Where’d You Go Bernadette

Well, all things good or bad must come to an end. The government shutdown is finally over, which means I dutifully headed back to work today. The shutdown and furlough made me think a lot of Deep Thoughts about my job and work in general which I’ll share once I have a chance to write them down. In the meantime, I’m happy to report that all the downtime helped me finish another of my goals for this month — I read a book! It was the book club selection, Where’d You Go Bernadette by Maria Semple.

One of the bloggers I’ve read on and off for years does posts where she shares some of her favorite bits of whatever she just read. I’ve always liked those, so here are three of my favorite bits of Where’d You Go Bernadette:

All you need to know about Antarctica is it’s three horizontal stripes. On the bottom, there’s the stripe for the water, which is anywhere from black to dark gray. And on top of that, there’s a stripe for the land, which is usually black or white. Then there’s a stripe for the sky, which is some kind of gray or blue. Antarctica doesn’t have a flag, but if it did it should be three horizontal stripes of different shades of gray. If you wanted to get really artsy, you could make it all gray, but say it was three stripes of gray, for the water, the land, and the sky, but that would probably take too much explaining.

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We were quiet for a while, and then I said, “I think my favorite part of Antarctica is just looking out.” “You know why?” Dad asked. “When your eyes are softly focused on the horizon for sustained periods, your brain releases endorphins. It’s the same as a runner’s high. These days, we all spend our lives staring at screens twelve inches in front of us. It’s a nice change.”

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My heart started racing, not the bad kind of heart racing, like, I’m going to die. But the good kind of heart racing, like, Hello, can I help you with something? If not, please step aside because I’m about to kick the shit out of life.

It was a quick and really entertaining read about the craziness of life, dealing with disappointment, and Antarctica. That sounds crazy, but it works.