“I felt strange as soon as the anesthesia started to wear off. The best way I can describe it is that it just felt like my brain was only music, and that everything anybody said to me became musical. All of my thoughts became musical. Every street sign became musical. I couldn’t get my mind into any other mode.” The Wild Story of How Mary Steenburgen Wrote the Best Original Movie Song of the Year. (This is basically my experience, but when the anesthesia started to wear off, everything was headline puns…)

+ From my old friend from our high school newspaper, Carolyn Jones: Oaklanders Learn Reading at the Laundromat.

+ “‘This isn’t a Band-Aid solution,’ said founder Alise Shafer Ivey, a veteran early childhood director from Santa Monica. ‘This isn’t sweetening the day of a child who might be stuck on a mattress in a shelter. Of course we’re sweetening the day of that child, but it’s so much more than that. This is about really setting a trajectory that will have an impact.'” KQED: California Teachers Build a ‘Nest’ for Migrant Kids at the Border.

+ NYT: This Tom Hanks Story Will Help You Feel Less Bad.

+ Hospital surprises Mrs. Rogers with babies in cardigans on World Kindness Day.

+ Raised an only child, Southgate woman, 92, learns she has 19 half siblings. (This Thanksgiving is gonna be a major change!)

+ “You see those stories where somebody was adopted as a kid and they meet their parents years later — it felt somewhat like that, like meeting a long-lost relative.” The day a cancer survivor and his stem cell donor ran into each other at a marathon.

+ Nine-year-old child genius to graduate university. (If we’re gonna have a child for a president, why not this one?)

+ High Schoolers Build Prosthetic Arm for Fellow Student Who Plays Cello.

+ ‘I didn’t want him to hurt anybody,’ says Montrealer who used SUV to protect pedestrians from speeding car.

+ Villagers knit jumpers for Indian elephants to protect the large mammals from near-freezing temperatures.

+ Nike debuts Air Zoom Pulse sneakers for nurses, doctors, and home health providers.

+ Cows swept off island during Hurricane Dorian found after swimming for miles.

+ 4th grader collects bottles to raise money for Operation Smile.

+ This tiny bookstore on wheels brings books to towns whose bookstores have closed—and it’s gorgeous.

+ The world record for standing high jump is pretty impressive.

+ Idaho’s 1st Female Lawmakers Properly Honored Thanks To 11-Year-Old Student.

+ Introducing the Charmin Forever Roll: The Toilet Paper You Didn’t Know You Needed. (Counterpoint: You knew.)