writing – Sconnie Molly

Lots to chew on

Spring has sprung, I guess. A truly Wisconsin spring, which means a week of 80+ degrees and sunshine followed by temps plummeting to the 30s and the threat of snow in the air once more.

I ordered myself an Adirondack chair and of course it will be arriving the day of the aforementioned snow threat. We had those cheapie plastic Adirondack chairs from Target on the porch last summer, but they kept blowing away in the winds and landing like three houses down the street. I love me an Adirondack chair. Probably because I associate them with warm memories at Cedar Campus. Might need to paint mine a nice light blue…oh who am I kidding. That’s something I would talk about and research on Pinterest and then never ever do.

Two little birdies have made a nest on the spring wreath I put on our front door. The mama has laid her eggs already.

Work is calmer now than it has been at any point since I started last September. After the fall 2022 election, we pretty much segued right into research for the 2023 spring election, and that got a bit intense at times. If I didn’t have such wonderful coworkers, it could’ve gotten insanely stressful, but this is probably the ~healthiest~ work culture I’ve ever been a part of. Mental and physical health is prioritized in actions as well as words. People check up on each other and cover for each other. It’s just really really nice.

***

I guess at some point I just gave up on writing smooth segues and resorted to these silly stars to transition my rambling, and now it feels natural to structure my posts this way.

***

November through February was basically one long, wretched, inescapable household cold, for which I blame daycare entirely, and it’s been such a relief to be more consistently healthy these last few weeks. If you’ve known me for a long time, you are probably all too aware of the (foolish, unearned) pride I take in my immune system – or at least, I used to, before I had a child who attended daycare with a dozen other filthy germ-mongers three days a week. Now I get whatever Ashwin gets, just a couple days delayed usually, right after V picks it up. Terribly disappointing to realize my immune system is actually just regular, not special at all, susceptible to all the same bullshit as everyone else. I just had to have a kid so that my whole body could rearrange itself inside and out.

***

I still don’t quite know the degree to which I want to write publicly about Ashwin. It’s a little easier, or cleaner, when I’m more generally waxing poetic on my motherhood thoughts. Or when I’m making wry jokes about sleep training or breast pumping or some universal early-motherhood difficulty. But now my kid is three years old, has his own personality, his own struggles and victories and schedules and opinions. It feels different. Sometimes I’d like to get down in the actual details more, of what Ashwin is currently doing or going through and by extension what I am doing and going through. (Because being his mom takes up a really large portion of my brain space!) But I don’t know if that’s fair to him. This is one of the toughest parts about writing in general for me. My experiences are my experiences and I own them. But invariably those experiences involve other people, who invariably have feelings about the experiences we shared. It’s hard to know what’s mine to do with what I please and what doesn’t entirely belong to me. You know?

I do know this: my favorite writers are the ones who get all up in those details and talk about all of it, even the unseemly things or the embarrassing things, whether the topic is marriage or kids or careers or bodies or mental health or whatever. The more intimate the better. Do those writers get into trouble with their friends and family after publication? I wonder.

***

What I’m reading

A couple things! Primarily “Vagina Obscura“, a highly scientific look at half the world’s nether regions and how deeply they’ve been misunderstood/ignored/stigmatized for most of recorded history. It gets a little in the weeds sometimes for me, as a not very science-y person, but I’m sticking with it.

Also started “Dreaming in Spanish” by local Madison author/realtor/powerhouse Sara Alvarado!

What I’m watching

WELL. Let me tell you. Basically half of my coworkers are obsessed with Love is Blind, so now I am watching the current season of Love is Blind, because FOMO. Ya girl hates to feel left out! I’ve still got a few episodes to finish before the live reunion this weekend so the pressure is on. If Brett and Tiffany don’t make it, I might cry. I have zero faith in any of these other weirdos. But it’s been super fun catching beautiful glimpses of Seattle!

We also started watching Beef, which, wow. Lots going on in there, so much to chew on. Income inequality. Strained marriages. Class warfare. First generation problems. Sibling dynamics. Korean evangelical culture. Inter-Asian group dynamics. White-Asian relationships. Female friendships, male friendships. Ambition/entrepreneurial/girlboss/grind culture. Mental illness, probably, because these protagonists…

Obviously also watching and loving Succession. Barry starts again soon! It’s a rich time for prestige TV. And, I guess, trashy dating reality TV.

What I’m looking forward to

I’m taking my semi-annual solo weekend soon, this time to Chicago. My plans are basically to eat and shop and sleep.

My MIL will be coming to stay with us in May and I am always excited for her to come. A lot of people would say that sentence sarcastically, but not I! She’s the best.

How I’m adulting

New segment! I just had to share that last weekend, V and I bought a new dining room chandelier at Home Depot, and today an electrician came over and installed it, and the fact that that chandelier box didn’t just sit in a corner of my house for months on end, or in my goddamn car trunk, is something I am quite proud of.

(Chandelier is such an absurd word. What we actually bought is a very unfancy but functional and attractive light fixture. It’s metal. In my mind, chandeliers are delicate and crystal and shiny and belong in obscene palaces with Daddy Warbucks.)

(Okay but do you remember Annie, like 1982 Aileen Quinn Annie? That was my favorite movie as a kid. I had a brilliant idea last year that I would write about its 40th anniversary, to see if it holds up. Surprise! It does not! It’s crazy racist! Daddy Warbucks’s bodyguard is a turbaned Indian dude named Punjab, played by a Black man, who rarely speaks but regularly performs acts of mysterious eastern magic! It’s so much worse than I am poorly describing it! I’m pretty sure someone beat me to the “guess what, Annie doesn’t hold up super well” article while I was still in shock. Another dream dashed.)

SconnieMolly does, in fact, live

I’m thinking a lot about India lately, for obvious reasons. Here are a bunch of ways you can contribute to COVID relief there. Please consider it. And yeah, I can’t help but be slightly skeptical of whether or not my money will reach who it’s intended to reach, but I had to do something and I’m okay with that gamble.

Despite the baby- and pandemic-shaped challenges in my life, I’ve been getting kind of annoyed with myself for not making a better go of freelance writing. Even though writing itself generally comes easily to me, the rest of it doesn’t – the actual business of how to get those writing gigs. There has to be a lot of self-motivation and like any independent businessperson, no one’s telling you what you need to do and you have to figure it out as you go. Some people thrive on that! I guess I’m just better at being a follow-the-directions type of person. I can do whatever you tell me to do. Just don’t ask me to make the rules up myself. I’ll write the shit out of the article/essay/whatever it is. I’ve got a “voice”, I can do research, I will make it sing. Give me the topic and I’ll go nuts. It’s just getting the topic that I really struggle with. I’m working on not dismissing every idea I get as too dumb, too niche, or too small. Anyone who’s spent 10 minutes on the internet can attest to the fact that people can and will get paid to write just about any damn thing.

I feel incredibly, incredibly lucky to have thus far escaped the pandemic without losing any loved ones. As I wrote on Facebook recently, a year ago I genuinely believed we were all – or at least, like, 75% of us – were going to die. I mean that absolutely literally, I was fully expecting an apocalyptic situation. It’s not like any of us have lived through a pandemic before, so we had no template to know what to expect – all there was to do was listen to media reports of varying levels of hysteria and stew in your own existential dread. I’m not saying the threat was overblown – not at ALL – just that I’m unspeakably relieved to be in a place now, about 14 months after it all began, where I and virtually all of my loved ones are vaccinated and reasonably safe. And we made it here all in spite of the idiots along the way who refused to mask, refused to believe the science, refused to take this in any way seriously – mostly just to own the libs. These “pro-lifers”. Seriously – fuck them.

There’s a lot of debate now about how much we should be opening up and what safety measures are still necessary and what exactly is safe for vaccinated people to do. Whenever there is that much confusion, I basically just try to tune out the noise and listen to my dad. Dr. Dan is the king of rational, reasonable, and calm; I highly recommend him.

Ashwin is 15 months now. He loves “walking” with us holding his hands. Thankfully, gone are the days of the 25 minute naps – he now just goes down once a day and often for around 2 hours. This is fucking magical. Honestly, I usually use that time to sleep as well, which I feel slightly guilty about considering all of the other MoRe PrOdUcTiVe things I could be doing. Sleeping through the night is still a crapshoot, so we’re trying to train him to fall back asleep on his own when he wakes up at 2am, which often means letting him cry it out for 15 minutes until we relent and go in. Our poor neighbors.

What I’m Reading:

I’m a couple chapters into “American Spy” by Lauren Wilkinson, but most nights when I fall into bed all I want to do is play a few rounds of Tetris before passing out, so I’m not making a ton of progress.

What I’m Watching:

Prestige TV is about the only thing the pandemic has been good for, right? We recently binged and loved Ted Lasso. I want to watch Rutherford Falls but we don’t have Peacock. (Seriously ENOUGH with all the different streaming services, YOU’RE JUST RECREATING FUCKING CABLE) Right now we’re into Mare of Easttown, which is pretty grim, but also really really good and Kate Winslet is Kate Winslet.

What I’m Seething About:

Whatever it is Aaron Rodgers thinks he’s doing. I am extremely emotionally invested in Aaron Rodgers as a person and as a Packer so this has been a rather traumatic week for me!! Sports, such a nasty business.

Vaccine apartheid, which appears to be on its way out (if press releases are to be believed, lolololol) but which should never have happened in the first place, OBVIOUSLY, because Western lives aren’t worth more than any others!!

Re-established

So we are “settled” now in Madison, by which I mean living in our own apartment with our own belongings.

Where we once had a view of beautiful Lake Union from our balcony in Seattle, we now have a view of…a car dealership and a drainage pond. It’s not exactly picturesque, but I cannot really complain because the apartment itself is fabulous and perfect for the three of us.

My mom comes down a couple days a week to help with Ashwin and it is difficult to put into words what that means to me. In practical terms, it means I can run errands or nap or do chores or just fucking breathe for a bit without consoling a screaming 7 month old. But it also means I’m really home now, and my baby and my parents are totally bonded and in love with each other, and they don’t have to make do with video chats and Facebook posts. And that is priceless.

Life definitely hasn’t returned to pre-pandemic normalcy, but for my own circumstances, things are a bit more normal than they were in March. I definitely limit my in-person shopping compared to the Before Times, and we don’t eat at restaurants indoors (very rarely outdoors either, almost always takeout or delivery). I’m starting to forget what the Before Times were like, though – we watch TV and I get anxious seeing people standing 12 inches apart and unmasked. Or they’re in a restaurant and it’s like oh my god i remember when i could do that. I still haven’t seen the majority of my extended family since being back in Wisconsin, which is a huge bummer because I’d love to have a big meet-the-baby party.

Something I saw on Twitter the other day…a photo of San Francisco, all orange from wildfire smoke, and people wearing masks and the comment of like, imagine having to explain to yourself from last year that no, the masks aren’t for the smoky air, they’re for something else entirely. 2020 just wants to be the shitshow to end all shitshows, I guess, and it is only September.

The Week's Best Memes, Ranked - Digg — *how is it even possible that this is my first MJ meme.*

Through a freelance writing course that I’m currently taking, I’ve started a practice of daily writing for 20 minutes – something I’ve always known that I should do, if I want to be a successful writer, but which I’ve never been able to actually do until now. I am not good at setting new habits. But I set an alarm for 9:00pm every night, after Ashwin has gone to bed and we’ve eaten dinner and watched our TV show. Some days I get to it before 9:00, if my mom is taking care of Ashwin, but most days it’s right around then. I hope eventually it will serve as a generator of article ideas, but right now it’s mostly brain vomit – which serves its own purpose, frankly.

***

What I’m reading:

“Redefining Realness” by Janet Mock. I will be totally candid and say that I have some learning to do about the “T” in LGBTQ. It’s not difficult for me to understand men being attracted to men or women being attracted to women or any combination thereof; I learned long ago (thanks, women’s studies!) that sexuality is a spectrum and very few of us are really all the way on one pole or the other. But because I’m cis, because I was born into a body that makes sense to me, and because the gender binary is so deeply rooted in our society’s paradigms, it takes a little more work and imagination for me to understand what it might be like to be transgender. I’ve read one other “trans memoir” before this but I’m enjoying Janet Mock’s, as she’s one of the most famous trans people in the world and has a really compelling story.
“The Vanishing Half” by Brit Bennett. Loved her first book but so far this one is even better. I have so little time/energy to read these days but when I do get to it, it’s a lovely treat.

What I’m watching:

“Search Party” on HBO Max. This show is good, y’all. It savagely satirizes millennials while being a suspenseful story that kind of starts out as a whodunit and…well, to say more would get spoiler-y, but you really should check it out if you have access to HBO Max.
House Hunters while feeding Ashwin, always. V and I love to hate these ridiculous couples and it’s a great background show.

What I’m seething about:

Climate change. Like…is there going to come a time when we begin to take this shit seriously or does a deep red state have to start burning in order for the evil man in the White House to take notice? There is so very much to be scared about in the event of his reelection, but climate change is very high up on that list for me. The smart scientists say we don’t have much time left and I am inclined to believe the overwhelming majority of professionals in any field of science in what they have to say. Crazy, right?
The fact that Russia is again going to fuck with our election, is in fact already fucking with it, and we are doing fuck-all about it
What these students said
Who needs Russia to fuck things up when you’ve got a state Supreme Court throwing the whole absentee ballot process into confusion?
How it has rained ALL WEEK and therefore I’ve been even more cooped up inside than usual and the one time I did venture out on a stroller walk with Ashwin, we (I) got soaked

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.

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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.

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.

~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…

Image result for winning fantasy football meme

Kava-NAW, etc.

I am feeling discouraged today.

In a couple of months I will have been unemployed for a year. I suppose another way of saying that is that I have been a freelance writer for a year – and believe me, that’s what my resume says, and that’s how I try to think of it – but it has not been as fruitful as I’d like and that’s probably more my fault than any external factors. I never expected it to be easy and I never expected to make a ton of money, so at least I haven’t been surprised on those fronts. I’ve pitched some editors – maybe half a dozen – and gotten zero responses, which any writer can tell you is far worse than any rejection. A friend of a friend told me about Hugo House here in Seattle, and I’ve signed up for a couple of multi-week workshops, one of which starts tomorrow – I’m dreadfully intimidated but also just kind of dying to DO IT. I see so many women out there thriving in their writing careers and I cheer them on with every bit of my heart – I just want to get where they are, where I could casually say “here’s my latest for [x badass publication]…” instead of “OMG YOU GUYS SOMEONE ACTUALLY PUBLISHED ME THIS IS REAL THIS IS HAPPENING!!!” It will take time…I know. I feel impatient today.

And I also know that a year ago, I would’ve killed just to be published anywhere at all – so paying attention and respect to progress that has been made would probably be a better route to take, mentally.

I’ve been trying to find a therapist here but it seems like none of the lady shrinks in my network are accepting new patients and the one place that seemed promising isn’t returning my email.

We bought a new mattress and it’s delightful but naturally takes some getting used to especially since it is memory foam and we are not really accustomed to that. The firmness! My God, the firmness! My body feels good but also sore?? Or is it sore from Seattle’s hills and stairs?

Allegations against Brett Kavanaugh continue to pile up – today a third woman went public. How many will it take? How many women have to tell their stories? My Twitter feed is positively bursting at the seams with women sharing their sexual harassment and assault traumas…and it just. doesn’t. matter. If nothing else, this whole episode – hell, the last two years – have been extremely illuminating re: the number of people we have in our government who could not care less about sexual assault. They’re going to vote on Friday no matter what happens on Thursday. It’s all a foregone conclusion. What breaks my heart perhaps the most is the female GOP senators who could be putting a stop to all this and for whatever reason, aren’t. My expectations for white men in power are already subterranean so it’s pleasantly surprising when any one of them stands up for women or any marginalized group. But a woman should know. A woman should get it. If Susan Collins was my senator, I’d be picketing her office every day of the week and twice on Sunday until she agreed to vote against this piece of misogynist elitist garbage.

Then there’s all the civilian Republicans who, I guess, just have no problem with giving an alleged serial sexual assaulter a lifetime appointment on the highest court in the land. Your cousin. Your neighbor. Your boss. Your pastor. People in your life that you care about and respect, who aren’t showing any kind of care and respect toward women, because they are just going along with the party line. It’s really, really disappointing to see the lengths people will go to not believe women. Women who have EVERYTHING to lose by coming forward. We’re learning a lot about our friends and family members and community leaders by their responses to this stuff.

What I’m Reading:

“The Very Worst Missionary” by Jamie Wright, the story of a woman who became a Christian in her 20s as a young mom and decided to go be a missionary in Costa Rica and discovered that most mission work is bad/useless/counterproductive. Having lots of flashbacks to the weeklong “missions trip” my church youth group went on to Costa Rica in 2003. We…were not super helpful. Anyway, she’s funny and very sweary and unapologetic, my kind of girl.

What I’m Watching:

Still lots of Brooklyn 99. When I started it several weeks ago, I picked up in like season 3 or 4. So we watched all of that until it got current, and now we’re going back to the beginning to see what I missed. It’s so delightful.

What I’m Listening To:

Ella Mai, “Boo’d Up” and “10,000 Hours” and “A Thousand Times”. Also “Best Part” from H.E.R. (featuring Daniel Caesar). I had never heard of any of those people until about a week ago when I was hanging out at a coffee shop and letting YouTube play whatever it wanted after I picked a random Beyoncé song. “Best Part” is the song that plays in my mind when I envision a beautiful autumnal falling-in-love montage: walking through the leaves, drinking cider while wearing sweaters and scarves, cuddling by the fireplace, all the basic shit. Highly recommend.

What I’m Fuming About:

I believe we’ve covered that.

screaming