August 2020, and the earth was on fire

I spent a lot of time walking this month, something like an average of three miles a day. I've never been a big "walk to clear my mind" or "run to clear my mind" person. I still am not that person and it's been very hot in Seattle (also everywhere, I know that) and I don't enjoy being outside (or anywhere) in the heat but I made myself get out there because closing my three rings on my stupid Apple Watch is the one little goal I set for myself every day.

On these walks, I have noticed how many of my neighbors have Black Lives Matter signs in their windows. I usually think that's bullshit because it's easy to put up a sign that says Black Lives Matter while doing nothing about it, but I've also seen a lot of kids' handwriting in sidewalk chalk, phrases like "say her name" and "vote for Harris" and "I can't breathe." I have a hard time with the idea that children are our future because I grew up in an environment where I carried too much on my shoulders from an extremely young age, which doesn’t go away. I co-parented from a young age and it fucked the rest of my life up. I can't not be the mom in most situations. I don't know how to connect with people if I'm not trying to mom them. It has taken years and years and weekly therapy to even get where I am today, which feels like nowhere at all. So "children will save us" or "this next generation will be the one to fix it" makes me mad. Kids shouldn't have to march out of class in order to get adults to pay attention to climate change. We should be taking care of them, not the other way around. But at the same time, when kids use their voices and their sidewalk chalk—when kids get it (and I think all kids get it, so much better than adults, who are largely idiots) and want to fight for the future, I get very emotional. And there's lots of that around here, all across my predominantly white, certainly faux liberal city.

Anyway, that's one thing I noticed on my walks. I also walked past my bus stop quite a lot and was jerked into the realization that I barely remember what it feels like to stand there, alternatively checking my texts and looking at the bus ticker and peering down Aurora Avenue to see if one of those big red E line buses was plunging down the road to pick me up. I forget what it’s like to see a bus coming down the way while on the wrong side of the street, huffily running to catch it, getting annoyed when I missed it, trying to balance my coffee, phone, and bag without dropping anything. Waiting in the rain or the cold, feeling hot from rushing, sweating under my coat, texting my best friend something short and sharp like "the fucking BUS" and having her respond, knowingly, "UGH."

Do I miss those things? The daily routine, a commute, the act of getting up and getting ready and going to a place and working and then contemplating my next step: the gym, or home, or a wine bar with my book? I don't know. I don't miss those things and I miss them profusely. Does that make any sense? Does anything?

I turned 33 this month and while I am usually reflective around my birthday, this month, this year, I wasn't. I didn't think about all that my 32nd year brought me. I didn't register until much later that this is the second birthday I've celebrated with my boyfriend, who I am largely quiet about because I think people who center their romantic relationships (especially with straight men) are annoying. I didn't make a short or long list of "goals when I'm 33." I didn't think about much. But I was completely showered with love. My therapist made fun of me when we signed off the week before my birthday. "Happy birthday even though it's just 33 and you don't give a shit," she said, gently poking fun at my demeanor, my attempt at taking attention away from my little milestone in the midst of a completely tumultuous, devastating, anxiety-ridden era. But I didn't do a good job not giving a shit. Everyone showed up for me in a way that felt big and beautiful. I couldn't stop sharing the cute cards I received, the thoughtful gifts, the kind words and photos people shared online. It felt like I had died but I got to attend my own wake. I know that's grim, but I also finished Six Feet Under this month and have been obsessed with how completely fucked up every person is and how beautiful our dumb lives can still be. And my fucked up, beautiful dumb life hit me this month. I am so introverted and closed off and grouchy and everyone still fucking loves me and I don't know why but I am incredibly grateful. Thank you for reading this even if you don't give a shit about my book recommendations. Thank you for reading it if you do give a shit about my book recommendations. Just thank you for doing your best and being here for me and reminding me that, though life is an absolute scam and none of us asked to be here, we are all trying our best anyway.

Okay here are the books.

[Books I Read With My Eyes]

Devotion: A Rat Story by Maile Meloy
A few of Maile Meloy's stories were adapted into a film —Kelly Reichardt's Certain Women—and after watching said film, I was curious about her other work which is how I came across Devotion: A Rat Story. Devotion is very short—a single story—and was creepy and fun and Meloy's detailed writing style has left me with visions of rats on my neck all month. So, take that as a recommendation if you're a weirdo or take it as the opposite of a recommendation if you do not like to be creeped out! (I do.)
[short story, fiction, written by a white cis woman, very short read]

Pizza Girl: A Novel by Jean Kyoung Frazier
I should start noting how or why a book is on my radar because Pizza Girl is a great example of me absolutely not remembering why I had it on hold. I read this in two days. I guess, quite in line with the opening of this letter, Pizza Girl is about a completely relatable and fucked up person. She's only 18, she's pregnant and doesn't want to be, she's struggling with, well everything, but alcoholism and her dad's death and her crush on a married woman and her family life at home and I just absolutely adore stories that do not sugarcoat a damn thing and this is that.
[novel, "slacker fiction," written by a queer Korean cis woman, pretty quick read]

The Sport of Kings: A Novel by C.E. Morgan
I am so proud of myself for reading this. As some of you know, I am doing the Book Riot 2020 Read Harder Challenge and one of those challenges was to read a "doorstopper (over 500 pages) published after 1950, written by a woman." I was contemplating my options and my boyfriend pulled this off of his shelf and the whole point of the Book Riot challenge is to read things you'd never usually pick up and read and a fiction book about horse racing entirely fits that description for me. That being said, this book is also about race, so really kind of my wheelhouse. Was it perfect? No. Morgan is white and this book is about race and she writes Black dialogue and I never like when white people do that. But did I enjoy it? Yes. She's a gorgeous and descriptive writer. She's a great character builder, but even more so, her descriptions are beautiful. I was so drawn by her dense and long blocks of text describing the physical demeanor of a horse or the sunset. She's the kind of writer that I read and think, oh I cannot write at all but it's cute that I thought I could. I appreciate and envy how beautifully she can string words together. This book was long and I gave myself a week to read it and I did it because I also didn't want to put it down.
[doorstopper novel, fiction, written by a white cis woman, very long read]

What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky: Stories by Lesley Nneka Arimah
A pick by Kara Brown for her August Book Club, this had actually been on my library "for later" shelf for years and I'm delighted that I finally made time to read it. Arimah is a gorgeous writer and her stories are completely immersive and unique. Anytime I read anything in the magical realism genre, I almost never want to read anything else.
[short story collection, fiction, written by a Nigerian cis woman, shorter read]

An American Sunrise: Poems by Joy Harjo
Joy Harjo was named the 23rd Poet Laureate of the United States in 2019 and, probably unsurprisingly, is the first Native American to hold that title. An American Sunrise was gorgeous, and even though poetry does not always resonate with me, these poems did.
[poetry collection, Harjo is a mem­ber of the Mvskoke Nation and belongs to Oce Vpofv (Hick­o­ry Ground) and is a cis woman, quick read]

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling
A funny thing happened as I read this book, probably my fifth time through—I realized it’s my favorite book of the series. I’ve always said it’s Prisoner of Azkaban because the bond between Sirius Black and Harry Potter is one of my favorite aspects of this series. But we get more of that in OOTP, and it’s more realistic too. It’s the difference between being swept away by a new, exciting person (POA) and getting to know them in a more realistic way (OOTP), and I much prefer the latter. I’m not excited about new people, I like the down and dirty details of truly knowing a person. Besides that relationship, Harry is fucking pissed and I’ve always understood that (he should be mad, he’s 15 and a truly evil wizard has been trying to kill him his entire life) but I understand it on a new level these days. This book is long as hell (for those paying attention, this does count as a doorstopper written by a woman after 1950 as well but I was not going to phone it in and just count this) but every single thing that happens is emotional and good. I laugh! I cry! It’s a fantastic book.

And though I did not purchase this book in 2020 (I read my original copy, purchased in 2003, the night it came out!) I donated to UTOPIA - SEATTLE because as I continue to enjoy this series that means so much to me, I have not allowed myself to ignore Rowling’s exposure of herself as an ignorant and cruel person.
[fiction, fifth in a series, fantasy, written by a white cis woman, extremely long read]

[Audiobooks]

Everything Is Horrible and Wonderful: A Tragicomic Memoir of Genius, Heroin, Love, and Loss by Stephanie Wittels Wachs
Harris Wittels was important to me (still is) and his death came as a complete gutting shock to the world. Addiction, heroin included, is so deeply personal to me. Harris died of a heroin overdose at the age of 30 and his sister's life is now forever split into before and after. Stephanie is so brave and good; so funny and honest. There's a line at the end where she says, "a huge part of my identity is being your sister.” Her use of present tense hit me like bricks. My greatest identity is being a sister. It's the identity I am most confident in and the thing I am proudest of. It’s also the thing that keeps me up at night. My brothers are the people who mean the most to me in the wide world and so many sisters have lost their brothers and it's unfathomable that they are expected to carry on. This book was published in 2018 and the epilogue notes that she and her husband are trying for another baby and if they are able, they will name him Harrison after her brother. When I finished the book, I crept her instagram and sobbed as I pulled up a photo of her kids, Iris, who is featured heavily in this book, and her new baby, Harris. I tagged Stephanie in my story when I finished reading. She responded and ended her message, "sending love from one sister to another." I love my brothers, I love sisters, I love sibling relationships, and I just hope when you next watch Parks and Rec, you think of Harris, who was a heart of that show.
[memoir, nonfiction, written by a white cis woman, medium listen, read by author]​

Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love by Dani Shapiro
I am and always have been completely interested in identity and culture. I am biracial, Black and white. For me, there is an impossibility that comes with being biracial. I truly do not belong to one identity or another and the loss and struggle of that fact has always been a defining factor in my life. (Not to mention my other in-between identities: my body, my hair, where I'm geographically from, my parents (they are not divorced, can you believe it? but legally (I think??) estranged after 33+ years of not being together.) Dani Shapiro's story is she took a DNA test when those got very popular and thus discovered that she is not biologically related to her late father. With both of her parents dead, she has to research what actually happened. That's enough of an identity confusion and loss on its own, but Shapiro was raised culturally and biologically as a Jewish person and with the revelation that her dad's sperm was not involved in her creation, she discovers that she also isn't technically Jewish anymore. Shapiro is a great writer and this is a great book and I admire her tenacity.

[What I Recommend]

Pizza Girl: A Novel by Jean Kyoung Frazier is high on my list of recommendations this month. It’s unique and stirring and a quick read so even if you can’t settle into something long, you can do this one. And What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky by Lesley Nneka Arimah is absolutely worth your time.

"The years had flung themselves past him with stunning certitude and no mercy at all." The Sport of Kings

"The nature of nature is to kill." The Sport of Kings

“Soft children with hard lives go mad or die young.” What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky

“The mind is not a book, to be opened at will and examined at leisure. Thoughts are not etched on the inside of skulls, to be perused by an invader. The mind is a complex and many-layered thing.” Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix