books – Sconnie Molly

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.

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

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

October

I don’t have a lot of words today for the Kavanaugh confirmation. I expected it. I expected Susan Collins (R-Maine) to vote yes, despite her appearance of perhaps considering giving a shit, proving herself as feckless and disingenuous and craven as all the rest. When will people learn that “moderate” Republicans don’t exist in elected office anymore? I know plenty of them IRL, but in the halls of power, there is no such thing and there hasn’t been for some time now. I have no idea what happens next. Hopefully a gigantic #bluewave in November, but I do not want to get my hopes up for that. We thought 2016 was more or less in the bag, and it fucking wasn’t. I just need to see a message sent, I just need to see that there are SOME consequences for these people’s detestable and immoral and hypocritical actions.

This past week I’ve been happiest when distancing myself from Twitter and the news – big surprise. That is the most obvious recommendation in the world for those of us having a difficult time with the current state of affairs. Tune out when you need to. Tune back in when you’re able. People on Twitter are so often more articulate than I am about what I’m mad about, though.

Related to that…V and I watched an episode of the Netflix mini-documentary series Follow This yesterday about tech addiction. The show uses Buzzfeed reporters to go and investigate weird or troubling or ultra-random shit and my girl Scaachi Koul (oh yeah, we’re besties) is on some of them. Anyway, tech addiction. They profiled a center for tech addiction rehab that’s somewhere near Seattle, interestingly enough, and talked to (all) guys about how their 14-hour gaming days or constant smartphone usage messed up their lives in all kinds of ways – bad sleep, poor nutrition, suffering interpersonal relationships, plummeting self-esteem, etc. The rehab center isolates them from technology for I don’t remember exactly how long, but I want to say like 2 months before slowly reintroducing it back into their lives. It was fascinating and V and I had a good discussion about it afterwards, both of us agreeing (not for the first time) that we are somewhat addicted to our phones and at a very very bare minimum should stop looking at them first thing in the morning and then lying in bed for an hour scrolling and scrolling and scrolling. Hoping to break that shitty habit.

I miss my friends. I miss having people with whom I could make plans almost every weekend, even if those plans were just a movie night or a football game. I need to meet more people in Seattle, but it’s hard out here (and by here I mean everywhere) for an introvert. We were just so comfortable in Madison that I wonder if we were crazy to blow it all up and come here – but I don’t regret it, I think it was the right decision. Sometimes you don’t know you’re in a rut until you’re jarred out of it. Sometimes it’s good to surprise people who might’ve thought you were too scared to ever leave, especially if one of those people is yourself.

Snapchat and FaceTime have been my lifesavers. Being able to see and talk to my parents and my friends is huuuuge, I cannot overstate how much it’s helped.

One of my Hugo House classes has started, and there’s another single-day seminar that I’m going to on Monday that’s on the topic of writing about your obsessions. Its description said “leave your inhibitions at the door,” LOLOLOL. Me? Inhibited? In groups of strangers whom I want to impress? The devil you say. I’ll try to wing it. What am I obsessed with? Um…Korean skincare. Cats. Books. Feminism. My own baked goods. Those have kind of all…been done. I might need a more unique obsession. Ya girl is #basic.

giphy

What I’m Reading:

I just finished the sequel to “To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before,” the book made into the overwhelmingly adorable Netflix movie. YOU GUYS IT WAS SO SO GOOD! If you liked the first book, you’ll like the second (“P.S. I Still Love You”) just as much. I’m sure it will eventually be made into a movie as well but I really need that to happen like RIGHT NOW and not 2-3 years from now. At a minimum I need to know who they’re going to cast as John Ambrose McClaren. But it will definitely be a young child I’ve never heard of because I’m 32 and had heard of *no one* in the first movie except, obviously, Aiden from Sex & The City.
I have so many other books checked out from the library but the one most immediately due is “Where The Line Bleeds“, Jesmyn Ward’s first book, and considering how much I loved “Sing, Unburied, Sing” and…literally everything else she’s written, I have a good feeling about this one.
I had pre-ordered Rebecca Traister’s “Good and Mad“, but honestly, it’s like TOO on the nose right now. I know my anger can and will be useful in the fights to come – which is basically the premise, along with how that’s gone for women historically – but right now I’m so angry that I don’t want to even think about my anger.

What I’m Watching:

More of the “Follow This” mini-docs. They’re 15-20 minutes each, which is a much easier sell to V than most regular-length documentaries I want to watch 🙂 There’s one about the opioid epidemic that focuses a lot on Vancouver’s “safe injection sites” (that Seattle is also considering) and I keep telling my dad to watch it because he is an addiction specialist and I want to know what he thinks but I don’t think he has yet. There’s less-heavy ones too, about ASMR and Amish romance novels (those are two distinct episodes, if that wasn’t clear). Buzzfeed gets a semi-deserved bad rap a lot of the time, but honestly, they also do some really interesting and solid journalism.
Looking forward to seeing The Hate U Give on Friday, I know it’s going to be amazing.

What I’m Eating:

My chocolate chip cookies, currently. I can’t help it that they are my masterpiece. Though I am also thinking about making either snickerdoodles or oatmeal Raisinets tomorrow.

What’s Annoying Me:

People’s Instagram stories that are just footage from the concert they are attending. The sound quality is always awful, they’re usually not in the greatest visual position, and it always startles the shit out of me when I’m not expecting the next story I’m watching to be LOUD INTENSE MUSIC AND/OR SCREAMING. I love you guys but please just enjoy the show and tell me about it later if you must.
We went to the International District today (aka Chinatown) and the veggie egg rolls we got at the Chinese restaurant were very clearly microwaved as they were cold in the middle. #firstworldwhitepeopleproblems
The Snapchat “discover” feed or whatever the fuck it’s really called. First and foremost on it is always the latest, most explicit Kardashian or Jenner selfie, and the rest of it is similar trash along with tacky clickbait and lingerie ads.
I think this is the longest post I’ve made and it’s about very little of importance, so that’s kind of annoying in and of itself. But let’s not end on that note…

What I’m Happy About:

I’ve found a competent lady to do my brows, an easy-to-book, not wildly overpriced nail salon that offers #roséallday, an adorable gift shop that has the coolest birthday cards (SO LONG, SHITTY DRUGSTORE/TARGET SELECTION), a “natural” beauty store/pharmacy, a bookstore, our favorite pizza place, a cupcake shop that has RED VELVET ICE CREAM by the PINT, a bar that does trivia nights, a Trader Joe’s, and more – all within 3 blocks of each other on Queen Anne Avenue, which is about a half mile from our apartment. Can you even believe that? This is, without any doubt, the best neighborhood I’ve ever lived in.
I really hardly have to go to Target anymore and it’s strangely liberating – I thought I would miss it, but I don’t!
My assignment for last week’s class at Hugo House got nice feedback.
We had a very sweet video chat with V’s mom tonight that was much-needed.
It is, at last, fall.

Image result for fall autumn memes

Why are you reading this, go watch Nanette.

We did apartment-hunting in Seattle over the weekend and it was fun, exhausting, surreal, weird. We had a rental car for the weekend and driving into the city from the airport, V mentioned that one reason it felt so odd is that we hardly ever drive ourselves around when we’re in a different city…if we’re visiting family, obviously they drive, and if we’re on vacation we Uber or take public transportation. Maneuvering our way to the hotel and then to a drugstore and then back to the hotel was…an adventure in and of itself. Their downtown has a lot of one-way streets, like Madison’s, but on a larger scale. I don’t think we’ll drive too much once we move unless we really have to. The apartments we looked at (10 in all) were all shiny and mostly new and amenity-filled and clearly very much catering to our particular demographic. I’m already feeling some guilt associated with being one of Those People in Seattle.

Honestly, all I really want is for us to find a good apartment in a good area and for us and our kitty to make it there unscathed and adjust as smoothly as possible. And uh, a job would be nice too…or at least steadier freelance work. I’ve got to start hustling, that’s the only way freelancers make it. I’m still anxious about everything, but I am also starting to feel more like this is very much the right thing for us right now, and that it will be good. If it turns out not to be, it’s not undoable. I always like knowing I have an emergency exit plan, even if I won’t need it.

seattle meme — *looking forward to figuring out what the Spokane part even means*

I had my last appointment with my psychiatrist yesterday, the same one I’ve been seeing for twelve years. TWELVE YEARS, man. I came to her when I was 20, fresh off a terrible breakup and not sleeping and feeling miserable. She helped me see that the breakup was actually quite a good thing. She guided me through many subsequent years of experimenting with different medications to treat my anxiety and depression. She was a constant in my life when I badly needed stability. She did talk therapy with me even though that’s not really what she normally does and normally she meets with younger adolescents but she kept me all these years anyway. Yesterday we talked about the upcoming move and about how I’ve changed since we first met. She said she could see that I’ve become a lot more calm and peaceful. Which I would partly attribute to medication, and partly to internal work I’ve done, and partly to the people around me who help me stay sane. But really…I wish every person in the world had access to this kind of care, and it bums me out that mental health still isn’t taken as seriously as it should be.

If I ever do write a book, she’s going to be prominently named in my Acknowledgments.

What I’m Reading:

I’m in the middle of “There There” by Tommy Orange, which has been getting praise every which way lately from people whose tastes I respect. I think I’m doing it wrong though – I like it so far, but I’m reading it on my Kindle, and that method of reading makes it difficult to go back and refresh one’s memory about who’s who and what happened when. In a story like this with intertwined characters, that is challenging. And I’ve been reading it in such small random intervals. For this book, I think a hard copy would have been a lot better.

What I’m Watching:

Uh, duh: Nanette. You’ve heard about Nanette, right? OK so it’s a Netflix stand-up special from an Australian comedy named Hannah Gadsby. I love a good stand-up, and Hannah is definitely funny, but this is unlike any other stand-up I’ve ever seen. She mixes humor with some really fucking raw and powerful personal stories about growing up as a lesbian in a conservative region of Australia. It’s a sorely needed perspective and brilliantly put together. Her pain is so visceral and visible. You wonder how anyone could hate her for being “different”. Homophobia really is a mindfuck and LGBT folks themselves are not immune to internalizing it the way we all have; Hannah suffered from it very much, “soaking in self-hate”. Anyway. I highly highly encourage you to watch it, all of it.

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I miss Queer Eye so much. I need constant new episodes. Following the guys on Instagram is fun and all but I need MORE.

What I’m fuming about:

Oh, the usual. I haven’t read up very much yet on new SCOTUS nominee Brett Kavanaugh but from what I know, it’s pretty much as bad or worse as we feared it would be.
White people are on a hell of a roll lately being idiotic and racist. (I guess by “lately” I mean that lately a lot of it has been caught on video.) There was #PermitPatty, there was #BBQBecky, then #PoolPatrolPaul. Now today I learned of this dude who harassed a woman in a park for wearing a shirt with the Puerto Rican flag. (He was clearly not aware that Puerto Rico is part of the US.) There are cops *right there*, and the woman repeatedly asks them for assistance, only to be essentially ignored. The guy was almost certainly drunk and she had every reason to be fearful. One of the things he said was “you’re not gonna change us”. Which felt pretty chilling to me.

Book Review: Exit West

I have been totally lacking inspiration lately, but today I finished “Exit West” by Mohsin Hamid and really wanted to tell y’all about it.

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We have our two protagonists, Saeed and Nadia, two young people living in a country where religious militants are wreaking havoc and increasingly making life untenable. (The country is never named but I imagined it to be Pakistan, which I believe is where Hamid is from; of course it could just as easily be Libya or Syria.) Nadia is an unconventional woman, estranged from her family and living on her own in a culture where that is very much not the norm. She wears a hijab, but not because she’s pious; she tells Saeed it is “so men don’t fuck with [her]”. Saeed falls in love with her wildness and as their city becomes more and more dangerous, they spend more and more time together.

All over the world unrest is thick and rising and people are anxious to leave for what they imagine will be more peaceable climes. There is word of certain special doors that act as a portal between one’s current location and another faraway one, and desperate people take advantage to try to start a new life elsewhere. Saeed and Nadia decide to do this, after the death of Saeed’s mother and the burning down of Nadia’s apartment, though it is wrenching for Saeed to leave his father alone.

The first door takes the couple to Mykonos, Greece, where they are among many other fellow migrants escaping turbulent nations. However, in Mykonos and in every locale thereafter, “nativists” are not exactly welcoming of the influx and make their displeasure well known in both political and violent ways.

Nadia and Saeed travel from Mykonos to London and from London to the Bay Area of California. They have only each other throughout this time and have, of course, not even been a couple for very long; the premature intimacy takes its toll and the two begin to drift apart. Never before have I read the dissolution of a romantic relationship so beautifully bittersweet and heartbreaking and yet appropriate…appropriate in the sense that both characters know the relationship is dwindling and while it saddens them, they don’t try to prolong the inevitable and they don’t hurt each other any more than absolutely necessary. It’s the most mature breakup ever, and Hamid just paints it so gorgeously.

“Saeed and Nadia were loyal, and whatever name they gave their bond they each in their own way believed it required them to protect the other, and so neither talked much of drifting apart, not wanting to inflict a fear of abandonment, while also themselves quietly feeling that fear, the fear of the severing of their tie, the end of the world they had built together, a world of shared experiences in which no one else would share, and a shared intimate language that was unique to them…But while fear was part of what kept them together for those first few months in Marin, more powerful than fear was the desire that each see the other find firmer footing before they let go…”

I love that tenderness. Saeed and Nadia have been through so much together that all they want is safety and security for each other, however it comes, whether or not they remain a couple. And they each find it.

I enjoyed the dose of magical realism that the doors brought to the story. It was the only aspect that couldn’t be 100% “ripped from the headlines”, so to speak, in an otherwise highly topical book. Some people might find it too convenient of a device, but for me it emphasized the porousness of borders in today’s world and made me question what really makes a nation, and what really makes a native.

I gave it 4 out of 5 stars on Goodreads but would’ve gone for 4.5 if I could. (Are you on Goodreads? If not, why not? How do you keep track of everything you want to read and everything you have read???) It’s my 5th book of 2018 and easily beats out the other 4. Highly recommend.

It is somehow still January. I hope it’s been a good one for you.

The 2017 Nagappala Book Awards

It’s the most wonderful time of the year – book roundup time! I’ve done this for the past few years on Facebook, but now that I have this blog, I figured this was definitely the best avenue for my annual collection. (Obligatory disclaimer: I joined the Amazon Affiliate program, which means if you buy any of these books via my link, I’ll get a little pocket change. To spend on more books.)

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Favorite Fiction:

“Sing, Unburied, Sing” by Jesmyn Ward. Shortly after I finished this, I raved about it several times on Twitter and Jesmyn Ward herself began following me! I have less than 100 followers sooo, it’s a pretty.big.deal to me. Every so often I double-check to make sure she hasn’t unfollowed me. So far, so good.
“The Hate U Give” by Angie Thomas. I always go into YA novels with low expectations, even this one despite its many, many accolades. But THUG really and truly blew me away. I fell in love with Starr and her whole family and ached for them and rooted for them and cried with them and laughed with them. I cannot wait for the movie adaptation, though I’m sure I’ll be that annoying person who won’t stop talking about how the book was better. (It always is!) I also envisioned Starr as Yara Shahidi the whole time, but I’m sure Amandla Stenberg will kill it.
“Shelter” by Jung Yun. I love a good family drama and come to think of it, I don’t read a ton of contemporary novels with male protagonists – so score 2 points right away for Shelter. I was fascinated by the different mother-son and father-son dynamics at play here.

Favorite Nonfiction:

“One Day We’ll All Be Dead And None Of This Will Matter” by Scaachi Koul. Scaachi was a guest at this year’s Wisconsin Book Festival and I had the pleasure of meeting her. She was as delightfully blunt and raw as she is on paper and I adore her.
“We Are Never Meeting In Real Life” by Samantha Irby. I laughed harder at this book than any other in recent memory. I wish we could, actually, meet in real life. No one gives fewer fucks than Samantha Irby and I love every second of it.
“The Wrong Way To Save Your Life” by Megan Stielstra. Yes, all three of my nonfiction faves are books of essays. *shrug emoji*

Most Disappointing:

“Fates and Furies” by Lauren Groff. Everyone RAAAAVED over this one! OBAMA said it was his favorite last year, for God’s sake! What is wrong with me! I just thought everyone in it was appallingly insufferable and unoriginal.
“Selection Day” by Aravind Adiga. I’ve read all of Adiga’s novels and quite liked them, but he majorly missed the mark with this one. I could not bring myself to care about any of the characters at all, and I honestly don’t think being a big cricket fan would’ve helped. The father-son journey just wasn’t compelling to me.
“The Border of Paradise” by Esmé Weijun Wang. Again, everyone LOOOOVED this, and I really wanted to. The subject matter was uncomfortable, which usually isn’t a problem for me – I read weird and depressing shit constantly – but I couldn’t get past the whole tongyangxi concept. It’s definitely not a badly written novel, by any means. If I could stomach what is, in all but the most technical sense, incest, I probably would’ve enjoyed it a lot more.

Most Pleasantly Surprising:

“The Hate U Give” by Angie Thomas. See above.
“Smoke Gets In Your Eyes” by Caitlin Doughty. Look, straight up, I have pretty severe death anxiety, so I picked this one up in the spirit of staring those fears in the face and not blinking. I didn’t expect it to really help, but it did, and I still haven’t quite put my finger on why. Doughty is never disrespectful or caustic, but she brings a warm levity to the topic that I guess I needed. And be honest, you’ve always wondered what it’s like to be a mortician.
“Parable of the Sower” by Octavia Butler. I don’t do sci-fi, but this isn’t sci-fi in the aliens and wizards sense – it’s dystopic fiction, or speculative fiction, depending on who you ask. Honestly, after the year we’ve had I’m kind of dystopia-ed out, but I read somewhere that this book was semi-prophetic about certain things we’re currently experiencing in real life 2017, so I wanted to check that out. It’s a great story with, indeed, a lot of freaky parallels. The heroine, Lauren, is badass AF and you can’t help but be engaged from start to finish.

Most Depressing (but good!):

“A Moonless, Starless Sky” by Alexis Okeowo. Slavery in Mauritania, kidnappings in Nigeria, terrorism in Somalia – good news is hard to come by in this deeply researched exposé. In every country, Okeowo finds people working hard for change, but the book overall is obviously very dark.
“Crash Override” by Zoë Quinn. Everybody hates internet trolls, but very few of us are familiar with the level of harassment that Zoë Quinn has lived through. While fascinating, this book really plumbed the depths of how far some people will go to ruin a stranger’s life, just for the sport of it.
“The Destruction of Hillary Clinton” by Susan Bordo. We know what happened; we lived through it just a short year ago, but reliving it through Bordo’s analysis is fucking painful. A lot of it I think I had purposely forgotten. What I said about Zoë Quinn works here as well, except HRC had many more people, both ordinary and powerful, just salivating to ruin her from day 1.

Most Plain Uncomplicated Fun:

“The Hating Game” by Sally Thorne. This is a rom-com in novel form. It is what is sometimes derisively and chauvinistically called “chick lit” (I could and perhaps someday will write a long ass treatise about that whole paradigm but today is not that day). It is highly predictable but also really genuinely enjoyable. Like I said, I read a lot of depressing fiction and nonfiction over the course of a year, and something like this is a much-needed palate cleanser. If they made this into a movie, I’d definitely go.
“The Little Book of Hygge” by Meik Wiking. I don’t know if I first learned about hygge in 2016 or 2017, but whether or not I had a word for the concept, it has been my life philosophy since 1986. God bless warm blankets, candlelight, books, and comfort food. I fully intend to write more deeply about hygge in the future.
“The Windfall” by Diksha Basu. I try to read some Desi fiction every year, and this one was so fun. It’s a modern comedy of manners, I guess, as a previously middle class family comes into a lot of money and moves to a rich area of Delhi (Gurgaon). Hilarity and lessons about what really matters in life ensue. This would also make a good movie.

That’ll do it for 2017. Let me know what your favorites were, or if you strongly agree/disagree with any of my selections!