Books read in March 2026

 Stolen in Death by J.D. Robb

"Women don't want you to solve their problems, they just want you to listen"

This post is based on a common gender-based conventional wisdom, but I've been thinking about it and I think it applies to everyone of all genders.

 

Conventional wisdom is that women don't want men to solve their problem, we just want them to listen.

 

Although this conventional wisdom leads to the desired behaviour, I think it's imprecise.

 

I think the actual reality of the situation is people don't want to have to do all the emotional labour of being patient and polite (and sometimes even performing gratitude) with someone who thinks they're solving our problem when they're actually restating the obvious as though we never thought of it while contributing nothing new to the conversation.

 

This is especially true since a subset of the people who go around restating the obvious don't seem to believe you that the single most obvious potential solution didn't work.

 

Examples:

 

Me: All the youtube videos said it should just pop back in, but it doesn't.

Him: Did you try?

Me: Yes, and it didn't work. That's why it's a problem.

 

Me: They won't honour my warranty

Him: Did you tell them you have a warranty?  

Me: Yes, and they wouldn't honour it

Him: Did you show them the warranty confirmation you got when you bought it?

Me: Yes, and they said they couldn't honour it. 

Him: They should be honouring it! It's a warranty!

Me: Yes, that's why this is a problem.

 

 

An actual, real-life solution to the problem that will actually work in real life is always welcome! 

 

However, putting extensive time, energy and emotional labour into not solving the problem and not getting any further (and, possibly, not being believed) is not welcome, and makes for frustrating, unwanted conversation.

 

One aspect of this that might in fact be gendered is that people sometimes react differently to men and women doing the same thing, as demonstrated by that twitter thread where a man and a woman switched email signatures. 

So your male interlocutor doesn't see the potential negative outcomes of his suggestions because he's never experienced someone reacting negatively, whereas you have a lifetime of experience with how people might react negatively or see you as a difficult person.

Which actually might have a multiplier effect - your male interlocutor unconsciously sees you as less credible as part of this established societal gendered pattern, and the fact that you don't see why his idea would be as flawless as he thinks it is reinforces this perceived lower credibility, which makes him even likely to believe you about the push-back that you'd receive but he won't. Which leads to him complaining to his buddies that women don't want you to solve their problems, which reinforces them seeing women as less credible. Which means that next time a woman has a problem where their proposed solution won't work, they won't believe her. And the vicious cycle begins again.

 

 

When, in reality, all anyone wants is to not have to deal with the frustration of someone who thinks they're solving your problem while contributing nothing new. And this frustration, ironically, would be reduced if they'd actually listen.

The girl mice have bows on their tails - that's how you tell that they're girls

I have a memory of being a preschooler looking at a picture book that included cartoonish/anthropomorphicish mice, and noticing the girl mice have bows on their tails - that's how you tell they're girls!

 

Does this ring a bell for anyone?

 

The mice wouldn't be out of place in Disney's Cinderella or in Richard Scarry, but it isn't Cinderella or Richard Scarry. (Also, in those books, the mice are wearing full outfits of clothing that you can use to tell their gender.)

 

They were less anthropomorphic than Mickey Mouse, but they almost certainly walked on two legs instead of four. They likely lived in houses, cooked food in kitchens, went to school, etc., but I remember them as living in "the olden days" rather than modern times. Their tails were very skinny - you could draw the tail with a single line.

 

I don't think the book explicitly stated that bows on the tails meant the mouse was a girl - I remember the emotion of figuring that out for myself.

 

Anyone happen to know the exact thing I'm talking about?

Things They Should Invent: Set it and forget it emergency kits

Years ago, I bought one of those solar crank emergency radios. The instructions said that the battery will charge in sunlight, and if it isn't charged you can charge it by cranking it. So I sat it in an area that gets sunlight and forgot about it.

Years passed before I had a power outage, and when I did, the radio didn't work. Sunlight didn't power it. Cranking it didn't power it. It seems that, in the years that elapsed, the battery lost its ability to hold a charge.

 

 

When I first heard of 72-hour kits, I bought a bunch of bottled water and canned food. I put it all in the cupboard and forgot about it.

 

When I next moved, I dug out my supply of bottled water, and discovered that the water bottles were all kind of soft and collapsed. It turns out the plastic in the bottles wears out even if it's just sitting around doing nothing!

 

Googling around the idea, I also learned that canned food can go bad. People on the internet speaking positively of the longevity of canned food are like "Oh, it lasts forever! Like, maybe even as long as 5 years!" 

Okay, but my life expectancy is far longer than that! Am I supposed to keep throwing out and replacing my emergency kit???

 

 

Googling around the idea, I discovered that the idea is that you use up the canned food and bottled water for your naturally-occurring everyday use before it goes bad, and replenish it. But the thing is, I don't really use canned food and bottled water in my regular life - I'd have to go out of my way to eat and drink it when I don't even want to!

 

Similarly, you're supposed to test your emergency radio regularly and replace it (or replace the battery if, unlike me, you've stumbled upon the convergence of a radio where you can get at the battery and a battery where you can find an actual replacement, not just something that claims on Amazon to be a replacement but is the wrong size)

 

 

Someone really should come up with an emergency kit with actual longevity, where you can set it and forget it without adding "constantly monitor your emergency kit" to your ever-growing to-do list!

 

 

One thing I have tried is storing water in glass bottles. I used screw-top wine bottles that I washed in the dishwasher in a sanitation cycle, and specifically chose bottles that had contained red wine in the hopes that it they didn't get perfectly clean, it would be visible. 

 

I drank some of the water after a few months and it seemed fine, no ill effects or weird tastes, but obviously I have to wait multiple years to see if it lasts multiple years.

 

Another thing I realized during my last power outage is, canned food aside, I normally have 72 hours of food in my home anyway. 

 

I usually have one or two perishable meals of leftovers in the fridge, which could be eaten cold right away before they go bad. I keep a couple of loaves of bread in the freezer that could be taken out and thaw, I usually have a variety of fruits and vegetables that are kept at room temperature in the supermarket (even though I keep them in my fridge for space and health reasons), I have a few bottles of meal replacement shake for if I get a reflux flare-up - basically, with no particular effort, I have 72 hours worth of food that's within the scope of what I'd eat anyway.

 

Last power outage when I realized my emergency radio had died, I looked around for if I had another radio around, and realized I still have my high-school walkman in a drawer. It takes AA batteries (which I keep on hand anyway, and could easily take out of a remote control during a power outage), and gets a better signal than my emergency radio or my bedside clock radio. So I'm not replacing my emergency radio, and instead just using my walkman for as long as it survives.

 

 

Thinking about what I already have around the house that would serve me well in an emergency gets far better results than making an artificial emergency kit, not keeping up on the additional chore of maintaining it, and then finding myself without an emergency kit in an emergency. Maybe advice surrounding 72-hour kits should focus on this?

 

But it would also be useful if there was a way to make universally set it and forget it 72-hour kits, so anyone, regardless of their needs, can just buy or assemble the kit and never have to think of it again.

Books read in January 2026

1. Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World by Naomi Klein

2. Radicalized by Cory Doctorow

3. Always Remember: The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, the Horse and the Storm by Charlie Mackesy

Books read in December 2025

1. Stroll: Psychogeographic Walking Tours of Toronto by Shawn Micallef

2. The Grey Wolf by Louise Penny

Things They Should Invent: library book sale queue

Sometimes, people are willing to pay a small amount of money for a book, but not retail price.

 

A place you can buy a book for a small amount of money (usually smaller than second-hand book stores) is the library book sale. 

 

What if you could sign up to be automatically notified when a book you're interested in is added to the library book sale, so you can get the books you're interested in owning at an extremely affordable price? 

 

Depending on how their computer system works, you could either get a notification when a book is added to book sale inventory, or when it is removed from the catalogue because it's being weeded from the collection. 

 

Also depending on how the system works, maybe they could put books aside for people who signed up for notifications rather than putting them directly into the general book sale. (I feel like putting a book aside for the person who requested it is already within the library's skill set).

 

The book sale could charge more for this priority - maybe $2 or $3 or a book that would normally be $1 - thereby raising more money for the library while still being a fantastic deal on a used book. Win-win!

Horoscopes

Toronto Star: You don’t run away or give up on something just because it’s hard. Instead, you lean into the challenge. You’re adept at solving problems and creating actionable plans. Others often look to you for advice, leadership and support. You enjoy showing up for the people you care about. You know how to keep everyone grounded and safe. You’re patient, reserved and discerning. You know a good thing when it’s in front of you and waste no time in seizing the opportunity. This year, money may not buy happiness, but staying true to yourself and your values will.

 

Globe & Mail: For best results this year you need to be more of an observer. Instead of rushing into every new thing that comes along try standing back and watching what other people are doing. Learn from their mistakes and then do it right!

 

 

I love how these are almost opposites!

"Birds and animals, lots of different kinds"

I have this song stuck in my head that I remember from a childhood TV show, and I can find no evidence of it on the internet.

The lyrics:

Birds and animals, lots of different kinds

Wild ones and tame ones

On the farm and in the jungle

In your home and at the zoo

In the pet store too

Even dinosaurs from long ago

The tune is here.

 

I remember it being sung on close harmony by both male and female voices in a way that made me first think it was Sharon, Lois & Bram, but I can find no evidence that Sharon, Lois & Bram sang it. (Although as I replay the song in my head, I can only place two voices, one male and one female. However, that aspect of my memory isn't necessarily reliable.)

 

I'm nearly certain it's from a TV show, so it would have been a TV show available by antenna in Southern Ontario in the 1980s. 

It's highly unlikely that I imagined this or wrote it myself (it wouldn't have occurred to me to write a song like this without a rhymier rhyme scheme). Anyone have any idea where it did come from?

 

Books read in October 2025

1. Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness by Da'Shaun L. Harrison

2. Framed in Death by J.D. Robb

Books read in August 2025

 Holy Wild by Gwen Benaway

The first soil

If you're going to grow some potted plants or a garden, you need soil.

 

Not dirt, soil.

 

It is possible that the soil in your yard might be good enough for a garden, but it's likely you'd buy something at the garden centre to enhance it.

 

And if you were setting up potted plants, you almost certainly would buy soil, not just grab a shovelful of dirt from your yard.

 

 

I wonder when this distinction between soil and dirt originated?

 

At some point early in agricultural history, people would have figured out that some areas are better for growing food than others. How long did it take them to figure out it's the soil? (Rather than the hilliness or which trees are growing nearby or which areas are under the protection of which gods?) (Although, also, which trees are growing nearby might also be a function of the soil.)

 

Someone came up with the idea of adding stuff to soil to make it richer and more fertile. Once commerce existed, these soil additives would have been sold, and, eventually, someone came up with the idea of packaging and selling the soil itself.

 

And now we live in a world where you buy soil, because you can't just plant your houseplants in any old dirt.

 

Although, when I mentioned this to someone who knows more about plants than I do, they pointed out that commercial potting soil that you'd buy for indoor plants has the benefit of having been sterilized, so it's far less likely to have contaminants or pests in it.

 

Which I am completely onside with, but it is kind of funny that we buy soil instead of using dirt because the dirt is dirty.

 

 

Also, fun with the English language: If something is soiled, it most likely doesn't have soil on it. But if something is dirty, it might have soil on it.

Steal This Idea: stealth crossover mystery

Two or more TV shows (or other works of fiction) are set in the same location at the same time, with different, unaffiliated characters solving mysteries.

 

Except, unbeknownst to any of them, they're solving the same mystery!

 

Each show has the characters find a different set of clues that lead them to the same person having committed the same set of crimes, although perhaps each show emphasizes a different crime. (For example, one show is solving "Who stole the MacGuffin?" and the other is solving "Who was the hit and run driver?", when it turns out the driver committed the hit and run during their getaway from the MacGuffin theft.) If it's the kind of mystery that has to end with the police arresting the bad guy, it's shown in screen in a way that's vague and non-specific enough to avoid any awkward questions (e.g. montage with uniformed officers and dramatic music while the main characters have an emotional discussion that resolves their respective B plot.

 

Just once or twice in the season, we see actors from one series as background characters in a scene in the other series. For bonus points, we see them both in the same scene in the different series - e.g. one cast walks by the window as the second cast eats in the restaurant. 

 

For added authenticity, both series could share background actors, so they both have the same older lady in a statement hat and enormous man walking a tiny dog walk by in the background.

 

 

The most important part: they must not promote this crossover in advance! Wait for the internet to notice, and be careful with your IMDB curation until the internet does notice! This should be posted by some small Tumblr (yes, I said what I said in this the year 2025), then reblogged by some big-name fanfic writer, which leads to it being screenshotted on Reddit and then someone makes a TikTok post about it that doesn't get traction until some influencer duets it. By the time the information becomes general knowledge, the season is already over, and the ensuing buzz saves at least one of the serieses from cancellation.

 

I theorize that there's a 63% chance someone's already done this and no one has noticed. 

Journalism Wanted: if you evacuate a plane and leave your belongings behind, what happens next?

If you're on a plane that crashes and you have to evacuate, you're supposed to leave your belongings behind. And every time there is a plane crash that makes the news, you hear about people trying to bring their belongings with them.

 

An easy way to prevent this would be to widely publicize what actually, in real life, happens to people who evacuate a plane and find themselves on the tarmac of a strange airport in a strange country with only the clothes on their back. (Which might not even include coat and shoes, because sometimes people make themselves comfortable on airplanes.)

 

What measures are in place to keep people safe? How do they avoid the pitfalls we can all anticipate, and those we can't?

 

Suppose your passport is on the plane. You're in a foreign country with no passport and no ID. Maybe it isn't your destination country and you aren't actually legally permitted to enter that country. What measures are in place to regularize your presence so you don't get arrested and imprisoned? What if the country you're in isn't safe for people of your demographic?

 

Suppose your wallet is on the plane. You have no money and no cards. How do you get all the things you need, including random incidentals like menstrual pads and eczema cream?

 

Suppose you lose your driver's licence in the plane crash and need to drive home from the airport. What provisions are in place to keep the cops from arresting you for driving without a licence?

 

What if your baby's car seat is in the plane? How do you safely and legally get, like, anywhere? 

 

To what extent are they assuming goodwill ("Don't be silly, the authorities won't arrest you for being in a foreign country without a passport if you've just been in a plane crash!") vs. having actual procedures in place ("This is your official internationally recognized Plane Crash Survivor card")?

If they actually want people to leave their belongings behind, they need to let people know what measures are in place to protect them. But I've never seen anyone report on this - it's always just "These plane crash survivors are Bad and Wrong for trying to collect their belongings!"

Discoverability is not morally neutral

I tend to learn about books/TV series/other creative works because I've seen it around, people are talking about it, it seems vaguely interesting, I think I'll check it out.

 

Occasionally, when I do check it out, I fall in love with it. Most creative works I don't fall in love with, but occasionally I do. I tend to have one primary fandom that I'm absolutely in love with going at any given time. I have no control over when this happens, and I have no control over when and how it switches to another primary fandom. 

And every once in a while - although certainly more often than I'd prefer! - I learn, long after falling in love with a creative work, that the creator is a gross person, which makes me no longer want to be a fan of the work. 

 

People in this situation often get rid of their books via used bookstores or libraries or little free libraries.

 

But the problem with that is it increases discoverability by people who might be like "Yeah, I've heard of that, it seems vaguely interesting, I think I'll check it out!" but aren't into it enough to know why the creator of the work is gross.

 

Which could then lead them into this very unwanted situation of falling in love with the work, and being in love with a work by a gross creator.

 

This is a problem. Discoverability is not morally neutral - especially when the creator is still alive and using their money to do harm or protect themselves from the consequences of harm they've done.

 

As a reader/viewer, I don't want to be emotionally attached to works by a gross creator. It has happened entirely too often! I would very much like product labelling and curation norms to protect me from this by making me aware of the issues before make the decision to read/watch.

 

***

 

What do I mean by "protect me"?

 

An example of this is the societal norms surrounding labelling/classifying/marketing/curating sexual content.

 

I have certainly in my life encountered sexual content that I'd rather not have seen, but in every instance, I felt like "Well, what did I expect?"

 

When I was 11 I had the chance to stealthily watch an R-rated movie, and quickly became uncomfortable as it referenced aspects of sex that were far too advanced for me to even think about. Well, what did I expect? It's 18+!

 

Sometimes I've clicked on questionable links and seen thoroughly unappealing porn. Well, what did I expect? I clicked on a questionable link!

 

Some (but not all) of the sexual content aspects of Monty Python made me uncomfortable watching as a teenager (and others made me uncomfortable watching with my parents in the room). Well, what did I expect? It was introduced to me as irreverent, boundary-pushing humour written by a male comedy troupe!

 

This sense of "well, what did I expect?" is useful! I want that every time I come across something I didn't actually want to see!

 

However, this sense of "what did I expect?" doesn't seem to work for other types of content that I might want to be warned about. For example, I didn't anticipate the racism in Monty Python. I'm not able to explain why I was able to anticipate the sexual content but not the racism, but something about it didn't end up working out for me the way I wanted to.

 

This needs to be fixed somehow. We need a way for audience members - especially ignorant audience members - to be effectively forewarned, like we are with sexual content. 

 

The big problem for me with racism and Monty Python is that I wasn't worldly enough to perceive it. But if I had gone in forewarned, and if I had decided to watch it anyway (Teenage Me might have watched it anyway to see what the big deal is), I would have kept an eye out, asked questions (I would have been comfortable asking my parents and they would have answered), and come away more informed.  

But instead, I stumbled upon something I didn't even know was racist and went around gleefully talking it up to everyone who would listen for decades.  Much like how, multiple times, I've stumbled upon - and become emotionally attached to - works that I would never have given the time of day if I had known in advance that the creator was a bad person I don't want to support, and gleefully promoted those works to other people.

 

***

 

I don't know what the answer is for the problem of unwanted discoverability of gross creators. I don't want to burn books or ban books. I just don't want to fall in love with any more works by gross creators without being aware of the problems.

 

Maybe a useful approach would be to treat works by gross creators the way you would obscure reference books. They aren't the shelves, but you can pull them from the stacks or order them on request - not because they're banned, but rather because there's higher priority for shelf space. That way, people won't accidentally stumble on them and innocently fall in love with them - you have to know about them to ask for them, and, if we normalize this approach, the fact that they're not on the shelf might lead people to think "Oh, what if this is problematic?"

 

I'm sure other people who are smarter than me can also think of other useful approaches. And hopefully some of these people are in charge of curation and discoverability.

Books read in May 2025

 The Wife App by Carolyn Mackler

Books read in April 2025

1. Spin Doctors: How Media and Politicians Misdiagnosed the COVID-19 Pandemic by Nora Loreto

2. Bonded in Death by J.D. Robb

Books read in March 2025

 1. Passions in Death by J.D. Robb

Bring back the Canada Post Comparison Shopper to help Canadians buy Canadian

In 2010, Canada Post introduced a tool called the Canada Post Comparison Shopper, which let you compare prices and shipping costs from a huge range of different online retailers.

 

Here is a news release from when the Canada Post Comparison Shopper was first launched, and here is my blog post from when I discovered it.

 

This tool helped me discover all kinds of new stores I never would have come across on my own and get amazing deals that I never thought possible. I mourned the day it was discontinued - I've never found a replacement that's anywhere near comparable!

 

As Canadians work together to disentangle ourselves from the United States of America, the time has come to bring back the Canada Post Comparison Shopper.

 

It could be a quick, easy way to search Canadian retailers for the specific product you're only been able to find on Amazon, or for a Canadian alternative or non-US alternative to the American product you've been using for ages. 

They could provide options to filter for Canadian-made products, or filter out US-made products, or filter out foreign-owned retailers.

 

Currently, the comparison shopping tools available to us are controlled by American oligarchs and run on algorithms designed to enrich them.

 

The Canada Post Comparison Shopper was a public good designed to benefit Canadians and Canada. In this, our moment of need, it's time to resurrect it.