Libraries are beautiful places: I just left one with four volumes of Star Wars/Unbeatable Squirrel Girl comics and a copy of Dr. Wil Gafney’s “Womanist Midrash.”

I cannot read the word “poignant” without remembering that it is etymologically related to the French word for “fist” and, by extension, to the French expressions for “punch” and “brass knuckles” (literally, “an American punch”).

As a big fan of both The Good Place and the French language, I suddenly feel an urgent need to know what substitutes Chidi hears in French when Eleanor tries to swear in English.

Lexington has a sister city in Normandy, so I’m currently applying to our sister cities organization in the hopes it will provide opportunities to keep up my French. 😊🇫🇷

Over lunch, I continued a new (for me) book on the history of French and decided to email a thank you to a wonderful BYU professor who taught a class on that subject. I think of him often and am embarrassed I hadn’t reached out earlier.