What to do This Weekend

It's book fair season!

One of the weird things about living in Arizona now is that I no longer have to observe daylight savings time. That’s right, Arizona has proven that DST is complete and utter fantasy. But, that also means that half the year I am in MST and half the year I am in PST, which is a real nightmare, especially because half of the year I am doing additional and unnecessary calendar math. I am thrilled to report that as of Sunday I am back in PST where I belong. If I can’t be home in LA right now, at least I can share the same time zone. The moral of the story is: daylight savings is dumb and we should get rid of it.

Here’s what to do with yourself this weekend:

• Watch Black Bag- Soderbergh finally has a new movie and the cast is absolutely clutch- Cate, Fass, that hot guy from Bridgerton, Naomi, Pierce! Before you head to the theatre, I recommend a Soderbergh retrospective including all or a selection of the following:

  • Sex, Lies, and Videotape

  • Erin Brokovich

  • All of the Oceans except the girl one that they made to satisfy the white twitter feminists and is predictably terrible

  • Che

  • The Informant!

  • Contagion

  • Logan Lucky

  • No Sudden Move

  • The Magic Mike reality show on HBO which is not Soderbergh but is based on his Magic Mike movies and is SUCH A SURPRISINGLY GOOD SHOW!

• It’s Book Fair Season!! The third best season of the year after awards and monsoon!

  

The Tucson book fair is this weekend and I am thrilled. When I was on my book tour I kept hearing that the Tucson fair is coveted among authors. Sadly, I did not get accepted, but I am thrilled to finally attend this weekend. To find the dates for your local book fair, or to plan a book fair road trip, check out the calendar HERE.

• Play a game!- I recently received a copy of Vicious Gardens, one of my better Kickstarter purchases, and I am thrilled. Vicious isn’t available for purchase yet but it’s absolutely gorgeous so I recommend following them on Instagram for when it is, but that did make me think of other fun games for you to play solo or with a group (I will be doing a rundown of the best solo games in the future, stay tuned).

  • Box One and Box Two- Theory 11 has some of my favorite games, puzzles (puzzle rundown coming soon), and themed playing cards but Box One and Two by Neil Patrick Harris are AMAZING. NPH designed these mind bending games for one person and I had so much fun with Box One that I bought Box Two the second it was released. Play them and then box them up and send them to a single friend!

  • Online Catan- You can play Catan! Online! Against the computer! I will warn you, the computer cheats, but it’s still Catan and they have an app so you can take Catan with you wherever you go.

  • Any of these Wirecutter-recommended card games

  • Red Dead Redemption 2- if you, like me, are old and like video games but are terrible at them and always years late, RDR2 is for you. This game is so incredibly fun, easy to learn, will keep you occupied for weeks, and has a wonderful story. I wish I could play this game for the first time 100 times.

• Buy a plant- It’s gardening season which means every store from Costco to Safeway is selling plants. Now is the time to pick up a citrus tree from Costco, a pepper plant from ACE, or even to start ordering your unique seeds. You don’t need a big backyard to garden, you can make an IKEA greenhouse (I have two of these and they are great), grow a citrus tree in your living room, or buy some unique houseplants from any of the very cool nurseries that sell on Etsy. I’ve bought from all of the linked shops and the plants arrived beautiful and in tact every time. If you are going to garden outside, be sure to check the Farmer’s Almanac for your last frost date and consider taking a Master Gardener course in your area. I took the course last year and I learned enough to have a pretty amazing first garden last summer.

• Start a big events journal- Every New Year’s Eve I try to remember everything that happened throughout the year and I can’t. But, I also know that there is no way I am actually going to keep up a regular journal. So I’m meeting myself in the middle. I ordered a cute personalized journal on Etsy and am just recording the important events from the year or things I want to remember and sticking in the little mementos that will bring back the memories. We’re almost done with the first quarter of the year, so maybe now is a good time to consider how you’ll remember the large and small moments that you don’t want to forget.

  

• Listen to this week’s episode of Choose the Bear with Others Like Me author Nicole Louie and check out my new website!

  

  What NOT to do this weekend: DO NOT WATCH MOANA 2. Trust me. It’s so bad. I had heard that the soundtrack was epically bad but now that it is streaming on Disney+ I watched it for myself and it is epically epically bad. No wonder my Disney stock is always in the red. Save yourself. Just watch Moana 1 again. If you want to see the big spoiler thing that happens in the only moving moment in the entire movie, skip to 1:19:00 and watch from there.

Whatever you do this weekend, have fun, connect with someone, even if that someone is yourself (especially if that someone is yourself), and don’t think about politics.

Kat