Hey — and summer goes by! And only with three mosquito bites. Before the heat broke, there was a 50+ day record streak of heat, which I think, in part, is making the transition to fall feel less real, but also more real, because this is a real marker of the passage of time, that big clock that reads 90 seconds to midnight. Earlier last week my roommate C and I went to a nearby park to read, and on our bikes we crested down a hill, where there were a lot of different dogs rolling and leaping. A brigade of bikers in high-vis vests and colourful shorts pedaled by, and before we went up an incline, C said, “Ready?” and then we went up. In my usual fashion I am writing this an hour before I need to be across town. The bike ride there will be uphill so I am bracing myself.1
For a one-time book club with D & V & S, Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami, which I didn’t connect with very much, but which we had some very interesting conversations around, which reminded me of my other friend J, who is a wonderful book club facilitator and how she asked very curious and gentle questions. Then, A Lucky Man by Jamel Brinkley, which was masculine and serious and very good. Ghost of by Diana Khoi Nguyen, recommended to me by my friend K, who excels at identifying subway car manufacturers. Come Late to the Love of Birds by Sandra Kasturi, which I didn’t like but got on a beautiful day at a new library branch. Both Ways is the Only Way I Want It, which I picked up because
mentioned it in, and which I loved and spoke about to everyone who would listen to me about it. Maile Meloy is so precise. She uses the perfect words. The first story is about a guy on a horse:She paused before nodding, and he took this for encouragement. He caught up her hand again and kissed it, because he had wanted to do that, and it was soft and cold. Then he leaned over and kissed her cheek, because he had wanted to do that, too. She didn’t move, not an inch, and he was about to kiss her for real when she seemed to snap out of a trance, and stepped away from him. She took her hand back. “I have to go,” she said, and she went around to the driver’s side of the Datsun. He held the horse while she drove out of the parking lot, and he kicked at the snow. The horse sidestepped away. He felt like jumping up and down, in excitement and anxiety and anguish. He had run her off. He shouldn’t have kissed her. He should have kissed her more. He should have let her say what she wanted to say. He mounted up and rode home.
Maile Meloy, Both Ways is the Only Way I Want It
Then a series of poetry, which I have started to read and write more of, starting with Almanac of Useless Talents, by Michael Chang, who I am also obsessed with. The Hurting Kind by Ada Limon, who read a few poems a few months ago when I went to see her with my friend A, followed by the 2023 Griffin Poetry Prize Anthology Shortlist, which we got from the event. She is so good at reading; her voice really felt like the water and the trees and the wind. And she sang a little, which was lovely.2 Spark Joy by Marie Kondo, which was long but surprisingly practical. Then, The Late Americans by Brandon Taylor, which I was just, so into the whole time I was reading it, and which made me feel that specific hopeful gummy feeling of being alive when you’re in the middle of a novel that pulls from you the best & worst parts of what you have been feeling and lays them out for you, gorgeously.
Then a frantic set from the library, almost all of which were dangerously approaching the overdue deadline: The Pocket Butler’s Guide to Good Housekeeping by Charles MacPherson; Wabi-Sabi: For Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers by Leonard Koren; The Best American Poetry 2021 edited by David Lehman, guest edited by Tracy K. Smith, to which I kept saying, “oh my god,” because some of the poems in there were really making my world bigger. Synthetic Jungle by Michael Chang, which I really liked, and Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency by Chen Chen, which I mega really liked.
Went home for the long weekend. Came back. Started reading again. Can never stop for that long anymore.
this is actually late - i had written this a few weeks ago and then did not finish it because i had to bike across town. now I am finishing writing this, again, an hour before I need to be across town. HA!!!
she has a beautiful singing voice; everyone in the room was hushed, but laughed when she sang, i think bc they were so delighted by it