Dear friends and comrades,
I started this newsletter last night en route to Austin, Texas where I am spending a few days with my sister Maggie. I haven’t seen her in three years, so we’re excited to hang out together. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the cold that’s going around Boston will stay at the periphery of my immune system -- and I’m slugging back the zinc and vitamin C to hedge my bets.
I started this newsletter last night en route to Austin, Texas where I am spending a few days with my sister Maggie. I haven’t seen her in three years, so we’re excited to hang out together. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the cold that’s going around Boston will stay at the periphery of my immune system -- and I’m slugging back the zinc and vitamin C to hedge my bets.
Above Detroit, at dusk.
Please spare some healing thoughts to Hanna, whose cold has progressed to the kind of cough that worries us after her several bouts of pneumonia and bronchitis since 2012. She’s calling the doctor first thing tomorrow; we’re grateful that modern medicine has antibiotics for this shit.
Gone to Housekeeping
Last weekend I put together our new IKEA porch furniture.
Teazle helped!
Teazle helped!We've been in our new apartment a little over a month and -- the stress of eviction from our previous place aside -- are really, really happy with the relocation. Our neighborhood is a quiet residential one, racially diverse with easy access to bus and subway. We walk to work the nearest subway station through the Arnold Arboretum. It's a little further out from central Boston than we've lived in the past -- which, when you don't have a car really does impact the daily rhythm of life -- but we have multiple options for groceries and coffee and public transit which, in Boston, basically means we're set.
And the inside of the second-floor unit is really much more welcoming and suited to our lives than our previous two places. Our place in Allston (where we lived for seven years) was pretty much a micro-apartment, five hundred square feet with no way to give one another space. Our place in Jamaica Plain (where we lived for the past three years) was a huge improvement in almost doubling our space and -- crucially -- giving us a back porch, a kitchen that wasn't a cubby hole, and a shotgun layout that meant we two introverts could give each other space when we needed it. Our new place in Roslindale gains a bit in space, and most crucially has a layout that gives us a lot of flexibility in being near one another, or have company, without being on top of one another.
And the inside of the second-floor unit is really much more welcoming and suited to our lives than our previous two places. Our place in Allston (where we lived for seven years) was pretty much a micro-apartment, five hundred square feet with no way to give one another space. Our place in Jamaica Plain (where we lived for the past three years) was a huge improvement in almost doubling our space and -- crucially -- giving us a back porch, a kitchen that wasn't a cubby hole, and a shotgun layout that meant we two introverts could give each other space when we needed it. Our new place in Roslindale gains a bit in space, and most crucially has a layout that gives us a lot of flexibility in being near one another, or have company, without being on top of one another.
Books
Reading doesn’t just stop because of moving, travel, and other life events, silly. In nonfiction, my favorites for the month include (Not) Getting Paid to Do What You Love: Gender, Social Media, and Aspirational Work by Brook Erin Duffy (Yale University Press, June 2017) and Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud: The Rise and Reign of Unruly Women by Anna Helen Petersen (Plume, June 2017). I owe the pleasure of both to my editor Stephanie at Library Journal who always hooks me up with some of the most interesting forthcoming feminist titles. (Not) Getting Paid is a must read for any of us who engage in social media personally-professionally in that hazy area where you're not exactly getting paid, but it's in some way, shape, or form a part of our professional selves. Too Fat, Too Slutty feels like the post-election sequel to Sady Doyle's Trainwreck (2016) and was hard, hard reading at times but also incisive and welcome in its analysis of the narratives around famous women (spoiler: no matter what they do, famous and unruly women will be considered too ungovernable).
I’ve also been enjoying a variety of cheep-on-Amazon e-book romances. Because when the world feels shitty in many ways, the romance genre can be defiant act of self-care. Favorites include Alyssa Cole’s historical Let Us Sing (sadly a novella...10/10 would read more!), the m/m steampunky The Magpie Lord by K.J. Charles (A Charm of Magpies #1), and Emma Barry and Genevieve Turner’s Stars Crossed (Fly Me to the Moon #4) -- a cross-racial f/f romance set during the space race.
On this vacation, I’m looking forward to Ana Mardoll’s Survival Rout (Earthside book #2) and the nonfiction White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide by Carol Anderson.
Podcasts
Just before we moved in March, I dropped my three-year-old smartphone and broke the screen. My new phone actually has a meaningful amount of memory such that I can download apps! Including podcast--playing apps! It's been really handy for slightly-longer evening commutes. Last week, when my old earbuds stopped working, I also invested in some $20 bluetooth wireless headphones that make me feel really space-age. A few podcasts I have been listening to this month include Crooked Media's Pod Save America (another rec by Stephanie!), the Longform Podcast, NPR's relatively new 1A and that old standby: On the Media. On the plane last night I listened to On the Media's most recent episode on the history of the "war on drugs" rhetoric and I highly recommend it.
On the Media's Breaking News Handbook: War on Drugs edition.
Teazle
Hanna and Teazle watching Doctor Who with our new BritBox subscription.
Last Sunday, we passed the one-month anniversary of Geraldine’s death. It is hard to know what cats understand about presence and absence and the passage of time, but since our loss and the move that rapidly followed it, Teazle has stuck much closer to Hanna and I.
Teazle is shameless in requesting chin scratches!
One new thing for her is an insistence that we are in peril when taking the shower. Gerry used to panic when we showered when she first came to live with us, but over the years grew used to it. Before she died she usually would come keep us company in the bathroom, but as much for the warmth (we figured) as for the cat guarding duties. However, it seems like maybe Teazle didn't worry about us because her adoptive mama cat was calm. Now that she is in charge of us big, hairless, stupid kittens, she yells and yells and yells at us if we close her out of the bathroom ... and tries to jump into the shower to rescue us if we let her in!
We are hoping when we adopt a new feline member of the family later this spring she will calm back down in her efforts to monitor us and turn her attentions to disciplining (and playing with and grooming) the newest member of the family.
#resist and #persist
What the fuck, right? This year continues to be a roller coaster of violent warmongering policies abroad and inhumane, nihilist policies at home punctuated by resistance victories. It's emotionally exhausting to live through even as we carry on.
Two pieces (incidentally both from BuzzFeed) I keep thinking about as I read the news about Donald Trump's attitudes and behavior:
Bim Adewunmi | The Ease of Dylan Roof
At no point in the aftermath of killing nine black people in a church did it look like Dylann Roof was in fear for his life.
Anonymous [posted by Katie J.M. Baker] | Here's the Powerful Letter the Stanford Victim Read Aloud to Her Attacker
What has he done to demonstrate that he deserves a break? He has only apologized for drinking and has yet to define what he did to me as sexual assault, he has revictimized me continually, relentlessly. He has been found guilty of three serious felonies and it is time for him to accept the consequences of his actions. He will not be quietly excused.
Both of these pieces -- though older -- feel related, to me, to the way Trump and the Republicans are given so many free passes to be dangerous assholes because they are powerful, white men, and the damage done by them is minimized.
This past week, Sady Doyle added another one to the mix: Women Don't Need to Apologize Less - Men Need to Learn How to Apologize, drawing from certain recent examples (*kof*Sean Spicer*kof*).
Here's what happens when someone has to make a public apology after having spent his entire life being trained to believe that he does not need to apologize for anything: He really, really sucks at it.
#amsewing
Fabric arrays are the best! (JP Knit & Stitch)
Our church held a fundraising auction on April 1st at which I offered a custom crib-sized quilt to be made out of fabric of the purchaser’s choosing and quilt blocks selected from Tula Pink’s City Sampler: 100 Modern Quilt Blocks. I'm excited to meet with the winning bidder and help them select the fabric and blocks so I can start stitching!
#BostonSpring
Arnold Arboretum along South St.
This month, in the midst of all the crap that is going on in the world, I am grateful for our new walk to and from work.
In friendship and hope for small yet steady resistance victories,
Anna