Books? Books.

in fantastic strangelings book club

It’s September and that means I have a list of wonderful books you should read, including this month’s Fantastic Strangeling Book Club pick, The Fortunes of Jaded Women by Carolyn Huynh. It was exactly the zany, dramatic, messy, hopeful tale that I needed and it had me hooked from the very first line:

“Everyone in Orange County’s Little Saigon knew that the Duong sisters were cursed.“

And if you’ve been waiting to join the Fantastic Strangelings this is the perfect time to do it because I’ve been a bit lonely so I’ve started doing ridiculous online crafting hours where you can zoom in and watch me glue myself to my desk. Last night I tried to make a ghost out of a mannequin and both his arms fell off. Who doesn’t want to see that?

If you’re anything like me you might need more than one book to get you through the month so here are the new September books that I loved:

Thistlefoot by GennaRose Nethercott – A modern fairytale about the ancestral hauntings that stalk us, and the uncanny power of story, seeped with Eastern European folklore.

American Demon by Daniel Stashower – This historical true crime book explores Elliot Ness and the hunt for America’s Jack the Ripper.  HOW DID I NOT KNOW THIS STORY? SO MANY TORSOS.

Ghost Eaters by Clay McLeod Chapman– A terrifying and haunting page-turner that explores ghost, grief and god complexes.

Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton –This graphic novel by Kate Beaton (who wrote HARK! A VAGRANT, which is one of my fave books ever) goes a whole new way and vividly presents the untold story of Canada and the years in which she worked in the harsh realities of the oil sands.

The Devil Takes You Home by Gabino Iglesias – A genre-defying thriller about a father desperate to salvage what’s left of his family, even if it means a descent into a supernatural world. Dark as hell.

Cryptid Club by Sarah Anderson – A freaking adorable little comic compilation of spooky cuteness.

Motherthing by Ainslie Hogarth – This is the weird-ass mother-in-law from hell (literally) book you’ve been looking for.  This book is fully nuts, y’all.

Anything calling to you? Happy reading!

PS. I’m about to open up the discussion thread for last month’s book (THE BOOK EATERS by Sunyi Dean) on the Fantastic Strangelings Facebook page but if you don’t do facebook I’ll leave my thoughts here in the comments. It may take me a minute though because I have a lot of thoughts about this one. 🙂

Missing: one brain

in Random Crap

I’ve been feeling slightly more scattered than normal for the past few months. Exhausted, forgetful, emotional. I went to see the doctor recently and after a ton of tests he was like, “Beats me, lady” so I went to an Ob/Gyn because a friend said it sounded like perimenopause and my Ob/Gyn was like, “Your bloodwork shows that you don’t have enough testosterone. Do you want cream or pellets?” I always skip cream because I’m lactose intolerant but turns out she meant some kind of testosterone lotion you rub on your foot each night and that sounds weirdly specific but the pellet thing was even weirder because apparently they cut a hole in your butt cheek and put a pellet in the hole and after a month it dissolves and then you go back in and they put another hole in your butt and put another pellet in and…is this real? Because why would you choose to get extra butt holes when you could just pick “lotion”? I can barely keep up with the butthole I already have and I suspect the extra butt hole is probably not enormous but still…worst purse ever. (The extra butt hole, I mean. Not my normal butthole. Although that’s also a terrible purse.) Anyway, I forgot what my point was here but maybe after I start rubbing testosterone on my foot I’ll remember and this will all make sense again.

Probably not though.

UPDATED: THIS IS probably NOT MY VAGINA, TWITTER. (Previously entitled: Welcome to my android vagina)

in Random Crap

This week I had my first ever bone density scan and that was nice except that the tech printed the results out for me and it’s just a bunch of pictures of my vagina?

Like, just how breakable is my vagina?  I didn’t even know this was a concern.

Also, it says I’m part android:

What.

  This seems like something the doctor should have talked to me about. 

One of my biggest reasons for going to to the doctor was my concern about my bad memory being early-onset dementia since it runs in my family but he didn’t think it was an issue. He did mention that maybe viagra could help ward off my chances of getting dementia in the future because some study recently showed that men who took viagra were less likely to get dementia, which is interesting but it also seems like me taking viagra is exactly the sort of thing that would get me committed to a memory home because they’re gonna be like, “This bitch can’t even remember she doesn’t have a penis. Clearly she needs to be here.”  And then I’d be like, “No, I remember that I have a vagina.  A very breakable one, apparently.   Possibly an android vagina.  Would you like to see pictures? Because I have them.”  And then I’m definitely getting committed to the memory home, but the one my granny was in was pretty nice so I guess that’s fine.

Also, I’m sharing the X-ray vag pic on here because people love nude pics and this is the most nude you can get. Basically it’s my “only fans” page, but for free. Someone pressures you for nudes pics?  Take mine. Help yourself.  YOU’RE WELCOME.

UPDATED: Okay, so several of you pointed out that I seem to be missing my pelvis altogether in this picture and that maybe this image is just my hip bones with my android vagina removed for modesty sake and I was about to admit that you might be right because I did think this made me look thinner than expected but then twitter was like, “YOU CAN’T JUST SHOW YOUR LADY GARDEN TO THE WORLD, YA BIG WHORE.”:

Technically they just said that they were hiding the tweet from the public because of “nudity” but if twitter thinks it’s nudity then I’m pretty sure any guy you send it to is going to think the same thing.

Where have I been?

in Random Crap

I’ve been gone all week because of a series of small but exhausting crisises (crises?) including Hailey giving themselves a concussion after falling into a pole from laughing too hard (which is every bit of proof I need that they are my child.) Their cat scan came back normal (whoop!) and so now they are recovering using the WWMD? method. (What Would Mold Do? Mold would rest in the quiet and the dark and stay hydrated and not look at screens.) But it is Friday and that means that you need to step into my office because we all need a distraction and I’ve been saving ridiculous videos for you all week.

So old, but I never get tired of it:

Happy weekend, y’all.

The end of the beginning. The beginning of the rest.

in Random Crap

Today is Hailey’s first day of their senior year so we went outside to take our annual photo and I got a bit teary when I told Hailey that this will probably be my last time taking a first-day-of-school photo. The look on their face when I said that was of excitement, and wonder and fear and it was the perfect photo in that moment:

And they said that they would ask their roommate to take a picture of them for me on their first day of college, which was very nice but I explained that probably I’d be there too, secretly taking a picture with a telephoto lens so that they had privacy and could live their life with autonomy but that they should be prepared for me to yell, “STAND UP STRAIGHT” from my hiding spot in the parking lot and that probably I wouldn’t be the only mom hiding in a parking lot and the other moms hiding in their cars or perched in tree branches would be like, “Fucking THANK YOU, why do they never stand up straight?” and then suddenly the whole flock of college freshmen would scatter like spooked deer but that I hoped they’d look back and smile for a moment so I could get one good shot in before the police removed me.

Anyway, that’s how it’s going over here. How are you?

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