things were starting to get twisted
plus happy Women's History Month
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Dear friend —
Do you remember when, exactly, your quarantine life began?
Mine started a little over a year ago, on Thursday, March 12, 2020. That was the last day of relative normalcy, when I went into the office for work, conversed with colleagues sans masks, breathed fearlessly. Things were starting to get twisted though — we talked a lot about hand washing techniques and sanitizers. Then a friend texted: Don’t forget to stock up on groceries!
On my way home I stopped at Trader Joe’s, and that’s when I realized this was really going to be a thing. The place was ransacked! Whole shelves sat empty! Yet the aisles were packed with humans, flailing about, grabbing whatever was left. There was no more rice or sliced bread or spaghetti or beans! I had to settle for burger buns and a bag of multicolored, funky-shaped pasta!
I never went in to work again. That first week I puttered around happily, eating PB&J burger buns in my PJs. Yes, I ran out of toilet paper, but local solutions were at hand: The nearby comedy store quickly turned itself into an online grocery store with curbside pickup — and sold me a gigantic commercial roll for five bucks. I kept it on a stool in my bathroom until the roll got small enough to actually fit on the holder.
Looking at that gigantic roll made me laugh whenever I went to pee.
What I’m saying is: The quarantine has been terrible, but our creative solutions have been fun.
Also, reading about fearless women has been and continues to be a fun and welcome respite —
Tales of a Female Nomad: Living Large in the World by Rita Golden Gelman (Crown, 2002)
Behold, a woman’s memoir of self-discovery that doesn’t end with finding a man to fuck, marry, or kill! Nearing fifty and newly divorced, Rita decides to embrace her newfound freedom by embarking on all the international travel adventures she never got to partake in as a wife and mother. It’s like Eat Pray Love — except for Rita the pursuit isn’t food or enlightenment or yet another longterm relationship, but rather her own self-fulfillment.
Rita has a couple flings, but the story isn’t about that — it’s about her desire to just experience as much of the world as possible, roughing it in tiny indigenous villages and immersing herself in cultures completely foreign to her. Did I mention she starts nomading in her fifties? In the analog age, pre-cell phones? It’s not too late or too hard, ladies. Read it if you like real-life stories about good girls that one day realize they can do whatever the fuck they want — then go ahead and do it.
Buy it from Bookshop
The Lying Life of Adults by Elena Ferrante (Europa, 2020)
If you love novels replete with bible study and blowjobs — and who among us doesn’t — let me introduce you to Giovanna, the adolescent girl at the center of Elena’s latest novel. At the start of it, Giovanna overhears her father describe her as ugly — as ugly as her ugly aunt — and this sets off in the Neapolitan girl a quiet yet dramatic coming of age. She starts obsessing about her appearance, seeks out her estranged aunt, and develops her first intense crush on a handsome and religious young professor. Gospel reading and furtive trysts ensue!
The novel takes you all over Naples while devastating you with killer one-liners. (e.g. “I’m not wise, but I read a lot of novels.”) Funny and acerbic and revelatory. Plus, as I’m a Ferrante completist who’s read even her children’s picture book, this novel delighted me by delivering with it all of Elena’s signature obsessions: girly betrayals, bodily shame, murky mom-daughter issues, sudden reading frenzies. Read it if you still haven’t grown up and love learning how to live by diving into the shit of it head first.
Buy from Bookshop
All at Sea by Decca Aitkenhead (Anchor, 2017)
This memoir is a classic tale of boy meets girl, except the boy is a high functioning, crack-addicted drug dealer and the girl is a posh journalist for the Guardian. Somehow the two decide they’re soulmates, leave their respective spouses, and start a new life together — actually making it work! He quits crack and starts working in the recovery field! She gives birth to two kids! They take family vacations at the beach! Then suddenly, the guy drowns while rescuing one of their sons!
It’s a story that’s kind of split in two, sliced apart by the death. For me, the first part of the memoir that details how Decca and her guy get together and adapt to each other was what I found most fascinating. The bulk of the book, however, has to do with Decca dealing with the aftermath of the drowning — still interesting, but somewhat like an overlong postscript, despite the drama. But I suppose that’s what life is — unwieldy, strange, with sudden disjunct turns that don’t make for a neat, clean story? Reading this book encouraged me to be more open to the possibilities new people bring into my life — though I think I’ll still draw the line somewhat before blowing up my life for a drug-addicted outlaw. Read it if you love anti fairy tales that keep hurtling on and on beyond their happily ever after end.
Buy it at Bookshop
Once a month, I share book recommendations. Shape it by recommending a read!
Happy Women’s History Month —
Love,
Siel
Three links you might love:
Decca isn’t the only journalist who’s blown up her life for a man. Christie Smythe quit her life for a chance at love with a pharma bro — who’s now in jail for securities fraud. He’s dumped her via his lawyer.
Water for Elephants author Sara Gruen blew up her life trying to prove a man's innocence — going broke and becoming ill in the process. Her next book still isn’t written. (But then neither is mine….)
Venessa Wong is blowing up the silence around anti-Asian racism — as are many other Asian women (and men). “For so long, we’ve thought keeping our heads down and being invisible in America might help us gain acceptance — but the recent wave of racist violence has shattered that myth.” I’ve started documenting my own relevant experiences on Twitter — starting with one that happened in Austin last Friday.