5 Quick Things #415 🐝

live near your friends, don’t be weird, take cool photos, & America’s Homer

Jun 19, 2026

Good news: I received my next round of book edits this week—huzzah! This means two good things: my book (releasing next spring) is making good progress, and I’m also able to hunker down and focus on it while I’m not actively teaching (or planning a wedding). But it also means this manuscript is back to the front-burner of my writing focus so that I can get it back to my editor before I head off to Scotland.

Therefore—like many 5QTs published during the summer months, the next few issues will be short and sweet. It’s for the greater good of a stronger book to bring you for your shelves, so it’s worth it! But in advance: thanks for understanding.

Onward!

*Painting of roses and a bumblebee*, by Paul de Longpré (1898) #

5 Quick Things ☕️

1. Earlier this week I shared to subscribers an essay I first wrote 17 (!) years ago—I still think of this idea from time to time: “Our days’ quotidian everydayness numb our senses. Routine begets monotony, and before you know it, it’s been a year since you were given that perfume. And then two. It’s easy to simply forget about that good lotion, the bone china, the silk skirt. There’s spit-up to contend with. Traffic to fight.”
2. I’m currently finalizing details on the summer 2027 pilgrimage, and I’m super eager to share this one with you (though previous pilgrims always get the news + registration dibs first)! In the meantime, if you haven’t chimed in on where you’d one day like to go, head to the poll here and let me know.
3. My X feed is currently filled with lots of chatter of who’s America’s Homer? The obvious answer is ‘Homer is the America’s Homer’ because we were nothing if not built on a collective group of ancestors who embraced the idea of a hero’s journey and a mythic love of the Greek ideal. But since the question is presumably more about storytelling, then my answer is Mark Twain, with Tom Sawyer a sort of Iliad and Huck Finn a sort of Odyssey. …I’m still mulling over this idea, though.
4. One of my IRL friends Hallie Skansi Toplikar wrote this lovely reflection on living physically near your friends (I’m the one who “lives in the historic square” nearby), and obviously I agree with her: “People move for job and educational opportunities. Why aren’t we willing to move for the opportunities that physical proximity to family and friends can bring? Most often, community is something we forge, not fall into.”
5. And finally, this whole essay from To The Ends of The Earth on the current Catholic dating scene had me both laughing out loud and grateful that I got the last chopper out of Nam (I didn’t, really—I’ve been married 23.5 years and we weren’t even Catholic at the time, but still, I’m grateful we were in the sunset era of normal-ish dating practices). There’s at least one solid phrase in every paragraph: “Sometimes you are simply trying to find out if this person is pleasant, kind, funny, grounded, and capable of holding a conversation without using the phrase ‘the crisis of modernity’ more than three times.”

Currently Reading, Watching, Listening 📚

Here One Moment, by Liane Moriarty (the audiobook is quite lovely—also, hooray for easy summer reading!)

Quotable 💬

“Bees do have a smell, you know, and if they don’t they should, for their feet are dusted with spices from a million flowers.”

-Ray Bradbury

What’s your M.O. on birthday parties? 🎉

Clearly last week I was feeling the semi-regular pressure I feel as a mother with a kid having a birthday… This has always been a point of consternation for me, because I want to be the fun mom who goes all-out with parties, even simple ones, but a long time ago I relented to the reality that I’m just not a fun party mom. That’s okay; I’m good at other things! …I love celebrating birthdays and other milestones, but I hate the pressure to make them epic and memorable.

Once our kids turned 13, we told them they could have a few friends over, but that they’d have to do all the planning and hosting themselves. Some years they’d have parties because they wanted to bother with the details; some years they just didn’t and we kept it a family affair with dinner and cake. It’s been a solid compromise.

In other words: I’m with the majority here most of the time.

We celebrate, but keep them simple and just family gatherings: 58.8%
We do occasional parties with friends, but not every year: 27.7%
Meh—I prefer birthdays fly under the radar: 8.5%
We go all-out with themed parties & a friend-filled guest list: 5%

Note: I hate to say it, but handling the poll section of this newsletter is weirdly one of my more time-consuming tasks, so until my book edits are fully submitted, I’m briefly hitting the pause button on them. I know, I know! …I’ll do my best to hurry. 😭