the slow and unyielding march of time | episode 27
I was very fuzzy for the last couple months of 2021. My brain had gotten real bad — that’s how I described it anyways. It had become hard for me to take in new information at work, to process ideas, to learn. I was burnt out.
I went on vacation — a true vacation — in December. I’m so grateful that I was able to do it. We left when omnicron was starting to gain a foothold, but hadn’t yet exploded, and we went to Hawai’i, where it was warm and sunny and we slept outside where the ocean thrummed in our ears all night long.
We ate passionfruit-frosted malasadas in the southern-most bakery in the United States. We hiked 8 miles (with a 1600 foot elevation loss) round-trip to gaze upon the Napali Coast. We took a tour in a zodiac that bobbed amidst a dolphin pod. I saw at least eight shooting stars, one through a telescope. We ate so much pineapple and I drank so much juice that it was probably dangerous.
The world briefly felt expansive again; I experienced something beyond my apartment walls. I feel so lucky to have been able to spend so much time outdoors, experiencing something new, and briefly forgetting how frustrating things are right now and how society and the societal contract is kind of breaking to pieces in front of our eyes.
I really recommend vacation! Although it’s mean to recommend vacation right now, because it’s out of reach for many people because of funds or health or general instability. But I hope everyone has either gotten or is giving yourself the space to take it easy, or take some time for yourself to do something fun.
Anyway. We made it to the New Year. Let’s find ways to bring ourselves and our community joy this year.
Debris
Did you know that there’s a kind of pineapple called Sugarloaf? The fruit is extremely sweet, with very low acidity, and there’s no core. A nice man sitting next to us at an (outside!) bar watched us consume a plateful of pineapples slices and told us about them; we bought one the next day at the farmer’s market along with some pineapple sorbet and the best??? juice I’ve ever had in my life. I’m ruined. You can order pineapples from the farm in Kaua’i but a three-pack costs $100, and that doesn’t include the shipping fees. If I ever get married I’m putting them on the registry.
I watched Encanto yesterday with my sister (we did a Disney groupwatch and called each other) and boy, did I sob for an hour and a half straight. It’s a lovely movie.
The Bachelor has started again and I am absolutely obsessed with this dress that one of the contestants wore on the first night, and now I am back in my “looking at very expensive dresses obsessively on the internet” stage of the pandemic. Please send help. (Or dresses.)
Just look at this beach. Gosh.
What I’ve been Reading:
Currently:
To be determined. Suggestions welcome!
I’ve been really drawn to sci-fi and fantasy lately, almost to the exclusion of all other fiction. I didn’t think about why until two days ago, when I picked up — and almost as quickly abandoned — a YA book about a senior who wants to be, nay deserves to be, the editor of her high school newspaper. The reason seems obvious, though, when I thought about it for two seconds. Why would I want to read about something that was even slightly recognizable as here?
Finished/Abandoned:
The Long Way to A Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers
Rosemary signs onto the crew of the Wayfarer in order to escape something in her past; we find out eventually what it is, but that discovery is just part of the long journey that winds out towards a distant part of the galaxy. Along the way, we learn about different species — their conflicts, their relationships, and their different positiongs in the big wide world. The story unspools almost lazily, with small space adventures and mishaps coloring the world. Like with Psalm for the Wild-Built (see below!) despite being in space and in danger, my anxiety never ratched up too much. It’s certainly sprawling, but the small details in how the characters engaged with each other, and the kindness present throughout, was really engaging to me.
A Queen in Hiding by Sarah Kozloff
My lovely friend and I went to see Kozloff read last summer; he had taken several of her film classes when we went to school, and he was still friendly with her and had bought all four of her novels when they came out. Cressna, a young queen is betrayed by her cabinet, and she manages to sneak out of her capitol city along with Cerulia, her daughter. She hides the princess amongst commoners, using her magic to ensure no one except Cerulia remembers her identity and then goes off to fight pirates in an attempt to win the love of her people to “reclaim” her throne. Things go awry, as all great plans do. So far, I am really enjoying this series! Some of it is a little on the nose, and there have been a couple times where a major choice is not quite earned, but I understand more or less why it’s needed to move the story forward. It’s fun! It takes place somewhere else!
The Queen of Raiders by Sarah Kozloff
The second book in this series! I read two in rapid succession because, why not. This one was better than the first! There was a lot of interesting journeying and scheming and David vs Goliath types of strategies. Like most fantasy, there’s a lot of exposition in places (“world building”) but I thought this one moved more quickly than the first.
As Good As Dead by Holly Jackson
ABANDONED. I didn’t love the first two books in this series, but I thought they had interesting things to say about the industry of true crime. (I wrote extensively about the second in the series, as you may remember.) I admire Jackson for taking that really, really far in this book, and having the main character step further into her PTSD. Despite the “cover” of PTSD, the main character started making choices that I just didn’t believe, that pushed the book in a direction I didn’t care for, so I just gave it up. Not for me. (I haven’t been reading a ton of mysteries, but I think I need a break from them nonetheless.)
The Lady in the Lake by Laura Lippman
Set in 1966 Baltimore, Maddie Schwartz has finally ended her 20-year marriage of convenience to a wealthy man, and things have not gone as she expected. Some interesting stuff structurally, but ultimately this book to me ended up being about a woman who destroyed a bunch of people’s lives because she felt entitled to lead a certain kind of life that she had denied herself when she was younger.
A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers
An extremely chill, low-stakes novel! A post-apocalyptic world, in the sense that the possibly-apocalyptic event of robots gaining sentience happened centuries ago. Ultimately, robots chose to explore the wilderness and humans rebuilt society. There is still strife in this world (relationships end; your sibling might still annoy you) but everyone has their basic needs met. Most folks are content, but Dex feels a yearning to leave the established roads and seek out the sounds of the nearly-extinct crickets. When he does, he meets Splendid Speckled Mosscap, a robot on a quest to seek what humans need. The world is very cute and cleverly built. I must admit I sometimes felt a little annoyed by Dex, who has everything they could need, but still wants more, but I think it’s an interesting exploration of wants vs needs and the desire to push against an orderly life.
Salt Houses by Hala Alyan
A beautiful, multi-generational story about the lives of a Palestinian family, beginning on the eve of Alia’s wedding, shortly before she and her family are forced to relocate to Kuwait during the Six-Day War of 1967. Her children, and her children’s children, are often in motion, having to resettle to avoid war. Alia’s brother Mustafa disappears early in the novel, taken (and presumably murdered) by Israelis, and becomes a family ghost. Secret shames are foundational to family myth-making. What does it mean to be Palestinean if you’ve never lived there? How can you trust a home when you’re constantly being displaced? It was beautiful and very sad and I loved it.
Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo
It’s the 1950s, and Lily Hu, a 17-year-old rising senior, is just trying to make it to college. She increasingly finds herself drawn to “unfeminine” things; clothes, an interst in space and rocket science. By chance, she sees an advertisement for the Telepgrph Club, a nightclub featuring a male impersonator named Tommy Andrews, and she fixates on it; when Kathleen, a new friend offers to take her there, she makes the decision to explore who she is, even when her personal safety — and the safety of her family — is at risk. One of the reasons I love reading so much is how it opens other worlds to me. Without reading I would never have access to the story of a young woman in the 1950s discovering her sexuality in a time when it was dangerous to be gay, and when the Red Scare made it dangerous to inhabit a Chinese-American body. Anyway, it was great!
Victories Greater Than Death by Charlie Jane Anders
Tina is an average, boring teenager, but not really; she’s actually a hidden clone of an alien hero, and when she’s finally ready for her destiny, her beacon will go off and the aliens will come get her and she’ll … do something epic, as long as she doesn’t get killed by the aliens who killed the original hero. Unfortunately, when the beacon goes off and she’s scooped up, there’s a small problem — the medical procedure to revive her memories goes awry, and while she can access Captain Thaoh Argentian skills and knowledge, she can’t access any of her actual memories. She’s just herself. Somehow, Tina must come to terms with the fact that she’s not Captain Argentian, and be happy with her own, scrappy, resourceful self. Oh yeah, and save the galaxy at the same time. This was very imaginative and fun, although quite messy! But I’m really enjoying energetic messes these days.
Ok folks, I hope you all have a really truly wonderful week. Or if that’s too much pressure or too exhausting, just keep hanging in there.
I love you all so much.
-davida