, or immediately preceding paragraphs who that was.

One good thing about the book is that while he provides plenty of examples from his personal life, it doesn’t feel like his story is taking over the narrative.

And yes, I am reading a ton more books in retirement – it’s great.

A whole book about how you should get up every 25 minutes and walk around for 5 minutes. When I really needed this was when I was still working. Towards the end of my tenure, towards the end of every afternoon, my office chair would start to feel like an instrument of torture. I’d get up to get a snack or take a pee and it would feel SO good to get up. But in a matter of moments, it was time to go back and (metaphorically) strap myself into The Chair. I should have been taking 5-minute walks.