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- Beany Brain #107: Tree-Pulp Vindication! + Who You Gonna Call? + RIP Jason Arday
Beany Brain #107: Tree-Pulp Vindication! + Who You Gonna Call? + RIP Jason Arday
Abigail Munday
August 18, 2026
Beany Brain: loving our jumping-bean brains!
Welcome to this issue of the Beany Brain! I hope today’s newsletter will bounce us up as we contemplate the upsides and challenges of being neurodivergent, a little beauty, some creativity, and just general yeehawesomeness.
Table of Contents
Photo and Water Katakana by Abigail Munday in the London Design Museum
Tree-Pulp Vindication!
Handwriting can help your brain, yo, says this article in Psychology Today (but maybe without the “yo”). (I do appreciate that some folks with certain disabilities do need tablets or screens.)
Just like I sometimes like to have my Kindle handy, especially for paper books that are hard to procure, I enjoy typing on my laptop (and I’m good at it because I actually paid attention and did the work in my high-school typing class, unlike most of the other kids who sat around chatting).
But more than a Kindle, I crave physical books. And more than a blinkin’ screen, I want PAPER to write on.
With a pen.
There are those who might potentially hypothetically poke fun at my penchant for tree pulp.
Well, those folks can just…read the Psychology Today article mentioned above called Why Writing by Hand Is Better for Your Brain: Enhancing brain connectivity and supporting emotional health.
A study shows that:
Handwriting increases brain connectivity.
“[C]ognitive activity like handwriting can enhance brain structure and function and may enhance cognitive reserves.”
I’m sticking with my handwritten journals and my on-paper list-making.
To be honest, I’ve always liked my own handwriting anyway. Snail mail is my jam, too—sending and receiving (thanks, Ms. H, for the beautifully crafted and handwritten postcard last week!).
I’m making a list.
I’m checking it twice.
I’m gonna find out who’s enhancing their cognitive reserves or not.
Ha Ha Haiku
A funny haiku for you every week in every newsletter, whether it’s one of my own or one I curate for you. HA. Ha. Haiku.
Swimming in ocean—
Beautiful biting fishies;
We’re the sashimi.
Photo by Abigail Munday in Prague
Who You Gonna Call?
Do you ever feel like you’ve been run over by a bench?
We have folks in our lives who’ve needed a helping hand to overcome hard things when they’ve felt a heavy weight (or several).
Heck, we’ve needed help ourselves.
But if you have a mental health emergency, there are professional people on standby who care, who are trained, and who can point you to specific resources.
I hope you are fine today. And if you’re not, here are some handy numbers in Japan, the US, and the UK.
We want YOU here. We want you alive. We love you. The world needs you in it. God made you and he wants the best for you.
In Japan (in English):
Chat after 4 PM: https://telljp.com/lifeline/tell-chat/
Tokyo English Lifeline, from 9 AM to 11 PM every day: 03-5774-0992
In the US (these are screenshots so the links won’t actually work):
In the UK:
Vacek Grocery in Prague; photo by Abigail Munday
Yeehawesome!
Yeehawesome! is a happy-brain roundup in each issue of Beany Brain. What’s happening that’s good in brain land? What’s bringing me joy?
“In an era of timed-entry museums and viral photo spots, wandering the aisles of a neighbourhood grocery store feels wonderfully unscripted” (says the BBC in their article “Why travellers are obsessed with foreign supermarkets”). I’ve been doing this since 1996 on my first trip to Mexico, then 1997 in Europe (I bought a pineapple in a grocery store in Munich without considering that I had no way to cut it open). I love Sainsbury’s, Sainsbury’s Local, Lidl, and M&S in my husband’s hometown in the UK. Passing through Incheon in South Korea in April, we had time to leave the airport to go visit a market. Even visiting my parents in Wisconsin and going to their grocery store is fun—I didn’t grow up there and so to me it’s foreign and quirky with things like cheese curds (squeaky!) and kringle (very sweet circular pastry). Before it was a thing in the BBC, I kind of feel like it was my thing.
Photo by Abigail Munday
This seal didn’t want to get her flippers sandy. I completely understand, girlfriend.
Young people with learning disabilities in South Korea met on a TV show. A very sweet story. I appreciate their thoughtfulness toward each other.
Quote of the Week
They swallowed their pills, saying, all three together,
‘Little squiggle, you are clever,
I do not want to grew up ever.’
It was all over. Pippi lit the lamp.
‘Good!’ she said. ‘Now we shan’t have to grow up and have corns and other miseries. Of course, the pills have been in my cupboard for so long that I can’t be quite sure they haven’t lost their goodness. But we must hope for the best.’
Something had just occurred to Annika.
‘But Pippi!’ she cried in dismay. ‘You were going to be a pirate when you grew up!’
‘Oh, I can be a pirate anyway,’ said Pippi. ‘I can be a teeny-weeny ferocious pirate, spreading death and destruction, all the same.’
(from Pippi in the South Seas, by Astrid Lindgren)
Beany Brownie Points and Extra Bonus Funniness
Wonderful Wednesday
Wonderful Wednesday was a day once a year in college when they would suddenly and surprisingly call off all classes and we’d play all day. The cafeteria provided special fun food and we’d do stuff outside like slip ‘n slides and jello wrestling in sumo suits. This segment of Beany Brain is dedicated to that memory of silliness and fun—no words, just a photo from the week that I’ve taken or found that reminds me to let the joy in. Since Beany Brain is published on Wednesday every week (at least, Wednesday in Japan), I hope you enjoy this Wonderful Wednesday.
Selfie by moi, or was it the salaryman UFO?
RIP Jason Arday
You might remember that last year I shared a 5-part series, a review of the BBC Sounds podcast by autistic Cambridge Professor Jason Arday called Beyond Lonely.
I got a lot out of that podcast series, and one thing that was evident was how kind and caring Jason Arday was.
It’s very profoundly sad that he recently was embroiled in a controversy about plagiarism, and this week he was found dead in London at age just 37.
I don’t know what’s true and what isn’t. I do know that Jason Arday felt there was no way out and he is now dead.
What a nightmare for his family and friends.
I am so terribly sad for them.
RIP Jason Arday.
Today’s Beany-full Summary:
Handwriting does good stuff for your brain.
Numbers to call in case you are having a mental health emergency.
RIP Jason Arday, an autistic university professor who died this week.
Go forth in Beany joy. What will help you feel yeehawesome this week?
Thank you for reading this installment of Beany Brain! You’re very welcome to hop on by any old time.
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