Read, Watched, Listened

I love reading just about everything (okay, you won't see any horror or sci-fi picks on here), watching things that make me think and especially if they make me laugh, and wholeheartedly embrace the podcast. Here's my two cents worth.

READ
(Follow the links below or click through to bookshop.org to find all books referenced in this post and past Read, Watched, Listened posts. And here’s your friendly reminder that these are affiliate links!)

The Girl With the Louding Voice
Abi Dare gives Adunni, this book’s young protagonist, a compelling voice. I cheered Adunni on in her own fight against the Nigerian patriarchy she continually finds herself in. In the end, it’s more plot-based than character-based, and I personally need more character to draw me completely into a book.

The Four Winds
Set during the upheaval of the dustbowl, I couldn’t help but compare this to The Grapes of Wrath—especially because I only read that particular American classic for the first time late last summer. The drive/struggle in California is basically Grapes of Wrath revisited; there were so many parallels. I loved the protagonist, Elsa—my only complaint is that I wanted more of Elsa in her pre-dustbowl life. Though my low-key MVP is Elsa’s daughter Loreda. Loreda for president, please.

The Liturgy of Politics
Honestly, I wanted to love this more than I did. I thought the intersection of faith + politics would make this perfect for me but it felt like it was drawn out too long in book-form. Like maybe this would have been better served as a series of essays? I still want to hear more from Kaitlyn Schiess, but I don’t think a book was the best format for what this was.

The Office of Historical Corrections: A Novella and Stories
Am I a short story reader now? Because apparently, I’m a short story reader now. This collection of stories was on fire. I didn’t think I liked short stories—maybe because I want a good short story to last so much longer than it does—which is exactly how I felt with each and every one of these.

What We Were Promised
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: give me a detailed family drama any day. Set in China, this was a beautifully written novel about family, wealth, class, and society.

Rules of Civility
This was a delight—good for summer. I couldn’t help but think of Elizabeth Gilbert’s City of Girls while reading it. It’s not quite as frothy but is set in the same era and a similar setting. Single girl in NYC in the 1930s is almost always going to be a good time.

The Life You Save May Be Your Own: An American Pilgrimage
This book was a journey (hello, almost 500 pages) but it was worth it. It follows the lives of Dorothy Day, Walker Percy, Flannery O’Connor, and Thomas Merton as they wrestle with their Catholicism, society, their writing, and sometimes each other. I can’t even fathom how much research went into a book like this: studying their lives, reading their works and correspondence, visiting the places they lived, and then compiling and interweaving it all together. Sometimes it was admittedly a slog, but at other times it read a bit like a novel.

One Two Three
I finished this book a couple of weeks ago and still don’t know how I feel about it. On one hand, I couldn’t put it down; I wanted to know what happened next. on the other hand, it took a little bit for me to get used to the three different voices and I wanted more…something? More backstory? More depth? I’m not even sure. It’s no This is How it Always Is, but since that’s one of my favorite books of all time it feels pretty unfair to compare Laurie Frankel’s work from here on out to that one. Tell me you read this and then tell me your thoughts because mine are muddled.

Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times
I thought this book was lovely. I might need to re-read it in the actual winter. It’s s-l-o-w. I would probably have found it boring at another point in time but it felt like exactly what I needed to read right now. For anyone going through a life change or new season in life.

Crying in H-Mart: A Memoir
This book is as good as everyone says it is. Also, it made me hungry, even though I didn’t know what most of the Korean foods were and lots of them included various types of seafood, and I’m allergic to shellfish.

RE-READS: Pride and Prejudice, Here for It, This Is How it Always Is

WATCHED

The Last Blockbuster
How fun was this documentary? Did they tap into every last bit of millennial nostalgia I possess? Yes, yes they did, and I’m not even mad about it.

Last Chance U
Oof. A docu-series exploring a community college basketball team in East LA as they try to get out of the community college world and break into top-level colleges. I felt like the series was a few episodes too long but the last one was worth all of it.

Bo Burnham: Inside
Bo Burnham wins quarantine. Full stop. Also, he deserves both a Grammy and a top-level comedy award (Do those exist?) for this piece.

Top Chef Portland
We are Top Chef junkies and this may have been the best season yet.

High on the Hog: How African American Cuisine Transformed America
The worst part of this series is that I can’t reach through the screen to eat all the deliciousness depicted. It should be clear by now that I will read/watch anything to do with food so I couldn’t hit “play” fast enough for this.

In the Heights
How fun is this movie? All the fun. (Also: Tyson and I went back to a movie theater what is this life??) I could watch the pool scene on repeat for infinity.

LISTENED
Sour
Obviously.

No One Is Coming to Save Us
If you’re a parenting America, there’s probably not much that’s going to be groundbreaking here. Yet I still binged this podcast because yes, I am your choir, and yes, you are preaching to me, and yes , I am here for it.

Dirty Rotten Church Kids
If you identify as any sort of exvangelical or were impacted by early 2000s Evangelical church culture at all, this is the podcast for you. The episodes are LONG (it takes me several days to get through one) but they’re always thought-provoking, funny, and I end up saying “YES” out loud to no one and nodding my head vigorously at least once an episode. Also, I can’t recommend their Instagram enough.

The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill
Speaking of Evangelical culture: I am EATING this one up. It’s amazing how Mark Driscoll’s influence leeched out into so much of Christian culture and I’m not even a little sad about dancing on the grave of Mars Hill and Mark Driscoll in a very un-Christian-like way.

Life Lately

Taking a page from Pantsuit Politics’ Instagram page, (who apparently take this practice from Emily P. Freeman, so I’m just another link in the chain at this point), to list the things I learned in June:

• If you have the option for your kid to be bussed to an activity instead of driving them, you should do it. Every time. It will be worth all the dollars.

• I can’t keep up with anything lately and feel like I’m failing at everything. There are too many small children around and also we’re coming out of a pandemic which I’m sure has something (read: almost everything) to do with it, but I don’t have time to unpack that now (see: I can’t keep up with anything). I feel like I’m behind in every area of my life and also things feel like they take between 2-5 times longer than I think they should. The kids should be nicer and the kitchen should be cleaner and I want to get back to doing yoga and I want new furniture for almost every room of my house and maybe the kids would be nicer if I set a better example instead of snapping at them. However, if my little corner of the internet has anything to say about it, apparently that’s how everyone is feeling lately. So maybe that’s just how life is, at least for right now. Solidarity.

• I think number one on this list might have a decent amount to do with number two on this list, since I have spent approximately all of June in my minivan. So. There’s that. Maybe I would have more time to do all the things if I weren’t driving around the entire Twin Cities every single day.

• Driving hours in the car by myself with a bunch of podcasts and good music (read: Taylor Swift and Olivia Rodrigo) is my new favorite form of self-care.

• Grilling anything and throwing chips and a sliced melon on the table is a good enough meal when it’s one million degrees out. We can just pretend the kids ate a fair share of the fruit instead of gorging themselves on chips and processed white buns from a package. It’s fine.

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Action Item

The disaster in Surfside, Florida and the unprecedented heatwave in the Northwest are both on my mind this week. CNN has a great round-up of organizations to support, if you’re able, who are on the ground in the Miami area. Bustle has a list of organizations to support in the Pacific Northwest, as well as general links to organizations who are advocating for climate change solutions. We had our own unheard-of heatwave here in Minnesota in late May/early June, and unfortunately, these climate events are only going to continue. Less unprecedented, much, much more commonplace.

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Around the Internet

• This thread is an entire sermon in ten slides.

• Because I can always have to link to at least one Anne Helen Peterson piece, and this one is everything.

• “Families desperately need help. In other countries, they get it. In the United States, they get empty homilies about the importance of family.”

• An important read about female athletes, especially as we move forward into the Olympics.

• I feel this piece in a very deep way.

• Have you heard of FaceTune? This read was both fascinating and gag-inducing. “Cosmetic surgeons who spoke to HuffPost said they now regularly have patients come in with photos of themselves that have been so heavily Facetuned they would be anatomically impossible to replicate.”

• “A residency is typically designed to give the artist the space to create. In the art world that translates, almost always, to being alone, she explained. ‘It felt quite offensive that somehow you are more creative away from your family than with them,’ she said.”

• In case you haven't seen the “Dear Intern” thread yet. It will make you feel ten types of encouraged with the world.

• I’m in a (usually) happy marriage, but damn if I don’t wish I had someone to break up with so I could blast this perfect mash-up.

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Eating

• These harissa meatballs with whipped feta. Though—UNPOPULAR OPINION ALERT—I don’t actually care for the whipped feta. I make the meatballs and bell peppers, omit the zucchini, and serve it all with homemade pita chips, hummus, sliced cucumbers, and kalamata olives.

• These cheesesteaks but add more bell pepper, onion, mushrooms, and cheese, and buy prepackaged shaved steak from the store so it all comes together ridiculously fast. And deliciously.

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Fun Things

• Back in April, I told you to get a For Days Take Back Bag. Now I’m telling you to buy this relaxing romper because it looks like I put effort into getting dressed but feels like I’m wearing pajamas, which is my exact goal with every outfit.

• The tagline of this product is “the (cashmere) sweatpants of lipstick” and I co-sign that 100%. I’m always on the look for a product that glides on like a chapstick but deposits a little bit of color; something I can use whether I’m in the drop-off line or date night. Ultralip is that thing. I bought it in Lucite but will definitely be back for more.

• This tank. I’ve dressed it up with black shorts and all the way down with athletic shorts and a ponytail. The exaggerated shoulder/extra fabric under the armpit means you don’t have to worry about flashing your bra. It runs large—I tuck it all the way in or it’s a lot of fabric for me. Recommend sizing down if that’s an option for you.

• Okay, I’d seen this Supergoop Unseen Sunscreen going around my corners of the internet and finally tried it out. It’s not shiny or greasy but glides on smooth and matte as the perfect makeup primer. I’m a believer.

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Another thing I learned this month is that June doesn’t quite feel like summer yet. The kids spend the first two weeks wrapping up school. Caden had an activity that’s started at 8 am (!!!) the last few weeks. (See: if there’s a bus option it will be worth all your $$$.) Baseball has largely taken over our evenings. All of these activities have walked us right up to a point where we’ll be traveling for a few days at a time here and there, where it feels like I’m either packing for or unpacking from a trip. And, you might be saying, what do you mean it doesn’t feel like summer? Baseball! What’s more summer than that?

I know. And these things aren’t bad. I’m so glad we’re able to do them this year. And also: it doesn’t feel like summer to me until we’ve had a chance to lay low, sleep in, and do a whole lot of nothing around the house for days at a time.

Those days are coming. I just wrote up our July calendar and am admiring all the blank spots on the calendar. The same blank spots I will then probably curse around the second week of August. Because: balance!

That Minivan Life

Brooklyn and Nolan tumble into the mudroom where they kick off their sandals. I’m right behind them, glass of iced-coffee-going-to-water in hand. 

“You have one hour. I’m going to eat breakfast. Make sure your teeth are brushed and you find your water bottles before we head out again.” They scamper off to play and (hopefully) follow directions.

Summer began barely a week ago and already I feel as though I’ve been living in my minivan.

Our day kicked off with a near hour-long trek to drop Caden off at Summer Academy by 8 am. (Praise hands that concludes before The Fourth.) Brooklyn and Nolan have PlayNet on Tuesday and Thursday mornings from 9:30-noon. There have been playdates and park meet-ups. There will be day camps.

I’m already regretting not taking advantage of the bussing option to get Caden to and from Summer Academy. I thought I was saving him close to an hour each way. Well, I am, but I didn’t stop to think who would be spending that hour driving instead. *insert raised hand and slap-face emojis here* Tyson told me we should bus him and let it be known in writing here today honey that you were right.

(Also, the pollution. Why didn’t I do the communal drive option? I mean, I guess we hardly went anywhere last summer—the first eight weeks of lockdown we didn’t fill up a tank of gas once— so maybe I’m allocated some extra miles this year? Still. Ugh.)

This minivan life can be chaotic. And I’m not talking about the lunacy that is Minnesota roads under construction in the summertime. I’m talking about what happens inside those marvelous power-glide, push-of-a-button sliding doors.

There are kids who expect me to do some sort of backward yoga move to retrieve whatever toy/snack/piece of trash they dropped while also navigating us safely through traffic. Kids fighting over things like “looking at me” and “breathing” and “maybe they rolled their eyes at me.” There’s the general state of the car, what with the leftover Starbucks cups and granola wrappers and Goldfish dust and LEGO pieces which are expressly forbidden to leave the house but somehow migrate out to the minivan anyway. (That they escape in pockets and tiny fists while I distractedly dash through the house to go to the bathroom, yell at everyone else to go to the bathroom, ensure everyone has a water bottle, mask, and shoes, and run back in the house because I forgot at least one of these things is just a guess.)

We’re managing. Wow in the World has already emerged as the podcast of choice to get us through the long drives to and from Summer Academy. Water bottles and snacks are a must, even if stray pretzels and fruit snacks end up atrophying on the floor. 

Sometimes we’re more than managing. There are giggles during the podcast, even if it’s about poop and I’ve already heard that word or one of its many iterations 34 times that morning. Sometimes we sing along to Hamilton or Taylor Swift. Yesterday they practiced the song and actions they’ll be performing at church on Sunday, Nolan’s voice practically shouting despite the song being called “One Small Voice.” (Guess that title is only a nice suggestion.) 

There’s Caden climbing into the car after Summer Academy, full of stories about his day and reminders for tomorrow. “I made my picture like this and no one else did it this way, Mommy. They all made a flower because that was the example but I decided to do something different!” and “Don’t forget we need to wear our Summer Academy shirts tomorrow.” and “I spent my fifty cents of snack money on a Fruit by the Foot because you never buy them so I took my chance.”

There are the times where we drive and it’s blessedly quiet and I see their big blue eyes staring out the windows as the trees and the lakes and the buildings pass by. They seem to be just taking it all in and I think, “This is nice.”

I’ve only ever thought of the minivan as a thing to get us from point A to point B; from this one thing we’re doing to that other thing we’re doing. It’s time to kill: please sit down and buckle up and let me think and don’t ask too many questions. But having spent several hours in the car each day this week, I’m discovering it’s all its own time. 

It might not be exactly how I wish I were spending my time, which would preferably be reading a book in a hammock with a light breeze, cold drink, and children playing in the background. (Reader, my children never play in the background.) (Also, I don’t own a hammock. Details.) At the very least, I might wish I were listening to a podcast of my choice instead of the same few episodes of Wow in the World on repeat.

I’ve heard people talk about how much time they spend in the car running kids around, how they feel like a chauffeur, and I thought, Surely they’re exaggerating. Guess not. I have spent so. much. time. in my minivan this week. This wholly ordinary thing I never thought all that much about when it was only eight minutes to school and back, twelve minutes to dance class, ten to hit up McDonald’s for Happy Meals. 

All these drop-offs and pick-ups and the kids are there and so am I. We’re our own little universe bumping down the road, and sometimes they fight over who gets to put their hand where and I wonder if I should even bother with the ground-in crackers in the carpet and other times they ask about each other’s days and pass around compliments like candy and sing along to We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together and it’s both harmonious and also entirely off-key.

This post is part of a blog hop with Exhale—an online community of women pursuing creativity alongside motherhood, led by the writing team behind Coffee + Crumbs. Click here to view the next post in this series "Minutiae".

The Middle Years

It’s 8:00 at night and my seven-year-old son wanders into the room.

“Hi Mommy, what are you doing?” he asks. He’s wearing pajama shorts and no shirt, but he does have a fuzzy blue blanket wrapped around his narrow shoulders. I think it was last summer when he began to eschew sleep shirts, opting only for sleep bottoms like my husband. I usually sneak into his bedroom to check on him before I go to sleep and cover him up again with the blankets he’s tossed off.

“Oh,” Caden continued, not waiting for my reply, “You’re ordering something. It’s a book! Can I get a book? Let’s see: first name, last name, address, email, payment information…”

Because he can read now, of course. There’s no more hiding things in words from him or his twin sister, no more assuming that a combination of letters is coded in and of itself. I can no longer spell out I-C-E C-R-E-A-M over their heads to my husband. (Really, they’d pick that one up right away.)

The blanket around his bare shoulders. The 8:00 pm still-awake wandering. The reading.

We’re entering the middle years.

The middle years are interesting, at least where we are, on the cusp of them with two seven-year-olds and a five-year-old. They’ve gained a piece of independence. They can be trusted to knock on friends’ doors in the neighborhood without supervision. The older two can be left home alone for short periods of time while I’m still somewhat nearby, like down the street at the park with their younger brother. They can make toast and pour their own bowls of cereal and grab their own snacks from the pantry.

Read more about entering these middle-aged years over on Twin Cities Mom Collective.

Life Lately

May is a whole thing. School and school year activities start to wrap up. Summer activities and warm weather begin to creep in. We had dance and dress rehearsals and recitals and baseball practices and games and swim lessons and school and gymnastics. Tomorrow is Nolan’s last day of preschool.

May is survival.

I gave myself permission this month to do only what I needed to get us through. We had seven dance recitals in a span of three days, all with various combinations of kids and costumes and routines. We also had a baseball game crammed in the middle of all that for good measure. We literally haven’t had a weeknight this month without at least one kid activity, and at least half of those nights have been double or even triple-booked. I thought we had a free night this past Monday but then realized Nolan’s t-ball coach had called a practice. June 2nd now looks like the first night since April that’s wide open.

Phew.

Part of me loves this. I love mapping out a schedule. I love writing lists. I don’t even mind all the carpooling of children from point A to point B to point C. One of the biggest losses I felt last year was of the kids’ activities. My kids love activities. Glory be to sitting in a high school auditorium for dance recitals or on the sidelines of a t-ball game, yelling at the four and five-year-olds to remind them where first base is.

The other part of me finds it totally and completely draining. It’s draining to constantly be packing up costumes or uniforms and some semblance of dinner. It’s draining to pick up the kids from school and immediately hit the ground running: dinner at 4:30 because they need to be changed into whatever combo of costumes/uniforms and out the door by 5:15 in two separate cars.

So what I gave myself permission to do this month was to just be mom. I took a big step back from writing. I took a big step back from keeping on top of emails. (Did you know you can delete emails without reading them? I mean, not like important ones, but like random newsletters. It’s possible to actually push past the FOMO and hit the delete button. Magic.) I took a big step back from the feeling I have to produce, to create, to volunteer or work or push to prove my own worth.

In some ways, this felt like walking back 40 years of feminism. Let me be the most housewifey housewife to ever have housewifed. (Though not so much, actually. My hair was nowhere near as coiffed and we relied far too much on Lunchables as a viable dinner option.) In other ways, freeing myself up from the societal pressure to be productive all. the. time. felt like the most feminist thing I could do. It felt like the most radical thing I’d done in a long time.

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Action Item

I’m still working to understand the conflict in Israel and Palestine. The roots are deep, the conflict is decades (if not centuries) old, and the politics of this part of the world are so different from what I’m used to here. I found this episode of Pantsuit Politics and this one and this one of The Daily helpful, though I’ll still admit to often being deeply confused. I’d love any recommendations to help better my understanding of this topic!

Education is great, but it doesn’t help Israeli and Palestinian families in the here and now. The reports of the sheet number of people—the sheer number of children—killed and injured in the latest conflict are horrific. These are people, who by sheer accident of birth had the misfortune to be born into a part of the world embroiled in discord. I found this round-up of aid organizations from CNN helpful and encourage you to donate to one if you’re able.

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Around the Internet

• “What’s happened to America’s working mothers in the last year is not the old story about the tiny subset of women who have the financial choice to work for pay or not. Instead, it’s about what happens when any choices mothers once had disappear.”

• On the fraught-ness that is getting back to “normal.”

• “When millennial women shudder at the prospect of the return of the low-slung jean, we are not being old, or boring, or basic. It’s not about the fucking jeans AS JEANS, and I wish people could actually understand that.”

• Related to the above, this TikTok is a whole sermon in and of itself.

• I had no idea I was so close to celebrity until this past weekend when I found out my friend/neighbor’s brother runs this Instagram account. Little did I know the connection as I died laughing over gems like this.

• The answer to any question that involves the general phrase “do you need more Taylor Swift?” is always YES.

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Eating

• Make these lemon poppyseed muffins. Then eat them all and make them again three days later. Repeat indefinitely. (I don’t use the rose water but make a glaze with just the lemon juice and powdered sugar.)

• If I can give you another sweet thing to eat, it would be Chez Panisse’s blueberry cobbler, which I’m planning to make for Memorial Day. Top with vanilla ice cream. Die happy.

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Fun Things

• Long-live these Cat & Jack quick-dry shorts. The boys love them. They can double as a swimsuit if necessary. I wish they came in about 18 more colors.

• I love wearing slippers but even in the winter they often feel too hot. (How do people wear sherpa-lined slippers? Do my feet just run warm? Do sweaty feet not bother other people? So many questions.) Still, I’d worn my old pair of Mahabis slippers into the ground and asked for their “breathe” version for Mother’s Day. They’re lined with cork and made from a sort of woven mesh. My feet are no longer sweaty. #winning

• Summer and humidity go hand-in-hand here in the Midwest. This humidity shield helps tame my mane on the most humid of days. I don’t really get frizz—my hair is naturally almost strick-straight, with only the smallest amount of wave—but when it’s humid it gets poofy, loses any style I may have had, and adds waves where there shouldn’t be waves. It’s a whole situation. This spray doesn’t work as well on a day where I’m outside for hours at a time, but when I’m in and out of the house or grabbing dinner on a patio it works miracles.

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Beyond being a labor-intensive month, May is also an emotionally exhaustive month. I’m not much of a crier, but May gets me every time. The kids’ birthdays don’t get to me. The first day of school doesn’t get to me. (Because hallelujah they’re back in school!) But their dance recitals? The end of the school year? Nothing marks the passage of time so much for me as seeing their little dance photos all lined up in a row on our refrigerator or comparing the last day of school pictures with the first-day ones. I can’t even think about the fact that one day they will graduate from high school at this time of year. And Caden and Brooklyn will graduate at the same time. Like, who thought that was a good idea?

I spent the rest of my time this month, when I wasn’t labeling dance costumes or driving somewhere (everywhere), as an emotional wreck. And I lean into it hard. I will play every sad song. I can even turn the not-sad ones into something weepy. It’s like my tear ducts make up for malfunctioning the rest of the year all within this one month. 

And that’s the other thing I gave myself permission to do this month: to feel the feelings. To take what little time and space I had to be sad if I needed or read a book if I needed and to take what pauses I could in a month where there were few to take. I gave myself permission to do the things that needed to be done and then to take care of myself, instead of pushing ahead into more, more, more.

I read this from Rachel Cargle yesterday and it’s made me think that maybe…life could be like this all the time? I don’t know. The push to produce, to be productive, to be “on” is ingrained deep within in my bones. But I think it might be possible. It’s something I’m ruminating on.