It’s Friday and it’s been a long damn week so that means that you need to sneak into my office so that I can show you all the videos I saved for you. If your boss complains just explain that this is medicinal and that HR asked you to review it and technically that’s sort of true because I worked in HR for a decade and I am currently HR for my own office which consists of me and the cats and Dorothy Barker who is currently on a phase 2 warning for harassing Hunter S. Thomcat off of my lap.
Last week we went to Puerto Rico for 3 days with Hailey, their sweetheart Laurel, and Laurel’s mom to celebrate their graduation and spend some bonding time with them before they both go off to Texas State, and it was perfect because I could stay in bed when exhaustion hit and not feel bad because Hailey could go out on their own with Laurel since they’re now adults. And it was also heart-breakingly bittersweet because they’re now old enough to have lives without us. The chest-swelling pride of watching my kid step out in adulthood is tempered with an equal pain of watching our relationship change into something different…something still wonderful, but the end of an era and the beginning of another…of letting go and changing. It’s so much harder than I thought it would be.
We swam and (lightly) hiked through a rainforest but one of my favorite memories was watching a flight attendant named Debbie lose her absolute shit when she told the last person getting on that he couldn’t bring on three bags and another flight attendant was like, “It’s fine. We still have plenty of room in the overhead, Debbie” and she screamed “YOU CAN’T HAVE THREE BAGS. I TOLD HIM YOU CAN’T HAVE THREE BAGS” and everyone just stared at each other with giant eyes because clearly Debbie was going through some shit and we could all relate to that but also it was like watching your parents fight in front of your friends and for the rest of the trip whenever something would go wrong one of us would scream “YOU CAN’T HAVE THREE BAGS” and we’d all laugh and realize we were being ridiculous and now “YOU CAN’T HAVE THREE BAGS” joins our forever lexicon of weird private jokes.
And that’s sort of wonderful because I’m always staring at the ceiling at 3am thinking about something mortifying I said 10 years ago and people always say, “No one noticed whatever you’re worried about, you’re being irrational” and maybe that’s true, but maybe a group of total strangers who heard me say something incredibly embarrassing 10 years ago continue to repeat that dumb thing with joy as a private joke that still bonds them together. And that’s a type of immortality you cannot buy and a helpful reminder I need as I continue to accidentally spew out horribly embarrassing things in public, like a fountain of mortification.
So I found a small tree in a clam and when the waiter asked if everything was okay I said, “There’s a small tree in my clam” and the waiter was like, “Oh. Why?” As if I had put it there.
So he got the cook and she was like, “Oh, that’s his…what’s the word? His hair“. And that was not really comforting but English was not her first language so I googled “What’s in my clam” and turns out it’s his beard. Apparently “bearded clam” is not just a euphemism for a lady garden. So then I asked the waiter if we were supposed to eat the bearded clam and he was like, “I wouldn’t” and then pointed out that it was not a clam at all and was a mussel so now I’m even more confused.
Victor and I are currently giving Hailey advice to prepare for their driving test and we have very different ideas on how to deal with intentionally aggressive dickholes on the road. Victor is all for honking at them because “How else will they know that they’re idiots?” but I explained that honking just makes them more angry and it’s much easier to just pull up next to them and point frantically with concern at the back of their car like they maybe have a serial killer hiding in the bed of their trunk or a knife sticking out of their tire so they have to pull over in a parking lot and spend time feeling dumb because they can’t figure out what nonexistent thing I was pointing at and it slows them down enough that I don’t have to deal with them anymore and probably makes them drive a little more carefully for awhile because they’re paranoid that something is going to fall off their car and/or explode. Victor was speechless, but probably just because he was very impressed.
I’m not necessarily a fan of westerns or romances (or western romances) but then I glimpsed the summary…“A genre-bending queer feminist Western pitched as True Grit meets Sarah Waters, following a young woman’s transformation from forlorn orphan to successful prostitute to revenge-seeking gunfighter, exploring desire, loyalty, power, and chosen family.” YES, PLEASE, GIVE IT TO ME.
So good. (And we have spots available if you want to join the Fantastic Strangelings and want this as your first book.)
I was sucked in by the premise and couldn’t put it down. “On a creepy island where everyone has a strange obsession with the year 1994, a newcomer arrives, hoping to learn the truth about her son’s death–but finds herself pulled deeper and deeper into the bizarrely insular community and their complicated rules.”
I don’t know why but I totally had flashbacks to all the teen horror I read in the 90s…R.L. Stine, Christopher Pike, Lois Duncan, Richard Peck. And now I want to go find all of those books again. (Edited to add: I just noticed that the cover blurb is by R. L. Stine but it totally wasn’t when I got my early copy and now I’m feeling slightly psychic.)
Need more books to get you through the month? Same. Here are a few amazing new June books I loved:
The Art Thief by Michael Finkel – The captivating and true story of Stephane Brietwieser, the notorious serial art thief who accumulated a collection worth over $1.4 billion and hid it all in his bedr
Maeve Fly by CJ Leede – By day, Maeve Fly works at the happiest place in the world as every child’s favorite ice princess. By night…something much darker. Gory af, unsettling and bizarre, but one that people will be talking about.
Faint of Heart by Kerilynn Wilson – What would you do if you were the only person left with a heart? Part Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and part Severance, this debut teen graphic novel is a vivid and haunting read.
Adult Drama: And Other Essays by Natalie Beach – Look. If you didn’t read all the Caroline Calloway/Natalie Beach online drama when it was happening then you are a better person than I am. If you are not a better person than I am then you will probably want to read this book.
Happy reading and thank you for supporting your local indie bookshop!
It’s Friday and I’m sick (just a cold, but one that wants to murder me) so today we definitely need to look at all the dumb videos I’ve been saving for you. Yes, you. Take 5 minutes for this medicinal break:
The Mack Files: Digesting life in bite-sized pieces through the lens of clichés, quotes & “truisms”. Often irreverent, always honest.
Barking at the Moon: If your dog is your furry child, you will laugh out loud at Tracy Beckerman’s book about her family & a one-dog wrecking ball named Riley.
Wonder and Joy for the Wired and Tired: Feeling wired, tired, and stretched too thin? You’re not alone. Re-ignite your sense of childlike wonder, joy, and well-being with this enlightening and entertaining book by Dr. Pam Stephens Lehenbauer, well-being thought leader and author of the blog, Mother Nature’s Apprentice.
Stuff and Thangs from Xanaru: A mostly funny stuff about my quest for happiness through stories, art, friendship, Great Danes, one naked weirdo alien cat and indiscriminate swearing.
How the Hell Did I Not Know That?: Humorist Lucie Frost shares daily Instagram reels with learnings of the day—words, music, whatever–with plenty of laughs and all the curse words.
Beautiful Writers book: Writers! This coming-of-career memoir (w/ the BEST advice from celeb authors, real shit you haven’t heard) is life. A page-turning beach read doubling as how-to. #Magic
