About Last Night

Thanksgiving has traditionally been one of my favorite holidays because it's cozy and about food, but I think it's important now more than ever to acknowledge the actual history of Thanksgiving. As we finally start to bring the skeletons out of our country's closet, it's useful to remember that Thanksgiving is not a rosy time for everyone and is, in fact, a source of trauma for many native people.

"No matter where you are in North America, you are on indigenous land," reminds Sean Sherman, author of The Sioux Chef's Indigenous Kitchen, in this Time piece. It's a beautiful reminder that I find more powerful than ever, as institutions around us increasingly acknowledge this fact. With that in mind, here are two articles that tackle the topic of how we talk about - and teach children - the history of Thanksgiving in the U.S. The first is a high-level ditty by NYT. The second is more involved, and arguably more stimulating, from The Smithsonian.

I grabbed Notes on a Silencing, by Lacy Crawford, after spying the moody cover and title, and it's weird to say I devoured it. A memoir about Crawford's rape as a young student at a prep school in New England, the book is framed by a discovery of the school's coverup of the incident and its long history of protecting predatory males. While the coverup - and assault - is unconscionable, the real winner here is Crawford's self-awareness as an adult. Her ability to write about that period in her life with such lucidity is a gift. In her hands, the campus itself becomes its own character, and while the subject of the book is utterly disturbing, in Crawford's patient, sturdy retelling, it reads as a sustained, clarifying look at something very difficult to talk about. I highly recommend it.

I finally got to read Fleishman Is In Trouble, by Taffy Brodesser-Ackner, after eyeing it some time ago at our local bookstore, and it is truly so funny, sexy, and smart. I happen to love the cover, which Tim knocked last night when he picked up the book and said, "Something about this cover really bothers me." Ha! First of all, who asked you? Second of all, who asked you? I'm kidding. It's almost as important what my partner thinks of my covers, since we are faced with each other's books daily, and literally. Instead of finding each other when we walk into a room, we are often met with the cover of someone's latest read. I finished Fleishman late one night, a little stunned by how much the third section reminded me of Fates and Furies, by Lauren Groff. Both have some very powerful things to say about marriage and feminism, and I was enthralled by them both.

Get ready with your shocked face: Last month, I was elbow deep in books about classic rock. I finally got around to Stephen Davis's scintillating account of Led Zepplin's rise to fame, Hammer of the Gods, while simultaneously lapping up Minneapolis-based rock critic Steven Hyden's second book, Twilight of the Gods: A Journey to the End of Classic Rock, which delves into the mythology behind such monstrously famous musicians as Neil Young, Mick Jagger, and Paul McCartney. While it helped me understand why people love Bruce Springsteen so dang much - I mean, I recognize Bruce, but don't lose my mind over him like some people do, I was ready for Twilight of the Gods to wrap it up when it bridged into a discussion of Phish. Give me Neil or give me death! Sidebar: I once heard someone disparaging Neil Young and knew right then our friendship was going nowhere. But if you like discussions of Dylan and The Band, early Pearl Jam memories, and jokes about David Grohl's omnipresence, Twilight of the Gods may be for you.

I also watched About Last Night er, one night, suckering Tim into half of it before he gave up and went to bed. I was weirdly moved by the film, which captured a different era of movie-making and reminded me other films I loved to watch on repeat before I had kids (looking at you, When Harry Met Sally). I especially liked the junky interiors in About Last Night. No one would deign to let an apartment appear as cluttered as the one that Demi Moore's character shares with Elizabeth Perkins now. Perkins slays, by the way, in her bathrobe game, and I want a basement or attic office that look like this someday - Jim Belushi leaning smugly over my shoulder, though, optional.

Don't get me wrong: the heteronormativity in About Last Night is yikesville, but there are enough shots of Rob Lowe deshabille to cover the cost. More importantly, he sports the most amazing messy mullet. As I watched all I could think was: That is nothing if not well-styled pandemic hair.

Soon after my 80's binge, Tim put on Friends from College, starring Keegan Michael-Key, Fred Savage, Nat Faxon, and a bunch of actresses I didn't know but came to love, especially Annie Parisse, and we got to rock out to the most egregious 90's playlist known to humanity, including Oasis, Wilco, Counting Crows, and Eels. Normally Michael-Key is a too high-energy for me, but I liked him in this series. The first episodes were delicious and then, all of the sudden, some were just off, like an episode that featured drunk driving. I thought we all agreed there's nothing funny about that?? I haven't seen Fred Savage basically since The Princess Bride and by the end of the series, I was a real stan.  

Looking for Lindy West's newest book, Sh*t, Actually, I came across 2019's The Witches Are Coming and, halfway through the second essay, realized I had read the whole book and forgotten (!) I really loved it this time and dog-eared it a thousand times. Everything in it felt important right now, even more than when the book came out, a year ago. It had me thinking that West is a gd genius. Her facility with humor and forwarding truly smart arguments in clear, rolling prose cannot be overstated, imho.

I was living in the bathtub for a couple of weeks there, but I'm back to cooking and whatever else I call life these days. Ellis started listening to his parents recently, a welcome miracle in our house though I do still walk into a room and wonder who hired seven dogs to tear it apart. At all times, there are fifty-six books on any surface in a room, including and especially the floor. I watched the Dolly Parton documentary on Netflix the day after the election and it soothed me as we waited for the results (and waited, and waited). We have such a long way to go, as a country, but I believe that the mess of this pandemic is making us realize how connected we all are. That's my prayer, at least.

Ellis drew an excellent boat on our chalkboard yesterday, which we all praised. With one hand on his hip, he stood back and summarized the effort. He talks pretty low for a kid, and takes a while to get his words out. "Um," he started, several times. Finally he stated his artistic vision: "I tried to do my best." Samantha later reported - accurately - that I respond to any request with the words "One second." It's never okay or sure thing, no. My first response is always some version of hang on, both because I have more than one kid and also because I would lose my mind if I operated on their sped-up, yet somehow glacial, schedules. As Tim likes to joke, no parent ends a pandemic day and says, "Well, that was easy." I'm grateful something good has made it through the fog of our days to Ellis's little brain. I'm sure the message of doing your best - and its even better sister message, accepting what results that yields - came not from some zen advice we imparted to our child but from one of the many books breeding on the tables of our living room right now. Still, it made me happy.   

With that, I give you . . . drum roll, please . . . a double laundry basket. Not for amateurs, people! And yes, I took this blurry photo. I tried to do my best.

Gettin Personal

It's October, drizzly and cool, the start of beloved blanket time in our house, although I've been known to ensconce myself in fleece on June mornings, trying to capture some sleepy snippet of comfort. In many ways, it's how I spend my hours these days - not ensconced in fleece, sadly, but in pursuit of some reprieve. They are few and far between, these moments, and I know the world feels the same.

What can I add to the dumpster fire that is our newsscape these days? I'll start by saying I watched The Social Dilemma last night. Did anyone else think that dilemma was spelled dilemna, until they saw it spelled on the title screen? No? Just me then, great. Well, nothing much surprised me in the documentary about how social media was designed by young (mostly male) programmers with zero discussion of the ethics and responsibilities of unleashing such addictive technologies on the world, but I did find the whole thing really well done. I especially loved where it ended, with many people emphatically stating that we have to change our current business models, which privilege private profit over public good and ecological sustainability, if we are going to make it as a species on the earth.

I found a few of the predictions made in the film a little dire but, in principle, agreed with almost all the perspectives shared. We are experiencing unprecedented chaos, incivility, and disinformation right now - something anyone with a pulse could tell you - but something I didn't really understand is that it's not an accident. According to the people interviewed - programmers, developers, and Silicon Valley executives, among academics, investors, and veterans of the tech world - these apps were deliberately built on advertising models that reward disinformation, conspiracy theories, and unchallenged niche viewpoints. Scared yet? The more I think about the film, the more I like it, and think it's an important one.

You'll be relieved to know that I put back my file cabinet where it belongs. Barring extreme athletic shenanigans - of which my kids are surely capable - it's no longer in its former, prime, bang-your-noggin locale. The linchpin of my decorating scheme (HA), the cabinet is now a tower of novels, nonfiction, and potty training books, and I'm currently embroiled in a discussion with Tim about whether bookshelves can keep me from setting myself on fire in the middle of my home. The real downer of no longer keeping a file cabinet in the middle of my dining room is that I've been forced to split up a cherished nook, where I previously scrawled tomes at an antique desk, hiding while my children gorged on The Octonauts. The nook housed my print of an old clipper ship titled In Full Sail, which we jokingly call Engorged, and now my poor mighty ship is at the helm of a hulking column of banged-up metal. Le sigh.

I watched the Jordan documentary, The Last Dance, a million years ago when it made it to Netflix and got hooked on all the vintage images of my childhood. I feel like one of my brothers even had a poster of Jordan flying through the air with his tongue out, at some point. I liked watching how gracious Jordan was with all the reporters and fans, and was genuinely chilled by scenes of him being swarmed by video cameras, photographers, and sports reporters. But my favorite part was saying to Tim, in a deep voice for weeks after the movie, "It became personal for me," which it seemed like Jordan said about every opponent toward the end of the film. The man can hold a grudge/vendetta, and while that must be a painful way to live, it makes sense that Jordan fabricated reasons to slaughter other people on the court, driving his greatness. It made me want to know more about his childhood, which the movie touched on briefly. Revisiting his father's death on the side of a road, which I remember finding so sad at the time it happened, was just as heartbreaking the second time around.

I finally read Americanah, the Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie novel that swept the world by storm a few years ago, and really really loved it. It was like sinking into a Henry James novel or something, such lush scenes, taking their time, such minute detail building to such skillful portraits. I loved reading about the narrator's relatives and all that becomes of them over time, and about the changes that peck at Nigeria and the imagined lives of Nigerians abroad. It's a sweet, funny, and, I thought, very moving novel. I can't recommend it enough.

I also gobbled up The Fixed Stars, Molly Wizenberg's new memoir about divorce, falling in love with women, and making her way as a single mom. When I read her second book, Delancey, about her husband starting a restaurant when Wizenberg wasn't entirely sold on the idea, all I could think was, Uh-oh. I was sad for everyone. It seemed like a situation ripe for falling apart, and The Fixed Stars explores what happened when Wizenberg woke up to her own unhappiness. I'm not saying it was pre-ordained, though I have heard that the restaurant business is rough on families, but I just felt, reading this book, that I was in the presence of someone who was doing a lot of work on herself, asking very hard questions and answering them honestly. It was like standing in a strong, cold, healing wind, and I adored it.

I read a beautiful portrait of poet Jericho Brown by one of my favorite magazine writers. At first I was just like, Those pictures!! Such drama in the garden!! Who is this person?

photo: Audra Melton for Garden & Gun

photo: Audra Melton for Garden & Gun

I couldn't nail those antics if I'd had seven beers. Then I read the piece and was like, okay, wow this guy sounds amazing. He calls friends in the middle of the night to read from what he's writing, and they pick up, because they know how beautiful it will be. And he saves potential lines in baggies, rooms full of tumbleweeds he's typed and sorted by theme which he then makes into poems. I'M IN. I checked out his latest collection, The Tradition and, well, Brown is amazing, and not just for his modeling skillz. He read at a nearby university years ago. Tim went and said Brown was brilliant and gracious, such a pro. So: poets for president? At the very least, I'll take The Tradition's cover as a flag for my home, please:  

On a different note, I learned, at the end of August, that a musician I had a lot of admiration for died, probably from a drug overdose, at home by himself in Nashville. I was heavy-hearted for days. RIP Justin Townes Earle.

Speaking of heavy-hearted, I started Morgan Jerkins's new book, Wandering in Strange Lands, about a northerner's exploration of her black family's roots in the south. I would describe Jerkins's writing as more academic or intellectual, but the narrative is driven by personal reflection and I really loved reading about the people she interviewed for her research. I haven't finished the book yet, but I find reading about slave history and de facto historians whose work has been somewhat ignored by state legislature bracing, necessary, and healing in many ways, like reading a travel magazine with all the facts present, all of the ads sent packing. I'm here for this sort of truth-telling, and look forward to reading the rest of the book soon.

In the meantime, we're laundering and grocering and tooth brushing and cooking and Tim is pretending to be a runner and I'm freebasing tumeric while recovering from a mysterious knee injury. Sometimes, sometimes we're breathing. It's a grief-filled time for our country, maybe our whole world, and it's hard work, but maybe necessary, like getting sober. May we find what comforts, what heals. May this chaos be part of the unwinding, so we can choose more consciously how to move forward. May we all keep asking the hard questions. May we find the courage to look at the answers with clear eyes.

XOXO

Foreday in the Morning
by Jericho Brown    (from The Tradition)

My mother grew morning glories that spilled onto the walkway
            toward her porch
Because she was a woman with land who showed as much by giving it
            color
She told me I could have whatever I worked for. That means she was
            an American.
But she'd say it was because she believed
In God. I am ashamed of America
And confounded by God. I thank God for my citizenship in spite
Of the timer set on my life to write
These words: I love my mother. I love black women
Who plant flowers as sheepish as their sons. By the time the blooms
Unfurl themselves for a few hours of light, the women who tend them
Are already at work. Blue. I'll never know who started the lie that we
            are lazy,
But I'd love to wake that bastard up
At foreday in the morning, toss him in a truck, and drive him under
            God
Past every bus stop in America to see all those black folk
Waiting to go work for whatever they want. A house? A boy
To keep the lawn cut? Some color in the yard? My God, we leave
            things green.

The Worst Hard Time

The title above comes from the Timothy Egan book The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived The Great American Dust Bowl. In our house, Egan is called Imothy, because a sticker covers part of his name on a book we own. I haven't read The Worst Hard Time, but as I've thought about what to write for a while now, how to offer something meaningful at this historic, tumultuous, grief-filled time, all while living with our sweet, endlessly rambunctious two-year-old, that title keeps coming to me.

We took a traditional beach trip with family, scheduled at a time when COVID case numbers were trending in the right direction, and undertaken with what might be described as cautious dread on my part. It was great to see everyone and wonderful to luxuriate in the ocean (with social distancing and mask culture fully in place anytime we left the house) but it was somewhat exhausting for me to engage in such a typically beloved activity as travel while contending with the reality of the pandemic. Our kids were saints (until we got home, then their demon sides came out) so it wasn't a problem keeping hands "han-i-tized" as Ellis says, or explaining what we couldn't do this year. Samantha is unbearably accepting about rules, and she mother-hens Ellis is wondrous ways, saving me time and good-guy credit, so that wasn't the complication. But where I normally kick up my feet and read magazines while Tim takes the wheel, driving through states and tunnels and mountains to our destination, I did all of those things without any of the usual lightness.

Truck carrying part of a wind turbine.

I did enjoy Lynne Cox's book Grayson, which details her experience helping a baby whale find its mother, one morning as Cox was doing a routine swim off the coast of California. I read Cox's Swimming to Antarctica: Tales of a Long-Distance Swimmer when we lived in Colorado and absolutely loved it. I wasn't sure Grayson would seduce me as much as Swimming to Antarctica, but it did. Cox was the first person to swim between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, shortly before the end of the Cold War, in 1987. The way she describes sea life is truly breathtaking. I also love how casually she discusses swimming for hours at a time. No biggie! 

I also chewed through Samantha Irby's new book, Wow, No Thank You, which had the unintended benefit of making everyone in the room look at its bright green cover, with its cute bunny, then read the title and start laughing before they read a word. In an essay masquerading as a mix-tape she writes about first hearing Pearl Jam in seventh grade:

"I was enamored with this idea that love was difficult and stressful, and that torrid relationships fraught with passion and rage were exciting. This was, of course, before I knew how tiring life can be for an adult . . . . 'All the love gone bad turned my world to black'? Swoon city. Eddie was the perfect embodiment of Brokenhearted Sensitive Grunge Man; I lived for him then, and I still do. I would totally listen to him howl about his electric bill."

Then, because souls are a mystery and mine is shaped like a plaid-lined hunting lodge, I read Mariel Hemingway's memoir, Out Came the Sun: Overcoming the Legacy of Mental Illness, Addiction, and Suicide in My Family. My mom jokingly asked, "Fun read?" Ha! I mean, parts of it read like the celebrity memoir it is, but most of it had an admirably self-aware tone, due in no small part, I'm sure, to its ghostwriter, Ben Greenman. The actress talks about growing up in a family aware of her grandfather's long shadow, being cast in Manhattan when she was a teenager, and about Woody Allen inviting her on a trip, just the two of them. (Gross. She declined.) She writes with love and clarity about parents and siblings, and about the father of her children and the marriage that failed between them. I didn't follow Hemingway's career closely, but I found her accounts of it engaging, clear-eyed, and honest.

I read, along with Tim, our bookmarks moving back and forth in the same, slender copy, Gail Griffin's memoir of losing her husband, Grief's Country. I've long had an admiration for Griffin, a retired professor in our town who wrote a book about a murder-suicide on the small campus where she worked called The Events of October. My neighbor, a retired mail carrier who knows all the writers (and letter writers) in town, lent me a copy of The Events of October when we first moved in, and though the subject is grim and not something I'd normally gravitate toward, the writing was so clear, and the research so well-organized, that Griffin looms over my time in this town, not unlike the oddly comforting tower belonging to the still-functioning mental hospital.

Grief's Country is so masterfully lyrical, it does not feel like a memoir of grief so much as a poetic transcription of life. It's hard to describe, but from the first poem to the closing chapter, reading it felt like a form of prayer. I didn't want to miss a word, as in meditation, you don't want to miss a breath. Not that I'm getting any meditation "done" over here. Anytime I start to relax, it's like a bell rings in the other room and Ellis comes running across the floor, gleefully inquiring whether I'm "stretching." He then climbs onto me in some bizarre posture and starts butting me with his little ram head. As I try to do forward bends that don't squish his head against the floor, I think of something Tim once pointed out, while watching the awkward dance: no one with a toddler seeks out goat yoga.
 

Sometime this spring, when our library was still closed, I put Chris Rush's memoir The Light Years on hold and forgot about it. When the library opened, one of my favorite employees chastised me for trying to check out too many books, many items over the new, quarantine-friendly limit. This woman sat like a queen behind a giant sneeze guard. When I told Tim how amazing she looked, he joked, "The shield was already implied," because the regal condescension rolling off this woman is something to behold. But she checked out my books (god bless the queen!) and I gathered what was left after I returned the books I no longer wanted, having spent odd hours at night requesting books and movies I immediately forgot. What was left, after returning these, were five thousand Berenstain Bears books to take home for Samantha, and The Light Years, which I only dimly recalled.

Wow, was I delighted by what I found behind the pretty, neon cover. A book about drug addiction, Christian drug dealers, the American desert, Catholicism, growing up gay, a father full of hatred and his own trauma-turned-alcoholism, The Light Years was so surprisingly present, so impeccably-worded and warmhearted, I fell into my own addiction with it. I finished it one night as Tim put the kids to bed and I swung in the hammock, toes trailing the grass, face turned to the sky. It was truly mesmerizing, both because of Rush's focus on his family relationships and his restrained, whiz-bang prose. I was hooked from the moment I this description of his parents and the house they lived in:

"Finished in '56, our house was my father's midcentury masterpiece. Featured in newspapers and fashion shoots, our house was new, new, new! - no attic, no heirlooms, no trace of the past. Every detail was carefully managed by Norma Farrow Rush, the pale-skinned daughter of a taxidermist. She no longer had to do any dirty work for her father; the house was her shining rebuke."

Her shining rebuke! That will be the title of my poetry book, when it comes out.

That's all. Tim has a story in Quarterly West. You can read it here. I have a story in the forthcoming issue of Tampa Review (59/60). It's called Red Town and I only worked on it for, oh, about a decade. I'm beyond thrilled that it found a home, as they say, and more than that, I'm happy that one of its main characters, a postman who carries mail by mule, is finding delivery.  

In the summer, frogs like to sneak into our house. Tim found this guy early one morning.

Stung by a Bee

A few days ago I got stung by a bee and it was the most exciting thing that's happened in months. I was slightly allergic to bees as a kid, so I ran to the kitchen and clutched an EpiPen, uncertain whether my rapid breathing was some kind of chemical reaction or merely from the shock of the sting. Turns out, I have a great imagination. I was fine and tried to model how cool you can be when an insect stings you. Samantha was my companion through the whole ordeal, and after we knew I was okay she pointed out where I was and wasn't allowed to garden. "I don't want you to get hurt," she said, a dreamy thing for your kid to say, or maybe just self-interest at work. If something happened to mama, wth would the rest of her day look like?

I've been wanting to write, but also, like, not, because who needs more "content" right now? We're flooded with it. One of the most disturbing parts of the COVID-19 pandemic has been watching my email inbox shift from normal garbage to pandemic garbage. I don't mean to criticize. It just reminded me how strong the grasp of capitalism is in our country. As the coronavirus worms its way into every community, marketing finds new host bodies, maintaining its strength in the guise of offering information or connection.

I know, how cheery can I be? Tim is one of the funniest people I know. He makes me belly laugh several times a day and I also sometimes accuse him of being too dark. Ha! His response is that I'm the cynical one, that I don't tolerate dark humor because it hits too many nerves. (Things aren't always mud-slingy in our house, and anyway, the mud is slung with a very light touch. It's more of a mud spritz.) In the end, I think he's probably right, and things like my paragraph above make me see it clearly.

Now, with confessions of darkness behind us, do we begin with the absolute rot I've been enjoying on Netflix, or with the books that have been bathing my soul?  At the risk of sounding high and mighty, I'll start with the books. Just know that my foray into Love Is Blind was the tip of the iceberg and, if you opened the top of my children's heads right now, you'd find Kwazii and Shellington from The Octonauts staring up at you. I'm not proud of this, but I'm also not ashamed. Quarantine is driving the bus, after all.

It feels like a year ago that I read The Girl Who Never Read Noam Chomsky, by Jana Casale, but it was probably back in March. First of all, I'm jealous of Casale's name. I'm sure it's her real name, but still. It's a good one.

I really loved this book. It was girly, literary, warm, funny, and really really smart. I love the way it combines normal life with thoughts about art and literature, and how the books in the heroine's life are almost their own characters. Sometimes I worry that I like books written for other writers - my love for Less, for example, had me wondering if others less acquainted with the farces of literary circles would find it as delicious and heartwarming. But then I think about a character in Less, a rich author, who shows up wearing billowing linen pants and I think, well, who doesn't like a good roast of linen-wearers? This from a woman who can't WAIT for warmer weather in Michigan so I can don my white linen pants.

Another book I loved, that is way dark and dangerously well-written, was Molly Bit, which I spied at our local bookstore, a store I'm proud of because they closed their doors voluntarily, before the governor's stay-at-home order. A satire of Hollywood's savagery, Molly Bit had me flipping to Dan Bevacqua's author photo in the back frequently, staring at it, whispering, Where did you come from? How did you get so good?

I waited a minute before diving into Sally Rooney's Normal People, waiting, I suppose, for the oxygen needed to combust inside the pages of another one of her gorgeous books. I wrote about Conversations with Friends here, and while I still love that book, it's possible I liked Normal People even more. I also liked thinking about Rooney's habits as a writer, how both books center around secrets, and explore the intimacy that blooms within them. Both books are just so well done, and I have such respect for Rooney's ability to explore all the angles of real, physical, emotional intimacy. Friends keep mentioning the newly dropped Normal People on Hulu. Pardon my disbelief, but I'm skeptical that anything on screen could touch the richness and anticipatory anguish Rooney creates on the page. Curmudgeon alert!

I made it to Eula Biss's Notes from No Man's Land, which I realized I had read parts of before. It's still exquisite, and I appreciate being inside the world of such a fascinating observer and, if I may say, stylist. I hadn't realized before how much Biss worships at Didion's altar. Revisiting Notes from No Man's Land felt like sitting next to a scholar of Didion, or a younger relative, a joke I'm sure I reach for because, somewhere in the back of my mind, I wonder if I'll watch The Center Will Not Hold, the documentary about Joan Didion on Netflix right now, produced by her nephew, Griffin Dunne.

I've been re-reading some lately, mostly short stories, and when I have the courage to sit for longer periods, I've got Seating Arrangements on my shelf, which will be a revisit of a favorite Maggie Shipstead book, an author I revere and mentioned in this joint gift guide with Amelia. Talk about sweet author names, re: Shipstead. Why didn't I get something nautical in my name? Thinking how to work whale or cephalopod into mine now . . . .

I just ordered my friend Corinne's book and am still swooning after reading her beautiful interview with them, found here. I also ordered Laura Munson's new novel, Willa's Grove, because I truly adore Munson's spirit and flow-y prose. Flow-y is a word, right?  I also can't wait for Molly Wizenberg's newest memoir, The Fixed Stars, about the major shifts that occurred when she discovered, while married to a man with whom she co-owned two businesses and as a mom to a toddler, that she needed to drastically rearrange her life. I adore Molly's writing (so much so that I pretend we're on a first-name basis) and I'm curious how she will write without the structure of a recipe-laden book. I have total faith in her ability to do so, but, I dunno, the new book sounds pretty thrilling. Wizenberg is one of those authors I'm probably always going to look forward to reading, because she seems embrace the examination of her life so fully, and I'm sort of fascinated by her ability to do so.

Did your dad stuff a doughnut hole full of candles for your birthday, when you were a kid?

Speaking of fascination, do I dare tell you that Tim and I watched all of Too Hot to Handle on Netflix? It's TRUE. I'd like to blame quarantine (and Tim will, in a heartbeat) but I have to say that watching cheesy settings and people offering up their souls to reality TV is strangely compelling. Is this how fans of The Bachelor feel? I think I finally understand. This is like the summer I realized I wanted to order Oprah's magazine and went from subscribing to Shambhala Sun, a magazine about Buddhism, to happily reading reviews of vacuums and A-line skirts, my legs kicking behind me as I read on my belly, in a backyard on the coast of North Carolina, in grad school. And isn't that what life is all about - finding who you really are, at the bottom of all your ideas?