I’m going to be taking a little bit of a hiatus from essay writing this summer, because I have a lot going on both personally and professionally and I simply don’t have the time! But I will do my best to pop on and let you know what I’m consuming these days, because I remain very online in spite of my schedule lol. Here’s what I’ve been into lately!
Reading (articles)
I really appreciated this review of Leslie Jamison and Lyz Lenz’s divorce memoirs, which puts words to some of the problems I have with (particularly) Lenz’s work.
“Lenz turns to generalities instead. It’s a very didactic book—like most converts to a cause, she wants to instruct a flock—but the lessons are rote ones, marshaling citations from Henrik Ibsen, Simone de Beauvoir, Betty Friedan, Susan Faludi, and Arlie Russell Hochschild to make familiar arguments about equal pay, housework inequities, and the disparities in women’s sexual pleasure versus men’s. It’s like Feminist Groundhog Day.”
I loved this essay from Ashley C. Ford about her decision to be child-free. I found it so refreshing that her decision came in part out of a desire to love and support her friends and their children. It’s a beautiful commentary on what true community looks like.
On a similar note, this essay/book review “How Liberals Talk About Children”. It gets at something I’ve written about before, though I would love to see a similarly titled essay written by a woman.
Young Women Are Fleeing Organized Religion. This Was Predictable. The title says it all.
Reading (books)
All This Could Be Different by Sarah Thankam Mathews. Mathews is a writer whose online work I’ve followed for a while so I wanted to check out her novel. This is queer literary fiction, and I would also consider it auto-fiction. It took me a minute to get into it. Admittedly this is really not the type of book I would normally read, but I ended up really liking it! While there is some (sexy) romance, it’s really a book about friendship and growing up. I’m glad I read this!
Another book which was not my usual thing but I ended up loving was Emily Henry’s Book Lovers! This is a very popular book but I don’t usually do contemporary romance novels — they’re just too cringey for me (unlike fairy romance which isn’t cringey at all lol). This book was so damn cozy. I read it in like two days and it got me out of a reading slump.
Watching
Dinosaur on Hulu. This show follows Nina, an autistic paleontologist in Glasgow, as she deals with a massive life change — her sister/best friend is getting married to a guy she met 6 weeks ago. It’s warm and funny and represents sister relationships so well! I loved.
Listening
Sabrina Carpenter, you will always be famous.
Played MMMBop for my daughter the other day and she loves it, and a close read of the lyrics made me realize that an “mmmbop” is a unit of time?? Any way this song still slaps.
Buying
Shoes shoes shoes. I have been needing some actual high quality, not used shoes to get me through the foreseeable summers. My requirements were cute, comfortable, long lasting, little to no break in period. And I basically accomplished that. Here’s what I got:
Anthropolgie Fisherman Sandals in cream. Sooooo instantly comfortable.
White and blue New Balance 530 sneakers. Extremely on trend lol but also good arch support (I’m in my mid-30s this is a requirement).
Dolce Vita Starla sandals in black. These seem to have more of a break-in period but they are leather and forming to my feet pretty quickly. We’ll see how my feet hold up wearing them in Europe this summer!
I can’t believe I spent this much money on shoes, but after buying basically single use shoes from lulus year after year, I needed to make some investments.
Donating
Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund
Donating our time, resources, and home to a foster dog from our city’s kill-shelter. I often hear people say they can’t foster because they aren’t home enough or they don’t have a backyard or they have cats. You can still foster! We have really specific stipulations about the kinds of fosters we take in because we have a 1 year old, two cats, and a grumpy dog, and we have still been able to foster pretty regularly, because there are hundreds of dogs in our local shelters and there’s always bound to be one that fits in. It’s so rewarding, and I’m always reminded of the importance of caring for the most vulnerable in our communities.
