Ami Maxine

Off Menu

I’ve been consuming a lot of British content lately. (I have to say – they do game shows much better than we do…) Through this, I have stumbled across some fun podcast formats (as though I need more podcasts in my life…I can barely keep up with the ones I already regularly listen to). But there’s something about the format of learning about someone’s life through a very specific lens that I find rather enjoyable. (If you have read past blogs of mine, you likely already know this – I’m quite fond of Brett Goldstein’s Films to Be Buried With, which uses the lens of films to learn about people.)

While listening to these sorts of podcasts, it’s hard not to think of what my own answers might be, so I thought I’d do this exercise out loud again. In this case, it’s Off Menu with Ed Gamble and James Acaster (both British comedians). In the show, one of the hosts (Acaster) takes on the role of a genie waiter who can produce any food or drink for their guest. First question? Still or sparking water. Next? Poppadmons or bread? They move through course by course, sharing stories (and laughs) along the way.

But watch out – if the guest says the secret ingredient announced in the episode’s intro, they are ejected from the restaurant without their dinner. (I’ll note that Jason Mantzoukas’s secret ingredient was pimento, and he did indeed mention his B99 character Adrien Pimento and was not in fact ousted.)

Still or Sparking: I honestly don’t know if I’ve ever had sparkling water. I live (for the time being) in the U.S. We don’t usually get a choice when we first sit – it’s still water (usually from the tap). If you want sparkling or bottled still, you pay the price. So – still with plenty of ice, please (and you can leave out the lemon).

Poppadoms or bread: Again, poppadoms aren’t really a thing in the states (unless you seek out an Indian restaurant), though I would be curious to try them. (For those not familiar, they are thin, crispy crackers with origins in India – made from black gram, lentil, chickpea, or rice flour and seasoned with spices like cumin or pepper then deep fried or cooked with dry heat. I mean – sign me up.) But this is my dream meal – so I would have to say bread, specifically the bread that I had while I volunteered at the Jane Adeny Memorial School for Girls in Kenya. It is still to this day the best bread I have ever tasted – which seems impossible to replicate here. Something about it rising in the Kenyan sun does something magical to it. No butter needed. Just slice and eat.

Dream starter: I’m not one for starters. If I get a starter, I don’t have room for the main. But again, dream meal, so we’ll pretend there’s plenty of room in the stomach for all this. This would also be a stretch because I don’t eat meat – but I’d want my grandma Fran’s homemade biscuits and sausage gravy. When I say homemade, I mean that she made the biscuits from scratch, too. She was an incredible cook. And you never made the mistake of going to her house with a full stomach (well, you never made that mistake more than once). So if there was a way to eat them so that they tasted like hers but didn’t actually have any meat in them, that would be incredible.

Dream main course: In 2016, I got to participate in an exchange program through my college where i teach. I was paired with an instructor in China – I hosted here for two weeks in the fall, and then she hosted me for two weeks in the spring. The goal was to learn about each other’s education system and culture. One of the first nights there, I got to take part in making steamed dumplings – her mother was also there. She took care of making the filling (there were vegetarian options for me), and then she and my exchange partner taught me to fold them. (Thankfully, none of my broke while they cooked – so no matter how poor mine looked, they were still a ‘success’.) I take no ownership in how they tasted, but they were so flippin’ delicious – best I’ve ever had. Would love to have those again.

(I did purposely crop the image to remove their faces.)

Dream side: Also while I was in China, we had steamed lotus root with ginger, and I still think about that randomly. Not something I can find easily here (but I continue to look). Also, there was one meal that had mashed potatoes with a savory pickle relish, and I NEVER would have thought to pair those two things, but my goodness… (there really is very little you can do to a potato that I won’t like – aside from adding meat to it, of course).

Dream drink: For during dinner, just water. I don’t want anything messing with the flavors. To have with dessert, though, some whiskey. Or whisky, if you will. Because this is a dream meal, I’m going to say something I would never ever be able to actually try in real life – the 33-Year-Old Macallan Single Malt Scotch Whisky. (The bottle costs $13K.)

Dream dessert: There used to be a company called Dagoba – they made organic, fair trade chocolate (though they were acquired by Hershey from 2006-2021 and dropped their fair trade certification in 2012). I’m normally not a milk chocolate person (I like it dark), but they had a chai milk chocolate bar that was out of this world. They have since gone out of business, though, so you can’t get it anymore, but if the genie could whip up a pre-2006 Dagoba chai bar, that would be the perfect desert for me.

What would your dream meal look like?

First Friday Rec: Tailspin

Title: Tailspin
Author: John Armbruster
Genre: Nonfiction, Biography, History
Pages: 422
Publication Date: 30 Apr 2022
StoryGraph* Moods: Emotional, Challenging, Tense
How I Stumbled Upon This Book: book club
Other Books by this author:
*StoryGraph also offers content warnings.

Description: Gene Moran, a World War II tail gunner (someone who sits at the rear of military aircraft responsible for defending against rear attacks) fell four miles without a parachute, survived, was captured by the Germans, spent eighteen months as a prisoner of war, and then was marched six hundred miles across central Europe. And until this book was published, his family didn’t know most of what he went through.

John Armbruster leans of Moran’s incredible fall and asks to meet with him, to interview him, and to write his story. As the story unfolds, Armbruster faces his own ordeal when his wife is diagnosed with brain cancer.

Why I recommend this book: I’ll admit that I wouldn’t have picked this book up on my own – I read it for book club, and I’m glad I was assigned the task. As someone who reads more than her share of World War II historical fiction, I’ve read very little nonfiction about this time (it’s easier to put some distance when the tag ‘fiction’ is involved). That all being said, I gobbled this up. Gene Moran’s story is one of resilience in the most extreme way. (While Armbruster’s own story, which he braids into the telling, is also interesting – I will admit I wished it had been written on its own. I kept reading quickly through those sections to get back to Moran’s.)

“If I don’t read it down here, I’ll read it up there.” ~ Gene Moran to John Armbruster, Tailspin

AFT: Meet Alice

It’s sort of strange to still call this my first book given that two others have since found their way out into the world, but this manuscript, titled All Falling Things, was indeed my first completed novel-length manuscript – my delayed debut if you will. Publishing, it turns out, can be quite the lengthy process with a lot of time spent waiting.

But – on a happy note, while I don’t have a publication date just yet, it seems we are a lot closer to getting one. Thus, I thought I would begin introducing my first book baby out to the world.

Starting with Alice.

When I first started thinking about this story, I intended for the entire novel to be from Alice’s perspective – an Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland story, but with Alice intentionally jumping down the rabbit hole and into the wonderland that is Chicago, IL, in an effort to find herself. Because of this, I’ve always thought of it as Alice’s story. Even still.

The idea came after I had gone through a particularly rough point in my life, a point that was filling up with regrets and what ifs. But then a conversation with a dear friend made me realize that without what led to that rough point, I’d never have met this person sitting before me, never have nurtured this friendship. And honestly, I’d do it all over again exactly the same to ensure this person was a part of my life. It got me thinking of all the possible threads in our lives – how if you pull one, even the tiny one, things can unravel so completely.

The characters in this novel all have connections to the original Wonderland. Some are in name only (small characters), but others include characteristics. It’s not something that most folks will probably even notice, but once you know, hopefully those things will become clear.

Alice, obviously the namesake of the original story, has a decent life – by most respects. She has a good job, a loving family, and a childhood-friend-turned-boyfriend who dotes on her. She’s practically living in a storybook. Except – it’s not the life she wants. She’s going through the motions, only she doesn’t realize that until said boyfriend drops to one knee in front of their family and friends.

Alice needs a new start, and she can’t get one surrounded by people who expect her to be who she has always been. Then one impulsive decision sends her two thousand miles from home, armed with nothing but a couple suitcases and a stubborn hope that life can be more than “fine.”

In Chicago/Wonderland, Alice has a chance to try new things and look for her own path. For me, it was a chance to explore that idea of pulling a thread or two – to explore how sometimes, people aren’t meant to come into our lives and stay there. Perhaps some are only there to teach us what it is want.

“Ask This Book”

I entered the world of publishing at a difficult time. More and more books were flooding the market, both traditionally published and self-published. It was difficult to get noticed – by agents (who get hundreds of submissions a month), by publishers, by readers.

And then it got so much worse: Generative AI was unleased.

In addition, it seems impossible to make ANY headway without @m@zon. As a self-professed lover of libraries and local book shops, I don’t buy from @m@zon, but I quickly learned, especially when it comes to ebooks, that it’s impossible to make sales without using their platform. Even better if you put your book into their ‘select’ program – then you get paid by the pages read (even if someone only reads a few pages…I mean, we’re talking pennies, but still). They have the market in their stronghold. And it’s frustrating to know what to do sometimes.

Well, they just made it real easy to walk away.

In a press release early in Dec 2025, they announced the following: “We’re adding new AI-powered reading features that preserve the magic of reading on Kindle. Story So Far lets you catch up on the book you’re reading—but only up to where you’ve read without any spoilers. For our endlessly curious readers, Ask this Book will let you highlight any passage of text while reading a book and get spoiler-free answers to questions about things like a character’s motive or the significance of a scene.“

There is NO WAY to opt out. (They claim they made this not optional because they want the reading experience to be seamless. *eye roll*)

First, I don’t want my stories feeding their AI machine – even if it’s ‘inevitable’, I will hold off and fight against it for as long as I can.

The second point is regarding this line: “get spoiler-free answers questions about things like a character’s motive or the significance of a scene.”

In other words, they are going to create content based on my IP (there are literal laws against this, and watching them try and talk their way out of it is am impressive act of limbo). And there is a good chance, given what we’ve seen of generative AI so far, they will get it all wrong. This could alter the way in which a reader experiences a book.

I went in before the ‘deadline’ to unpublish my ebooks – only to learn that I can’t until the “select” 90 days expires (you have to enroll to the program for a minimum of 90 days at a time). The timing of their announcement feels sketchy. You can’t tell me that they didn’t know 90 days before the end of the year that this feature was coming. They waited, I would wager, until most folks were trapped. Some may have had the advantage of their 90 days ending before the launch. I did not.

These moves – very much including not giving writers the options to opt out – are unacceptable. But corporations like this will continue to do it – because even if they get sued and lose (The Authors Guild is indeed pushing back on this), the damage has already been done. Their machines have been fed.

I know I won’t have the choice when it comes to my traditionally published works, but for anything I put out myself, I won’t be using @m@zon directly. (Many platforms push to them, unfortunately.)

I say all this as a warning to anyone out there who might read this who is considering self-publishing. It is, of course, your choice if you opt to use @m@zon, and I don’t judge anyone for it. Just go in with eyes open.

Libraries: Saving Me Money Since the 1980s

The week of April 6 – 12, 2025, was Library Week here in the states (though, really, every week should be library week in my eyes). One of the librarians at my college library had reached out to me – they were working on a display and wanted to know if I would be interested in being included. Specifically, they were creating a display of how much money folks can save using the library – and she knows what a frequent flyer I am…not just at one library, but two.

She had sent me a link that would estimate the amount of money I save based on the number and type (paperback vs hardcover vs eBook) of books I read each month. Well, I’m a true nerd, and thanks to StoryGraph, I know what I had read so far this year – I could look them all up and give an accurate number. Well, as someone who likes to track things, I thought I’d continue and take a look at what an entire year of frequenting my libraries managed to save me.

My two libraries are my college’s library where I teach (including all the libraries it connects me with through iShare/InterLibrary Loan) and my county library where I live. Aside from one book I borrowed from a friend (because the hold list was too long at the library for me to get it in time for book club), everything I read I borrowed from the library (or already owned, which I, of course, didn’t include here).

As a kid, I loved buying books, reading them, and then displaying them on my shelf. These days, I’m a little more picky about what I buy only because if I bought every book I read, I’d have to give up eating one week a month (I’d also run out of wall space to build bookshelves…). That being said, if I really love a book, I will buy it.

So how much did my two libraries save me on my reading adventures?

TOTAL:

January: $71.94
February: $73.48
March: $46.99
April: $124.07
May: $78.99
June: $97.76
July: $27.99 👀 (I traveled a lot this month)
August: $100.23
September: $71.94
October: $116.94
November: $108.94
December: $105.93

2025 Total: $1025.20
Minus the books I ended up buying: $39.52*

Saved**: $985.68

To be fair, because they came from libraries, most of these were hardcover, and I prefer to buy paperback. But still. That’s a good chunk of change!

*I had to buy Demon Copperhead. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I also finally bought The Hail Mary Project when the SciFi/Fantasy club returned to it.

**This is just for books. I ended up borrowing a number of DVDs this year, too, which totaled another $753.31 in savings.

Books of 2025

I mentioned a couple years that I never do the ’52 books in a year’ challenge. I love reading, so I don’t set a number – I just read. It’s difficult sometimes to make reading books a priority when my job is to read stack after stack of student writing. Most of my books tend to be read over breaks (summer/winter). For fun, I started tracking a couple years ago – I read 42 books (or 12,886 pages) in 2023 and 44 (or 17,413 pages) in 2024.

This year, I read 51 books (or 15,277 pages). For the first time, I did indeed get pretty close to that one-book-a-week pace. And unlike past years, my books were more spread out – I usually get a bell curve with the highest point in the summer.

While I did read quite a few more books than last year, I actually read fewer pages – 2,136 fewer. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Due to a couple missed book club meetings (a couple canceled, a couple I couldn’t make – one I just couldn’t get my hands on the book in time), I was able to read more books for myself than I normally do.

One thing I really like about tracking apps is the ability to easily look back at what I read the previous year. My favorite from nonfiction (27/51) was The Sing Sing Files by Dan Slepian. This should be required reading – especially for anyone in public office. My favorite fiction (24/51) novels were Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver and rereading Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir (I listened to it this time, and the audio book was well done – which is saying something, because I don’t do well with audio books at all). The most surprising loved book was 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clark. I honestly went into it dreading having to read it – but I LOVED IT. Hoping to read the next in the series sometime soon.

What did your year of reading look like?

*If you’re on Goodre@ds but looking for a non-@m@zon alternative, check out StoryGraph. You can even transfer your Goodre@ds records over to StoryGraph – so no lost information and no wasted time trying to add every book you’ve ever read.

First Friday Rec: The Small and the Mighty

Title: The Small and the Mighty
Author: Sharon McMahon
Genre: nonfiction, history, informative
Pages: 320
Publication Date: Sep 24, 2024
StoryGraph* Moods: informative, inspiring, hopeful
How I Stumbled Upon This Book: Armchair Expert interview
Other Books by this author: no others at the time of writing this
*StoryGraph also offers content warnings.

Description: According to BookShop.Org, “You’ll meet a woman astride a white horse riding down Pennsylvania Ave, a young boy detained at a Japanese incarceration camp, a formerly enslaved woman on a mission to reunite with her daughter, a poet on a train, and a teacher who learns to work with her enemies. More than one thing is bombed, and multiple people surprisingly become rich. Some rich with money, and some wealthy with things that matter more. This is a book about what really made America – and Americans – great. McMahon’s cast of improbable champions will become familiar friends, lighting the path we journey in our quest to make the world more just, peaceful, good, and free.”

Why I recommend this book: For one, it’s written unlike a history textbook. So if you found those to be dense and boring, then you’ll appreciate the tone and understanding of audience that McMahon demonstrates (and, in places, a bit of humor).

At its core, each chapter is about the impact a single person can have, and at a time where things can feel unstoppable, it’s inspiring to know that one person’s life can go a long way to making the world a better place. I was particularly drawn to the chapters dealing with education, where folks began just trying to build a school in their community in an effort to educate their children – but then didn’t stop there. One such person went on to train other teachers. One went on to build other schools. One, after her school, her life’s work, went up in literal flames didn’t admit defeat – she kept going.

Some of the stories are a bit surprising, like that of a partner to Sears & Roebuck, whose name is not well known because it was Jewish – who worked the broken system to make a huge impact. (One may argue he could have worked to change the system instead of living in it; ok, yes, but – we need to read these stories in the context of their times, to remember what was at stake.)

“Both of these things are true at the same time. America has been just, and it has perpetuated injustice. We have been peaceful, and we have perpetrated acts of violence. We have been—and are—good. And we have done terrible things to people who didn’t deserve them. It has been the land of the free while simultaneously sanctioning oppression.”
~ Sharon McMahon, The Small and the Mighty

A Million Pound Challenge

About two years ago, my writing group (which had come together mostly because we are part of the same workout program – plus I dragged my writing buddy along) started talking about our goals for the following year. We talk about both our writerly goals and our workout goals. One of the members said she was thinking about doing a million pound challenge to try and get her workouts back on track.

A million pounds? I felt like that gif that goes around a lot:

I mean, was that even possible? An entire MILLION pounds?

I did the math.

That’s 83,333.33 pounds a month.

Or, if you lift three times a week, it’s 6,410.27 pounds per session. (Assuming you don’t miss any days…)

The program I follow is lower weight (as in not trying for personal bests every time) but high reps. It was possible. So I went for it. (I’ll admit, I got a little flexible with what I allowed myself to count the first year. I live in the midwest. So yes, I weighed a shovel full of snow and then counted how many shovelfuls I lifted off my driveway. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I did what I had to.)

And I made it – I lifted my millionth pound on Dec 30 of that year.

When I decided to repeat the challenge, I opted to make it “clean” – meaning no more functional fitness pounds lifted would count toward the total. I was lifting heavier weights at the start of this year than at the start of last year, so it shouldn’t be too tricky, right?

Well, I didn’t expect that stretch in May when I got sick. Or that three week stretch in July when I spent a week in Scotland (we planned it only a couple months in advance), got sick again while back home for a week, and then headed to Washington State for another week. Those missed workouts added up, plus a few here and there when I could only work two lifting days into a week (I workout at home with an Olympic weight lifting bar and plates, so if I’m not home, I don’t have access. I do travel with bands, but it’s not the same.)

Even so, with the bumps (and, yes, bruises) along the way, I made it. 💪🏻 (I’ll admit, there were some extra sessions the last few weeks as I’ve been home so much.)

This year, I lifted my millionth pound on Dec 23 – and not a single flake of snow was included in this endeavor. 🤣 (Though there have already been plenty of opportunities to shovel already this winter.)

I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do the challenge again. It’s a lot of time adding totals and what not – and some days, I just want to lift the heavy things and be done with it. But it is indeed a good motivator to get those workouts in. I’m planning to do it again – and try to hit that goal even earlier.

Writing the Introvert

I’m an introvert. I write introverted characters. People that know me are not at all surprised by this. While there are, of course, extroverts in my stories, I honestly don’t think I would even know how to write an extroverted character from their own point of view (like…how do I even get into their heads?).

Thus, when I was recently going over comments from my editor who exclaimed shock when my narrator outed herself as an introvert, I was in turn also shocked that she hadn’t picked up on that… There were then other comments throughout about how an introvert wouldn’t do this and an introvert wouldn’t do that – as though being an introvert means one thing and one thing only.

This encounter reminded me of all the other conversations I’ve had over the years about what an introvert does and does not do, most of which involve the stereotype of an introvert that is shy and awkward, who hates people and won’t take risks. Except none of these things is what makes an introvert an introvert. Even as an introvert, when I had first learned the word and that it applied to me, all I knew were the stereotypes – and when the most outgoing person I knew shared that they, too, were an introvert, I had to pick my jaw up off the floor.

Yes, introverts can be shy and risk adverse, but so can extroverts. Yes, introverts can feel comfortable alone, but so can extroverts. Yes, introverts can get tired out by large crowds, but so can extroverts (it just usually takes them longer to feel it).

It all comes down to how our brains are wired. Introverts tend to get tired out by stimuli quicker than extroverts (but extroverts DO get tired by it, too). We also react differently to dopamine – it can make an introvert feel run down, while an extrovert may get a little buzz from it. (This is why we introverts often need to retreat to recharge – we’re overstimulated and need a place without much stimulus that will just continue to overstimulate us. This is why we rewatch comfort shows – we know what’s coming. A lot of extroverts realized this for the first time during the pandemic when they, too, couldn’t handle the overstimulation of watching some new and instead returned to the familiar.)

We also process information differently. Extroverts tend to process externally, while introverts tend to process internally. By the time an introvert voices a choice, they have likely thought through all the possibilities and are ready to move on it. Extroverts may need to talk out all their choices before they can decide on something. (This can cause conflict when you pair these two – an introvert announces their decision, and then the extrovert tries to talk through it with them because they think that’s what they need. It may take us longer to make a decision, but when we do, we’re certain of it.)

Introverts also have a higher blood flow to their frontal lobe than extroverts – this helps with remembering things (perhaps one of the introvert benefits that I do not have), solve problems, and plan ahead. (We are the best ‘what if’ people to have around when planning something.)

(This, by the way, is why you cannot actually be an extroverted introvert – your brain can’t be wired for both. Chances are you mean outgoing introvert.)

It can be difficult being an introvert – our world is built for extroverts (as, often, are our stories). Most jobs require you to network (small talk…need I say more?). The loudest people in the room, the ones quickest to speak, are often seen as the leaders. Important decisions are often made in meetings where we have to express our thoughts out loud (introverts tend to prefer written communication because we can think through our thoughts and ensure we’re saying what we want to say). And a bit in a story where the narrator goes on a walk to reflect on some good news is seen as boring – we want stories that are exciting and fast-paced. (Well, some people do. Others, like myself, like quiet stories, too.)

The world needs both* of us. And so do stories.

*There is a growing theory that Introversion and Extroversion are not actually a binary and exist on a spectrum. This ‘both’ is not meant to slight that. I’m commenting on the the binary society has created pitting Introverts and Extroverts against one another (often with Introversion being something that need to be ‘fixed’ – which it absolutely does not).

Scholastic

I was a student who did indeed love school – I still love to learn.

That being said – my absolute favorite day was the day the teacher showed up with a stack of those Scholastic catalogs. I’d get to pick out a book. And it was FREE?!?!

The other day, I was waiting in the drive-thru line for my caffeine hit to be made when a Scholastic truck drove by:

Y’all – the way my ENTIRE body filled up with JOY at the memory! To know that this company/program is still around, quite honestly, gives me hope in a time I so desperately need it. (As does Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library – if you don’t know about it, and there are kids in your life, check it out!)

A couple days later, apparently the universe knew I needed a bit more joy – a friend shared a post that Scholastic launched a free streaming platform with shows like Clifford the Big Big Red Dog, The Magic School Bus, The Babysitter’s Club, Goosebumps, etc. (You can access it by downloading the Scholastic app on Roku or Amazon Fire TV.) If you’ve got kids in your life, share this, too. Or, you know, if you want to relive your own childhood, check it out for yourself.