sconniemolly

Summer

For those of us who had relatively happy childhoods, or at least scattered pleasant memories of Junes, Julys, and Augusts gone by, I think we are always trying a little bit to recreate the feelings of those good old summers.

Summer is the most sensory-stimulating time of year, for me anyway, and everything I associate with it has a unique smell or taste or sound.

When I was little, on hot summer days when my dad would be mowing the lawn, my mom would encourage me to take him something cold to drink. In most Wisconsin families, that would have meant a sweaty can of Miller Lite or a brown Leinenkugel’s bottle fresh from the refrigerator; in our house, it meant a tall glass of Lipton Iced Tea, in a faded Badgers- or Packers-themed plastic cup, a freebie from some long ago game that became a permanent fixture in our cabinets.

I took my role as Dad’s Refreshment Provider very seriously. No one could make him iced tea like I could. Never mind that it was simply a glass of water vigorously stirred with excessive amounts of iced tea mix and topped with some fat ice cubes. I mean really excessive amounts – I would fill the bottom quarter of the cup with light brown powder that looked like pure sugar. This was the only way it tasted good to me, and if my dad would have preferred something a little less painfully saccharine, he never let on.

I usually made a second glass for myself, but I never ordered iced tea at a restaurant. That is, not after the great mistake of 1995, when my mother and I were at the mall and I stubbornly insisted that the iced tea on sale at the Gloria Jean’s Coffee Shop would taste the same as what I made at home for my dad. Mom tried to tell me that it wouldn’t be nearly as sweet, that it was in fact unsweetened, but I could not be dissuaded. I took one sip, swallowed with a grimace, and marched sullenly over to the side corridor to wash my mouth out with bubbler water, dumping the offending drink in the trash on my way.

The taste is one of those things you chase after in later years, trying to find again, like the perfect pair of jeans you once found on clearance that the brand doesn’t make anymore. It is of a time. For some reason in the last few days I started thinking about the iced tea and hoped, prayed, that maybe I could find it and concoct the same perfect ratio of mix to water to ice cubes. Today, dear reader, I did it. I found the correct type at Target (which wasn’t easy because the canister as I remember it of course isn’t the same color/typeface/graphics as it was in 1995), came home, noted that the recommended amount of mix for 1 glass was 4 tsp, and promptly stirred in 1/4 cup. I don’t have any of the old faded Badgers or Packers plastic cups; I wish I had at least one for sentiment’s sake, but I just have regular water glasses. Anyway, I mixed, I tasted…I was nine again.

What I’m Reading:

“The Song of Achilles” by Madeline Miller, as recommended to me by my friend Kate, who has excellent taste. I don’t really get into mythologies that much, but I’m quite enjoying this tale as told from a very different perspective.
I haven’t been reading as much lately because of my new job, which perhaps I’ll write about next time, but for now I’ll just say I like it a lot and I’m very happy.

What I’m Watching:

Game of Thrones is over, and we all have our feelings. AP Bio has been canceled, because there is no justice in this world. We’ve mostly been watching Always Sunny reruns, but I have ambitions to start the following, with or without V: Pen15, Fleabag, Killing Eve.
We did watch Sleepless in Seattle last night because I had never seen it and I don’t think they let you become a legal resident of Seattle until you have done so. It’s so cute!

What I’m Buying:

Lots of Lipton Iced Tea, I’ll tell you that.
Searching and searching for a proper bridesmaid dress for Michelle’s wedding in September. I am very picky.

What Else I’ve Been Up To:

We spent a few beautiful hours today at Gasworks Park, which boasts incredible views of downtown and Lake Union, reading on a picnic blanket and trying to pet other people’s dogs. It was a truly lovely day.

img_20190527_110221

Back from the road

I’m finally home after a lot of traveling in April. V and I returned Friday afternoon from a weeklong road trip in Canada/Montana. Did you know they don’t stamp your passport when you drive across the Canadian border? What a ripoff. The views sort of made up for it though.

I think the longest “road trip” we had previously taken together was our drives to Detroit from Madison, which is a respectable 7-8 hour journey, but different from this obviously. We did well! We ate like absolute crap – sodas and candy galore – which we are now paying for, but I have no regrets. We snowshoed! We walked across frozen Lake Louise and saw a lady carrying a cat who seemed perfectly happy to be there! He ate an elk burger! We both tried the float tank experience (me in Vancouver and he in Missoula)! I bought the most gorgeous DVF-style wrap dress at a vintage shop in Missoula, which I only allowed myself to buy because I will soon have somewhere to wear it!

Yes, friends, the time has come – after almost a year and a half of funemployment/dog-walking/freelance writing, I’m headed back to full-time work. Next week I will start at a Seattle communications agency that works with nonprofits. It’s actually a temporary position, for the summer, but could extend past that if things go well…and I really hope they do. It’s a new direction for me but one where I’ll be able to write, and that’s kind of my #1 criteria in a job these days. I’m still going to freelance on the side when inspiration strikes – I have a couple of ideas currently in the works that I of course can’t share anything about yet, lest they be jinxed.

And speaking of writing…I’m grieving the passing of Rachel Held Evans today. Like most authors, Rachel wasn’t properly “famous” in a Hollywood kind of way; pretty much the only people who know her name are those who engage in online religious debate. She was, honestly, kind of a role model for me in a faith that has felt less and less welcoming over the years. She believed in a lot of the things I believed in and still held on, still showed up, in her own way and true to her own principles. She wasn’t afraid to debate the conservative old guard and she really knew her shit. Some conservative institutions dismissed and denigrated her as exactly the sort of weak-kneed, liberal, “cafeteria” Christian that they love to rage against and point to as evidence of modern faith’s decline. But they couldn’t have been more wrong. If you look at Twitter today, there are countless tributes from people grieving her loss – people who were pushed out of the church or marginalized by it or abused in it or who otherwise did not think they had a place in it – because Rachel showed them that maybe, just maybe the church’s many, many fuck-ups weren’t God’s and it could be possible to separate the two.

All that I had in common with her aside – we blonde millennial #exvangelical feminists – she was just a great writer and an inspiration in that regard, too.

It’s so cruel. She was only 37 and she had two little kids and a husband…why her, why now?

I’ve been asking the same questions of God about one of my very best friends, who will soon be undergoing radiation and chemotherapy in the aftermath of getting a brain tumor removed. She’s 32, and fucking brilliant and ambitious and kind and inclusive and multidimensional and complicated and beautiful and as long as I’ve known her – almost 20 years – I’ve known that she would do incredible things. She already has. I’m really angry at God for putting this shit in her path. I know she will fight through it, because she is a badass with a wide and deep network of support, but she shouldn’t fucking have to in the first place.

So if you are a person who prays, please pray for my friend, who is really my sister.

***

What I’m Reading:

I think I took four books on vacation with me and returned with…eight? That’s normal, right? Shakespeare & Co. in Missoula is an absolute dream. I came home with this t-shirt, featuring the lovely John Waters quote, to add to my bookstore apparel collection. I also bought there, and am currently in the middle of, How to Break Up With Your Phone. Because God knows I need to and you do too.
We visited a few bookstores in Vancouver as well, which we would have done regardless but it was Independent Bookstore Day last Saturday so it was even more obligatory. Vancouver has some messy (McLeod’s) and neat (Indigo) ones.

What I’m Watching:

At the recommendation of my SIL Nat, we started Made In Heaven on Amazon today and are already HOOKED. Gimme all that desi drama!

What I’m Eating:

Starting tomorrow, after we devour the RASPBERRY RACINE KRINGLE that the Trader Joe’s gods have bestowed upon us (!!!!!), we’re getting back on the healthy wagon. I need to fit into that cute wrap dress.

jaggery & neem

Last week was Ugadi, which is the New Year celebration in Karnataka (where my husband is from). He and I don’t usually do much to celebrate festivals or holidays, though I wish we did. We happened to have made dinner plans with a good friend of V’s mom, who lives in Seattle. She actually introduced V’s parents and is the sister of V’s dad’s brother’s wife – so, she’s family, and really the only family we have here.

Prema Aunty made us a classic thali-style feast of sambhar, pappadum, rasam, chapatis, black eyed peas, and kaseri bath. I wished her happy Ugadi and she told me that traditionally the holiday is celebrated by ceremoniously eating a combination of jaggery, which is sweet, along with some neem leaves, which are bitter. Sometimes in your own random portion, you get a larger amount of jaggery and sometimes you get a larger amount of neem. This is symbolic of what we should expect, and greet with equanimity, from life: a mix of sweet and bitter circumstances. (I’m sure I didn’t explain this very well, but Google is there for you if you’d like to learn more.)

This year is not even half gone, but it’s already brought a bounty of both ingredients. It’s hardly a novel idea, and most cultures have idioms to the same effect – “look on the bright side!” “there’s a silver lining in every cloud!” – but given recent events, it sort of resonated with me more strongly than I would have expected. The “greet with equanimity” part reminded me of V’s dad; he was always the picture of Zen, no matter what. It could have been a year full of nothing but neem and he would still find things to be joyful about. And in the jaggery times, no one smiled bigger or laughed harder. It wasn’t just an attitude of “be positive”. He carried himself like a person who understood that neither good times nor bad times last forever, and who possessed the sort of spirit that could withstand any bitterness while relishing every sweetness. I aspire to be such a person.

***

I’m going back to Wisconsin a week from tomorrow for 5 days and I can’t wait to see my family, biological and otherwise.

***

We switched insurance providers beginning April 1, so there are officially no real barriers standing between us and starting IVF, except of course my own fear of picking up the phone and getting the ball rolling. I need to get over myself and just do it. By the time I blog again I will have at least made the call, and then we’ll be on our way to daily injections and super fun side effects and embryo testing and major anxiety and all that jazz. CAN’T WAIT.

***

After that great meal at Prema Aunty’s, we were craving more Indian food, so on Saturday we went to a dosa place in Issaquah. It was…magnificent. As much as it pains me that paneer is not really a big thing in south India, dosas come very very close to making up for it. V’s mom is visiting in August, and this time I SWEAR TO GOD I will finally really learn how to make them. We BOTH will.

dosas jaggery, personified

What I’m Reading:

I gave up on King Leopold’s Ghost and spent a few days on Miriam Toews’ Women Talking. It was okay, but sort of tedious.
I’ve moved on now to Shane Bauer’s American Prison, which is the book-length story that grew out of his Mother Jones article of a few years ago. Surprise: prisons are fucked up! Private prisons are *really* fucked up!

What I’m Eating:

Crap, mostly, tbh. I’ve made one or two genuinely healthy meals in the last several days but mostly it’s been cereal, bread, pasta, and sugar. God that looks even worse in print than in my Fitbit log. Who am I kidding…I haven’t been actually logging anything for weeks.

What I’m Watching:

We bought the current season of Schitt’s Creek since it isn’t streaming anywhere yet because we really missed it. David and Patrick are everything.
The last season of Game of Thrones, for obvious reasons.

What I’m Fuming About:

Our landlord, or more specifically, the property manager. It is too stupid to even get into but I am on the warpath.
Why is basic economy even a thing?? Airlines are like “this is for our more cost-conscious customers” like that isn’t fucking everybody but the .01%. Your cost-conscious customers don’t want to pay $315 to fly from Seattle to Madison without getting a seat assignment OR any overhead space because it’s not like $315 is any kind of bargain when you can pay $50 more to have the goddamn overhead space! You know I’m going to spend that extra $50! Why are you like this????

kere-the-charges-are-correct-sir-the-airline-36277854

I went to a house party in Portland with strangers…?

I did the first leg shaving of spring today, and I feel glorious.

Last week I was in Portland for several days for the AWP conference. I took Amtrak by myself and stayed at an Airbnb by myself (for a couple days, until V joined me). The conference itself was good, I learned some helpful things, and it was nice to just be in the company of so many writers.

Initially when I’d been creating my schedule of sessions I wanted to attend, I was a little disappointed by how few names of presenters/panelists I recognized. Where was Roxane Gay, Celeste Ng, Lindy West, Samantha Irby? I mean, they’re all super successful, so I don’t know why I thought they would deign to be at a conference in Portland. But I was pleasantly surprised by so many people I wasn’t previously familiar with. Only a couple of sessions featured an author I knew, but at each one of them I discovered several new writers to follow and learn from. It made me realize that there are actually a lot of ways to be a successful writer, and the NYT Bestseller List (just as an example) isn’t necessarily the end-all, be-all. Similarly, at the conference’s book fair, I realized that there is an incredible number of small presses out there – meaning Simon & Schuster, Random House, et al are not the only games in town. Of course they are the most well-known and can probably provide the biggest book advances, but they aren’t the only options when looking to get an agent and publish a book. That’s still a ways off for me, but it was a cool thing to discover.

You know it was a struggle for me to be social at a thing like this. It really, really was. After a very hectic and overwhelming Day 1 on Thursday, I stayed in and didn’t go to any of the offsite events or parties that were happening, though I followed them on Twitter and berated myself for sitting in the Airbnb and watching Selling Sunset. So on Friday night I told myself I would go somewhere. I ended up at a bar where two literary websites were both celebrating their 10th anniversaries, and where I knew a few of the writers I Twitter-stalk would be. The first hour or so was rough, for partly this reason:

Honestly, how is this supposed to work? I couldn’t decide if the sign was meant to be sarcastic or not because literally how else do you get a drink at a crowded bar. Lines make the world a semi-civilized place. So of course it was anarchy. But eventually I got my vodka lemonade, and on round two, a vodka cranberry. I’m nothing if not predictable at the bar.

I didn’t talk to anyone and no one talked to me for that first hour. I was annoyed about it and decided to avail myself of the chocolate cake on the premises, going outside to sit on a picnic table alone among several twosomes and threesomes and foursomes having gay old times. A girl who looked about my age was also sitting by herself, and so after awhile my two drinks had given me that blessed “ah, fuck it” courage to invite her to sit with me and chat. Reader, you should be so proud of me. We had a great chat and I ended up following her and a few of her friends to a “house party” of sorts in southeast Portland, where I played soccer in the backyard with a 4-year-old child before V arrived in town to whisk me away. It was the kind of weird little adventure I haven’t had in so so many years.

So it was a good trip.

***

I’m terrible at segues.

***

One of my best friends was diagnosed last week with a brain tumor. She’s having surgery tomorrow for it to be removed. I’m going home to be with her in a couple of weeks, dates TBD. She’s strong. She’s brave. We have every reason to be optimistic, and I am. Just also at an entire loss for words. She’s my sister in every sense of the word, always one of my biggest cheerleaders. So I’m going to be hers.

What I’m Reading:

One of those lesser-known authors I discovered at AWP was Tyrese Coleman, and I finished her How To Sit in one…sitting (sorry). It was breathtaking.
Now onto one I’ve been meaning to get to for awhile after hearing it recommended on one of my favorite podcasts, Keep It: King Leopold’s Ghost.

What I’m Watching:

Tonight we finished season 4 of Schitt’s Creek. I simply can’t recommend it highly enough. Everyone in it is a fucking genius. We don’t deserve Catherine O’Hara. Or Eugene Levy. Or Dan Levy. Or Annie Murphy.

david schitts creek

What I’m Looking Forward To:

Game of Thrones returning in a couple weeks
Avengers: Endgame, obvs
V and I are going to take a road trip at the end of April (Vancouver, Banff, Montana) and we’ve planned so little of it, on purpose, to just go and explore do whatever we like.

Brain tabs

I’ve had the same four tabs open on my Chromebook since New Years Day. A GQ article on the HBO show Succession, which I want to try watching but V doesn’t so it has languished; NPR’s Best Books of 2018 monster list, which I’m still picking my way through; a slideshow from Redbook called “25 Solo Vacations For Women“; and a spreadsheet tracking my paltry 2018 income for tax purposes. I just closed that one, because our taxes are done now, but I don’t want to close any of the others, because in my mind closing a tab = closing the subject in my brain. My brain is very literal like that.

The solo trip keeps getting postponed. Not officially, because I’ve made zero decisions or plans for it, but every time I apply for a Real Job (which I am still doing, albeit not terribly often), I think about how I need to get my ass in gear already because what if I do get a Real Job? Then I’m back in the weeds of vacation days and PTO and out-of-office emails, which are currently, blessedly irrelevant to me. I just need to pick a place and a time and make the damn plans, but I think I am subconsciously a little anxious about it. I would’ve done it already if I wasn’t. I’m not overly concerned about safety – I worry more about like, if I’ll be bored. But if I make enough plans, that shouldn’t happen. I just need to go somewhere that has a lot to see and do.

Two weekends ago, we spontaneously did a 24-hour Portland trip. I am, of course, going there again at the end of this month for #AWP19 (Association of Writing Programs 2019 conference), and that is sort of going to be my baby step solo trip. I’m taking Amtrak (a first!) down there on a Wednesday, doing the conference Thurs-Sat, and V is going to drive down to join me Friday night or Saturday morning. So it’s a half-solo trip, I guess. That will be a trial run. But I think the conference will keep me plenty busy so there’s not much danger of getting bored. Anyway, our little 24-hour trip was a good introduction to the city. Portland and Seattle seem to have a weird sibling-rivalry relationship that as a PNW outsider, I don’t fully understand, but I think it’s sort of like Madison and Milwaukee. Places that attract similar people; places that have a major influence on the rest of the state, which the rest of the state is not very happy about; places that are a lot more alike than they are different, leading to inevitable comparisons – I see some parallels. We didn’t see much of the city outside downtown, but there were some very pretty views of Mt. Hood. Not quite comparable to the views we have here of Mt. Rainier and the Cascades…like, everywhere you look…but that’s my Seattle bias.

portland seattle meme — *I imagine it is something like this.*

What I’m Reading:

I finished two books this week: “The Byline Bible” by Susan Shapiro and “Leaving the Witness” by Amber Scorah. I won’t get into the latter, because I actually want to pitch a review of it to Ploughshares, but I did receive an ARC (advanced readers copy) and let me tell you, I feel VERY important. The Byline Bible was great freelancing advice. If anyone is qualified to give it, it’s Susan Shapiro – she’s been published every-damn-where. I learned a lot and wisely bought it instead of getting it from the library, so I can refer back to it as needed.
I’m now reading Stephanie Land’s “Maid” and I’m less than 100 pages in but GOD, it’s heartbreaking. The book is about a single mom doing odd jobs to make ends meet, barely escaping homelessness, for herself and her daughter. The author’s own family of origin isn’t exactly the focus, but I learned enough to once again be extremely grateful for the healthy and loving family environment I grew up in. I don’t know what it’s like to live without a safety net, and I have so much admiration for people who persevere and beat the odds. Not a “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” kind of moralistic story, but simply people with difficult backgrounds overcoming them and blazing their own trail.

What I’m Watching:

I watched the first half of Leaving Neverland, and don’t know if I can bring myself to watch the second half. It is extremely rough viewing.
Captain Marvel was sooo good! I’m still working on forgiving Brie Larson for Basmati Blues, but we’re getting there.

What I’m Eating:

Dinner tonight is probably naan pizza. I’m trying to be good; I bought the wheat naan at QFC.

What I’m Writing:

Or perhaps more accurately, What I’m Getting Published. I do have a new piece in the March issue of BRAVA (page 23 in the digital magazine). Fingers and toes and arms and legs crossed for something else soon.

Extras:

We won $0.61 each on HQ last night! Because V is a Game of Thrones encyclopedia.
I have rose gold-ish hair again!

rose gold hair

#Snowmageddon2019

We’re on day 4 of #SeattleSnowpocalypse2019. V and I left the house on Saturday by foot to get supplies at Trader Joe’s (sugar, mainly – forgot the goddamn milk) but other than that, we’ve been totally housebound. I learned my lesson from the first snowstorm a week ago, when I tried driving to one of my Wag walks in Fremont. I eventually made it there, but not without some seriously scary sideways spinning down 4th Avenue North. On the hills that don’t get much sun, you’re pretty much screwed.

It’s not normally like this here, or so I’ve gathered from stalking various Seattle weather blogs over the last week or two. Figures the most snow in 50 years would occur in our first Seattle winter.

I don’t know if I’m stir-crazy or if I’ve already drained any talent I had or what, but I’ve had a really hard time writing just about anything for like a month. I’ve applied for a couple of full-time writing-adjacent jobs, one of which I learned today I didn’t get. So I kind of just moped around the apartment and did laundry and made oatmeal Raisinet cookies, because sugar is my preferred coping mechanism. The first couple of days into #snowpocalypse I started Marie Kondo-ing the shit out of everything I could: my bookcases, the kitchen cabinets, my clothes. I replaced my janky mismatched collection of plastic and wire hangers with a sleek matching set that takes up less space and now my closet looks like a dream. But there’s only so much decluttering and tidying one can do before one looks around and feels very very spent. Satisfied, but spent.

The stir-craziness has also led me to keep fantasizing about the solo trip I want to take. I can’t decide where to go, but I want to do it fairly soon. There are so many people I’d love to visit, but honestly, I don’t really want this trip to be about visiting friends or family. Kind of defeats the purpose of going solo and trying to be independent. So I’ve been brainstorming places where I don’t really know anyone. I’m currently considering Santa Fe, NM; Savannah, GA/Charleston, SC; and San Diego. Warm places. Sunny places.

We are probably going to begin IVF in a couple of months. We’ll be fortunate enough to have some insurance coverage for it soon, so it sort of makes sense to give it a shot (oh and there will be shots). I’ve given more thought to adoption as well. Today I finished Nicole Chung’s All You Can Ever Know, which was a super popular and highly celebrated memoir last year, about her experience growing up as a Korean adoptee to white parents. It’s all so very complicated, the questions of identity and belonging that come with adoption, especially when it is transracial. I expect that if we do adopt someday, it will be from India, but who knows. There are so many variables and questions and hazards – ethical adoption is not necessarily the default.

What I’m Reading:

Before Nicole Chung’s book, I read and loved Abbi Jacobson (Broad City)’s I Might Regret This. Her essays are actually centered around a solo road trip, which has obviously been inspiring some of my daydreaming. I don’t particularly want to drive across the country for my journey, but she did make it sound like a lot of fun and adventure. I’m not even the biggest Broad City stan, but I like Abbi and her voice a lot.

What I’m Watching:

We’ve begun Schitt’s Creek, which is so far pretty good, but neither V nor I can really see where it’s going to go for the 5 seasons we know it has. Maybe that’s a good thing? Nonetheless, I’ll take most any excuse to watch Catherine O’Hara, Eugene Levy, and Eugene Levy’s eyebrows play fishes out of water.

eugene levy

Also watched the first episode of Russian Doll, because I keep hearing great things, but it didn’t really *grab* me so I don’t know if we’ll continue. Again though, any excuse to listen to Natasha Lyonne’s gravelly voice.

What I’m Buying:

These are the hangers I bought for my closet. They’ll change your life. They’re on clearance. They are not paying me to say this. You can thank me later.

What I’m Listening To:

Isis snoring. And V watching some video on his phone. And the high-pitched humming sound that comes from Lake Union a couple times per hour for no clear reason and whose origin has been hotly debated on our neighborhood’s NextDoor. And the very, very quiet sound of snow turning into sleet.

balcony snow — our balcony, around 3:00pm today

20-shine-teen, let’s do this

*Big hug from me to you if you get the title reference.

What can you even say about 2018 that hasn’t already been said?

First of all, I suppose I can address a personal failing: I did not meet my Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 70 books. I managed 57, which is definitely lower than most recent years. But…I kind of had some other shit going on? I’d like to say my count was lower because I read a bunch of really long, Serious Books, but that wouldn’t be true. I was just busy.

Busy doing what, Molly? YOU HAVEN’T EVEN HAD A FULL TIME JOB FOR OVER A YEAR NOW.

Well, that is correct. But I have nonetheless had a fulfilling year…

I visited France in February, Door County in May, India in July, and Seattle a couple times in July and August before the move.

I helped out Sabrina Madison for awhile in the spring, pitching in to organize the Black Women’s Leadership Conference and other Progress Center for Black Women initiatives. She is a brilliant dynamo and exactly what the city of Madison needs.

I was given the opportunity to begin contributing to BRAVA Magazine and have had three pieces published so far, with one hopefully coming soon. I framed the first story and my first check from them and it’s on the wall in our living room right in front of the chair I sit in to write.

When a bunch of dumbass Baraboo boys made international news for being dumbass racists, I was fucking mad, and wrote about it for Refinery29. As shitty as that whole situation was and is, the article is probably my proudest accomplishment of the year.

I took a few writing classes at Seattle’s Hugo House that definitely improved my skills and introduced me to a vibrant community of talented local wordsmiths.

I maintained another year of vegetarianism and welcomed V to the meatless tribe, though the credit for that really goes to his mother and not me.

I bought a *lot* of books, despite there being no more bookshelf space in our apartment, and despite my flirtation with minimalism that occurred post-move.

Yeah, I moved. I moved to the West Coast, to a city I’d vacationed in twice but didn’t really know that well, because my husband got the kind of job opportunity that you don’t turn down. Even though we’d bought a house just two years ago, and probably 85% of all the people we loved in the world were in Wisconsin or the greater Midwest, and we loved Madison…we took the chance, and I’m glad we did. If we hadn’t, I know we’d be wondering What If and kicking ourselves for being too chickenshit to make a change. Seattle is sometimes amazing and sometimes bleak, but honestly, so is Madison – so is pretty much everywhere.

I haven’t actually discussed this on Facebook or anything yet, but a month or so ago I started walking dogs with Wag. It began to seem kind of like a no-brainer: I was always going for walks, and swooning over dogs wherever we went, and Seattle literally has more dogs than children, and I wanted to earn a little money again without going back to a 9-5. It’s been…interesting! Largely positive. I love that I get to do it whenever I want to, and never when I don’t want to. I’ve met a lot of adorable puppers and some real characters among them – an elderly blind and deaf terrier named Oliver who refused to let me put on his sweater when it was pouring rain; a sorta sharpei/pug mix named Wally who puked three times and had diarrhea once on our first walk; a nervous little Maltese boy named Henry who was deathly afraid of the black tiles in his building’s lobby and required being carried over them. And I’ve found a few favorites that I try to walk whenever they show up on the app.

you-wanna-go-for-a-walk-memes-every-dogs-favorite-6947834

As it’s been over a year now since losing my job, I have begun to get slightly more comfortable with the idea that I do not have to have a 9-5 full time job to be a Worthwhile and/or Normal Person. There are lots of ways to live life. I’m not saying I’ll never have one again – I really hope I do, if only for my retirement’s sake, Jesus – but I’m working through all my ~feelings~ surrounding being pretty much the only non-parent I know that doesn’t have full time employment.

Ah yes, the non-parent thing. Infertility has remained an unwelcome presence in our lives. My body thus far stubbornly refuses to get pregnant naturally or…technologically. I don’t remember how many cycles of IUI we did in 2018, but we are taking a different path in 2019. As much as I wanted to avoid it, our best option at this point appears to be in vitro fertilization, which we will probably begin in the spring. More on that to come later, surely.

Let’s talk about 2019. I have goals.

Take a solo trip, or trips. I sort of have one planned – AWP in Portland in March – but V is joining me there after the conference is over so I’m not sure it totally counts. Regardless, I’m going to do that and I’d like to plan another.
Begin and maintain a yoga practice. Maybe just once a week, but regularly.
Buy less stuff.
Eat less dairy and less sugar. Notice I said “eat less” not “eliminate”…I’m just not ready to do that and I don’t want to set myself up for failure. But I don’t think my body appreciates my very very frequent consumption of those two things, and it has been letting me know via new bouts of cystic acne and digestive pain! I don’t know how I’m going to measure this, exactly. I already track my meals and stuff with the Fitbit app, but it’s not really set up for anything but a basic food diary. Suggestions welcomed.
Pitch at least one piece every month.
Go somewhere warm and sunny in the spring when Seattle Bleakness reaches its grayest apex.

A lot of people are annoyingly too cool for the ritual of setting goals at the beginning of a calendar year – as if it is somehow news to those of us who participate that January 1st is entirely arbitrary and calendars are arbitrary and time is meaningless. It’s as good a time as any to set new goals. I enjoy it, and I like seeing other people do it too.

The 2018 Nagappala Book Awards

I wanna do a 2018 roundup post too, but first things first: the glorious year-end book superlatives you’ve come to know and love, the Nagappala Book Awards – also known, of course, starting now, as the NBAs.

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(As always, these are books I read in 2018, not necessarily books published in 2018.)

Favorite Fiction:

Children of Blood and Bone, by Tomi Adeyemi. As I wrote already, I had low expectations going in with this one because it’s pretty outside my usual genres. Sometimes that pays off though, and this is definitely a case in point. It’s YA, but not like “kiddie” YA – there’s violence and like, a little heavy petting. It was cool to read a fantasy book centered in Africa, with an all-African main cast of characters, in a story with heavy tribal folklore themes. We just don’t get much of that in the US book market.
An American Marriage, by Tayari Jones. This is an Oprah’s Book Club pick, but don’t let that color your impression too much one way or the other. It’s just a really solid novel: a young black couple with everything going for them, wrenched apart by a wrongful conviction that sends the husband to prison for several years, and what happens when people who love each other have to live separate lives. You hear a fair amount these days (though really, still not enough) about the racism that permeates our criminal justice system and you get kind of a fresh perspective on that here.
To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before, by Jenny Han. TATBILB, of course, was adapted into a crazy popular Netflix movie this fall and I found it one of those rare occasions where the movie lived up to the book. Guys, it’s just so fucking cute. It is literally the perfect antidote to everything that sucked about 2018. I admit that I am semi-embarrassed that 2 of my top 3 favorite fictions this year are YA, but it was just that kind of year.

Favorite Nonfiction:

Educated, by Tara Westover. This is at the top of a *lot* of people’s 2018 lists and I hate to be such a sheep but…it’s just that good, okay? Tara Westover’s story is really unlike any I’d ever read. There’s definitely strong Mormon fundamentalism in her family, but there have been a lot of books in that vein; this is different, it just goes in a lot of other weirder and less expected directions. Her determination and grit is something to behold.
Bad Stories, by Steve Almond. I took a Hugo House class with Steve Almond this fall, which was incredible (partly because Marie Semple was also in it, and we were a group of only like 10 people, and she told me that she used to write episodes of 90210! It was a very big day for me). I picked up this book at Elliott Bay shortly after the class and I recommend it to anyone who feels the need to mentally parse out the whys of the 2016 presidential election. There was Russian interference, yes, we know now, but it was also the bad stories that we have been telling ourselves as a country for hundreds of years. Stories about who belongs here and who doesn’t; what jobs are worthy of respect; what a leader of the US should be like. It’s not long but it says a hell of a lot.
The Heart Is A Shifting Sea: Love And Marriage In Mumbai, by Elizabeth Flock. This is the kind of journalism that just blows my mind. Elizabeth Flock sort of embedded with these three married couples in Mumbai over a period of years. The access she got is just insane. Who wants to tell a stranger the most intimate details of their marriage, especially when that stranger is going to write a goddamn book about it all? So all of that is impressive on its own, but each couple is a fascinating portrait of modern relationships in India (at least, in India’s version of Los Angeles).

Most Disappointing Fiction:

The Spy, by Paulo Coelho. Mata Hari is a super interesting historical figure, but this imagining of her life just fell way flat for me. Coelho’s style also just may not be to my taste. Pretty cover art, though.

Most Disappointing Nonfiction:

Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood. Memoirs about bizarre family members can be hit or miss. Probably no one does it better than David Sedaris. Augusten Burroughs also has some damn memorable relatives. In Priestdaddy, Patricia Lockwood’s dad is on the eccentric side – a rare married-with-kids Catholic priest who likes to walk around semi-naked and talk about guns – but he’s no Sharon or Amy Sedaris. Take away the priesthood and her father is not terribly dissimilar from a lot of midwestern dads. Again, just didn’t do it for me.

The One I Wish I’d Written:

All The Lives I Want, by Alana Massey. God, this was brilliant. A book of essays on famous women by whom the culture at large is fascinated or disgusted or in awe: Anna Nicole Smith, Nicki Minaj, Scarlett Johansson, and many more. This is one I need to reread to absorb as much as I can for my future work because Alana Massey writes like how I want to.

Most Obnoxious:

Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar, by Cheryl Strayed. I have also mentioned this before, but I’m not a member of the Cheryl Strayed fan club. The thing about her is that, while this is a book of advice columns, aka people asking for help with their problems, Cheryl Strayed always makes it about Cheryl Strayed. Somebody wants help with getting over a lost lover? Cheryl Strayed has been there. Oh God, has she been there. Cheryl Strayed went through the same thing once when she was coked up out of her mind on a dirty hotel floor with a guy she just met on the highway. And now she’s gonna tell you all about it and make the last two paragraphs of the column semi-relevant to your issue. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t talk shit about other writers. But you can’t like everybody and it’s not personal.

Most Pure Uncomplicated Fun:

Where’d You Go, Bernadette? by Maria Semple. So like I said, I met Maria Semple earlier this year, but I didn’t even know who she was at the time. The name sort of rang a bell but I didn’t put it together with this very popular novel. Anyway, I really enjoyed WYGB, and not just because it’s set in literally my very own neighborhood in Seattle. Queen Anne culture is satirized to hell and back and it is wickedly funny.
To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before AND P.S. I Still Love You, by Jenny Han. That’s right, the original and the sequel. I still need to read the third. I wasn’t convinced that the magic could be replicated but it’s really just as good as TATBILB. They are both the equivalent of a fuzzy bathrobe and big bowl of ice cream (without the tummy ache).

Did you hate the ones I loved? Loved the ones I hated? Want to set me straight on how fabulous Cheryl Strayed really is? Let me know, friends. My 2018 reflections are gonna have to wait until January 1st. I have more wine to drink and more Parks & Rec to watch.

new years 2018

Home for the Holidays

Gas stations where I’d fill up for 99 cents a gallon on our endless slow country drives, soundtracked by Dashboard Confessional and Alanis Morissette

Playgrounds and parks where I’d go to make out and swap secrets and talk for hours with boys

The strip club on the highway, which we’d pass sometimes on the bus coming or going for baseball or football games and the boys would all pound on the windows and holler (I was a manager)

The historic theater where I danced with enthusiastic mediocrity in a recital every June for over a decade

The 2 year college where I spent 1 troublesome year licking my wounds over not getting into the only 4 year college I cared about

The apartment I lived in that 1 troublesome year, less than a mile from the house I grew up in, where I began a subscription to Newsweek and Us Weekly just to get some real mail, where we drank apple cider out of champagne glasses just because, and where the rent was $600

The nail salon where I got my first and last French tip manicure, to be a bridesmaid at the shotgun wedding of a church friend

My old dentist’s office with the most gorgeous view of the bluffs

The funeral home that not too many years ago held the visitation for my first love’s sister, who taught me how to throw up my meals but also how to give fewer fucks

The cemetery where literally no one I know is buried but for which my old church is named

That church that I was born into, where I was baptized at 11, and stopped attending at 16, and left for good at 22 without an ounce of regret

The house I grew up in, which looks exactly the same now but for a different, blander color paint on the garage doors and an incongruous and lonesome white wicker rocking chair on the icy basement patio

Our old neighbors, whose kid in my grade was inexplicably more popular than me, and who hosted a party in middle school to which I wasn’t invited but my two best friends were and to which I expected them to decline attendance in solidarity with me, but they did not

The high school, of course the high school, where I had my first real kiss and failed algebra and hung out by my locker every morning with my friends and scored rather averagely on the ACT

The Dairy Queen that is now a Mexican restaurant; the K-Mart that became a Sears that became nothing at all for a long time and then finally became a U-Haul; the Wal-Mart that became a Slumberland when the Wal-Mart Supercenter opened up a couple miles south; the liquor store where I once used my fake ID that became a Burger King that became a Kwik Trip

The house of the kid I babysat one summer, who grew up to be a juvenile delinquent and eventually an actual criminal (albeit guilty mainly of drug-related offenses, but it can’t have helped that I let him graffiti the driveway one boring Tuesday) (and by “let” I mean I was busy reading or something and it just kinda happened)

*****

I’ve got nothing more profound to say than I just have a lot of memories here, and I’m very fortunate that the vast majority of them are good, or at least aren’t awful, and that’s something a lot of people can’t say. Sorry for the emo nostalgia.

I’ll write the Nagappala Book Awards tomorrow or Monday. Don’t think I forgot.

~real~ness

Oh, well, hello there. Guess it’s been a minute.

A couple of weeks ago Baraboo was in the news. You probably read about it or at least saw the photo on Twitter – there’s no reason for me to post it again here. Those stupid idiot kids made me so angry and as I was thinking about what I could possibly do to renounce it, I decided to pitch an article about it to a few news outlets. A couple passed, but I ended up placing it with Refinery29 and really couldn’t be happier with how that all went; the editors were super nice and helpful and gave good edits. It was funny because I was literally in the middle of taking an online course through Catapult about how to pitch when the Baraboo story broke, and so before the final meeting I was like “GUYS! I did it! It worked!”

So I’m proud of that. It’s my most “prestigious” byline so far and, forgive the vulgar mention of writerly compensation, paid well. I also registered myself for the Association of Writers and Writing Programs conference in March, which makes me feel even more like a ~real~ writer. I haven’t been to a professional conference in a few years, and it’s sort of weird when you’re doing it all on your own instead of through an employer. It’s in Portland, which is quite convenient. I’m hoping to connect with some #Binders from Twitter (women and nonbinary writers group) and whoever else wants to be my friend. I don’t have enough writer friends.

My parents visited the weekend before Thanksgiving. Not embarrassed to say I’ve never been so happy to see them in my life. It was also my first time “hosting” them, for consecutive days, in my own home – I’d like to think I did an okay job at it. Mom taught me how to make pie – apple and pumpkin – and we feasted on roasted sweet potato salad, popovers, mashed potatoes, and elote corn pudding. V and I had a ball showing them our favorite places – Green Lake, Portage Bay Cafe (that one’s just my fave), Cupcake Royale, Lincoln Park, the lovely Metropolitan Market. Which is really just a super bougie grocery store that has in-fucking-credible fresh chocolate chip cookies.

About 3.5 months into Seattle life, I’ve found a therapist with whom I think I click well enough and who checks my arbitrary demographic boxes (within 20 years of my age, female). We’re going to talk a lot about my ~feelings~ regarding my career and where I’m at right now (am I a ~real~ writer? shouldn’t I have a full-time job? am I just lazy? is this all really just late-stage capitalism’s fault? what is all this guilt I feel?), and the infertility stuff, and my general anxiety/depression that is currently pretty well-managed by medication but is also made easier to bear when I have the ear of a person who has no stake in my life and can just point out the connecting threads that I don’t see on my own.

Speaking of psychiatric help, we’ve put Isis on a small dose of Prozac to hopefully make her stop gnawing off all her tummy and leg fur. It’s going to take awhile to start working, but for some reason it’s already had the effect of her no longer sleeping in our bed at night. I’m totally 100% fine with that. Really. Doesn’t make me the least bit sad or concerned. She’s fine, I’m fine, it’s all very very fine.

What I’m Reading:

Just finished “Children of Blood and Bone” by Tomi Adeyemi and thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s YA, so there’s that, and it’s also probably best categorized as fantasy, so it’s definitely not my usual cup of tea. Roxane Gay wrote a good review of it though, and her word is basically enough for me to try just about anything. I loved the world-building. It’s a common enough “kids on a dangerous quest” kind of format, with a lot of magic and some quirky/arguably unnecessary ancillary characters, but the protagonist and her motley crew are fully realized and fun to root for.
This article I wish I’d written on yoga as the new country club in American society. Centered on a white yoga instructor’s bastardization of “namaste” into a jokey pun, it’s the sort of cultural appropriation that seems really innocuous on the surface but has layers of white supremacy and upper-class entitlement underneath. Fave line: “the question should not be ‘How can I do what I want?’ but ‘Why do I think I have a right to what I want?'”

What I’m Watching:

We just got through “Homecoming” on Amazon Prime. It was good – and really nice to see Julia Roberts on the small screen, looking decidedly not glamorous – but I wouldn’t say great. Bobby Cannavale though…is really something.
Saw a bunch of movies over the Thanksgiving holiday week – Ralph Breaks the Internet, Widows, and Creed II. Don’t waste your time on Ralph (even though the previous movie was cute), Viola is straight-up incredible in Widows, and Creed II is pretty much scene-for-scene exactly what you expect it to be but is nonetheless enjoyable.

What I’m Buying:

New category, because I like shopping and I like talking about my purchases. The end of 2018 is upon us (FINALLY?! because, and I know I’m not at all the first to point this out, Black Panther came out this year and there was a whole goddamn Olympics that we’ve completely forgotten about) which means: new planner time. Planners are important to me. Whenever I bust mine out in front of someone when we’ve just made plans, they act so impressed, like I must really have my life together because I write shit down. Nah, friends. I don’t. But it helps. I bought this this li’l beauty (in blossom lilac) and I am super impatient for it to arrive. MochiThings is heaven for anyone who loves planners and notebooks and their accompanying accessories.

And tonight, as I move on to a 10-3 record in the Best Friends Forever fantasy football league, I will leave you with this thought…

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