this is love

Love is getting up at six a.m to spend a few hours with family living outside the US, jumping a ditch, sitting in the sun and cold wind, sharing donuts and ginger beer and delicious cake, making bracelets for the fam.

more of what I'm reading: slightly boring thrillers

I have some exciting reading news to pass along soon, but in the meantime, I blew through two new-ish thrillers that had fast-paced, intricate plots, but were ultimately a bit boring.

Who is Maud Dixon by Alexandra Andrews featured an unlikable protagonist who is ultimately and  for me, unsatisfyingly, redeemed. I wanted Florence to stay bitchy and one breathless step ahead of the Moroccan law. Instead, she just seems insufficiently evil to make a career out of it. Boo.

Same for Laura Dave's, The Last Thing He Told Me. I truly enjoyed it until the last couple of chapters, when I realized how things were going to end. A dramatic moment of selflessness. With a breath of hope. Nah. 

If 2021 has taught me anything, it's that the world truly is a cruel mistress and it's best not to entertain thoughtless delusions. Proceed with deliberation and all due clarity.

13 documentaries

I ran across this gem of an online film festival: the BBC's Longshot documentaries.Thirteen movies from thirteen different countries: so far I've watched movies from Israel, France, and India. If we can only travel in our minds right now, this is a pretty wonderful way to go. (Note: the video is from 2020. The 2021 video autoplays and I'm too lazy to figure out how to turn it off.)

the great re-masking

It's feeling like 2020 again. Existential dread (the climate this time), packed hospitals and ICUs, clown time in politics (again! still!). And indoor mask requirements. I'm not surprised. Part of me is relieved that all the mouth breathing jabronies will again be required to corral their spit and their far-flying aerosols within the confines of their own face.

Why my employer is dragging folks back to crowded, poorly-ventilated offices in a month I do not know. Capitalism and the Delta variant appear to be winning, which means we're all losing.

smaugust

Dexter avenue smaugust sun

Smoke season is a thing now in Seattle, in the sneaky yet dangerous way that Ride the Ducks was--it's there and you know it isn't right but it takes a catastrophe for everyone to realize it.

The catastrophe of wildfire smoke sending us running indoors during a heat wave AND a pandemic seems obvious, but cars continue to inch along I-5 and airplanes belch out jet fuel fumes overhead every sixty seconds. So.

We used to joke about Smoketember. And now, Smaugust.

in the dream house...wisdom

I read Carmen Maria Machado's memoir, "In the Dream House" in June.

I must have snapshotted a half-dozen pages. She wisely structured this painful story of abuse into snackable short chapters, constructing a narrative that builds a story with plenty of cracked windows and ajar doors to peek through. 

Here are a few passages I want to keep here and in my heart.

Anyone who knows your name can break you in two

the necessary sacredness of private space

memoir is an act of resurrection

a rather brilliant white guy

I wanted not to like Kevin Wilson. This is year 2 of decolonizing my bookshelf, and here's this white guy I didn't want to read, much less like.

But the fact is, he's talented and sharp and wildly creative. I've read 3 books so far. First, Nothing to See Here, which tore me apart with its absurd wit and ungrudging heart. I also blew through The Family Fang, and Perfect Little World. 

To give you an idea of what drew me in and kept me enthralled, here's a paragraph from Perfect Little World where a pregnant woman is musing about her child.