I was all set to start a new tradition today: Read-All-Day Friday. Friday is the only day each week that I predictably don’t have any work commitments, and since I’ve been feeling a little short on high-quality me time lately, I decided to try as often as possible to make these my intensive reading days. In place of a book review, I would then post some pictures of what I was reading and of whatever cats, coffee mugs, and pajama pants were assisting me toward my goal. But the thing is, yesterday turned out to be Migraine-All-Day Thursday (Some advance notice about these things, people? Sheesh!), so I have a couple of looming deadlines that I ignored yesterday and have no choice but to address today. However, I’m still setting aside some quality time with Andrus Kivirähk’s The Man Who Spoke Snakish, a book that is apparently so popular in its native Estonia that it has been adapted into a top-selling board game. I also took some time this morning to take some pictures of birds standing around being birds while the Pacific Ocean was going batshit crazy in the background. For context, Ocean Beach – where these photos were taken – is usually, as it name suggests, a beach – the ocean is not actually supposed to crest the seawall and lap at one’s feet in the parking lot.

If I have time, I’ll be back later today. I really do want to tell you more about Submission, which turned out to be fantastic. Happy Friday, everyone. May you maintain the equanimity of these seagulls during whatever storms, meteorological or otherwise, you face this weekend.

(Guarding the Tomb of the Unknown Seagull)

(I’m pretty sure wings-at-5:50 is seagull semaphore for “Holy fuck, that’s some scary ocean.”)