Midnight Musings – A journal by Jade Walker

Curiosity on display

May 11, 2025 / No Comments

If you’ve ever visited a library or bookstore, your eyes may have occasionally wandered over a collection of books dedicated to a single topic. Specially curated by librarians and booksellers, these treasure caches are designed to capture your interest. But they’re also magical doorways into authors or topics that you may have never considered exploring.

Yesterday, I spotted a display in a bookcase by the check-out desk at my library that was dedicated to Asian-Pacific writers. Turns out May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month and the staff had collected a wonderful selection of fiction and nonfiction books to borrow. I grabbed two: “The Blanket Cats” by Kiyoshi Shigematsu and “What You Are Looking For Is In The Library” by Michiko Aoyama.

Last month, the staff built a display in the same spot for National Poetry Month. There was a wide selection of poetry books to check out as well as a block of sticky notes and a pen. Patrons who wrote a short poem on the sticky note could then see their poetic creation displayed on the bookshelf.

Other collections I’ve spotted over the years include: banned books, books that sport a red cover, gardening or baking, pirates, women authors, Black authors, Hispanic authors, LGBTQ+ authors, fantasy fiction, classical science fiction, witches, time travel, Indigenous American history, fairy tales, local bestsellers, anniversary editions, spies, romances with covers highlighting male models who forgot to wear their shirts, zombies and books with great hooks.

Got a spare block of time? Or maybe you just need something to do on a rainy day? Then, embark on a display hunt. Visit a library — your own or a new one — or an independent bookshop and look for tables with special signage, display cases, even the sides or tops of bookshelves. Librarians and booksellers are canny folks; they’ll feature displays in the most delightful places in the hope that you’ll turn left at just the right moment or round a corner and discover one.
The silver lining of dental work

April 5, 2025 / 1 Comment

I had a morbid thought the other day.

(My friends, wide-eyed, are surely clasping their pearls and sarcastically saying, “No way!”)

But yes, I was sitting in the chair at the periodontist’s office struggling to control my shaking while he removed stitches from the roof of my mouth when the thought came to me. After four long years of dental work to fix the mess I made of my face, three different dentistry offices have taken about 1,000 x-rays of my mouth. Oh sure, most of them will show the work in progress (from battered/bruised face and fractured jaw to missing teeth to deep cleaning to braces to retainers to implants). However, the most recent ones will accurately reveal the state of my teeth.

That’s when I realized that if I ever get murdered, the police will have access to plenty of current x-rays to match to my corpse.

Yes, I’ve been watching/listening to a lot of true crime lately. Can you tell?
Quote of the day

March 27, 2025 / No Comments

“We can disagree and still love each other unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist.” –Robert Jones, Jr.
Pumpernickel and plants

March 18, 2025 / 2 Comments

The process of baking bread and gardening
is actually quite similar.
You assemble the parts
and make a mess while combining them.
Patience is a virtue
as both activities involve a lot of waiting.
Maintenance is required,
whether it’s watering, kneading, weeding or proofing.
Curiosity keeps you coming back,
just to see if anything has happened.
Success is often dependent
on my mood and the weather.
And from humble ingredients,
something wonderful is created.
Sometimes you can even eat it!
The disappearance of light

March 13, 2025 / 2 Comments

Several strings of Christmas lights circle the ceiling of our library. At night, these are the only lights I use in the entire house. They provide a soft, beautiful glow that feels almost like candlelight. Very hygge.

Depending on the quality of the batch — and whether Mercury is in retrograde — the lights last for six months to a year. Inevitably, the bulbs will burn out after being used night after night. First, the bulbs will burn brighter, like a star ready to explode, and then they’ll simply wink out. The lights don’t all darken at once, either. Usually a dozen or two will give up the ghost and over time the others will follow.

When the room is half-dark, M will swap out the strings. It’s a painful process, involving ladders and profanity, but he does it because he enjoys their warm luminosity. Also because he loves me.

We had our first sign of string extinction in January. Last night, the shadows spread even further down the line. The practical side of me knows this just means it’s time to switch out the lights. The more fanciful side of me wonders if it’s a portent.