This has been a weird week. So reading has once again not been my top priority.
On Monday, I went to the gym and pulled up my workout on my phone like usual. A guy decided he didn’t like my workout and tapped me on the shoulder to tell me it was silly and lots of other things I wasn’t interested in hearing. I kept telling him to go away and instead, he kept talking. When he finally did leave me alone, I felt relieved, but it wasn’t for long. He decided to come back at me to tell me how much more he knew and how he was being kind sharing this with me. And once again, he ignored me as I yelled at him to leave me alone. I later decided to report him to the staff, and they decided to take it into their own hands.
I should feel empowered now, but the fact is that I don’t. In my experience, fighting back has just put me in more danger. In fact, I wouldn’t have even reported this. But when I got home, I started rescheduling my workouts in my head and realized that my daughter would no longer be able to go to the gym (a place she loves), simply because I didn’t feel safe in a place I should feel safe in. So I did report the incident. Now I’m bracing myself to see what kind of reaction this guy gives. It’s not fun. It’s not something I want to waste my emotional energy on. And yet, here we are.
By the time this is published, I will have forced myself to go to the gym and whatever is about to happen will have already happened. The thing is that I have been dealing with this type of behavior all of my life, and it never gets easier. It’s a waste of my time, which is even worse when I have so little time, and it’s a waste of my energy when I don’t have enough energy either. But as much as I would like it to stop, it likely never will. Let’s just hope my daughter’s generation is better than this.
And with that, it’s time to get to the reading.
Reading Social Media News
This has been a particularly big week for social media changes, especially on YouTube. So I’m just going to direct you to PR Daily’s roundup of social media changes. They did miss one change that is annoying to me though. X is doing away with blocking. I think everyone expected this, but the network is finally making actual moves to do it. I feel like this is another step backwards for a network that I used to love.
Timing on social media is a combination of art and science. And the audience needs for timing are so different from organization to organization that I really don’t love to share the best times to post on social media articles that are out there. But I’m making an exception for this one from Buffer. If you are looking to create a timing plan for social media, it gives you a place to start. It might also give a new time to try to those with an existing plan.
Reading Books, Books and More Books
Past
Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner was a surprise. I really liked it. The main character is on an interesting journey from being separate to being intertwined with the world. All of this despite desperately wanting to maintain that separation. But everything leaves a mark, even if you don’t want it to. Eventually that mark is left and she has to facethe choice of continuing life as it was or making a change. This was a great read. I just don’t know if it lives up to being in contention as one of the best books of the year. I think it’s just something enjoyable in the moment that I’ll likely forget about in a year’s time. It was definitely worth my time though. Score: A-
Present
I just cracked the cover of the King of the Armadillos by Wendy Chin-Tanner. It’s a book club book, but it’s one that someone picked enthusiastically so that has me a little excited. On top of that, it’s about something that I don’t know much about, which means I get to learn a little something along the way. It truly has my name all over it. We shall see if it continues my good reading streak.
What are you reading? What books are you looking forward to?