The Bloggess

Sorry I’ve been MIA. I sort of fell off the world but I’m back today with actual energy and slightly less depression. YAY FOR LESS DEPRESSION!

Just dropping a few notes here to catch up on life, the universe and everything.

Some of you have asked if I’m making the audiobook for HOW TO BE OKAY WHEN NOTHING IS OKAY and I just finished recording it. Whoop! It included two days of me mispronouncing words that because I read them more than I hear them, including mispronouncing Maya Angelou’s last name because did you know it’s supposed to rhyme with “glow” and not “glue”? What else am I confidently mispronouncing? SO MANY THINGS.

If you’re a member of the Fantastic Strangelings Book Club check your email because I need to practice talking about my new book so I’m doing a sneak-peek zoom soon to practice reading and answering questions to try to shake off all of this anxiety before I actually go out on tour. I know most of you are non-judgmental friends so I can fuck up and you will not hate me. Much.

Speaking of Fantastic Strangelings…this months book pick is Superfan by Jenny Tinghui Zhang. Boybands. Obsession. Secrets. Loneliness. So good.

And if you’re a member of the Nightmares from Nowhere bookclub I’m sending you Trad Wife by Saratoga Schaefer. A trad-wife influencer allows a demon to knock her up and it gets even more nuts from there.

And if you need more than one book to get you through…here are a few new February releases I read and loved:

The Red Winter by Cameron Sullivan–  Historical fiction.  Gay werewolves.  Yes, please.  I loved this book although I will tell you that it is bloody and very open-door, which isn’t that much of a surprise for gay werewolves.  

The Glowing Hours by Leila Siddiqui. A mind-bending, revisionist gothic horror story about the fabled summer Mary Shelley began work on Frankenstein, as told by her Indian housemaid.

Evil Genius by Claire Oshetsky – An exuberant novel about a young woman’s quest to carve her own path—even if she needs to step over a few dead bodies along the way.

Agnes Aubert’s Mystical Cat Shelter by Heather Fawcett – Magic, cats, bookstores…a cozy read.

Be Your Own Bestie by Misha Brown – A no-nonsense guide to changing the way you treat yourself.

I’m So Happy You’re Here: A Celebration of Library Joy by Mychal Threets and Lorraine Nam – A lovely children’s book about embracing libraries and patrons everywhere.

Happy reading, my friends.

How To Be Okay When Nothing Is Okay got a starred review from Library Journal! (Starred reviews are rare as hen’s teeth and denote a “book of distinction” and I’ve only gotten a few in my life so I am literally am sitting here with the biggest dumb smile on my face and thought I would share.)

And in other library-related news…last weekend I spoke at a beautiful library in Bryan, Texas and I had a anxiety attack just before. Victor had come with me and when I started to panic he was like, “These people are all here because they want to see you, so why are you panicking?” and I was like, “But what is the likelihood that everyone is only here because they’re mad at me and they are just waiting until I go on the stage to yell at me about how I have personally wronged them in some way?” And Victor stared at me for a second and then was like, “Small. That likelihood is small, you absolute nut. But I did see someone handing out rotten tomatoes in the hall so…?” and then I laughed for a second and then immediately felt even more terrified because anxiety doesn’t always understand rational thought and so I ran away and hid in the stacks to calm down. And I overheard another person who was telling her partner that she thought she was too anxious to go watch me talk and that weirdly gave me the encouragement to go back in because THESE NEUROTIC WEIRDOS ARE MY PEOPLE…but first I posted this on instagram: Dear person I just passed by who is feeling too scared to go listen to the talk I’m doing in 10 minutes: I only know you’re panicking bc I’m currently hiding in the stacks waiting for my own anxiety to pass. You are in the right place, friend.

And it ended up being such a fun and supportive time and later I got pictures of the event and this one is my second favorite because I look fairly self-assured and confident but look at my feet because why are they levitating?

Answer: When I’m really nervous my body sometimes stiffens up to the point that I’m pretty sure a slumber party could lift me up in a light-as-a-feather-stiff-as-a-board-sort-of-way I would still remaining in the seated position and that’s a little embarrassing but also I’m choosing to focus on the fact that I’m showing a surprising amount core-strength for someone who hasn’t done a full sit-up in 25 years.

And at the end the library director took a picture of the packed room for their social media, and I asked if we could also do one where everyone in the audience was super pissed at me because it was literally what I’d imagined in my anxiety attack and everyone immediately turned angry-villager in the best way.

Afterward I stayed to sign books and three separate people thanked me because they thought they were the person that I’d seen panicking earlier and I sort of love this because clearly all three people were having the same panic attack I was and all of us thought we were the only ones, and I think it just goes to show how very not alone we are even when we feel at our most alone.

I just looked down and saw the adhd pill that I clearly forgot to swallow this morning and I apologize because this probably explains why there are even more run-on sentences than normal.

I wasn’t going to write anything today because I’m in a depression and that makes my head into mush, but then I looked at a comment on my last post that was utterly infuriating and I started to highlight it and scream about how terrible people can be and then I stopped and took a breath and realized that 1) anyone who would leave a comment complaining about the fact that I (*checks comment again*) have cancer is definitely hurting in a way that will not be remedied by me screaming at them and 2) that it can be really easy to lose your cool at strangers (and loved ones) right now because so many of us are furious about the world today. We are not meant to be able to handle this level of constant stress that comes from seeing people being brutalized and hurt. The fury boils over into so many places because it often has nowhere else to go.

I put my time and money into helping the world be better than we are. I call and write to politicians. I amplify others voices who are being quieted. But it can often feel like this is not enough…and that frustration can turn into fury that turns into cruelty to others…and sometimes even inward causing us to hurt ourselves.

If my depression wasn’t lingering I might have better words than this, so please forgive me for not making more sense…but I just want to say that your work DOES make a difference. Your kindness and understanding and grace and compassion breeds more of those things.

This doesn’t mean that you should just take the hurtful bullshit or allow people to hurt you. Use that hurt and anger to spur you on in positive ways. And perhaps my way of dealing with things is more quiet than yours. That’s okay. It’s takes all kinds of people and techniques to become the best versions of ourselves. But be gentle to yourself. Take care of you. Protect your heart. Take breaks. Find actions that will make positive changes in the world and to yourself.

Do not let the world turn you brittle and mean. Your kindness is not weak. Your softness is not quiet.

I hope this makes sense.

And on another (slightly-related) subject, I’ll be at the Bryan + College Station Library System this Saturday for a little read/talk/signing and it’s free to attend! Libraries are being attacked right now in so many ways so if you’re in College Station Tx come support your library and see me. And if you’re not near College Station, go to your local library and get a library card if you don’t already have one. It makes a difference. (Also, it’s free to attend, but the first 50 people to register will also get a free copy of one of my books at the session. Whoop!)

Y’ALL.

I just heard from my doctor and the stomach biopsies they did last week came back showing no additional cancer! WHOOP!

He’s so optimistic about my prognosis that instead of doing to biopsies every 4 months I don’t have to do another one until the end of the year, which means that I don’t have to worry about doing biopsies and procedures during book tour and OMG I AM MELTING WITH RELIEF.

I still have the gastric metaplasia and most likely there is still some neuroendocrine cancer wandering around in me but this confirms that it’s probably small and slow-growing and might be the kind of cancer that you just have forever but doesn’t do much of anything except make you tired, which is not great but I WILL TAKE IT IF IT STAYS LAZY.

YAY FOR LAZY CANCER!

Sorry. That was nuts but I’m just so relieved because I was having a lot of stomach pains and was worried it was bad news but turns out it was just my stomach being complicated and difficult, which I can totally live with.

I’m still going to live life knowing that life is fragile and I will still keep saying yes to things like I have been this last year, but maybe now I can say yes to things without the immediate fear that it will be the last time I say yes.

Thank you for all the thoughts and love, friends.

Going to go cry now a little, but in a good way.

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