Adios To Another Amazing World Cup

Hello, friends! Sorry for the delay in posting: it has been another low energy day for me as we continue to try to figure out what’s wrong with me. Hopefully, the sleep study I undertook earlier this week will provide some answers (and remedies!) It’s been half a year of constant fatigue for me, and it’s honestly getting me down in more ways than one, none of them fun.

Fortunately, I marshalled my energy well enough to bring all three kids to my beloved Franklin Hall to watch the World Cup Final together this past Sunday! My youngest had very much enjoyed watching England and France’s third-place golazo the day before from the couch with me. I also initiated him into the joys of Panini World Cup sticker collecting that day, and was super gratified to pull my kids’ future stepdad Declan Rice in my next to last pack. Speaking of whom, I greatly appreciated his attention to solving my early match dilemma: as a concerned spouse-to-be, should I be paying so much attention to his form, gait and fitness, if it meant taking my eyes off of the actual gameplay? Right as I was thinking this, Declan kindly took possession of the ball, drove forward and scored the first of the game’s ten goals. What a man, always thinking of my needs! (lol)

Anyway, Theodore very much wanted to come to the sports bar with me the next day, and his brothers both have FOMO and said they wanted to come, too. I had them all put on red or yellow shirts so no one could mistake us for Argentina supporters and we had a very nice time. I would have preferred an England win overall, but seeing Argentina embarrass themselves on the world stage was some consolation, plus three Arsenal players get to come home to North London as Champions of the World!

Speaking of champions, my team won another Trivia Night at the farm, and they let me keep the bouquet we earned for first place. The questions were very much up my alley this month. How were the hosts to know that I was both a Greek mythology girlie who’d literally just reviewed a comic book adaptation of The Odyssey the week before, as well as a World Cup superfan? They probably did get an inkling of the latter tho when they first read our team name, Air Quality Dirtier Than Argentina In The 2026 World Cup.

I was also introduced to two fun new daily word games this past week! The first is Crossonym, a crossword game comprised entirely of synonyms for the word that provides the grid’s spine. It’s one of the few games I prefer to play on hard mode, tho be warned: the game timer starts ticking as soon as you clear the tutorial window, and I’m not 100% sure if you can find an explanation for hard mode otherwise.

The other game I’ve been super enjoying is Outlier, which feels tailor-made for my particular brand of weird vocabulary, whereby I know all these archaic words but couldn’t necessarily tell you what they mean (fittingly, my favorite word is “archaic,” which I actually do know the meaning of.) It helps, too, that the interface is really painless in creating an account so you can track your stats across multiple devices. The game resets at noon, so do feel free to join me if you’re so inclined:

Reading-wise, I finally finished the Hugo Awards 2026 slate for Best Novellas, and discuss my ranking in my review of T Kingfisher’s What Stalks The Deep. I think I would have enjoyed that last novella more were I already acquainted with the characters via the first two books in the series. It was a fine piece of horror writing but not my favorite read this week.

That honor definitely goes to Lee Kelly & Jennifer Marie Thorne’s fascinating The Midnight Show, a fictional oral history/mixed media tale about a late night sketch comedy TV program much like Saturday Night Live. The writing was so life-like that I had to constantly check against the real SNL actors to ensure that this story wasn’t a thinly-veiled version of reality. The plot revolves around the disappearance of comedian Lillian Martin right at the height of her fame as a founding cast member of TMS. Forty years later, a dogged journalist seeks to uncover the truth behind what happened to Lillian, via interviews, transcripts and journal entries. It’s an excellent piece of “show, don’t tell” writing (and I have a little crush on Kent Romero now, lol.)

I also want to mention Amin Ahmad’s A Killer In The Family this week. This tale of a naive (and honestly kinda dumb) Mumbai bachelor who gets sucked into a world of international real estate and intrigue after his arranged marriage to an heiress was gripping and excellently told. I thought I’d figured it all out by the sixty percent mark but the author keeps going for even more jaw-dropping twists. The book doesn’t quite stick the landing, but it is another exceptional multiple POV novel that underscores how different people can have very different yet equally valid interpretations of the same events.

Alright, I’ve got a bunch more writing work to do before I can hopefully force my body to get more than six hours of interrupted sleep. See you in six (days,) friends!

Currently Playing (Music): Haydn’s 99th Symphony; my Declan Rice and 2026 Energy playlists; The Magnus Archives; BTS’ Arirang; Madonna’s Confessions II.

Currently Playing (Games): Metazooa by Trainwreck Labs; Learned League trivia; NYT Connections & Wordle; Gremco Industries’ Parseword; Irox Games’ Bongo Cat; Greg Stafford’s Pendragon; Larian Studio’s Baldur’s Gate 3; Michael Szerencsy’s Outliers.

Currently Reading/Writing (Games): Ghosts Of Saltmarsh.

Currently Reading or Just Read (Books): Adventure In The City Of Stories by Emma Otheguy; A Killer In The Family by Amin Ahmad; What Stalks The Deep by T Kingfisher; The Midnight Show by Lee Kelly & Jennifer Marie Thorne; The Outermost Mouse by Lauren Wolk & Kristen Adam; The Invisible Parade by Leigh Bardugo & John Picacio.