Hello! Thank you to all of you who sent kind notes about my thoughts on teaching via comment or email — it was fun to hear from so many fellow teachers!
I’ve been hard at work on my office supply post, so look for that soon!
With that said, let’s dive into regular programming!
Reading
Where to begin? I loved All Fours. This book blew my mind. It opened my heart. It made me feel things I haven’t felt in a long time. I understand now why everyone is talking about it. The best things I’ve read about it are here. I also appreciated Lucy Dacus’ Goodreads review:
I am a longtime Miranda July fan. I first discovered through her crowdsourced art project, Learning To Love You More, which I participated in. Miranda July is someone I admire because we are wildly different. She is the sort of person I watch from a distance — the kind of woman who will confidently get up and dance at a concert while everyone else remains seated or wears a shimmery, short tight dress to an event where I’m barely comfortable in an all-black frock that covers most of my body. I wish I was confident enough to be half the artist she is. Instead, you’ll likely find me perpetually over by the snacks and/or socializing with the pets at life’s metaphorical party, worrying that I’m doing something strange.
This book captures precisely what I love about Miranda July. It’s the story of an artist who is 45 years old, and freaking out about it a little bit. She is self-aware enough to know that she’s not being her full self at home, and to want to reconcile the differences between who she is and the role she’s playing, and so she decides to take a road trip to rediscover who she is. The journey ends up taking a different path, and while it doesn’t pan out the way she expects it to, the unnamed protagonist learns a lot about her desires: creative, sexual, romantic, and otherwise.
I want all of my friends to read this book so we can talk about it. More and more, as I age into my 40s, I think about change and creativity and becoming. The protagonist of this book is 45 at the start of the book, and I can’t stop thinking about something she says near the beginning of the book, as she’s planning her road trip: “This could be the turning point of my life. If I lived to be ninety I was halfway through. Or if you thought of it as two lives, then I was at the very start of my second life.”
As someone who didn’t start pursuing her creativity with any great seriousness until I was older, I love this idea: that maybe, I’m just at the very start of my second life.
Writing
A tiny announcement that I’ll share more about next week is that while I did receive three rejections I’ve been waiting several months for, I also received my first acceptance in AGES and am very excited to have a piece of writing running this week! It runs on Friday, so I’ll share it here next week! It feels good to break a long streak of hearing no thank you’s, despite it coming in the mix with some other no thank you’s.
As the summer winds down (I go back in less than a month!), I’ve been thinking about what it means to orient my life more around creativity. Summer is always a little loose for my taste. Don’t get me wrong — I love the break, but I miss the schedule of teaching and the way it necessitates being intentional about how I spend my time. I keep thinking about how I can use my time differently so that more of it goes towards things that fill my cup creatively.
I’m also thinking about the things I do that aren’t necessarily time sucks, but energy sucks. The meetings that cause me strife, the things I do/don’t do that sap my mental energy, and the ways I do and do not set myself up for success.
I’d love to hear from my fellow writers/artists/creative people/disciplined folks: how to you organize your life so you have time and energy to be creative? What helps you make the most of your weeks? How do you not fall into a hole of just watching garbage TV when you could be writing (asking for a friend who has sadly made time to rewatch DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES this summer)?
Ranting
I AM SO TIRED OF FEEDING MYSELF.
I used to think that the people who said things like, “I wish I could just subsist on a pellet every day!” were bonkers, but I GET IT NOW.
I hate grocery shopping. I hate making meals. I hate doing the dishes AND I hate emptying the dishwasher. I hate Instacart (I understand that they’re not compensated well, and I try to tip and be patient, but please, I’m begging them: check an expiration date, my god! Last week someone brought me a gallon of milk that expired the same day.).
It’s not only the food acquisition process: I hate trying to figure out what to eat. I have even started to hate Door Dashing because it feels so overwhelming. Don’t even get me started on the idea of going out to dinner.
Part of this is an Amy Estes problem. I get the ick about food easily, so things like meal prepping do not work for me. If I decide to make a batch of something and then one bite has a texture that tastes even slightly off or I get the weird part of the chicken, or something smells funny to me, I AM DONE. For example, I love eggs, and have eaten them nearly every day for years, but Olive recently puked them up and I haven’t been able to consume them since. EGGS. One of my favorite foods on this earth! What am I supposed to do? My Taurus nature of being ALL THE WAY DONE when I am done doesn’t just apply to people, it applies to food, too.
It’s not even that I want to eat something delicious but feel too tired to make it, it’s that the concept of having to EAT SOMETHING is exhausting. Making decisions three times per day about something as silly as what to put in my body? WHO HAS THE ENERGY?
I beg you: tell me how are you solving this. Are you all drinking Soylent? Have you hired a private chef? Are you still using Blue Chef Green Apron?
Let me be clear: I have a spouse who is more than willing to share this burden (it’s called queer marriage, look it up) but I am picky as hell and have a slight touch of the control freakies, and I am just so tired of this very boring issue.
Tell me your secrets in the comments. Please.
Recommending
My friend Holly just pointed that one of my favorite things on earth is on sale for Prime Day: THE NOD POD.
The NodPod is a slightly weighted eye mask that I love with my entire being. Scientifically, weighted eye masks have been shown to help calm the nervous system, block out light to signal that it’s time for sleep, and produce melatonin. I use mine every night. Additionally, it can go in the freezer, which is ideal for headaches (that said, this migraine relief hat is another excellent Prime Day deal if you are a frequent sufferer) and allergies.
Even at full price, if you struggle with sleep, I highly recommend the NodPod. Worth every penny, especially if you struggle to sleep!
Gentle reminders that signups are still live for my fall classes with The Porch!
First up is Switch Hitters, a one-day workshop about writing both fiction and nonfiction and how the tools of each genre can be used to enhance the other. It’s a topic I love (basically, a shortened version of what I wrote my thesis about!) and I am excited to teach this short, but sweet, dive into a topic I care a lot about.
A little later, in November and December, I’m teaching a four-week class called Queering The Essay, which I’m really excited about. This class will examine work by queer luminaries, examine the structure of the essay itself and what it means to “queer” the essay. We will write together using queer authors as examples and guides for our own work.
I’m new 👋 so apologies if this won’t work for your dynamic.
I’m single, no children but get similar issues around food. 1. Are there any frozen quick cook meals you can handle? Costco or Trader Joe’s are good sources: orange chicken, mini quiche, mini pizza. You don’t need to eat them everyday but they can work in a struggle 2. You don’t have to have a meal — sometimes I eat cottage cheese, a salad a peach and some cashews. If you tolerate protein bars (there are so many) those can also help hold you over for an hour or two until you can get a better handle on things 3) Amy’s brand of foods has some good (to me) canned soups that help 4) I found a local person who does prepared meals They're cheaper than eating out/more healthy than frozen. I’ll do about 4 meals/week and this has helped tremendously. 5) smoothies. Some frozen fruit, protein powder and liquid and that’s also enough to get me by for a few hours
Phew! Sorry for the verbosity. Hope some of these help!
When I get into funks about food or cooking I read food books. Reading is my favorite hobby, reading wonderful writing from people who love food and culinary arts helps kickstart my kitchen creativity. Ruth Reichl is my go to. I have read Tender at the Bone once a year for the past 5-6 years.
When I don’t feel like grocery shopping I can always force myself to go to Trader Joe’s. Knowing I will leave with a bouquet of good flowers makes the chore better for me.