#9 broken toes & spring cleaning

Happy Wednesday (It’s Tuesday),

Wanna know the real difference between us? I have a subungual hematoma and you don’t. On Tuesday, May 2nd, 2023 at approximately 3:27 PST, a very heavy wooden shelf fell directly and from consequential height on my toe. The questions on everyone’s mind (the 4 people who asked) were, “are you serious?” and “which toe” to which I’ll respond now and officially with: “yes” and “the big one.”

Perhaps it’s karma for all the shit I’ve been talking (in my journal) this week or maybe it’s because Mercury's Retrograde Climbed into Saturn’s Asshole this month, but color me unamused with my injury. WHO BREAKS THEIR TOES ANYMORE?

After crying (because it really hurt Charlie and it’s still hurting) I took 3 ibuprofen and 43 minutes to feel sorry for myself. I cried because I live alone and halfway wish someone had heard the shelf fall and could have thrown out a “ya okay?” from around the corner. I cried because I knew I should have moved that shelf to a less precarious position days ago. I cried because I had just started feeling good about moving my body again, and if it’s one thing you really need for yoga it’s your big toe. I cried because I’m a grown-up, and it feels quite silly to break your toe at 28 with no witnesses beyond your houseplants. The irony that I had just purchased a pair of steel-toed work boots but wasn’t wearing them isn’t lost on me. 

The good news is that though I had to avoid soaking my toe and wearing any footwear for two weeks, I had an excuse to do my favorite activities which are, in no particular order, lie down and read. Oh, and hobble along the picket lines in solidarity with Oakland Unified School District teachers, of course♥️. Congratulations on an agreement finally reached with the district and a historic showing-out the last two weeks! Teachers and students deserve so much more.

Each time I try to start this newsletter, it feels like an ode. Overcome with gratitude, it feels like a love letter or a dedication to everyone and everything that made being alive possible today and if you’re rolling your eyes so am I. In fact, growing up I had always found odes fairly cheesy and happy people quite insufferable. That is to say, there used to be a time when if I was anything less than shitting rainbows, other people’s joy physically hurt me. I felt bitterness grow like a vine inside me, and if I’m being honest, I judged them. I thought that accessing joy required becoming insensitive to the problems of others —  surely if you cared about [insert human rights issue here], you wouldn’t be so joyful—  and that people who were comfortable with themselves were silently endorsing the atrocities of the world with their contentment.

Thank god for therapy and a couple select books that allowed me to realize over the course of many years that I don’t get a medal for being the person quickest to work myself into the ground or sacrifice my well-being for the good of the group. Being the most miserable does not mean I am working the hardest and working the hardest does not mean I am the most valuable. In fact, I had to deeply interrogate why I even wanted to be the most valuable, more praised, most highly regarded or best anything. As it turns out, I don’t really care all that much about being #1, and in a society that prioritizes cutthroat competition over collaborative or collectivist approaches, the winners are usually people I wouldn’t want to hang out with anyways.

I’m not tyring to say that emerging victorious or being recognized for your efforts is a bad thing, moreso I’ve been trying to distance myself more from external validation and societal markers of success as indicators of my well-being. And once I stopped obsessing over working to have the greatest impact or be the best, I found my life became much more fulfilling — marked by the quality of time I spent with friends, the tranquility I felt in my body when I woke, and the creativity that my mind generated when it wasn’t constantly worrying about being something more than what I already am.

Anyone who knows me knows I take great pride in making my home feel cozy and colorful and have about twenty-seven DIY projects littering the space at any given time. I usually do these instead of “getting out there”, “meeting new people,” and “responding to text messages.” Ever since I was little, rearranging my space has always brought me comfort. It allows me to be creative, take risks, and soothe my ever-buzzing brain. Change your outside environment to change your inside environment is what my therapist calls it. After going through my closets and all of the boxes in which my dad had kept of my childhood things, I collected about seven boxes of clothes, shoes, art, accessories, kitchen wares, electronics, and furniture that need new homes. Being someone who loves an excuse to throw a party and also recycle, I decided to host a garage sale with music and drinks. However, seventeen (give or take) atmospheric rivers between January and May have prevented my Super Awesome Garage Sale from even super happening. So, alas, the boxes remain in my living room to torment me until better weather arrives.

It has been a practice, however, in confronting my shit, so to speak. There is simply nowhere else for it to go, and I can’t very well return it to the closets I so painstakingly sorted it all away from. I do not have the privilege of a garage or a shed or a spare room for storage to shove it all into. So, I must walk around the Doom Pile taking residence in my living room each day without hating myself. Easier said than done, lads!

My therapist likes to ask me “can that be enough?” quite frequently. I only did four dishes. I only walked for twenty minutes. I only responded to two emails. I used to look at her like she was crazy. “Obviously not, Therese?” When asked if I thought I was a perfectionist I said “no, I make way too many mistakes.” I thought in order to be a perfectionist you needed to be perfect, and though I tried my best, I never was. Turns out this is the definition. 

Because we all grew up in a capitalist hellscape that conflated rest with laziness, I try to remind myself that relaxing and seeking joy is a worthy practice and a legitimate investment in my well-being. It takes time and effort to feel at peace with letting things be when we live in a culture that screams that we are doing it all too slowly and all wrong. That our lives would be better if we could just do a little more a little faster and in a different order. While scrolling on Tiktok this week the algorithm suggested to me “my 3am get ready routine.” Surely not? That is the middle of the night. These are the end of days, they must be. 

I, personally, am a big fan of doing less though all of my programming tells me that in order to be valuable I need to constantly be ready and willing to work myself to burnout in the service of others. Turns out I’m a person worthy of love and belonging whether I bend over backwards or remain upright. I’m supposed to feel like a selfish asshole for forgetting to respond to text messages, but I don’t anymore. I’m supposed to feel shame for my house being untidy, but I’m working on that one. I’m supposed to let my unread emails and unpaid parking tickets tell me I’m irresponsible, but I know I’m not. I’m supposed to feel like a less legitimate writer because I write fanfiction and a newsletter for free, but I won’t. Our culture shames us so easily for any deviation from having it all together, and it so boring. The most together people I know are those I don’t really want to be around, to be honest. Be messy. Be loud. Be broke. Who gives a fuck? Are you having fun? Are you being kind? I’m beginning to think that’s all that matters. 

Make space for the things you love because all the little moments, well they stack up to become a life. And when I stack mine, I’d like to see: dinners with friends, afternoons reading on the couch, planting a garden, walking through the city, writing letters, baking cakes, watching movies, seeing live music, and writing stories with and for the friends that stoke my fire and ignite my soul. 

I’m twenty-eight years old, and I have at least two sleepovers a month with my best friends and the nights in between are filled with sending and receiving wild voice notes in my bookclub whatsapp & discord groups— gushing about everything from books to music to art to remember that one time... 

“We’ll have to have a spare bedroom where my husband can sleep, because we aren’t going to stop having sleepovers are we?” one of my friends asked me recently, as we lay in bed post PM skincare routine (jk I probably still had mascara on) and looked at the ceiling. No. I reckon we aren’t. A few of my fan-ficiton friends got together this past weekend for a night out in Oxford, and three had a sleepover afterwards. They popped on video chat giggling hysterically wearing each other’s pajamas and sandwiching themselves on the couch to fit in the frame. 

There’s something about falling asleep reading and waking up giggling with your bestie, replaying the night’s adventures that never gets old. I bet Emily (Dickinson) did that shit too, there was just decidedly less plumbing and electricity involved but the feelings were the same weren’t they? We share hinge profiles and text messages while they shared poems and letters of the suitors wishing to court them. I think often of that scene in Pride and Prejudice when Lizzie and Jane are under the covers laughing and gushing to each other about the ball at Meryton. Who would trade that for husbands? Surely no one? There shouldn’t have to be a trade. Jane and Lizzie still had sleepovers at Pemberley —  fight me on this. 

So this newsletter is dedicated to the homes we break our toes in, the homes we let descend into utter filth and rearrange a thousand times, but most importantly to the homes we build in our people. We may not all have grown up in houses that felt like home, places where we could relax and be who we wanted to be. But that’s the beauty of being grown, we get to do home differently —  build home in each other where we are free to leave, free to stay, and wanted in whatever state we’re in. Each of these recommendations this week has a little bit of home. I hope you enjoy them :) 

Listening Round-Up

🎧The Way Home (playlist)

This is a playlist that chronicles the end to my Solo Spring Roadtrips™. The drive back from LA to The Bay was fuelled by a Petey-induced mania. DON’T TELL THE BOYS and LITTLE HABITS are my current faves. Happy listening! 

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🎧 Backseat Lovers (Live Show, setlist)

I went to see The Backseat Lovers at the Fox in Oakland mostly to see them play Close Your Eyes, and I left right after. The crowd wasn’t my scene, and if I’m being honest I was particularly engrossed in writing a chapter of my current Rodeo Harry Potter fanfiction, so anything would have been hard to compete with my imagination that night. I still love this band, I just prefer listening to them at home. Not in a rude way. 

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🎧 Lizzy McAlpine & Oliva Barton (Live Show, setlist)

I went to see Lizzy McAlpine close her “The End of the Movie” tour at the Fox in Oakland this week, and though her voice is incredible and the sound was perfect, the crowd vibes were not immaculate. I haven’t been getting lucky with good crowds lately, and I’m realizing how much they can really make or break a show. I know I sound like an old lady, but when people are talking and snapchatting through most of the performance about nothing even related to the artist at such a small venue I just get sad? Because I think live music is so powerful and that’s what I’m there for. For me, seeing music is about the music, being immersed in whatever sound and light experience the artist is trying to create; it’s not just background noise to a night out with friends —especially for how expensive concert tickets are nowadays. That being said, I love seeing young people out together, making memories and having a good time. Tough crowds make amazing crowds feel that much more magical.

I LOVED Olivia Barton’s opening set and was so surprised to learn that she and her partner are the duo that went viral for the “if i were a fish” video on TikTok. Seeing the crowd go crazy for such a sweet silly song was so endearing. Big Frog and Toad vibes. I specifically loved Olivia’s song “I Don’t Sing My Songs” which is about working a job you hate so that you can do your art, but the job drains you so much that your art goes unmade and you wonder when that all happened and at what point you lost it.

Being a huge Lizzy fan, I of course wanted to hear about 20 more songs of hers, but I will literally lick Lizzy McAlpine crumbs off the floor on my hands and knees so… I know she’s blown up a TON in the past couple of years and she’s also very young, and I think on the whole she’s doing a pretty fucking great job holding it all together? I definitely couldn’t. Her voice was amazing, her set was adorable, and I don’t feel short-changed at all because I don’t think artists owe anyone anything. I think I just feel sad that she didn’t seem to be having an amazing time, and I just hope she’s still loving performing and making music. <3

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Watching Round-Up

🎬Staged (Comedy, Youtube / BritBox)

If you are a fan of Good Omens or the banter-filled bromance of David Tennant and Michael Sheen, you will love Staged. It is definitely a product of its time, a mockumentary wherein David and Michael play exaggerated versions of themselves (think Curb Your Enthusiasm but distinctly UK) forced to rehearse a play together via Zoom during the pandemic whilst navigating the anxiety and ennui of lockdown and reopening. I found it hilarious and deeply human. 

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Reading Round-Up

📚The Renewed Importance of Texas Gay Rodeo (Article, The New Yorker, 2023)

For anyone who knows me from the Harry Potter fanfiction community, you may know that I’ve been writing a lil’ some-some about a few of our favorite characters set in a world dominated by Rodeo. Growing up with my grandpa being a cattle rancher and my uncle being a horse trainer and both of them competing in Team Roping across the West, I’ve always had a special place in my heart for summer rodeo and small-town life. Sun up to sun down, sweaty dirty workin’. Being a queer person and someone who has friends and loved ones of many different races, religions, and genders however, it’s been hard for me to love it without critique. In some ways, rodeo upholds every traditional gender norm inherent to the formation of an “American” identity, and in other ways, it completely subverts them. There is a can-do attitude of the women, for example, to be able to hold their own, lift heavy shit, ride hard and turn quick. There are also events from which women are excluded and separated based on their gender, and that doesn’t begin to even speak to people whose genders lie beyond the binary.  

Because the legends of the Old West are rooted in violent genocide, Rodeo has always seemed to require the erasure of anything beyond white-cis-hetero-capitalist-patriarchy, and I distanced myself it as an adult because of how uncomfortable the cognitive dissonance. However, it’s important to remember that rural communities are not a monolith —  that though there is a story about how conservative or how close minded small-town America can be, that Queer people are literally everywhere. To paint with such broad strokes outside of city centers erases us and what we’ve contributed to every community we were born into, raised up in, or chose to join. 

Texas Gay Rodeo is a heartwarming reminder that queer love and community are alive in Rodeo, that despite the current political and social climate raging against drag shows and accessible health care for trans and intersex children across the US, queer people continue to carve spaces for ourselves and misfits everywhere. This article details not only the incredible stories of queer competitors and the AIDS activism and fundraising accomplished by Gay Rodeo, but the stories of straight allies who have also found a home here after experiencing marginalization due to their race or gender. 

If you are local to the Bay Area and want to attend or support Gay Rodeo in California, Goldestate Gay Rodeo Association hosts Bay Area Rodeo September 9-10th in Duncans Mills, CA. 

Do what you love. Love who you love. Your people will find you. <3

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📚 Ten Years in the Tub by Nick Hornby (Book, NonFiction, 2018)

Nick Hornby has written the books of some of my favorite movies (About A Boy, High Fidelity), but I never read his writing until this book. Ten Years in the Tub is bigger than the bible, and I carry it around with me and quote it at people in much the same way evangelicals do. Maybe if the bible were as funny and relatable as this book, I’d read more scripture. 

Ten Years in the Tub is a compilation of a decade’s worth of Hornby’s column “Stuff I’ve Been Reading” in The Believer, a magazine that after five years on hiatus, has been revived at McSweeny’s. In it, Hornby gives you a list of books he’s purchased and a list of books he’s read (sometimes completely unrelated), which makes me feel less alone in my book hoarding. I find Hornby’s writing to be poignant, unpretentious, and absolutely hilarious. He’s the kind of writer who writes how I think but also uses bigger words, so my vocabulary is always stretching.

Think of it as a guide to book recommendations since 2002, spanning everything from contemporary fiction to books about soccer, from the classics to guidebooks on how to quit smoking. He’s honest about what he reads and how much, and in moments when he could wax poetic straight at his navel, he positions himself as a reader more than an accomplished author. Nick Hornby, he’s just like us!

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Cooking Round-Up:

🧁Potato Salad (I KNOW I KNOW YOURS IS BETTER BLAH BLAH BLAH Just try it. All my friends are obsessed with it and you probably will be too if you like salty crunchy delicious food). Again, I don’t really measure shit, and I usually am only cooking to feed myself, so use your head and adapt accordingly.

Ingredients:

• 4-8 russet potatoes

• 1 jar pepperoncinis

• 1 jar roasted red peppers

• 1 jar of dill pickles

• 1 can of olives

• Celery 

Yucatan Sunshine Hot Sauce (or hot sauce of your choice)

THE SMALLEST TEENIEST AND I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH TINIEST DOLLUP OF THE DEVIL’S DIP (mayonnaise, my nemesis)

Directions:

1. Peel your potatoes and think about the person who taught you how to do that, or don’t if that’s not a good memory (maybe play some music? I like Etta James for potatoes, but do you).

2. Cut your potatoes in half or in quarters depending on how big they are

3. Place them in a pot and cover with 1 inch of water (salted)

4. Bring the water to a boil then reduce to simmer (usually 10-15 mins depending on your taters)

5. Chop celery, pickles, olives, peppers, and pepperoncinis while the taters boil 

6. Test taters with a fork and when they are tender, drain ‘em.

7. When the potatoes are soft and drained, add all the fun stuff and the SMALLEST amount of mayo (i have a mayo prejudice) and sir mixalot. 

8. Best served cold (IMO) —  add hot sauce and eat. 

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🧁Chocolate Banana Bites

I got this recipe from Faith’s Fresh TikTok and she’s wearing a “Welcome to Montana” shirt while she makes these bananas so, I took it as a good sign.

Ingredients:

• However many bananas you want

• Wooden skewers (or anything you have, popsicle sticks, chopsticks etc.)

• Semi-sweet chocolate chips

• Coconut oil

• Peanuts

• Coconut flakes

Directions:

1. Chop peanuts / coconut flakes and lay them out on parchment paper 

2. Melt semi-sweet chocolate chips with a spoonful of coconut oil, this makes the chocolate smooth and shell-like and avoids getting weird and clumpy

3. Cut bananas in half and stick a stick in them

4. Fill a coffee cup up with melted chocolate/coconut oil 

5. Dip banana sticks into chocolate and roll them in peanuts and / or coconut flakes

6. Freeze and enjoy later!

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🧁Peanut Noodle Salad 

This recipe is so easy and so delicious I ate it every day for 1 week and then made it again. 

Ingredients: 

• Spaghetti or ramen noodles 

• Carrots

• Edamame 

• Cabbage (I skipped cuz I hate but you do you)

• Peanuts (I added cuz I love but you do you)

• Bell Peppers

Sauce:

• ⅓ c. soy sauce

• 2 tbs. Rice vinegar

• 2 tbs. Sesame oil

• 1tbs sugar

• 1 tbs toasted sesame seeds

• 1 tbs chili oil

• ½ cup PB

• 2 cloves garlic

• Ginger (however much you like —  I’m a fiend for ginger personally)

• ⅓ cup pasta water

Blend all the sauce ingredients in a blender then put it over the noods&veg. Enjoy!

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Ending Note:

Big Ups to everyone who reached out to me these past couple weeks- they’ve been a doozie, and I feel grateful to have so many people that not only care about this newsletter, but also me as a person.

Congrats to the graduates in my life! Leo, Alexis, Arina (and anyone else I’ve forgotten in thi smoment, I remember you in my heart).

I’m sure I missed a bunch of things I meant to say, but I’ll save them for the next (hopefully not-so-far-away) edition. As always, please tell me if you took up any of these recs and what resonated with you! I love you all.

XO,

M