Have you ever thought to yourself, “I wonder what happened after that moderately humorous but ultimately fatuous anecdote that Annaka wrote about on the post calvin that one time?” No? (Fair.) But if you have, read on!

Updates are presented reverse chronologically, in order to save the drama for the end.

An Incomplete List of the Worst Book Covers I’ve Ever Seen

Upon reviewing my selections, a colleague at the library informed me that while the large print edition of Water for Elephants is indeed a calamity built of tiny crises, any list of the most baffling book covers would be incomplete without one entry furnished by the (dare I say?) luminous Ginny Dye. Ginny Dye, author of almost thirty self-published novels, appears to spend the rest of her time running a delightfully confusing website dedicated to her publishing business.

And while we may not share aesthetic sensibilities, I respect Ginny Dye, or at least her unwavering commitment to optimism and, as the kids say, “living her best life.” I dare you to spend five minutes on her website and not feel the same way. While I will likely never read one of her books, I will smile with great befuddlement whenever one crosses my desk.

My Coworker’s Cat Almost Killed Us Both

Since Milo’s fateful encounter with the paper bag, his family has (somewhat miraculously) trusted me with his life two more times. Both were uneventful. That family has grown since then, with the addition of another kitty that wandered into the house last Thanksgiving. Tragically (depending on who you ask), Cap’n Jack and the other one are still alive.

An added benefit(?) of publicly admitting my pet sitting failures: I am now famous. And by that I mean that a patron asked me, “Aren’t you the girl who almost killed Abbey’s cat?” the other day which, I believe, officially makes me a Z-list celebrity. No photos, please.

An Open Letter to My Neighbors

They moved.

It was the loudest thing they ever did while living in that apartment and I question their seeming decision to do it all at 3 a.m., but I’ll hold comment there, lest I turn into a fully fledged version of the get-off-my-lawning old man that I secretly am on the inside.

This would be an appropriate place to wax philosophic about how people you don’t ever see can affect your life in meaningful ways and how the world seems quieter and lonelier when the sonic textures of our lives flatten with the departure of near-but-not strangers like neighbors, but doing so would be a pretentious lie, so… I won’t.

Snail Saga: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

Update 1: Clive emerged from his COVID hibernation last August, during (I kid you not) the Zoom meeting where the post calvin’s former editorial board met with us newbies to share secrets and pass the torch. For a creature that technically does not have a brain, Clive has a great sense of dramatic timing.

Or at least he did, because

Update 2: He’s dead. Since I don’t know how old he was when he arrived, I can’t be sure that he died of natural causes, but that’s the narrative I’m going with, since anything else likely makes me guilty of negligent snailslaughter (again). And that’s not something I think I can live with.

I hope that Clive’s life was meaningful in the meantime, as meaningful as your life can be when you’re a Californian garden snail and some weirdo in Michigan paid eighteen dollars so you could be shipped two thousand miles inside of a tofu container. Because, improbable and cheesy but true, he made my life a bit more meaningful in the meantime.

If heaven exists for snails, may yours be full of organic lettuce.

Annaka Koster

Annaka Koster (’18) graduated from Calvin with majors in English and history and the University of Michigan a couple years later as a “master” of information science. She’s now a public librarian in her hometown. Outside the library, Annaka can be found doing a sundry of nerdy things, including reading comics, playing board games, and mourning her pet snail, Clive.