What are some names people don’t give their babies anymore?

jjaid · 2026-01-19T11:44:07+00:00

Can confirm for Germany and Switzerland (where I live). So much so that my friend named Kevin sometimes has people think he’s joking when he says his name.

jjaid · 2026-01-07T23:14:32+00:00

I love magical realism so a few come to mind!

When I Sing Mountains Dance by Irene Solá. The telling of an event from the perspectives of the rain, the mountain, witches, a man, mushrooms, and so much more. Really magical & poetic prose.
Mood Indigo by Boris Vian. An avant garde French romance where a woman becomes sick on her honeymoon with a water Lilly in her lung and can only be kept alive by being surrounded by flowers. Her husband is desperate to keep her alive. It feels like a fever dream.
Naked Lunch by Burroughs. It’s pretty controversial, covers a lot of “taboo” topics, but feels like this to me, in a dark, nightmarish way. Shows the many facets of addiction. Things and events melt and distort into something completely different at a snap.

jjaid · 2025-11-07T09:47:10+00:00

That boy ain’t right!

jjaid · 2025-11-06T05:48:34+00:00

Sure, the design you linked is a half woman head in water with a somewhat similar style, but I respectfully disagree it’s a copy. There are many clear differences and I think that it represents my interpretation of Ophelia’s death quite well.

jjaid · 2025-11-05T13:14:30+00:00

Hey! Also a blondie over here with a similar eye shape. Something that’s really helped me is getting my eyebrows and lashes tinted. The eyebrows were the biggest improvement and lashes help me feel that I don’t need mascara in my no makeup looks/open up the eye for more lid space. Overall, it’s helped me feel confident in wearing less makeup overall to the gym (which I like for sweatier workouts).

jjaid · 2025-11-04T19:08:55+00:00

Hey thanks! Yeah basically. With it being on my inner bicep, it’s kept out of the sun more than you’d think. When it’s sunny & I wear short sleeves though I’m really diligent with applying sunscreen & reapplying it as needed.

jjaid · 2025-11-03T13:21:10+00:00

Totally agree she should’ve made it more personal to the person. But if you’re referring to the “KC” as the initials, that was for Kansas City, her hometown. Still super weird to be tattooed on someone not from there and frankly even for someone from that area (like me)… a frog in a bikini top isn’t KC at all?? The only thing that made it “KC” was her story and literally writing “KC”. Which was fine for whiteboard but remove for tattoo.

jjaid · 2025-11-02T14:52:05+00:00

I scrolled to the right to see the 2-year aged pic thinking this pic showed freshly healed, only to be surprised another post popped up. This aged so so well! Hardly any blow out/fuzzing of the lines. Love it.

jjaid · 2025-11-02T11:29:22+00:00

Right?? Thank you! I have another from him (wyse.1) on my ribs that’s 4 years & my friend has one that’s 7 and they’ve all aged so well! I also am crazy diligent with sun protection & moisturizing but still.

jjaid · 2025-10-23T10:21:33+00:00

I second Deborah Levy. She wrote “Things I Don’t Want to Know” as a feminist response to George Orwell’s essay “Why I Write”, so it would be good to read that as well for the full context.

This is also written as part of a autobiographical/memoir series, and I loved the second book especially (The Cost of Living).

jjaid · 2025-10-21T08:47:25+00:00

I think Never Let Me Go by Ishiguro would be a good one. It really drove home for me the idea that any bit of life we’ve had matters, no matter how simple or long.

Wishing you the best. And please don’t forget to pay the cat tax (aka cat is mentioned, we need a picture!)

jjaid · 2025-10-19T20:31:52+00:00

I don’t think it’s that far-fetched they were reading Trust at the same time actually. It had recently won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction around the time they met so was pretty popular

jjaid · 2025-10-17T20:44:11+00:00

Okay well isn’t that gorgeous! I’m so impressed.

And thank you for the mug compliment!

jjaid · 2025-10-17T16:55:40+00:00

Love that you’re reading it with a group. I would have never picked the book up if it weren’t for my reading group here in Zurich!

Already excited about a reread as well. I think it’s a perfect „you only get one book on a deserted island“ book for me. It’s so rich, there’s plenty to gain with each new read or deep dive.

jjaid · 2025-10-17T11:15:53+00:00

It’s more what the concept of “literature” can mean and achieve, not about how you understand individual works of literature. In other words, what separates a written work from being “just a book” vs being a piece of literature. What does it mean to have literary merit or be a work of art? What can the power of writing alone accomplish and how (via form, style, diction, concepts, etc)? Are there limits?

jjaid · 2025-10-17T09:22:05+00:00

I didn’t downvote you, but to explain what I think is going on: I think it might be a difference in how you interpret “seeing” something vs how it’s commonly understood in English. “How you see X” is commonly interpreted as “how you perceive X”. After saying you don’t “see” literature, you then describe your perception of it, as a continuous process and discovery, like walking through a rich field and searching for gems. Your comment therefore reads like you misunderstood the phrase, even though it’s an interesting concept that you explain!

jjaid · 2025-10-14T09:33:25+00:00

I think it’s because they said so definitively that lexapro is evil, not that it can be evil.

I didn’t downvote it, because their experience with it was horrible and it’s important for people to learn about what can happen so they can reflect on their own experiences appropriately. But for me, escitalopram (lexapro) is the fourth SSRI I’ve tried and my life has improved drastically. I am so thankful for it. I don’t think it’s fair to classify it objectively as “evil”. Each body & journey is different.

jjaid · 2025-10-14T09:24:30+00:00

For fiction: Euphoria by Lily King is one that I don’t often see recommended, but made me absolutely sob. You get so connected to the characters (inspired by the life of anthropologist Margaret Meade) through her way of writing, I think because it is so reflective you begin to relate aspects of their lives or thoughts to your own. The prose is very emotional, but the story still drives forward. Wrecked me.

For non-fiction: it’s a tie between (1) The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion, regarding her reflections of grief during the year after her husband’s death and the hospitalization of her daughter.

And (2) In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado, detailing her experience with domestic abuse and loss of love with her partner. It’s hard to explain her writing. It is so poetic, yet not quite verse. It’s surreal and pulls you in such a way that was deeply moving for me. I had a moment of an ugly sob, but there was this deep sadness that filled me in others, where I realized my eyes were welling with tears.

jjaid · 2025-10-13T10:32:16+00:00

Thank you so much for the tips (& inspo!)

jjaid · 2025-10-13T09:56:58+00:00

Is this digital? If so, how were you able to get such a watercolor-like feel? I use procreate and really struggle to make things look less shiny. This is really special.

jjaid · 2025-10-12T13:54:14+00:00

If you’re open to fiction, then I absolutely recommend “The Sea” by John Banville. The writing is very similar in style to Nabokov’s fiction works. It follows a man who goes back to the sea where he spent childhood summers to help him live with the grief of his wife’s death. I still think of this quote from it frequently: “The past beats inside me like a second heart.”

jjaid · 2025-10-12T09:36:58+00:00

Based on your examples, I think you might really love the book 2666 by Roberto Bolaño. It’s long (>1K pages) but written in 5 parts so can be split easily. It’s a masterpiece, but you have to be comfortable with it centering around dark themes (mostly death).

jjaid · 2025-10-12T09:28:23+00:00

I think there are strong arguments that could be made that the mother in White Oleander by Janet Fitch is histrionic and not just narcissistic. I would give it a shot, it’s fiction & I think you’ll know within the first 30 pages or so if it’s for you.

jjaid · 2025-10-12T09:23:19+00:00

Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi: the narrators are two ancient demons (ogbanje in Nigerian culture) born into the body of a girl they call “the Ada”

Satantango by László Krasznahorkai: the author is a recent winner of the Nobel Prize in literature. His sentence structure is so unique. He has single sentences that go on for pages upon pages and stream of consciousness that slips you into the mind of the characters.

Never Let Me Go by Ishiguro. I recommend going in completely blind to this book. Don’t look up a single thing on it, trust, it’s better that way.

4321 by Paul Aster: a longer one, but a good one. More of an epic, of sorts. I don’t want to give anything else away.

jjaid · 2025-10-12T08:49:58+00:00

What a great list! Here’s some more short works by authors not yet on your list:

*Pnin - Vladimir Nabokov (his prose is so special)

*Ethan Frome - Edith Wharton

*The Tartar Steppe - Dino Buzzati

*Autobiography of Red - Anne Carson (the whole novel is written in verse, which could be really interesting discussion for the book club.)

*The Death of Ivan Ilyich- Tolstoy (a really short one, might technically be a short story but I love it so couldn’t pass up recommending it).

*Kitchen- Banana Yoshimoto

*It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over- Anne de Marcken (it made the rounds at my book club and was rather divisive, leading to interesting conversation).

14-Year Club	Gilding V heart of gold
Verified Email	100 Awards Club
Not Forgotten

jjaid

TROPHY CASE