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Happy Sunday,

I’ve been a busy little bookworm!

The cruel hand of fate (aka the Toronto Public Library) sent me a full stack of books at once. I had no choice but to hunker down and power through them all, lest I squander my holds.

The TPL is my dominatrix, cracking the whip on my monthly page count.

She giveth, and she taketh away.

She keeps a heel on the neck of my reading goals.

She has me walking around the Beaches like this:

Onto the books

Luckily, I enjoyed every book I read this month!

My mistress is cruel, but she knows me oh so well.

The theme of my April reading was “sex, drugs, and meticulous record keeping,” which are also the markers of a great weekend.

These titles span secret poisonings, public poisonings, secret sex, public sex, addiction, and a shocking amount of bird facts (but not from the book with birds on the cover. That book didn’t really mention birds at all, which was misleading and frankly disappointing)

1. 🧛🏻‍♀️ Hungerstone, Kat Dunn ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

   A feminist interpretation of Carmilla, the OG sexy vampire novel.

   Finally! Someone has done it. A lesbian vampire novel that delivers!! It only took five tries to find one I liked! I’m overjoyed!!!

   

2. ⛪️ Fancy Gap, Zak Jones ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

   A cult-infused, Southern Gothic-inspired novel following three estranged generations in Appalachia

   Off the rip, I’m biased. Zak Jones is one of my husband’s pals. This is his debut, and we could not be prouder! This story is dark, batshit, and very vibey (my three favourite words to describe any book). If you liked the first season of True Detective and/or have ever been fascinated by Jonestown, you should pick this one up. Go support a local artist!!! Go read something weird!!!

3. 🤢 Famesick, Lena Dunham ⭐️⭐️⭐️

   Reflection on illness, fame, and sex from the voice of the Millennial generation…or at least a generation.

   Look. I’ve been a proud Lena Dunham apologist for years. I know people find her annoying, but her writing was a formative part of my humour. Reading Famesick has inspired me to rewatch Girls for the third time, and that’s enough to earn it 3 stars!

   Now, was this the best memoir I’ve ever read? No. There are some interesting moments about chronic pain, invisible disability, and whatever the heck Adam Driver has going on…Overall, what I've been enjoying more than the actual book is Lena Dunham’s press tour about the book, where she is dropping bars left, right and centre.

4. 📬 The Correspondent, Virginia Evans ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

   A life told in letters from a kind of bitchy old lady

   Every book club in North America has this book on their list, and for good reason! This was so lovely! Sybil is such a memorable character, and who doesn’t love an epistolary novel??? Texting is over! Bring back letters!! All in all, I think The Correspondent is worth the hype, and a rare novel from my roundups that you can recommend at work without everyone looking at you differently. Mom, if you’re reading, this is one you’d like!!

5. 🍎 Flesh, David Szalay ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

   Snippets of a man’s life over the course of decades.

   This is a book I should hate. It breaks literally every rule of writing. Every conversation is banal. Every scene is clunky. Life is happening to this person, and he (and by extension, we) never explores how he feels about anything. It’s a portrait of detachment, and yet I found it hypnotic…

   

   Leah isn’t wrong….but like, in a good way???

   Don’t get used to this! This is the one and only time I will ever recommend a collection of slice-of-life moments!!! Many of you know that I’ve long had a personal feud with the movie Boyhood.

   Men love that movie.

   Men feel seen by that movie.

   I think 12 years was a long-ass time to spend on something so boring.

   Flesh is what Boyhood could have been if it had literally anything interesting happen in its three-hour run time.... God forbid a story have drama! God forbid we add some stakes to the plot!!

6. 📚 Is This A Cry For Help? Emily Austin ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

   A librarian comes back to work after a mental breakdown, only to confront book-banning crusaders and general debauchery in her workplace.

   Mom! This is another one you can read!! Two in one email!!! Holy cow, that never happens!!!

   Is This A Cry For Help is a love letter to public libraries. It’s dark, but full of heart and empathy. Emily Austin also wrote We Could Be Rats, which was one of the most memorable novels I read last year. She’s writing a specific kind of quirky, depressed woman fiction that I love. If you’ve ever spent 1:1 time with the Big Sad, you should give her a try! If, somehow, you’re reading my writing and have never been depressed1… how did you get here? What is this doing for you???

Last Thought:

Epilogue

• What did you read this month?

• Anything I should add to my TBR?

Wake up, babe!

The first 2026 eel pit update just dropped.

We are so back.

Oh?

Sorry.

Are you not familiar with the eel pit?

Did you forget about this key moment of hyper-niche, COVID-time, TikTok history??

Were you not locked into the year-long saga of a Kentucky man turning a rain cistern under his garage into a fully functional pond for eels???

Not to be rude…but that’s kind of crazy.

Did you have something better going on from 2021-2022???

Was that like, a super productive and exciting time for you????

Because while you were out doing God knows what,1 the rest of us were forever altered by Nick Tobler, aka Eel Daddy’s hero journey

I remember the day I learned about the pit.

Nay!

I remember the months this took over my life.

The entire process fascinated me.

The sheer amount of prep to create a 5,000-gallon, 3-foot-deep eel sanctuary (air ventilation, water filtration, integrating other fish first, etc.)

The communal naming process for his first eel delivery. Notable stars, Mentally Eel, Meelanie, Steely Dan, and Crunchwrap Supreme.

The sinister nature of this specific photograph.

The fact that he climbs DOWN A MANHOLE to enter this space!! Every day!!

What could possibly possess a person to do this???

I haven’t looked behind our fridge once since we bought our house three years ago!

There could already be an entire eel pit under our basement, and I simply would not know.

I told everyone I knew about the pit. I spread the good word like I was on a spiritual mission.

I spent a full girls’ trip in Austin, Texas, regaling women who did not care to know anything about eels with everything I had recently learned about eels.

Did you know that eels can swim backward?

Did you know that freshwater eels actually start their life in saltwater?

Did you know that some dude in Kentucky is building a PIT of EELS because he thinks it’s FUN????

ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?????!?!

WHAT ELSE CAN I POSSIBLY SAY THAT WILL MAKE YOU CARE ABOUT THIS?!?!?

I was a woman possessed. It was all I could think about.

I’d be having a totally normal conversation, and eels would wriggle their way in, somehow.

No, seriously. I wrote this blog post during that aforementioned girls’ trip in 2022.

Clubbin’ all night, dissecting the eel pit's impact on my psyche all morning:

That whole article is worth a re-read for philosophical bars like:

I’m more relaxed watching a basement full of eels than I am reading about current affairs.2

And.

Before you can take on the world, you need to tend to your pit.

And.

The eel pit is a lesson in manifestation.

Just call me Marcus Aur-eel-ius.

You’ll be thrilled to learn that, in the last four years, the pit has expanded beyond just eels!

There’s a 3-foot-long diamond sturgeon.

There’s longnose gar.

Spotted gar.

Alligator gar.

One of them is named Garlic.

Another is named Garfield.

What a beautiful thing! These creatures are flourishing!

Sure, it’s not normal.

Sure, it’s a bit disturbing.

Sure, it probably violates a very specific set of property and/or animal laws.3

But it’s also soothing to watch, which is a lot more than I can say about my second-favourite pit-based program.

It’s also not hurting anyone?

The fish are thriving!4

The comment section is full of wholesome nerds asking for advice on their tanks.

This is truly the best-case scenario for any illegal operation happening in a cement hole.

Eel Daddy hasn’t had any casualties! Even the two sunfish — who would be tasty, tasty snacks for some of the other, larger fish in the pit — are swimming happily about.

The eel pit is a utopia.

His 2026 update is simply that everyone is content, everyone is cohabiting, and Eel Daddy has “just been letting everyone grow.”

How pleasant! What wisdom!

Sometimes all you need is to leave your red lawn chair in the rain cistern and take a breather.

The eels are already there! They’ll grow on their own.

Everything meaningful takes time.

Four years ago, I grappled with Eel Daddy’s assuredness.

He always wanted to have eels, so he found a way to have eels.

Simple as that.

He laboured over his pit purely for the love of the game.

He was the architect of his own dreams!

When asked for his advice on keeping eels, he replied: “Do it. It's really easy. It's fun.”

Fun!!!

At the time, I was still trying to cultivate a writing practice.

I was unsure of my abilities.

I was drowning in perfectionism.

I never felt like I was doing enough, and I was paranoid that everything I did produce was terrible.

There was no peace in my creative process. Every newsletter was crafted in a swampy dungeon of manic activity.

I was trapped in a basement of my own making, playing with loose, slippery noodles of ideas, trying to figure out why I started this damn hobby in the first place.

I couldn’t see the light at the end of the pit, and nothing about it was fun!!?!?

How could my art possibly be FUN!?!!?

Eel Daddy reflected an ease that was confronting, inspiring, and completely unrelatable.

Reading back that 2022 newsletter, it’s surprising how much of my current voice breaks through.5

All I remember from writing that post was the stress I felt to publish. I was so afraid of typos.

Afraid of sounding stupid.

Afraid of letting anyone read my work.

Afraid of being too try-hard (a cross I will always bear).

In 2026, I’ve mostly outgrown these fears. At the very least, I’ve shed them enough to focus on the writing.

I always wanted to write, so I sit down on Sundays and play on Substack.

Simple as that.

The more I fall in love with the process, the more I shed my own expectations of what “good” writing is, the more I make myself laugh with these nonsense newsletters, the more ease I feel…

Turns out the fun was already there!! It just had to grow on its own.

Eel Daddy, you wise sonofabitch, you.

Anyway…I must alert everyone to the eel pit Redbubble shop and kindly ask that you vote on which of these shirts I should order.

Last thought

In more cylindrical, legless creature news, I fear Worm From Home may overtake my life this fall…

Have I ever been interested in video games? Not really. But this Kafka-esque nonsense is speaking to me on a soul level.

Be the Worm of Wall Street in this silly simulation game about working a remote finance job. Throw your spineless body around the keyboard to invest in the stock market and earn obscene amounts of money. Buy upgrades, train skills, and worm your way up to the promotion you’ve always dreamed of!

5

There’s almost an Allegory of the Cave reference in there, which is as good a reason as any to share this image:

Justin Trudeau was at Coachella.

I’m not sure what is more important to me:

That he was there in support of fellow Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Bieber.

That Katy Perry was wearing a shirt that says “Pls do not give me a rip off your vape no matter what I say.”

OR that I have another reason to force you to read my JT x Katy predictions👇

Anyway… I am currently hungover, watching Season 18’s All RuPaul-A-Paruza Smackdown,1 and inspired to dust off this post from March 2024.

Repost: Mama kudos for saying that. For spilling

Analyzing Drag Race poetry

Every so often, I hear a phrase that rattles me to my core.

Something so cataclysmic that it lodges itself into my everyday vernacular.

Something so profound that I can’t help but quote it given the opportunity.

Something like…

• “Ma’am I’m a Catholic slut,” written by Britney Spears in response to Diane Sawyer

• “Who do you think you are I am,” screamed by this bowling champion

• “This is the skin of a killer, Bella,” said by Robert Pattinson in Twilight

• “Cola! Kirkland if you have,” from The Office as highlighted by Kristen Arnett

• “High heels on my tippies,” rapped by Nikki Minaj

• “It’s not called gym-nice-tics,” from Stick It

• “My uncle Phil’s world’s largest ball of twine in Bundy, Minnesota. It makes me proud I’m an American,” from Drop Dead Gorgeous

And so on, and so forth.

Last week’s episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race gave me a new one.

A contestant, Q, opened up about their HIV status in the Werk Room. She shared her experience with stigma, how challenging it’s been to find the courage to tell her parents, and how supportive her husband has been throughout the diagnosis.

After listening for a few minutes, a fellow contestant (and occasional season villain), Plane Jane responded, "Mama kudos for saying that. For spilling."

"Mama kudos for saying that. For spilling."

I swear my soul left my body when I heard her. I had to pause the show. I had to take a few deep breaths.

What a completely wild, out-of-pocket response to something so serious. Tonally, it feels the same as “That’s hot” or “Bless her heart.”

Is it demeaning? Yes!

Dismissive? 1000%

And yet!

Plane Jane said it with such compassion! She responded to Q with complete sincerity and love. Despite the literal words, her reply seemingly came from a place of pure support.

In my heart, I believe Plane Jane was genuinely giving kudos to Q for saying that. For spilling.

For the past week, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. It’s impossible to find a scenario where the phrase doesn’t work.

• When a client gives me negative feedback on a proposal: “Mama kudos for sharing that. For spilling”

• When Mark reminds me of chores I said I would do around the house: “Mama kudos for sharing that. For spilling”

• When the cat meows for more food even though he’s been fed twice: “Mama kudos for sharing that. For spilling”

It’s practically a perfect sentence.

So perfect that fans have been using it to punch up iconic TV and film moments. For example:

What an improvement! What did he even say originally? It doesn’t matter now, because this is canon.

I didn’t think it was possible to make this scene from Fleabag any better, but here we are.

Oscar-worthy.

Despite the joy this sentence has brought me (and the internet), people have been quick to criticize Plane Jane. Many think she was rude and unserious in a moment that required delicacy.

I disagree. Not only was she as real as I think Plane can be (shade intended), but I don’t think the sentiment was bad.

Behind the slang, Plane is saying “Thank you for sharing.” Is that not validating? What else is there to say besides expressing gratitude for hearing someone's story? To give kudos, even.

A kudos which, I’ll argue, was a congratulation on Q’s bravery. If you’ve been watching this season, you know Plane is never one to volunteer compliments. You also know she always refers to other contestants as “sisters”.

In this moment, Plane chose “Mama” and“Kudos” intentionally. When assessing intent, these details matter.

It would have been stranger and more self-serving had she taken the opportunity to give an impassioned speech back to Q.

Let’s take this a step further (because why not)

What does it actually mean to “spill”?

Spilling tea is slang for sharing gossip. In a literal sense, it’s a pouring of information from one vessel to another.

You cannot spill with a closed or empty container.

Sharing something about yourself, therefore, requires openness and substance. Not everyone is capable of that kind of emotional flow. Plane, for example, has kept her feelings out of sight from the cameras and other contestants.

To spill is to be honest and maybe a little messy. It’s to risk splashing your vulnerabilities on someone else. It’s being a Tupperware full of soup in a backpack, hoping that, when you inevitably explode, you won’t ruin anything important. It’s about picking a safe moment to empty your guts.

Having someone appreciate you for that spill is all you can ask for.

If we analyze it that way, Plane is saying

Stunning.

Good writing is good editing, and she packed a punch with those seven words.

I’m being generous in my assessment because I have no idea what I would have said in that same scenario. Q’s story is gut-wrenching and a lot to process on National television while you’re getting ready to walk a runway in front of RuPaul. I don’t think anyone can guarantee they’d say something better.

They definitely wouldn't have said something funnier.

Just when I thought this article was over, Miss Plane hit me with another flawless phrase.

In Friday’s episode, after Plane’s first emotional moment on the show (crying over how badly she wants to win Drag Race lol), she deflected attention off herself by saying, “I hate real moments boots.”

She’s unstoppable!!

A poet!

A philosopher!

Below is from a very helpful Reddit post on the definition of boots for those who don’t know:

Tacking boots to the end of a comment emphasizes the sentiment. As Bob the Drag Queen explained it to Vanity Fair, “In real life you would say, ‘This outfit is very fierce,’ but in drag you would say, ‘This outfit is fierce boots.’”

In the comment section, another user elaborates that “boots” is,”.. an adverbial modifier… analogous to sentential tags like, "totally", "for sure."“

With that understanding, “I hate real moments boots” is the perfect emphasis. It immediately strips the seriousness and emotion out of the moment.

It’s a sentence palette cleanser.

Also! It’s further proof that her reaction to Q was totally genuine.

Did you know that Plane Jane hates real moments boots!?!

No wonder “Mama kudos for saying that. For spilling” was the most authentic comment she had in her arsenal.

It’s all she could give.

It’s all there ever was.

And it’s all we ever needed.

Last Thought:

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Happy Easter!

I hope you are all gorging on Mini Eggs and contemplating resurrection.

Not in a religious sense, but resurrection in the everyday:

….The unflattering trends that come back in style.

….The weird hair on your chin that regrows thicker and thicker.

…The former situationship that reacts to your Instagram story with fire emojis after years of no contact.

….The pop stars who reinvent themselves with each album release.

….The reality TV stars who have a new face every season.

…The desire to have long hair when your hair is short, but short hair when your hair is long.

….The old sitcoms that insist on rebooting.

…Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez.

Life is but one giant cycle of crucifixions and comebacks.

Onto the books

1. 🛏️ The Dream Hotel, Laila Lalami ⭐️⭐️⭐️

   In the not-too-distant future, a new mother is detained based on her likelihood to commit a crime, calculated through dream data and surveilled behaviour

   If my dreams were being monitored like this, I would have been locked up years ago. Not for a threat of violence, perse, but for genuinely concerning levels of mental instability. Such is the curse of a huge imagination! You never know what the subconscious will hold! Mass layoffs on a company-mandated surfing trip where everyone is in matching boardshorts and bikini tops. Libraries overrun with dinosaurs who eat people with late fees. A day where everything is exactly the same, but one of my arms is 1/6th of the size, and no one says anything about it while I try and fail to do normal tasks…. Just to name a few of my recent adventures in slumber!

   This book, unfortunately, was less interesting than 95% of my dreams. The Dream Hotel gets 3 stars on the premise and premise alone. Everything else — the plot, characters, and setting — was forgettable.

2. 🐇 We Love You, Bunny, Mona Awad ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

   A prequel/sequel to the cult classic, ‘Bunny’. billed as ‘Heathers’ meets ‘Frankenstein’.

   Listen. Heathers meets Frankenstein is my exact brand of catnip. There is no other combination that would fill me with more glee. Mona Awad dove deep into the wells of my brain and delivered a level of niche joy I didn’t know was possible. AND! The whole story is an allegory for the creative writing process!!! Like, come on, Bunny!! This was made for me to love! It was weird. Dark. Hilarious. Stupid. Brilliant. JUST the perfect amount of annoying (who in their right mind is using smiley faces in their prose???). I adored it!! Even more than the original!!! :) :) :)

   

3. 🦬 The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, Stephen Graham Jones ⭐️⭐️

   An ‘American Indian revenge story’ featuring vampires, a priest, and more than one scene spent inside a buffalo carcass.

   Another book with a premise I should love, but didn’t. Alas! This was the first book I read all year that was written by a man (brag). Unfortunately, it felt like it. By that I mean it was too long, too meandering, and too up its own butt. I genuinely struggled to understand what was even happening for large chunks of text. Part of my confusion was from the language choices (having a main character recount a story in semi-broken English was….something), part was from the long detours and huge pockets of time we simply did not need to go over, and part was the 3x timelines for a story that really only needed 2.
   Now, the horror elements were awesome! I appreciate any new spin on vampire lore, which The Buffalo Hunter Hunter achieved without using the word “vampire” once. Very fun! I also loved the gory and visceral details peppered throughout. Very yucky, but very memorable!!
   Overall, this draggggggeddd. Halfway through, I actually gave up reading the physical copy and switched to the audiobook, hoping it would make it easier. It did not.1
   All this to say, I would love a different Native American vampire novel if anyone knows of one! I think this premise could be amazing in different hands. There’s so much symbolism there! Just think of what Sinners did!!!

4. 🗽 The Golem Of Brooklyn, Adam Mansbach ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

   An art teacher makes a golem out of stolen clay and brings it to life.

   This book is a modern-day take on Jewish folklore from the author of Go The Fuck To Sleep, one of the greatest books of all time. This novel is magical realism at its best: wacky, fun, and with a clear point-of-view that justifies the supernatural elements. I thoroughly enjoyed this book! I laughed. I learned a lot about golems. I appreciated the topical cultural commentary. I was moved by the ending, which left the story on a surprisingly philosophical note for a book whose plot hinged on a buddy-comedy-inspired road trip.

Last Thought:

Epilogue

• What did you read this month?

• Anything I should add to my TBR?

This has been an extra-long winter. A winter categorized by waiting.

…Waiting for spring.1

…Waiting in Ticketmaster queues.

…Waiting at the doctor’s office.

…Waiting for the next episode of The Pitt.

Above all, waiting in airports.

So far this year, I’ve been on 4 work trips and a vacation.

My friend shared an app with me called Flighty, which is essentially Spotify Wrapped for travel. It tracks your flights and creates fun stats about distance travelled, time in the air, and airline performance.

How fun!

Who doesn’t love data-based storytelling?

Or so I thought, until I saw my 2026 Delay Report….

Mind you, this is all within 6 weeks.

6 weeks!!

47 days, to be exact.

I’m averaging more than 2 hours of flight delays per week!

19 minutes A DAY of lost time!!

This also doesn’t factor in my actual time in the air, the Ubers to and from the airport, or any TSA shutdown security lines… All Herculean tasks in and of themselves.

No, no, no.

These 15 hours were caused by weather concerns and mechanical issues alone.

Time sacrificed to Newark, LaGuardia, and Pearson airports.

Time spent deplaning aircrafts, changing gates, or sitting on the tarmac.

Time that has been cleaved from my existence!

Time that I can only hope was sucked from my life source by an unseen airport entity and used as energy. Pieces of lost souls powering the bag carousel like a mechanical River Styx. The ultimate price for air travel.

Between this and my 0/27 Roll Up The Rim streak, it’s clear that I am not one of God’s chosen children.

That, or someone is paying an Etsy witch to curse me.

If you’re reading, ha ha ha!

Very funny!

We’re all having a great laugh over here!

I’m still processing how long 15 hours actually is.

I made a list of 15 things I could have done with that time instead of waiting in airports:

1. Taken 5 weeks of a university course

2. Flown from Toronto to London and back

3. Worked two full days

4. Walked a marathon and then watched The Titanic twice

5. Became certified to operate a forklift

6. Landscaped our backyard

7. Baked croissants from scratch

8. Listened to A Tale of Two Cities with an hour left over to pause and reflect

9. Stopped drinking water and became at imminent risk for seizures and organ failure

10. Watched a fruit fly egg hatch

11. Learned how to do a backhandspring, probably

12. Used up all of my therapy, massage, and physiotherapy benefits

13. Driven to my parents’ house in Ottawa, cooked an entire turkey dinner, and went back home

14. Watched all of The Hunger Games movies, including 3 extra hours for however long the newest installment is

15. Completed a third of my Private Pilot License, so I could just fly myself home and never have to be part of this nonsense ever again!

What did I do instead?

Great question!

I sat quietly.

I stared at the walls.

I listened to Normal Fucking Rockwell about 10 times.

Over and over again, I accepted the possibility that this is where I would live from here on out.

I contemplated life in various airports and made imaginary alliances with fellow passengers.

It might not be so bad.

I could run through the halls like a hamster in a plastic tube.

I could storm the airline lounges.

I could feast on endless popcorn in O’Hare.

Bathe in the fountain at LaGuardia.

No one would remember; this is a city of transient beings!

Hope is a dangerous thing for a passenger like me to have.2

Nothing is real in an airport!

Time doesn’t exist!!

Schedules don’t matter!!!

You can be your worst, most disgusting self.

Beyond the security check, we’re in endless purgatory, helpless to the whims of the airline overlords.

Bow down!!

Worship at the altar of the flight status screens!!!!

Nothing else can help you.

It’s every passenger for themselves.

There isn’t even a place to buy new pants!3

We’ll fight to the death over charging stations!

We’ll trample each other on the moving walkway!

This is ORD of the flies!!!

The rules are the only thing we've got!

DON‘T LEAVE YOUR BAGS UNATTENDED.

ONLY TWO ITEMS PER PERSON.

HAVE YOUR BOARDING PASS READY AND YOUR PASSPORT OPEN TO THE PHOTO PAGE.

Brace yourselves for anarchy!

After each delay, whenever it was that I made it home, I wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man's heart, and the fall through the airport of my own sanity.4

…Probably would have been cooler to be forklift certified.

Last thought:

4

I will never stop quoting classics in these whack-ass newsletters… Someone has to appreciate it! I am bridging timeless texts to modern woes! My life’s purpose is to create a place on the internet for memes like these to thrive:

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Happy International Women’s Day!

I would love to be out galivanting with the ladies. Alas, the public library is yanking my leash tighter and tighter.

Between the work travel, social calendar, and ongoing correspondence with Flavor Flav, my reading has taken a hit.

Past Jamie had no way to know!

She was too trigger-happy with the “place hold” button!

She was gluttonous!!

Now I must hide in my dungeon and catch up on titles while the Toronto Public Library watches like the sick freaks they are.

I think I’m going to die in this house on this hill…

Speaking of freaks!

In the spirit of discourse, I wanted to resurface my review of Wuthering Heights from June 2024: “I respect that this is a classic, but damn, was it boring.”

…It’s a wonder the Times hasn’t asked me to be a full-time reviewer.

The novel is a multi-generational gothic story, made unnecessarily complicated by giving every character a variation of the same name (Heathcliff, Earnshaw, Catherine Earnshaw, Edgar Linton, Linton Heathcliff, Catherine Linton, Hindley Earnshaw, etc.)

The movie solves that problem by cutting out an entire generation of characters, making everything hornier, and giving Heathcliff a slutty little gold tooth with a matching earing.

A win-win!

I think Wuthering Heights was exactly 179 years ahead of its time. This book was always meant to be scored by Charli XCX and given a BDSM subplot. It was always meant to be slightly camp!

Emily Brontë died 50 years before the invention of Jell-O, but surely she would have seen its erotic potential.

The most surprising part of the movie adaptation wasn’t the casting, the sex, or the complete disregard for historical accuracy. It was the sheer number of teens in the theatre squealing over Heathcliff.

I fear Fennell has turned this horror novel into a modern-day situationship blueprint.1

The toxicity!

It’s astounding!

This is their Twilight, and I’m equal parts thrilled and scared for them.

However! It should have been even more destructive.

The movie spent so much time finding things that looked vaguely like vaginas that it forgot to include any ghosts. Fennell created an entire room out of images of Margot Robbie’s skin, but somehow eliminated the whole haunting part of the story???

How???

Why????

We needed more spook!

Emily Brontë didn’t get to experience Tumblr or kink-positive communities,2 but this bitch was on a whole other level of sinister shit that these kids will now never know!

Where was the corpse-digging!?!

Where was yearning beyond the grave!?!

Where was the floating through the moors!?!

Emerald! You had the power to single-handedly f*ck up a whole generation of pubescent kids, and you half-assed it. You coward!!

Onto the books

1. 🧛🏻 The Songbird and The Heart of Stone, Carissa Broadbent ⭐️⭐️⭐️

   A necromancer and a vampire/sun-god-worshipper go on a quest to the underworld.

   This is a spinoff set in the same universe as The Serpent and the Wings of Night - a rare romantasy novel that I loved the whole way through! I had high hopes since the main character of this book was one of my favs in the original duology; however, something about this story felt too surface-level. Both main characters’ backstories and motivations were compelling, and I love any kind of underworld backdrop. Still, there was so much going on (worldbuilding, gods interfering, traumatic memories, political implications, grumpy-sunshine flirting dynamics, etc.), that everything ended up feeling rushed. I think this would have benefited from fewer ideas, or (and I hate to say this about any romantasy), more pages to really sit with each plot point. That said, I will be reading the second one, mostly because I have a soft spot for Carissa Broadbent’s author bio:

   “I’ve been concerning teachers and parents with mercilessly grim tales since I was roughly nine years old. Since then, my stories have gotten (slightly) less depressing and (hopefully a lot?) more readable. Today, I write fantasy novels with a heaping dose of badass ladies and a big pinch of romance.

   When I’m not writing, I’m working at my day job in cybersecurity marketing, watching too many movies, or drawing. I live with my fiance, one very well behaved rabbit, one very poorly behaved rabbit, and one perpetually skeptical cat in Rhode Island.”

2. 🐈‍⬛ We’ll Prescribe You a Cat, Syou Ishida ⭐️⭐️⭐️

   A collection of short stories where, no matter the issue, the doctor prescribes each patient a cat.

   What a great premise! Cats really do fix everything!! Overall, this was a very cute and quick read. It only ended up with three stars because there weren’t any characters or stories that I found super memorable. The author also tried to tie all the stories together with a magical angle that I don’t think the book needed. Just let it be quirky and weird without explanation! I’ll follow you there!

3. 🤬 Are You Mad At Me? Meg Josephson ⭐️⭐️⭐⭐

   Must-read nonfiction for people-pleasers

   A very, very, very rare self-help title that I will recommend! Meg Josephson focuses on the long-term effects of fawning as a survival instinct. This was an easy audiobook listen with a lot of real-world examples from her work as a psychotherapist that made the lessons extremely relatable. If you’ve ever woken up with hangxiety (✅), felt like everyone hated you (✅), had a hard time saying ‘no’(✅), or are a perfectionist (✅), you should read this book.

4. 🤖 Death of the Author, Nnedi Okorafor ⭐️⭐️

   Half literary family drama, half sci-fi about robots.

   You know what. I didn’t like this. I wanted to like it! It had lots of cool stuff going on! There was a disability and technology angle. A cancel-culture angle. An AI storytelling angle. A robots love stories angle. A wealth makes you lose touch with reality angle…. Only, none of those plots really paid off. The whole time, I was thinking about other books that did those themes better (ie, Yellowface, Playground, Set My Heart To Five, Sea of Tranquillity, etc.) It took me so long to finish this book, and I found myself skimming over pages because the plot dragged. Ultimately, I would have loved to just read the sci-fi story within this story. The extra layers and twists diluted any of the pieces I found interesting.

Last Thought:

I said what I said.

Disagree? Haunt me, then!

Epilogue

• What did you read this month?

• Anything I should add to my TBR?

Happy Sunday!

The Oscars are two weeks away, and we need to have an important conversation.

Something many of you aren’t ready for.

Something that’s about to shake the table.

This newsletter has tackled sexual assault, dementia, and the endless trap of counting protein...

Today I have a much braver, much more intimate topic.

I come to you, unhinged theory hand, looking for solace.

For validation.

For grace.

Get out your tinfoil hats and join me on this descent into madness!

Take a deep breath in.

Out.

Brace yourself.

I’m sharing this conspiracy with screenshots and timestamps.

It’s important to cement myself in the history books now before the rest of the world catches on.

Here is a text to myself from Sunday, August 17th, 2025, at exactly 8:05pm.

Stay with me on this.

First, I must also be so so so clear that this thought came to me a month before we even suspected they were dating for real.

At the time of this text, they’d been seen at one dinner.

I did not ask to be clairvoyant.

Like the groundhogs, I was forced into this life.

I certainly wish my powers could be used on any other topic.

Alas, this is what the universe has shown me, and so this has become my vocation.

At first it was just an incling.

A spidy sense that this relationship had legs.

I saw what they must see in each other.

Justin Trudeau and Katy Perry are both theatre kids at heart.

They are bombastic.

They are cringe.

Together, they could be free.

Besides, what is the Hollywood dating pool but a rock garden of career stepping stones?

Is there such a thing as a celebrity relationship that doesn’t lead to a new project, venture, or professional announcement??

If a famous person goes on a date with another famous person, and there isn’t a public relations intern calling the papparazzi to take a photo, did it even happen????

Mind you, I don’t think this relationship is staged. I’m not claiming Justin sought out Katy Perry as a way into entertainment.

No, no, no.

What I feel in my bones is that Katy will inspire Justin to dive back into his acting roots.

They met by circumstance, but the full possibilities of this connection are now taking hold.

Let’s be crystal clear.

Justin Trudeau has always been interested in acting.

He’s a former drama teacher.

He has an up-to-date IMDB page.

He was the first active political leader to be an extra special guest judge on RuPaul’s Drag Race

He was the star of a 2007 made-for-TV movie about WWI.

He played himself in an award-winning indie film in 2021.

Most inexplicably, he recently made a cameo on his son’s YouTube page. (We don’t have time to get into Xav Trudeau’s hip-hop career right now, but that’s a whole other can of worms.)

Less we forget the charity boxing match:

Less we overlook his incredible physical comedy:

This is a man who’se been practicing his own stunts for years.

Not only that! He found ways to insert them into a political career!

Astounding stuff.

The politics might be over, but Justin is young. 54 is still heartthrob territory.

He has nothing but time, an incredible hairline, and a kooky pop star to encourage him! Why wouldn’t he pursue his dreams!?!

In my mind, this is how it all plays out1

First, he’ll be Katy’s date to a red carpet event. Maybe even the MET Gala or Cannes in May.

Then he’ll take a page from the Travis Kelce playbook and do an onstage cameo during one of her performances. The next leg of her tour kicks off in June.

Maybe he’ll find a reason to pop by Saturday Night Live.

Next, he’ll book some podcasts. The SmartLess guys surely are chomping at the bit for this interview….

Possibly, he’ll announce something like a small stint on a show or a cutesy summer film. Something that still allows him to play himself, or a version of himself. A side character like Hugh Grant in Love, Actually.

Now things are getting serious. He’s going with Katy everywhere. They are a multi-talented super couple.

Catch them at the VMS.

At the Grammys.

At next year’s Vanity Fair Oscar party.

Justin decides to move to LA full-time. He gets tan and wears more unbuttoned shirts with sunglasses. Soon, he’ll find a posse of similarly-aged Hollywood men to be photographed with. Paul Rudd. Mark Ruffalo. Rob Lowe. Patrick Dempsey. etc..

This is his moment to move into something more serious and show his acting chops in an indie movie or play.

Who is Justin without his popstar girlfriend?

The tabloids go crazy with the news of his next project.

Maybe he does the method.

Maybe he shaves his head.

Maybe he pushes for a supporting actor nomination in a boxing movie where he can revisit his skills in the ring.

It won’t work, of course. Either the movie is a flop, or he’s beaten out by Timothée Chalamet, creating some tension in his rise.

Here comes the publicity stunts!

Xav Trudeau is on a drug spiral.

Katy Perry is spotted getting dinner with Orlando Bloom in an intimate restaurant.

Justin gets too drunk with Paul/Mark/Rob/Patrick and is photographed hitting on a waitress.

Everything seems to be crumbling around him.

From the ashes he rises! He doubles down on his art.

Maybe he takes singing lessons2 in preparation for his magnum opus: Jean Valjean in the 2037 reboot of Les Misérables, exactly 25 years after the last movie’s release.

OR!!!

Even more touching!

Playing his own father in the Pierre Elliott Trudeau biopic:

The reviews are incredible.

In his Oscar speech, he thanks Katy for reigniting his love of the arts! For sticking with him through the last few years.

He talks about his father!

He says everything in both English and French!!

The cameraman pans to Kim Cattrall, who is still very much alive and beaming at Justin like a son.

Oh, Canada plays!

Timothée Chalamat is crying in the bathroom!

Afterward, Justin and Katy relocate to Ottawa.

Sometimes we meet up when I go to visit my family for the holidays. He can’t believe I predicted all of this and pulls some strings to have a monument of me erected in the Byward Market.

Everyone calls me The Oracle of Orléans.

It’s a heavy burden, but I understand this is what the world needs me to be.

Alas, there is one potential wrinkle to this theory.

As much as I expected Justin to immediately attend music-oriented events with Katy, we’ve instead seen Katy attend politically-focused events with Justin (ie, the World Economic Forum).

Based on her very strange publicity trip to space, I am slightly worried that she’s also angling for a career in politics.

My best guess is that she wants to become the first president of the moon, a perfectly chaotic and impossible title only she could strive for.

Peace and blessings to Katy in her endeavours.

Stay tuned, because I WILL be updating this newsletter as their relationship progresses.

History has its eyes on me.

Last thought

Co-Star not understanding the whole point of this newsletter:

I’m on a work trip for the Super Bowl, culminating in a Monday wine-tasting excursion.

True to form, I’ll be sporting this ‘lil number to watch the game with my colleagues:

With a pearl necklace, of course! It would be rude to make the possums feel overdressed!

All that in mind, it felt like the perfect time to republish this very random, very relevant post about wine-drinking rats and Salesforce.

Enjoy, and I’ll be back in your inbox next week

xoxo,

Your fav side piece

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Squeak, squeak, squeak, my little freaks!

I am — once again — sending an email about rats.

Nothing compels me to write more than an unusual creature exhibiting unusual behaviour.

Despite this newsletter’s sexy branding, this is and will forever be a space for me to talk about rodents, bugs, and eels.

aka: Your Sunday morning Vermin Sermon…

ANYWAY

Last month, scientists discovered that rats can distinguish between two white wine varieties.

Nine rats — Badger, Darren, Edison, Hero, Lionel, Peanuts, Shrodinger, Shaun, and Thomas — were tasked with sniffing the difference between Riesling and Sauvignon Blanc samples in exchange for tasty, tasty treats.

Sadly, Peanuts could not figure it the f*ck out.

But! Everyone else took to the white wine like a bachelorette party in Prince Edward County.

Better, even!

Because they actually could tell the difference between the wine and no one cried, drunk texted an ex, fell off a bike, or started passive-aggressively posting in the group chat about Splitwise costs…

I personally cannot stop thinking about the experiment setup:

They built a tiny, personalized Costco sampling station for rats!

He’s in a miniature, one-rat-only gelato shop, testing all the flavours!

The lazy Susan drive-through window is a masterpiece to behold. What ingenuity! What craftsmanship!

And for what??

What do we gain from teaching rodents about wine tasting?

Is there a practical use case for this?

Can they be employed by the LCBO?

Are we starting a new rodent-focused entity for booze control? The Liquor Creature Board of Ontario???

This mystery has led me to a new Sunday morning Google search low:

According to the study, the rats’ ability to distinguish between the wines proves they can conceptualize and categorize without language.

Science has traditionally assumed that our communication allows us to draw distinctions that non-linguistic creatures cannot.

Example: You can spend a bunch of money and a bunch of time learning how to sniff out wine varietals from someone who has already spent a bunch of money and a bunch of time distilling this skill.

The rats — by contrast — figured this out in isolation.

Besides that idiot, Peanuts, they could reliably classify the wine within 20 seconds of smelling each sample.

So the lesson is: Most people are no better at wine tasting than the average rat.

Something to consider the next time you order a bottle for the table….

Well… That’s all for this week!

As much as I would love to continue giggling in your inbox about various creatures (did you hear about the Worm Blood Moon this week???), I have a ton of work to do for my real job.

….Not that this newsletter isn’t real, but it’s surely not paying the bills…

SO! Sugar Mama has to venture into the deep, dark mines of Salesforce to keep this hobby afloat.

Despite all my rage, I am still just a rat in a (corporate) cage:

Sending a virtual cheers to all of you! With a rat-approved Riesling, of course.

Last thought:

Me sending out this newsletter while my work inbox overflows:

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Happy Sunday!

I am fresh off a beach vacation, feeling incredibly refreshed and (most importantly) incredibly tan.

There is nothing like salt water and sun to recharge the body, mind, and spirit.

Alas, I absent-mindedly used tap water to brush my teeth one night and paid the ultimate price of puking blue Gatorade into an airport garbage can.

We cannot know peace unless we also know suffering.

Onto the books

The theme of my January reading was ‘negative effects of technology, trauma, and Tyra Banks.”

Each horrors in their own right.

Each non-ideal beach reads.

What can I say? There is no setting in the world that will make me pick up another Colleen Hoover novel.

Conversely, I would sell my soul to spend a day observing Tyra Banks on the set of America’s Next Top Model…1

This woman! An enigma!! A master of torment!! A virtuoso of smizing!!!

And don’t get me started on SMiZE & DREAM Hot Mama Ice Cream…

I just got back from vacation and simply do not have the time or energy to figure out wtf Tyra is on about with her Australian “hot ice cream” venture.

It doesn’t make sense.

It will never make sense.

She is crazy, but she is free…

Fairy Dough Diva down.

1. 🥀 Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil, V.E. Schwab ⭐️⭐️⭐️

   A fantasy novel about toxic lesbian vampires

   Listen. I love V.E. Schwab. Her podcast is a delight, and I have learned so much from it. However, I think it’s time for me to admit that her books are not for me.

   There were moments of Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil that I loved: The characters were interesting, the line-level writing was vibey, and I appreciate any new take on vampire lore... That said, I don’t feel like the plot went anywhere interesting. This was a loooonnnggg 535 pages to have the ending rushed…And! For a book promising toxic queer vampires!! I wanted less backstory and more toxicity!

2. 💾 Searches: Selfhood in the Digital Age, Vauhini Vara ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

   Creative non-fiction leveraging AI to explore how tech companies are reshaping human language(derogatory)

   My first 5-star start of the year! This book is a masterpiece and deserves all of the awards! Part personal reflection, part tech history, part dialogue with ChatGPT. I’ve read memoirs about sexual assault, incest, and abuse. I’ve read bonkers erotica about doors and airplanes. I’ve read horror novels that describe cannibalism and torture in great detail. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING, is as vulnerable as dedicating an entire chapter to your Google searches… That is absurd. This is my history from the last few days, and I am deeply ashamed.

   

   Predictably, Goodreads reviewers are already debating the ethics of using AI for a book… which is… exactly…the point??? Like, hello???

3. ✏️ Half His Age, Jennette McCurdy ⭐️⭐️⭐

   A lonely teenager pursues an affair with her creative writing teacher

   Pretty yikes! Jenmette McCurdy’s pull-no-punches writing served her memoir, but for some reason, it felt gratuitous in this novel. Why is that? I’m not sure! This is a Lolita-esque story from a 17-year-old’s perspective, with the added elements of online shopping and TikTok. On paper, this is exactly the kind of book I’d love. In reality, I found the story more driven by shock value than emotion. I think that’s why it lost me, but I’m truly still trying to figure it out…If you’re keen to read this, I’d recommend starting with My Dark Vanessa instead.

4. 🕵️‍♀️ The Return of Ellie Black, Emiko Jean ⭐️⭐️

   A missing teenager is found alive after two years, but won’t tell anyone where she’s been.

   Every year, someone tries to convince me that I secretly love thrillers.

   Every year, we find ourselves in this exact moment, where I have to gently remind everyone that I do not.

   Is it Emiko Jean’s fault that she’s writing in a genre I don’t like? No. But I’m giving this two stars because she almost had me! A lot of the plot hinges on Ellie Back navigating the trauma of what happened to her. She’s jumpy, confused, and non-cooperative with law enforcement. I liked the tension of a victim not wanting to pursue justice in favour of moving on (a real issue!!). BUT!!! Jean had to go and fill the end with a bunch of unnecessary, weird, and implausible twists! We didn’t need to do all that!! The hook was interesting enough!!! GAH! Why do thrillers insist on making me their enemy!!!!

5. 📸 You Wanna Be on Top?: A Memoir of Makeovers, Manipulation, and Not Becoming America’s Next Top Model, Sarah Hartshorne ⭐️⭐️⭐️

   A tell-all memoir from the only “plus size” contestant from Cycle 9 of ANTM

   This was exactly what I wanted and expected. Nothing more. Nothing less.

   If you’re at all interested in the BTS of this show, give this audiobook a listen! Sarah reads it herself and is super charming to listen to.

   Please keep in mind that I was obsessed with this show. It’s the reason I got a pixie cut in grade 8 (unfortunate). It contributed to all of my body image issues (doubly unfortunate). It single-handedly sparked an obsession with jeans and heels as my freshman go-see university outfit of choice (unfortunate only because I could not walk in said heels…)

   As you already know from my Google history, I desperately want to be eyeballs-deep in an America’s Next Top Model rewatch (especially with the Netflix doc and counter-doc on the horizon). Sadly, none of the 12073,1831,00088 streaming services I pay for have it available…

   Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink.

Last Thought:

An important addendum to my last essay:

Epilogue

• What did you read this month?

• Anything I should add to my TBR?

• Do you know where I can watch ANTM cycles 1-10?????

DISCLAIMER:

I got a haircut yesterday, and the woman put layers (!!!) in my blunt bob (!?!?!?)

So nothing matters to me anymore!!!

This newsletter is stupid!

Everything is stupid!!

I am and will forever be HIDEOUS!!! There is simply nothing that can be done!! Read at your own peril because this is now the blog of a swamp creature!!!

Happy Sunday!

2016 is having a moment, and I’m mad about it!

Everyone is wistfully posting throwbacks with VSCO filters, pink Starbucks drinks, and flannel shirts.

That’s not what I remember!

2016 was the year I went through the biggest breakup of my life.1

The year all my clothes became too tight.

The year I moved apartments three times.

The year I lost faith in the American people.

Mostly, I remember it as the year Hilary lost.

2016 was the beginning of the end!

It was the time before the fall. We were dangling on the precipice of political hell, and we didn’t even know it!

We were Mufasa, right before he was trampled by wildebeasts!!

And, truthfully, that’s what the clubs felt like.

They were messy.

They were uninhibited.

They had weird, sweat-infused condensation stains on the ceilings.

We were all dancing like we were running out of time.

I can practically taste the nausea!!

I can feel the porcelain on my forehead!

The sticky bathroom floor on my knees!!!

In 2016, puking was just part of the going-out experience.

“Let it out, girl”, we’d say in unison, because it was totally cool and normal and healthy and fun!!

Now you can even drink MORE!

Because your stomach is EMPTY!!

And therefore SKINNY!!

And therefore ready for more SHOTS!!!!

That’s how it works!! That’s just basic science!!!!

Looking back at pictures is a jumpscare.

My Instagram grid is filled with a girl I don’t recognize (only in part because of too much FaceTune).

She’s aimless.

She’s attention-seeking.

She’s never once checked what her hair looks like from the back.

She’s never even heard of “setting spray.”

Of all my 2016 offences, these are the ones that keep me up at night:

• Accidentally flashing an entire gala during a speech

• Being banned from a bar for trying to make my own jager bombs

• Puking on my degree after a night out2

• Getting headbutted by a man I picked a fight with

• Crashing a wedding

• Wearing heels that I couldn’t walk in

• Wearing a tiny velvet choker to a rave that my best friend had to remove so I wouldn’t die in my sleep

• Wearing black lipstick out, and letting it slowly migrate all over my face

• Passing out in a snow bank

• Making out with a friend’s ex-boyfriend, simply because we shared an Uber home

• Making out with my ex’s friend, simply because he was being nice

• Making out with literally anyone, because any male validation was enough

• Regularly finishing small jars of Kraft peanut butter with a spoon3

• Dating a man who scalped tickets out of his van.

• Dating an aspiring YouTuber4

• Dating a man with a toddler, who then became my stalker

• Dating a 19-year-old, which doesn’t sound that bad, but at 22, it felt horrific

Forgive me, Internet, for I have sinned…

The worst part is, at the time, I saw most of this list as a badge of honour. I thought it was all fodder for a stand-up comedy career that I was 100% not pursuing in any real way.

I thought I could, and therefore the chaotic, hot-mess behaviour was justified. It was actually in service to the amazing career I was surely going to stumble into one day! I would make a joke so hilarious, tell a story so shocking, that Netflix would appear on my doorstep and beg me to do a special.

As I write this post at 8 am on Saturday, face mask on, getting my steps on a walking pad, it seems impossible that I was ever that girl.

This is not the same body.

This is not the same brain.

All of the qualities I thought were my best — sarcastic, impulsive, unfeeling — turned out to be the parts of myself I like the least.

But somehow, that is still me!

We are intrinsically tied, for better or worse.

It’s a nightmare, and all of you are forcing me to remember!!

Why!?!

There is simply no need!

Isn’t the current state of the world enough to grapple with?!

Are we going to do this again every ten years??

In 2036, will the AI overlords even allow this time to stop and reflect!?!?

Probably not!

I guess, then, I should take this moment to also contend with who I was in 2006, wearing bandanas and snarky graphic t-shirts.

Making up imaginary worlds and reading the Brothers Grimm fairy tales.

Thinking the world was going to end on June 6th.

Entering the talent show with an airband called the “Food Fighters,” dressed as a banana and performing a Weird Al song.

And in 1996, with a pink satin pillowcase over my head, pretending to be a ghost.

Colouring in my mom’s anatomy textbooks.

Eating cream cheese out of the container with my hands.

Locking myself in the crate with our dog.

Those girls are much easier to trace to my present-day self.

They were macabre. Imaginative. A little shy.

2016 is the only part of my history where I truly feel that I lost myself.

It happened and unhappened subtly.

I didn’t even notice how far a departure it was until one day I was 31, and the internet was asserting that 2016 is back(!!), and I was accosted by a version of myself that I no longer recognized. Someone who’d been caught up in the partying and the showmanship and the shock value.

A quiet girl who became popular dyed her hair blonde and turned into a menace.

That’s a rite of passage for any pop star, really.

Except for Jennifer Lopez!

J. Lo exists outside of any eras or album reinventions.

This is her…then.

This is her….now.

She revisits old versions of herself (ie: Ben Affleck) freely, earnestly releasing Dear Ben in 2002 and Dear Ben, Pt. II in 2024.

She has no shame.

She has no fear.

She is and forever will be Jenny from the block. No matter where she goes, she knows where she came from.

Which, to bring The Lion King back into this, is basically the same message ghost-Mufasa gave post-wildebeast death:

Look inside yourself. You are more than what you have become. You must take your place in the circle of life.

Remember who you are.

The lesson here is all the usual therapy bullshit we’re used to.

Extend yourself grace.

Be kind to your past self.

Know it all happened for a reason.

Yadda yadda yadda.

But I don’t want to be nice about it!

2016 was a bad year!

I hate that bitch, and you can tell her I said it!!!

This is me…now, formally disavowing who I was…then.

And! Since I can’t change anything about the past, I’ll be doing this instead:

Last thought

The best thing to come out of 2016

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We’re back, baby!

It’s a new year.

Hilary Duff is putting out new music.

The NHL is pretending to like gay people.

Smoking is cool again.

One of my credit cards is going to expire.

Change is in the air!

Before I can embrace 2026, I must honour my Millennial heritage and post a recap of 2025.

I don’t make the rules, sorry!

Tell Orpheus to buckle up, because we’re looking back at my favourite reads of the year.

Turning the page on 2025

This year, I read 56 titles across 16 genres. There is no easy way to distill this year of books. It was pure chaos from start to finish.

I read about: Mother-daughter cannibals, Harriet Tubman as a hip-hop artist, anthropomorphized depression monsters, vampire death tournaments…

I’m curating a Kobo library so unpredictable, so unsettling that every celebrity book club is quaking in fear!

From the pile, six (mostly normal) titles rose to the top.

Of course, these aren’t all of my 5-star reads. I tried to narrow the scope to books published in the last five years, and spanning a mix of genres.

Picking favourites is hard, but it must be done! That’s parenting 101…

• 🙅‍♀️Rejection, Tony Tulathimutte

  A collection of interconnected short stories that have moved me, changed me, completely tore apart and rebuilt my understanding of the world.

  Coming in at #1, Rejection is a Millennial fiction masterpiece. I simply cannot comprehend how Tony conceptualized and executed this level of satire. From the first page to the last, I was transfixed. This is genius. This is perfection. Tony, you are a mastermind! I bow down to you, my literary king!!!! I can write no greater review than the one you’ve already given yourself:

• ⚽️ Spectacular Things, Becky Dorey-Stein

  Contemporary fiction about sisters, soccer, and sacrifice.

  A rare title that Reese and I agree on. Don't be fooled by my freak-forward writing! I am a softie! A certified cry-baby (behind closed doors, obviously).

  With Spectacular Things, Becky Dorsey-Stein ripped my heart out and dribbled it across the field. I adored everything about this: the family dynamics, the writing style, and especially the nods to real women’s soccer stars. “What a gift.”

• 🪦 I’m Glad My Mom Died, Jennette McCurdy

  The holy grail of mommy and food issues, written by a former Nickelodeon star.

  I know I’m late to the party on this memoir, but holy moly was it ever amazing. That opening??????!?! Jennette, are you kidding???!? I plowed through this audiobook in a day, clocking almost 30,000 steps so I could keep listening. I gasped. I cringed. I paused to stare into the void and process the most horrific mothering I have ever read about. Yikes.

  “Well, sweetheart, if you really want to know how to stay small, there’s this secret thing you can do… it’s called calorie restriction.”

• 🍩 I Hope This Finds You Well, Natalie Sue

  A depressed employee accidentally gains access to her entire workplace’s private emails. Hilarity ensues.

  Another sentimental book made it on the list! Maybe I’m losing my edge, but this witty workplace romantic comedy had me giggling and kicking my little feet the whole time. I Hope This Finds You Well was a scathing portrait of corporate culture, yet somehow humanized your most annoying, microwave-fish-for-lunch colleagues. If you’ve ever felt personally victimized by working in a cubicle, bump this to the top of your inbox!!

• 🏚️ Model Home, Rivers Solomon

  A modern haunted house about racism in American suburbs

  Of the 16 horror novels I read, this is the only one that made it to the top of my list! If you’re into stories about trauma and ghosts, this is worth a read. The writing is beautiful, the premise is topical, and the cover is 🤌

• 🥂 Local Heavens, K.M. Fajardo

  A cyberpunk retelling of The Great Gatsby

  I mean, what else do I have to say??? This is a debut novel that made me appreciate a classic even more. That’s pretty damn hard to do! Especially since Fajardo changed the entire genre to sci-fi, but still somehow retained the Fitzgerald feeling… Crazy work. This book was also gifted to me by my writer pal (so go give her some love)!

Honourable mentions

These were not 5-star reads, but were too memorable to leave out! I’ve broken my picks into two categories: books with heart, and books that are batshit crazy…

Starting with the

• 🐀 We Could Be Rats, Emily Austin

  A story split between two sisters — one contemplating suicide, the other grappling with her sister’s mental health.

  Obviously, I picked this one up because of the title, but I’m so glad I did. No spoilers, but this completely caught me off guard in the best way. For that surprise (and also because this book is a crisp 256 pages), I’m recommending it to everyone. Scurry over to your local bookstore now!

  Also, if this passage isn’t my brand, idk what is:

  “If I could have picked what I was born to be, I would be a fat little rat at a fair. I would ride the Ferris wheel all night. All the carnival lights would reflect in my happy, beady eyes. I would feast on candy apple cores, discarded peanuts, and melon rinds. I would spook the ladies and carnival workers for kicks. When the lights went out, and the gates were shut, I would scurry around on the ground, rummage through the trash cans, and squeak happily with my rat pals. I would live to be about two years old, which is as long as most rats live. I would get my money’s worth out of my little rat lifespan, and I would leave the earth happy to have been there.”

  Might as well be an excerpt from this newsletter…

• 🧀 When The Moon Hits Your Eye, John Scalzi

  One day, the moon turns to cheese.

  What a premise! Kafka crawled so John Scalzi could moonwalk! When The Moon Hits Your Eye was beautiful, moving, and crafted like a collection of short stories. I laughed. I cried. I Googled things about the moon. I was reminded of the hopelessness of lockdown. The uncertainty of …well, everything, right now. I added cheese curds to my grocery order. 10/10 reading experience (and 15/10 cheese puns)

Now for the unhinged books…

Ya. The airplane porn book is here. What are you going to do about it????? Unsubscribe????1

• ✈️ Sky Daddy, Kate Folk

  For this one, I must use the actual synopsis:

  Linda knows that she can’t tell anyone she’s sexually obsessed with planes—nor can she reveal her belief her destiny is to “marry” one of her suitors by dying in a plane crash, thereby uniting her with her soulmate plane for eternity. But when an opportunity arises to hasten her dream of eternal partnership, and the carefully balanced elements of her life begin to spin out of control, she must choose between maintaining the trappings of normalcy and launching herself headlong toward the love she’s always dreamed of.

  This book has appeared on at least five different ‘Best of 2025’ lists, so no, I’m not crazy. Or, at least, I have like-minded company.

  Sky Daddy is more of a dark comedy than its description lets on. What I thought would be uncomfortable object-based erotica was actually a sweet story about a troubled woman making friends. The story is anchored by a healthy recognition that her sexual fixation is abnormal, and we’re slowly given enough backstory about her childhood (aka daddy issues) to make it make sense. While bizarre — a major plot point is the protagonist’s belief that her quarterly vision boards are altering the universe — the story was also heart-warming??? And, more importantly, it was hilarious!

  I figured none of you would trust me on this, so I pulled quotes…

  Sky Daddy has witty workplace commentary:

  “It was unclear whether we were meant to eat the bagels or if they were merely the mascots of the meeting, and so they remained untouched.”

  Honest interiority:

  “And Judy, with the long neck.”

  “Judy’s my best friend from high school.” Karina paused. “I don’t think her neck is that long, is it?”

  “I suppose not,” I said to be polite, though Judy’s neck was indeed freakishly long.

  Incredible depictions of envy for a female friend group (@Ashley Tisdale IYKYK)

  “I emptied my bladder into Esme’s chic black toilet. The dimmer switch was turned low. A cone of incense burned on a ceramic plate set on the toilet’s tank. Beneath the sink sat a metal wastebasket the size of a juice glass, within which lay a single, seemingly unsoiled cotton ball. The sight of the tiny trash can filled me with self-loathing. Compared to the women of the VBB, I felt like a soiled tissue deposited in a seatback pocket. The universe had shone favourably upon them, bestowing them gifts like this condo and Nikki’s robust infant. I hoped the secretion of their success would ooze onto me.”

  Visionboard criticism that genuinely made me lol:

  “I noted they didn’t directly ask for higher salaries— overt material requests must have been considered gauche. Instead, their boards featured items like the satisfaction of helping younger coworkers, learning from their mentors, or, in Nikki’s case, revamping her business website. All of these seemed like tasks that could be accomplished without the collaboration of an infinitely powerful universe.” ¹

  Philosophical thoughts on flying:

  “Flight was suspended animation, a period in which a person was exempt from obligation, cut off from the grounded world.”

  And, if none of that convinced you that this book could be worth a read, this blurb from the author’s acknowledgements really says it all:

  “Many books and sources contributed to the writing of this one. Foremost among them is Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, with which Sky Daddy is in casual conversation.”

  Kate Folk, I don’t know what kind of drugs you’re on, but please keep taking them. Because of you, I will never board a plane the same way again.

• 💻 Several People Are Typing, Calvin Kalsuke

  A work-from-home comedy told entirely through Slack messages.

  The plot starts when an employee accidentally uploads his consciousness into Slack. That sentence alone should be enough for you to buy this book. This was delightful! Weird!!! Existential!!!

  Calvin wrote a novel for the girlies who gossip in side Slacks. This is for anyone who’s had futile conversations with Slackbot (a pivotal character). This is for professionals who’ve bullshitted their way through a directionless brief. This is for anyone who’s looked at their computer screen and felt like it would be better to howl into the void than spend another day online.

  The only reason Several People Are Typing isn’t in my top six is because of a body-swapping plot point that I didn’t love, but am willing to overlook for the sheer joy this story brought me! :dustystick:

  

• 🏩 All Fours, Miranda July

  A middle-aged woman leaves her family to find herself on a cross-country road trip, only to spend two weeks unravelling in a motel 20 minutes from home.

  This book was complete and utter mayhem from top to bottom. At every turn, the main character made choices from a place of incomprehensible lunacy. The woman had a tickle trunk full of terrible ideas, and I could have stayed in her delulu mind forever! That other characters could follow her fabricated fantasies was mindboggling to me. We should all be so lucky to have friends and romances that allow us this level of creative depravity (ie, renovating a hotel room as a nest for an affair, FBI telephotographer role-play, open source menopause advice, interpretative dance social media posts as love letters, street trash graffiti as a proclamation of devotion…). Not to mention the applicator-less tampon foreplay or marriage breakthrough over dog poop…I thought this book was hysterical and fascinating, but it lost points for the overuse of shock value and the glamorization of open marriages.

  Anyway, here’s how I imagine Miranda July writes books:

My next chapter

2026 is all about the library!

I’ve renewed my card.

I’ve placed my holds.

I’ve already wrestled one rubber band off a plastic-coated spine, and I’m ready to be a force of good in my community.

Bring on the neighbourly small talk!!

Bring on the non-commital head nods of recognition!!

This year, I’m waving to local residents, learning names, and finding out where to buy this t-shirt:

Epilogue:

With everything happening in the news, writing this newsletter feels a lot like this:

Some of us are called to serve.

Some of us find God.

Some of us have undiagnosed mental illnesses….

Thank you for being here and indulging my madness! My Sundays are sacred because I spend ‘em with you 💕

Knock knock…

Who’s there??

Not me!

I’m taking a break!!!

Kiss this sweet ass newsletter goodbye until 2026.

Dueces,

Your fav side piece.

Subscribe now

Happy Sunday!

The Jays lost, spooky season is over, and nothing matters.

Expect some lacklustre reviews today because I am simply not in the mood.

Onto the books

The theme of my October reading was ‘holy shit, do you remember the pandemic?”

If that sounds bleak to you, you’re not wrong!

The books below include a lockdown love story, work-from-home drama, and a portrait of incel culture.

Was I ready to be thrust back into a 2020 mindset? Absolutely not!

1. 🖼️ The Art of Vanishing, Morgan Pager (2.5)

   A love story between a woman and a piece of art. No, not figuratively.

   The Art of Vanishing was magical realism done to the most ‘meh’ degree.

   The mustached man from Matisse’s The Music Lesson (below) falls in love with a down-on-her-luck janitor. A Harold and the Purple Crayon-style romance ensues. It could have been cute (who wouldn’t love to run through famous paintings all night???), but I was mostly bored. A LOT of the plot was lamenting, yearning, and generally not communicating.

   The audiobook also suffered from an unfortunate French accent… I know that’s not the author’s fault, but it kind of is for choosing this leading man. Why not the statue of David? Why not a Greek God? Surely art is filled with more bonified hoties than this dude with the sausage fingers???

   

   Anyway… I’m giving this 2.5 stars purely because of the pandemic section. I enjoyed reading about lockdown from the perspective of famous artworks who grappled with not being seen or admired.

2. 👁️ Of The Flesh, (3)

   A collection of modern horror stories, including a child with an eel in his belly who craves broccoli and an African immigrant attaining citizenship via violent trials.

   Rating short story collections is tricky. I liked some, I disliked some, and based on the Goodreads synopsis, I forgot the majority…not a great sign! Was the book uninteresting, or am I just forgetful? A question we simply cannot answer in the time we have today.

3. 🎤 Harriet Tubman Live in Concert Bob The Drag Queen (3)

   Historical figures have come back to life, and Harriet Tubman teams up with a music producer to make a hip-hop album

   If there’s one thing I love, it’s a batshit crazy premise. Bob delivered; however, I don’t think this went far enough! I never felt like I really got inside the main character’s mind and emotions, which I could have overlooked with more wacky antics. Who is Harriet following on Instagram? How does she feel about Labubus?? Facelifts?? The WNBA?!? Ultimately, this felt more like a screenplay than a novel, especially since Bob produced two original songs as Harriet Tubman for the audiobook. Hello!?! Put this on Broadway ASAP!

   Wanted a chance to write some good music
   I mean some hood music
   I’m talking ’bout I wish a motherfucker would music
   Liberate my people through the swamps and the woods music
   Never would have made it if I didn’t know I could music

4. 💻 Several People Are Typing, Calvin Kalsuke (4.5)

   A work-from-home comedy told entirely through Slack messages.

   The plot starts when an employee accidentally uploads his consciousness into Slack. That sentence alone should be enough for you to buy this book.

   This was delightful! Weird!!! Existential!!!

   Calvin wrote a novel for people who like Severance, but also want to giggle. This is for the girlies who create gossip side Slacks. This is for anyone who’s had futile conversations with Slackbot (a pivotal character). This is for professionals who’ve bullshitted their way through a directionless brief. This is for anyone who’s looked at their computer screen and felt like it would be better to howl into the void than spend another day online.

   Several People Are Typing lost .5 stars because there was a weird body-swapping thing at the end that I didn’t love, but I’m willing to overlook it for the sheer joy this story brought me! :dustystick:

   

5. 🙅‍♀️Rejection, Tony Tulathimutte (5)

   A collection of interconnected short stories that have moved me, changed me, completely ripped apart and rebuilt my understanding of the world.

   Holy shit. I don’t even know what to say. This is a Millennial fiction masterpiece! I listened to the entire thing in one sitting. I was transfixed. Gobsmacked! Flabbergasted!!

   I simply cannot comprehend how Tony conceptualized and executed this level of satire. This is genius. This is perfection from top to bottom. The end?!! TONY!! I BOW DOWN TO YOU, MY LITERARY KING!!

   I will be buying a physical copy and re-reading ASAP, to do a better review with annotations. Right now, I am too stunned to provide any commentary beyond “wowzers.”

   Also, he left himself this 5-star rating, and I love that:

Last Thought:

Epilogue

• What did you read this month?

• Anything I should add to my TBR?

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“TRUE! — nervous — very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am.”

—The first line of Edgar Allan Poe's, The Tell-Tale Heart.

And also me.

All the time.

Friday is October 31st, and I still haven’t posted a spring or summer photo dump.

Time is running out.

Spring was two whole seasons ago!

I’ve already revealed a Halloween costume in my story.

The chronology is all wrong, and I’m panicking.

Unfortunately, my nervous system cannot distinguish between actual danger and choosing 20 photos to put in an Instagram carousel…

My anxiety has me scrutinizing my camera roll with a vulture-like eye.

I’m mentally ripping each picture to shreds and hoarding them in an album called “Spring 2025.”

I’m avoiding everyone else’s carousels captioned “super late recap”, lest I crack under the pressure.

My draft might as well be a body under the floorboards. I can hear it beckoning to me from the Photos app.

Only I don’t hear a living heartbeat. No no!

I hear the soft double finger taps of 100-200 tiny, red hearts.

Taptap — taptap — taptap — taptap.

My friends will love this post.

Taptap — taptap — taptap — taptap.

The world needs it!

Taptap — taptap — taptap — taptap.

In fact, everyone is angry that they don’t already have it!!!

Taptap — taptap — taptap — taptap.

I’m late and therefore not relevant and therefore fundamentally bad and therefore also ugly because that’s how it works!!

I don’t make the rules!!!

“But why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses — not destroyed — not dulled them.”

Edgar gets it.

I’m not crazy. I’m just hyper-aware.

My obsession has made me a dump connaisseur.1

Photo dumps aren’t about posting.

They’re about curation.

Can you not see the themes? The overarching message?

There is intention behind the order of each photo.

There is meticulous, Da Vinci-level measurement in the ratios of close-ups, full-body shots, scenery, food, friend cameos, pets, thirst-trap selfies, and quirky staged items.

There is artistry in the accompanying caption, song, and location choice.

Carousels are displays of modern craftsmanship.

Of storytelling.

A picture is worth a thousand words; ergo, a 20-slide Instagram carousel is an 80-page novella.

People take years to write those!

And they bring in reinforcements!! Beta readers, agents, developmental editors, line editors, etc..

The photo dump, by contrast, is a one-woman show. It’s a feat of cinematography, direction, screenwriting, and editing.

This isn’t something you can take lightly!

Again! I am not crazy!!

I am an architect!!!

The best art looks effortless, and that takes a great deal of effort!!!!

(See also: “No-makeup makeup” augmented by Botox, blephs, and filler. “Undone” waves created with heat wands. No-filter photos enhanced by Ozempic, body contour, and “yoga boob” implants. “Quiet luxury” fashion that camouflages just enough with normies so only other rich people know you’re rich, etc…)

What will come across cool? Natural? Interesting? How do you mould perception with 20 images?

You have to put yourself in the mind of your followers to see your page as a living, breathing canvas.

I am simply trying to be attuned to the needs of my flock. Like Jesus or Mr. Beast.

…Only without making a spectacle of the poor to flaunt my prowess and charity.2

“How, then, am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily — how calmly I can tell you the whole story.”

It wasn’t always this overwhelming.

In May, someone took a picture of my coworker and me at an event.

I liked it, but not enough to post as a stand-alone.

It felt too intense to share. Are we that close? Does a picture of the two of us belong on my main feed?? Will she think I’m obsessed with her???

I thought it would be easier to pair it with other photos.

But what? I had no other options!

I had to wait until more opportunities presented themselves.

Back then, the taptap — taptap — taptap — taptaps were merely suggestions. They were inklings about what this post could be.

“It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night.”

Maybe I’d snag a pic at that next event.

That concert.

Taptap — taptap — taptap — taptap.

That work trip.

Taptap — taptap — taptap — taptaps.

That friend’s birthday.

Taptap — taptap — taptap — taptap.

I could harvest all season long!

My calendar would simply morph into a production schedule.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and I was beholden to a growing list of social plans. How kismet!

I would play Spielberg, capturing cute signs, dinner plates, scenery, weird posters… idk…just whatever catches the eye.

Something interesting. Anything interesting.

Taptap — taptap — taptap — taptap

Slowly, slowly, the album became too full.

I had to switch from sourcing to editing, but my camera roll never slowed.

I was hoarding options. Collecting selfies like horcruxes.

Just one more close-up shot.

Taptap — taptap — taptap — taptap

One more cute outfit.

Taptap — taptap — taptap — taptap

One more landscape.

Taptap — taptap — taptap — taptap

And it will be complete!

Taptap — taptap — taptap — taptap

I will be complete!!

But there’s no deadline.

I could keep adding, changing, and perfecting forever. Forever chasing the Ideal Form of a summer photo dump.

How do I decide when to be finished?

When is the right time to post?

My own arbitrary deadlines came and went. I didn’t post at the end of spring. Not at the end of summer.

Now — 4 days out from Halloween — I’m forcing myself to do it.

…If only I could think of a caption.

“You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded — with what caution — with what foresight — with what dissimulation I went to work”

Oh, I see.

You think I’m immune to the futility of it all.

Think again!!

I am as locked into the ridiculousness as I am to the want.

Every post eats at my soul for days, nay weeks, nay months before I publish!

Nary have you met a more thoughtful poster than me!!

Inevitably, there is a stage of curating when I reach a whole new wave of questions:

Why does this matter?

Should I delete social media??

Is it self-indulgent to use all 20 photos in a carousel?

Does posting inherently make me an attention-seeker?

Am I including these food pictures because I actually like them? Or because it’s vain if every picture is just me?

Will people know that technically some of these photos are from early October, therefore making the “summer photo dump” null, void, and a complete fabrication?

Do I have any integrity?! Any class!!!

Should I just scrap everything and post 20 selfies all taken from the same 5-minute window instead? Is that punk rock or a cry for help?

What is the line between dump and masterpiece?

Am I actually hideous and lame? Has everyone who has ever complimented me been lying to spare my feelings?

Does my level of anxiety about this post signal that I should be on medication?

What kind?

Does being interesting or beautiful even matter when we’re all going to die???

Will I still lament over these trivial decisions when I have children? Or will my brain just be supercharged with a million more stressors?

Are we going to be an emoji-on-kids-faces family or an overshare-until-my-kids-hate-me family????

“Was it possible they heard not? Almighty God! — no, no! They heard! — they suspected! — they knew! — they were making a mockery of my horror! — this I thought, and this I think”

None of this is reasonable. I know that.

But I also know that I am not alone!!

Surely you all hear the tapping as well!!

Don’t lie to me!!

We are all caught in this same social media rat trap! And it will never be over. Not really.

Posting this dump will only slow the next inevitable wave of taptap — taptap — taptap — taptaps.

There will be Fall.

Taptap — taptap — taptap — taptap

Winter.

Taptap — taptap — taptap — taptap

Spring again!

Taptap — taptap — taptap — taptap

An unrelenting seasonal flow of collecting and posting of photos until we die.

Or!

Until we sever the Instagram umbilical cord and become unreachable.

But we won’t! We’ll persevere!

Why?!?

YOU KNOW WHY!!! YOU DON’T NEED ME TO SAY IT!

BUT I WILL!

Because I need dopamine!!!

I must have it!!!!!!

I YEARN FOR IT!

I will scream into the social media void forever!!!! What is the point of living if I’m not reminding everyone that I do fun things!!! I wore cute outfits!!! I have friends!!!!

And you all like me!!!!!!!

We all like each other!!!!!

What a UTOPIA OF MUTUAL LIKING AND NORMALCY!!!!

“I admit the deed! — tear up the planks! — here, here! — it is the beating of his hideous heart!”

…Anyway…

Please like my photo dump whenever you see it. Thnx! xoxox!

The album in question

Yes, I am taking suggestions. Yes, there are 78 photos in it…

Happy Thanksgiving!

I’m trying to spend more time reflecting on past work. This blog’s archives are deep, dark, and ready to be mined!

Remember the eel pit?

Remember the Britney puns??

Remember the extreme and palpable depression of 2021?!?!

I’ve produced a rich history of text, and I’m ready to unearth its spoils!

Today, I’m revisiting a post from September 2023.

My grandmother is still kicking it (potentially out of spite at this point, it’s hard to say), and it’s only gotten more bleak from here.

If you’re spending the holiday with an unwell loved one — this goes out to you!

Fast Socks & Forgetting

“Leave me here,” my grandmother instructed from the floor.

I held her by the armpits as she scooched onto the nearby step. Defiant, but wincing with effort the whole way.

“I’ll help you up,” I said, and she glared at me as if it was my fault she was down there.

As if I hadn’t caught her fall.

She’d only made it four steps before collapsing like a Twizzler.

This was the most physical contact I’d had with her in years.

We are not a touchy-feely family, and, despite my grandmother’s accusatory stare, we didn’t have a habit of tackling each other to the ground.

I tried to coax her up. She ignored me.

She’d rather perch on the stoop for hours than have me lift her.

Dementia will eliminate all of her motor functions before it reaches her pride.

We stayed in our deadlock while everyone else packed up lunch.

She put her head in her hands, and I stood uselessly on the deck, looking inside toward the dining room.

The table was missing a chair.

Her chair.

My grandmother always sat closest to the back door, often reaching behind herself to let out the dog.

We’d moved her seat when we got here to clean up after Honey, the yellow lab who had waited at the door until she couldn’t hold it anymore.

My grandmother either hadn’t noticed or hadn’t made it on time.

She would fill Honey’s bowl a dozen times a day, but never clued into the stench.

“I feel sick,” she said, and I did, too. 

I remembered when she used to orchestrate the entire family get-together. She would make decadent meals and buy too many desserts for our six-person family. On Christmas, she would host two dinners and a brunch.

We’d have leftovers for weeks.

While she prepped, I would run around the house sneaking treats and pestering my uncles. I sprinted around the sharp kitchen corners at full speed in socks with rubber grips.

Go-Fast Socks, we called them. 

“Go, go, go!” my grandmother cheered while putting out a shrimp ring, a cheese board, or a cookie tin. 

Possibly all three.

Definitely all on themed plates with themed napkins.

Today, we’d eaten pre-made sandwiches and monitored her intake. She could never remember if she was full and gave herself almost as many treats as she gave Honey.

“Slow down,” my grandfather had told her 10 minutes ago, “that’s enough.”

“I think I’m going to throw up,” she said, not looking up.

My mom came outside with a bucket, already knowing what lay ahead. She coaxed my grandmother through a long, violent spell of sickness while I left to pour a glass of water.

Inside, my impulse to help was immediately overshadowed by a desire to be as far away from the puke as possible. 

Guilt tugged on my gag reflex.

I stood more uselessly than before, now from the other side of the door.

It had been nicer looking into a version of the past than out at this new reality. I had no idea if my presence would be soothing or cause embarrassment.

In between wretches, my grandmother spotted me holding her water.

“When did Jamie get so tall?” she asked.

My mom and I laughed.

I haven’t grown since I was 13.

We kept smiling, but I wondered if she knew how old I was. When had I stopped aging in her mind? When will I disappear for good?

I checked my phone and laughed harder.

“Mom,” I said, “It’s time to BeReal.”

The joke carried us through the next wave of vomit. I didn’t take the picture. This wasn’t a moment I’d be able to forget anyway.

Next week, my grandmother is moving into a home.

We already know she’s going to hate it.

She did a month-long trial last year and spent the whole time complaining, crossing each day off the calendar like a prisoner on death row.

It was the most effort she’s ever put into tracking time.

If her pride isn’t the last thing to go, it will be her stubbornness.

Even puking into a bucket on the ground, she would argue that she’s fine on her own. I have no idea if she actually believes herself, or if it’s a front.

When she finally stopped heaving, my dad lifted her into the house. He narrated the technique — her arms braced around his neck, his arms under her shoulders — as if it were a normal conversation. 

“Just like a squat,” he said.  

I couldn’t see anything familiar in the motion. I could barely see anything recognizable in my grandmother, either.

Her smell has become more rancid than she’d ever allow her right mind.

Her eyes sometimes glaze over.

Her face has sprouted new hair, which my mom can only groom between walking her dog, and cleaning her house, and doing her laundry, and picking up her meds, and grabbing her groceries and, and, and, and…

What is the same is The Chair my dad puts her in.

My grandma has been willfully rotting in the same spot since before she had a diagnosis.

A version of that chair has existed since I was little. It used to be a respite. Long days of gardening, painting, or shopping all ended in The Chair. Each new day started there, too. 

When I was little, I brought all my prized possessions to The Chair. I would run up with pictures, grades, gymnastics moves, or new books for her to look at.

When I went shopping, The Chair was where the VIPs sat for my fashion show. The runway stopped at the full extension of the recliner.

“That outfit looks like grandma” was a common declaration from my mom on the nearby couch. I always took it as a compliment.

Slowly, The Chair became more and more of her day.

My mom and I moved out of my grandmother’s house when I was 14. She filled the quiet with the TV as background noise. Daytime talk shows blared as she sat in The Chair, eating, knitting, on the phone, or reading.

It morphed from a furniture piece to an entity.

As she settled back into The Chair, I noticed the same James Patterson paperback that was here during my last visit.

She’s been retracing the same few chapters over and over again. Stuck in the same place for years.

How depressing that her last book might be The President Is Missing.

My mom made up a plate of leftovers before we left. She covered it with plastic wrap and left a sticky note on top. A time stamp for when my grandmother was allowed to eat it.

“We don’t want you to get sick again,” she explained as she put the food in the fridge.

“Did I get sick?” my grandmother asked.

She grinned at me, oblivious to the whole ordeal from lunch. In her giant chair, with her frail body, she looked like the smallest thing in the world.

I wondered if that’s what she meant when she said I was tall. 

All night, I thought about her alone in The Chair.

So many hours had passed.

What if she fell again?

What if she got sick?

Would she be able to make it to bed?

Would she remember to brush her teeth?

We went back first thing in the morning, and my mom looked at me as we braced ourselves in the driveway.

This is on her mind every day. My grandfather’s, too.

“I will never let you do this for me,” she said.

I bet my grandmother would have said that, too.

Now she’s making the move to the home a nightmare. What’s worse? Knowing she’s miserable, but safe? Or knowing she’s content, but at risk?

Inside, my grandmother had miraculously made it from The Chair to bed and back again.

The dog hadn’t had to go out yet.

The leftovers were still untouched.

We exhaled.

Another day mentally crossed off the calendar.

We sat around The Chair, and my mom held up new, presentable clothes for the home in a perverted version of my childhood fashion shows.  

New pyjamas.

New undershirts.

New socks with little grips on the bottom for balance.

“Go-Fast Socks,” I said.

And the three of us laughed at a small memory we still shared.

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Happy Sunday!

The state of the world has me feeling like Simon Cowell in a spirit tunnel: panicked, overwhelmed, and unsure of what to do with my hands.

@jenniferhudsonshowThe GOAT! @simoncowell

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Despite looking like an alien in a skin suit, this is the most relatable Simon Cowell has ever been. Look at him smiling through the uncertainty!

He is my new poster boy for social anxiety.

If you ever see me clapping like this, just know I’ve taken several edibles in preparation to leave my house.

Onto the books

The theme of my September reading was ‘unhinged hypotheticals.’

What if Hell were modelled after a university campus?

What if the moon were made of cheese?

What if I split myself into two people, one naughty and one nice?

What if I spent $20,000 renovating a motel room to avoid talking to my husband?

These are the big questions I want literature to grapple with! Lucky for you, all of the answers are in the texts below:

1. 🧀 When The Moon Hits Your Eye, John Scalzi (4.5)

   One day, the moon turns to cheese.

   What a premise! Kafka walked scurried so John Scalzi could run!1

   To quote the acknowledgements:

   “…you should know that the science in this book is, and here is an obscure technical term, extremely loosey-goosey”

   Extremely loosey-goosey and extremely entertaining. This book was everything I wanted and more. I came for cheese puns. I left feeling moved.

   When The Moon Hits Your Eye was beautiful, heartfelt, and crafted like a collection of short stories. I laughed. I cried. I Googled things about the moon. I was reminded of the hopelessness of lockdown. The uncertainty of …well, everything right now. Do yourself a favour and pick this one up!

2. 🍈 Everyone’s Seen My Tits: Stories and Reflections from an Unlikely Feminist, Keeley Hazell (3)

   A memoir & essay collection from a former Page 3 model.

   Keeley Hazell’s audiobook reading charmed me enough to give this three stars. I hadn’t known that Keeley from Ted Lasso was based on a real person, and that — coupled with the incredible title and cover — was enough for me to hit play. Her story is interesting, but there wasn’t anything transcending this book from a woman’s individual journey to a must-read. The fame and self-image commentary was poignant, but Emrata’s My Body hit these themes harder in 2021. Still! Worth a read if you’re looking for feminist nonfiction.

3. 🎓 Katabasis, R.F. Kuang (3.5)

   Two graduate students follow their advisor into Hell.

   If you’ve ever seen videos of dog owners saying all of their pet’s favourite words on a fake phone call, that’s what this book was to me. Cambridge as a setting?? An absurd amount of philosophy references?? A journey through Hell?? Nerds falling in love?!? Truly, no combination of words would make me pick up a book faster.

   While I thoroughly enjoyed reading Katabasis, it didn’t change my life the way I hoped. Were my expectations too high? Probably. But something was missing. Salomé, a Goodreads reviewer, articulated the issue perfectly:

   The most revealing flaw in Katabasis is its lack of a clear target audience. The novel gestures toward many readerships but satisfies none:

   1. Too academic for a general audience, yet too shallow for readers steeped in classical or theological traditions.

   2. Marketed as a romance, yet offering none of the emotional or narrative beats of the genre.

   3. Potentially aimed at fans of hell-as-setting, yet doing nothing new.

   …All of this leads to the central problem: Katabasis lacks purpose. It does not advance mythology in new directions, it does not interrogate misogyny with depth, it does not develop its disturbing content into critique. It offers spectacle, but not meaning.
   
   For an author who has positioned herself as a serious voice in contemporary literature, interrogating empire in The Poppy War and language in Babel, this regression is striking. Katabasis is not ambitious, but hollow..

   If anyone else had written this book, I probably would have liked it more.

   I love R.F. Kaung because of the commentary she tackles in her books (ie: Yellowface), and this book was not that. Can’t a girl just write a fun adventure without political satire? Maybe! But it’s hard not to hold Kaung to the standard that she set.

   Also! If the intention was to deliver some cheeky fun, it should have at least been better than that other book about university students going to Hell from two years ago…

4. 🏩 All Fours, Miranda July (4)

   A middle-aged woman leaves her family to find herself on a cross-country road trip, only to spend two weeks unravelling in a motel 20 minutes from home.

   In the most complementary way possible, what the fuck did I just read?

   This book was complete and utter mayhem from top to bottom. At every turn, the main character made choices from a place of incomprehensible lunacy. Just when you thought she might level out, she upped the stakes with something pulled from the tickle trunk of terrible ideas. I could have stayed in her delulu mind forever. That other characters could follow her fabricated fantasies was mindboggling to me. We should all be so lucky to have friends and romances that allow us this level of creative depravity — renovating a hotel room as a nest for an affair, FBI telephotographer role-play, open source menopause advice, interpretative dance social media posts as love letters, street trash graffiti as a proclamation of devotion. Not to mention the applicator-less tampon foreplay or marriage breakthrough over dog poop… I thought this book was hysterical and fascinating, but it lost a star for the overuse of shock value and the glamorization of open marriages.

   Anyway, here’s how I imagine Miranda July writes books:

   

5. 🐍The Thorns, Dawn Kurtagich (1.5)

   A woman reconnects with her best friend from boarding school and is forced to reckon with past trauma.

   This was a flop, and it didn’t have to be! Dawn Kurtagich did so much right: The tween-girl bullying dynamics were nuanced, and the main character’s processing of sexual abuse felt extremely real. If this had been a coming-of-age story, I think she would have nailed it.

   Instead, this was billed as a horror, and none of the scary elements landed. There was mention of a Glass Man? Never showed up. Thorns were scattered places sometimes? Never paid off. The ‘big’ twist was a classic psychological thriller trope, and it fell flat. If I’m being kind, I think the author had some really cool ideas and “killing past trauma” metaphors in her head that simply did not translate on the page.

   Dawn! Your editor should have helped you more!!! You’re talented, but this was bad, and it didn’t have to be!!

• 🧪Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson (4)

  Surely we all know what this book is about….

  One of my favourite and least favourite parts of classic novels is how they read like gossip. Some guy telling some other guy about a spooky story that barely involved him. I feel like there’s a market to remake all of these in a similar format to The Real Housewives...

  Anyway, for a book about a doctor who split himself in two via potion, a lot of these pages are focused on his will and estate. Property law is, and will always be horror fodder (see also: Wuthering Heights, Dracula, Bleak House, A Christmas Carol, etc.) A disfigured beast will be murdering people for sport, but 1800s novelists will spend 25-50% of the book discussing contracts. I guess those are scary, too…

  Beyond being a foundational text in horror, this book gets four stars for one line and one line only:

Last Thought:

Simon Cowell core

Epilogue

• What did you read this month?

• Anything I should add to my TBR?

Every year, I write a summer bucket list.

Every year, I promptly forget that list exists.

My Side Piece

Another totally normal summer bucket list

Summer is finally here…

Read more

a year ago · Jamie McCormick

I cannot be held accountable for who I was three months ago.

Moment to moment, I am reborn!

Like a nasty little mayfly.

We truly never know who is writing this newsletter, and that’s part of the fun.

But, since hoa-hoa-hoa season officially starts tomorrow, today we’ll be revisiting everything I said I would do.

My 2025 summer bucket list evaluation:

• Take a painting class ✅

  I’m giving myself this point on a technicality. There are no rules here! I am both teacher and student! If you don’t like this loosey-goosey rubric, you are in the wrong place! I signed up for an oil and acrylic class that starts next month, which 100000% counts! We all know signing up is the hardest part anyway. Now I have to go, and by December, this will be a full-fledged obsession if not a mania-induced side hustle. Stay tuned.

• Redo our shed ❌

  Rotting is cool now, anyway. Very laissez-faire. Very grunge-chic.

• Go bird watching ✅

  I didn’t go bird watching per se, but I did see birds. At what point does watching a bird transcend into ‘bird watching’ anyway? What about all the videos of budgies dancing on my newsfeed? There are simply too many unanswered questions to deny myself this point. On several occasions, I found myself saying “oh look at that one!” or “what kind of bird makes that noise?” and that feels like the right amount of entry-level interest to warrant a pass.

• Wear a tight little skirt for no other reason than to show skin ❌

  This is an upset. We were all rooting for this one. I did buy an aggressively small denim skirt from Value Village that, in the moment, felt correct. Upon reflection, there are very few moments in your thirties where a teeny tiny micro mini denim skirt can be worn nonchalantly. Or maybe I just didn’t leave my house enough. Where there’s a will, there’s a way, or whatever…

• Don’t be self-conscious while wearing said skirt ✅

  Despite my skirtless summer, this specific list item has appeared in various forms over the last few years. It harkens back to a deep insecurity about my legs, which has finally quelled to a normal-probably-still-not-healthy-but-totally-manageable level of self-criticism. A win is a win!

• Throw a hissy fit about chores ✅

  Every list needs a gimme. This was my free square.

• Do not, under any circumstances, check out the cart that I’ve built on Ardene ✅

  I don’t even remember what was in this cart, and that’s a lesson for everyone to take a few deep breaths before buying anything. Maybe go for a walk. Forget who you are. Observe a bird in a non-official bird-watching manner. Then come back and see if you still care at all (spoiler alert, you probably will not!)

• Upcycle a thrift find ✅

• My bag of scraps and “sewing” Pinterest board have reached new heights! So far I have hemmed a pair of pants (which totally counts!!), but I have far-off dreams to create more innovative and Frankenstein-ed items such as:

• Patron a local kid-owned lemonade stand ❌

  I have no excuse for this. I’ve passed several, and each time I turn my music up and cross the street like I’m avoiding a preacher at Yonge-Dundas Square. What is with that? Is it because I never have cash? Because of inflation? Do tariffs affect lemonade stands??? Is the economy so bad that I’m viewing children as money-hungry leeches??? Am I just a monster? I don’t know, but I’m deeply concerned about my behaviour. Where has my sense of whimsy gone!?!

• Move our cat from room to room so he can hang out with me all day ✅

  Another easy win.

• Push my bedtime to 11pm ✅

  She’s wild now, y’all. I don’t even get drowsy until 10:30pm. Watch out.

• Revisit my favourite children’s books ❌

  Honestly, this is a super cute thought until you’re alone at the children’s section of the library, feeling like a creep and a book hog. I’ll wait until I have kids to do this specific jog down memory lane.

• Independently republish Lorelei ❌

  Merp. I dropped the ball here. Revisiting old work is tough. Promoting is even harder. Maybe I should cut my losses and consider any remaining copies extremely limited edition????? What do you think?

• Host an outdoor movie night ❌

  Joke’s on me! I didn’t host anything! Everyone stay away!!! I’m busy hating on children and casually glancing at birds, apparently.

• Wear or give away every single dress in my closet ✅

  My donation bag is bursting! Someone please host a clothing swap before I start changing my mind and putting things back in my closet…

• Incorporate more pops of red into my wardrobe ✅

  Evidence:

• Crush my dance show ✅

  Upon seeing me perform, my mother lovingly (and correctly) referred to me as a “phone whore.” I love the camera, and the camera loves me 😘

• Lose my voice at the Kesha concert ✅

  I didn’t just lose my voice. I lost my damn mind at this show. Read more here👇

My Side Piece

Crying at the Kesha concert

Happy Sunday…

Read more

8 months ago · 5 likes · Jamie McCormick

• Go to the zoo ❌

  When I say we talked about this once a week and still have not gone….I miss the day of mandatory field trips. How do we bring that back?

• Update my Substack and website ❌

  Welp. Listen… I have a vision for this, and art takes time! I’ll get to it, I promise…

• Avoid naps at all costs ✅

  Damn straight.

• Wear a dangly belly button ring with a crop top ✅

  I am a queen, and my belly ring is my crown.

• Bake in the sun in a bright red bathing suit ✅

  A phone whore and a beach whore!

• Dust the baseboards ✅

  I am constantly thinking about 2 million things at once, and none of them have been or will ever be my baseboards. I’ve accepted this, and I’m still giving myself a point because Mark did them instead. Marriage has perks, and this is one of them! What’s mine is yours.

• Run through a sprinkler ❌

  For real, my whimsy is on death’s door! I need a real manic pixie dream girl to guide me out of this funk.

• Pick a favourite painting at the museum ❌

  Again, how do we get field trips going? Do you think we could run them like a book club? Maybe I should send a Partiful?

• Skip rocks with my husband ❌

  Damn. This would have been cute.

• Share my writing without stress and shame ❌

  Listen. This might just not be in the cards for me. Shame is just part of my whole vibe and demeanour! Time to embrace it! I am cringe, and I am NOT free! I am shackled to my own self-criticism! I write from a place of deep fear and discomfort, and that’s what makes it relatable.

• Have a karaoke night ❌

  Was really hoping this would happen organically, but now I must take matters into my own hands…

• Get my novel draft ready for beta readers this fall ✅

  I am so close. SO CLOSE! Of everything I did this summer, I’m most proud of my morning routine. I spent 30-60 minutes on this project every day before work. Has the blog suffered? Maybe! But it’s for my art, and you should all be happy for me!!!

Rapid-fire bonus points!

A few summer moments I could not have predicted, but should get extra credit for.

1. Wearing a balloon hat (okay, some whimsy is alive and well…)

2. Getting a bob. Not only is this adorable, but it’s forcing me to wash my hair more, and that’s a win for everyone.

3. Making a charm necklace

4. Renting a ridiculous ball gown for a wedding

5. Joining a book club (that does read the book!)

6. Switching shirts at a bar

7. Starting and immediately giving up on Kayla Itsines’ BBG program. You know the one. It traumatized all of us. Nostalgia gripped me in the weirdest way, and my knees suffered for it….

8. Taking a bite out of a cake. No hands. Just a straight-up chomp.

9. Being the recipient of this text:

   

10. Also this one:

    

11. Wearing a fake mustache out for two nights in a row.

12. Convincing a group of people in their thirties to try to run like a horse on all fours

13. Getting out of an upcoming work trip because I have Addison Rae tickets

14. Grappling with the mixed emotions of loving Robert Irwin, but hating the predatory older woman he brings out in me

Final grade 31/30

An above-perfect score!! Who could have predicted that???? Even with all the stuff I didn’t get to?? Crazy.

Last Thought

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Happy Monday!

I’m scheduling today’s newsletter while en route to a bachelorette in Scottsdale — hello from the past!

Future Jamie is most likely puking on the plane home after 3 straight days partying in 40-degree heat. Please send your thoughts, prayers, and electrolytes.

Speaking of which! I so appreciate all the kind messages and support after Sunday’s post.

You nosy little freaks love it when I get vulnerable, and there is nothing I love more than praise!

Onto the books

The theme of my August reading was ‘poorly timed kidney failure,” which only happened in 2 of these books, but 2/5 is a statistically improbable plot point and worth mentioning.

I will also not tell you which books, because that spoils the fun!

Notably, I am taking a break from cannibal horror and airplane romances to reconnect with the normies. I have hit the threshold on how many conversations I’m willing to make uncomfortable based on what I’m reading. At least for now.

Am I healing?

Or am I conforming to a system that wants me to BE SILENT?

Anyway…

• 🌳The Afterdark, E. Latimer (3)

  YA queer horror at a boarding school with a Lovecraftian twist.

  I’m starting to realize that when people say “Lovecraftian twist,” they mean an unknown creature that comes out of a body of water.Any creature. Any body of water. In a way, Aquamarine has a Lovecraftian twist, but I digress…

  I did not realize this was YA when I picked it up, and that impacted my initial thoughts. The ‘spooky boarding school in a forest’ setting had me hooked, but I was missing some emotional depth and reflection from the main character. As a teen, I would have eaten this up. As an adult, it was just okay.

• 👯‍♀️ Girl on Girl: How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves, Sophie Gilbert (4)

  Dissecting feminism through pop culture from the late 1990s to present day.

  Reading this was like flipping through a nightmare yearbook of every pop culture moment that impacted my self esteem. Yeesh. While not groundbreaking, Sophie Gilbert added interesting causality by going chronologically to find intersections between pop culture, feminism, and porn. I’m really glad this book exists, and it feels like prerequisite reading for fans of this newsletter. On that note:

• ⚽️ Spectacular Things, Becky Dorey-Stein (5)

  Contemporary fiction about sisters, soccer, and sacrifice.

  Do yourself a favour and go buy this book! Becky Dorsey-Stein ripped my heart out and dribbled it across the field for sport. I adored everything about this, especially the nods to real women’s soccer stars and moments. “What a gift.”

• 🐕 In Tongues, Thomas Grattan (3)

  A man becomes an assistant and plaything to a rich New York couple.

  I really wanted to like this queer coming-of-age story, but was mostly annoyed by it. The main character was selfish and flawed and not in a fun way. In a ‘discovering himself at the expense of other people’ way. He did evolve over time (spoiler alert), but the ending was too coincidental for my opinion to evolve with him.

• 🌊 All The Water In The World, Eiren Caffall (4)

  The Day After Tomorrow, but from the perspective of a young girl with autism (allegedly).

  The glaciers have melted, New York is underwater, and a group of researchers and their families have stayed behind to preserve artifacts at the American Museum of Natural History. What a set up! I loved the dystopian world. I loved the lyrical writing. I loved the distinction between “The World As It Is” and “The World As It Was.” However, the narrator being so young and openly bad at relating to people kept me at a distance from the other characters. I was way more interested in what the researchers perspectives would have been — put me inside the mind of a professional nerd any day of the week! More importantly, climate fiction is hitting a littttttllllee too close to home as of late. I prefer my anxiety to come from spooky monster stories than the news, thank you very much...

Last Thought:

Live footage from this Arizona bachelorette:

Epilogue

• What did you read this month?

• Anything I should add to my TBR?

It’s taken me longer than usual to write this post.

I’m back on my reflective bullshit, and that takes more time and care.

Today’s post comes with a rare trigger warning. This essay contains discussions of sexual assault.

It also features 2010s fashion, which is enough to send anyone down into an anxiety spiral…

Let’s get into it!

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Kesha’s Tits Out Tour transformed me.

I openly sobbed several times.

I talked about it with my therapist.

I’ve spent two weeks dissecting all I could possibly say about this show.

And now I am coming to you, braided feather hair extension in hand, to share my musings.

I knew we were in for a ride when she came out carrying her severed head.

TiK ToK started playing as she set the tone for the show: “We do not stand abuse in my house, so middle fingers up. You know what to do.”

Without pause, the whole crowd screamed, “Wake up in the morning like fuck P Diddy.”

A moment that was somehow both empowering and hopeless.

Because she changed her own song to call out his behaviour.

Because 16,000 people affirmed those survivors’ stories at once.

Because Diddy was found not guilty of the most serious charges.

Kesha continued the set, letting us know that she’d remixed all of her music to play live. This way, we could enjoy the show without Dr. Luke profiting.

We cheered, but I was frustrated. I couldn’t reconcile that over 10 years later, her abuser’s fingers were still smudged over everything.

That was the first time I cried.

Throughout the show, I recognized that Kesha was the backdrop to my coming-of-age.

In grade 10, my best friend and I listened to her first album in the darkroom of our photography class.

We felt adult singing naughty lyrics about sex and parties, thinking one day, we too would be at a hole in the wall, a dirty free-for-all. That it would be fun and freaky and all the magical grungy things her party anthems promised.

Only it wasn’t.

The reality was scary and messy.

We got taken advantage of. Made bad decisions. Drunk cried. Chugged flavoured vodka and woke up with physical bruises and emotional wounds.

By 2014, we weren’t friends anymore.

I was in university, and Kesha’s legal battle with Dr. Luke had just begun.

As a new adult, everything started to look different.

The high school nights out that didn’t feel safe. The drunk detachment that came after. The friends who called me “the group slut” without pausing to ask how or why sex had entered my life so quickly.

With Kesha, it was so much worse.

I watched the public scrutinize every detail of her case. Girls could not write party music and be raped. As if one thing encouraged the other.

"Any reasonable person will not believe her," Dr Luke said under oath.

As #MeToo took over my newsfeed, Kesha was already a cautionary tale about speaking up. She was a caged pop star, forced to create art for the same man she accused of sexual assault, sexual harassment, and emotional abuse.

Her story made it clear that there were good victims and bad victims.

There was no space for anything in between.

You couldn’t have a reputation, a promiscuous phase, or an inconsistent story. You can’t have reached out after the fact. You couldn’t be unsure.

You must be the ideal form of a survivor unless you’d like to be doubly punished.

The Tits Out Tour revels in messy contradictions.

The show embraces being Boy Crazy and a survivor on the same stage, living out the Madonna-whore complex in real time.

Kesha shreds on guitar.

She pretends to murder a dancer in jest.

She sings an emotional ballad about forgiveness that brings the crowd (namely me) to tears.

She gets thrown around the stage in a straitjacket singing experimental music about an acid ego death, part performance art, part pop act. 1

She floats in the air with a giant halo and a prayer on the big screen.

She puts on a corset and panties to go for a joyride.

Yesterday, I listened to an Esther Perel podcast about grief.

“You need to do both. You need to deal with the trauma, and you need to engage with life.”

I’ve never seen anything accomplish this better than Kesha’s performance.

I’m in awe of the gumption it takes to tackle the industry as an independent artists after such public shaming.

The way she can simultaneously be playful and share the darkest parts of her life.

The way she can ask for attention and call out the exploitative elements of her own fame.

To call it inspirational is an understatement. I cannot believe the amount of solace I took from a show that was widely attended by drunk teenagers and men in G-strings.

I guess you never choose what will be your salvation… or what you’ll be wearing when it comes.

Part of the impact is how rare it is to see survivors celebrating.

I’m exhausted by stories of predators becoming presidents and Supreme Court judges. Friends posting videos at the Chris Brown show.2 Hockey culture existing

There is a familiar path of standing with women, only to be cut off at the knees.

Where else have you seen a survivor talking about their healing in a big, triumphant way?

No one else is throwing a party that acknowledges their sexual assault!

Rape is typically a shameful thing to forget. Healing is individual and internal.

A burden you don’t share with the world.

Something typically left for quiet self-discovery and reflection.

In university, I studied ‘great books’ and philosophy. Between keg stands, I read ancient texts obsessed with how to ‘know thyself.’

(Yes, I’m about to compare Kesha to Socrates)

Everything we learned was about living virtuously, the ultimate and universal pursuit of how to be. But ancient philosophers didn’t know what it feels like to be unsafe in their own bodies.

To have it play tricks on you.

To have it open for something that fundamentally did not want.

To not understand why you didn’t fight back.

When they talk about the ‘good’ and ‘virtue’, they aren’t considering the goodness and virtue that can be stolen.

They aren’t factoring in the definitions that are layered on top of victims. How a survivor’s identity can be twisted into knots.

They focus, instead, on output. Living a ‘good life’ means living in accordance with your role in society.

But what does that mean when you believe you are at fault?

When you’re told you’re a slut?

When someone else’s actions have defined how the world sees you?

When knowing yourself and your role also means reckoning with the terrible, awful thing that happened to you?

Recently, I’ve been seeking out philosophical theories on what sexual assault does to the self. So far, I’ve come up empty.3

What Kesha presented was the most nuanced survivor journey I’ve seen.

Within each set, she created pockets for sadness and anger. She had us explore the stages of her grief together, allowing for a huge release by the end of the show.

She cued up her last set, saying, “I’m going to put on a slutty outfit, and we’re going to celebrate my freedom.”

For her encore, she sang Praying and Cathedral, songs that speak to different parts of the healing process.

Allow me to dive into the scripture…

Praying stopped me in my tracks in 2017. This was the #MeToo anthem we all needed:

The most religious I’ve ever been was singing along to this chorus, wondering if my rapist understood the gravity of his actions.

If it would make me feel better or worse if he did.

If I could see myself as more of a victim if he co-signed on the rape.

Praying helped me recognize that it didn’t matter. It’s about forgiveness rooted in resilience and stoicism — the kind of letting go you need to move forward.

Cathedral is the internal step of this journey.

I'm the cathedral

I'm finally coming home

Oh, God, it feels good

I'm the savior, I'm the altar, I'm the Holy Ghost Every second is a new beginning

I died in the hell so I could start living again

In the cathedral

This is a song about being your own salvation. Your own peace.

It’s about finding a sanctuary within yourself and your body.

It also speaks to the violence of healing. How an older version of herself had to die so she could create a new image of herself. One that isn’t doused in the trauma.

This is something beyond self-knowledge. It’s the full destruction and rebuilding required for self-acceptance.

Together, these songs felt like finality. The culmination of a decade-long healing journey that took absolutely everything she had to give, and that she was kind enough to share as proof that there is an end.

I cried the whole way through.

I cried for her.

For all the extra work and extra time and extra tears she had to put into her career to be cleansed from what he did.

I cried for all the other survivors in the crowd.

For everyone who put themselves out there, faced public degradation and slander, only to find more pain and disappointment.

For all my friends who have similar stories.

I cried for myself.

For the tween version of myself who thought Kesha's lyrics were risqué and who didn’t know that sex could be hurtful.

For the high school friends I lost because they couldn’t comprehend what I was going through.

For all the work I’m still doing, almost 15 years later, to process it all.

I let myself cry and cry and cry.

Because I needed it.

And because smudged mascara matched my outfit.

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Happy Sunday!

For the first time ever, my press-on nails have lasted a full week.

I am aghast.

Who knew that following the instructions would yield better results!?! Not I!

Having cute nails changes my entire demeanour. For once I possess the hands of a woman and not a grubby little chimney sweep.

I’m waving my fingers around like that guy with hands for eyes in Pan’s Labyrinth.

I’m pulling on socks with the care of Edward Scissorhands.

I’m clickity clacking on my keyboard like a glittery Nosferatu.

Alas, the longer my nails are, the more typos I find.

These fake-manicured hands are meant to be seen, not heard read.

Sadly, my opinions simply must be blasted onto the internet. And so we persevere.

Onto the books

The theme of my July reading was ‘straight up concerning,” meaning I haven’t been able to discuss any of these books in polite conversation all month.

I fear I have strayed so far away from Reese’s Book Club that I may never be excited for a celebrity casting announcement ever again…

Then again, what is better summer reading than a reincarnated cult leader using the edge of a porcelain figurine to cut off women’s faces??

What else would you pack on vacation if not a novel featuring sexy blood play and an army of decomposing vampire-zombies???

What makes a good beach read besides a story about a woman masturbating on commercial flights in the hopes of climaxing during a plane crash????

I’m curating a Kobo library so foul, so despicable, so unsettling, that it might be time to start a serious BookTok account (iykyk)…

• 🏠 Listen To Your Sister, Neena Viel (3)

  A sister trying to protect her two brothers accidentally creates multiple murderous versions of herself.

  Starting strong with yet another horror novel that I wanted to love, but couldn’t. Unlike other books that have been compared to Jordan Peele’s work, Listen To Your Sister delivered on the smart premise and comedic voice. The concept of sacrificing parts of your identity to be a caregiver was fresh and memorable, but the execution was messy. Many scenes were rushed or confusing, the writing was overrun by adjectives, and I wanted more from the settings (especially in the dreamscape sections). Shoutout to this Goodreads reviewer for pulling one of the more egregious lines from the book…

1. 🔬 Blood Over Bright Haven, M.L. Wang (4)

   The first-ever woman to enter the High Magistry uncovers the secret cost of magic with the help of her janitor-turned-assistant.

   No spoilers in this review because I think everyone should read this book!

   I love a standalone fantasy. I love an allegorical, politically relevant text. I love a romantic subplot. Somehow this book manages to touch on sexism, racism, environmental concerns, and violent protesting, while also establishing a fully realized magical world complete with clear rules, systemic corruption, and nepotism. This is a great title for new-to-fantasy readers (and also my mom! You asked for a recommendation, and I think you might like this).

2. 🩸 Mary: An Awakening of Terror, Nat Cassidy (3.5)

   A middle-aged woman starts hallucinating and hearing voices as she enters perimenopause

   Nat Cassidy won me over with his sincere author’s note. I wasn’t expecting a man to dive into menopausal horror, but his preface set a great tone and emphasized how much Carrie inspired him to write this novel. Sadly, I didn’t love this book.

   The beginning started with so much promise: Mary can’t look in the mirror or at other women her age without watching their faces decompose, and every doctor she sees tells her her symptoms are ‘textbook’ perimenopause.

   This setup could have built to a Carrie-esque female rage finale, and it would have been enough for me! Instead, there were a bunch of additional narrative strands, including a reincarnated serial killer and a religious cult, that I thought distracted from the best parts of the menopause metaphor (although there was a ritual scene with heavy misogynistic themes that will stick with me forever). TLDR: I wish the author had narrowed the scope of this project, and I need more horror novels about menopause. Please and thanks!

3. 🪙 Quicksilver, Callie Hart (4)

   A faerie/vampire romantasy featuring a talking metal substance, a pet fox, and a male lead inexplicably named Kingfisher.

   Alright y’all. We did it! We found another romantasy that didn’t piss me off! Was it perfect? No. Did the writing amaze me? Also no.

   However! The world was interesting! The pacing was great!! The side characters were delightful and not annoying!!! The obligatory morally grey and tattoo-covered shadow daddy came with a bonus mental illness!!! This is exactly the kind of addictive fun I want injected straight into my veins!!!!

   Unfortunately, we do have to discuss the cover. While I might enjoy some spicy fae fun, I would rather not scream it to the world so blatantly. Whatever happened to shame??? If adult stores can give out unbranded shopping bags, we can create more discreet covers! Sex positivity and all that ya ya ya, but for the love of god, I don’t want to traipse about town with a horny-looking cartoon man on my book…

   

4. ✈️ Sky Daddy, Kate Folk (4)

   Speaking of shame…For this one, I must use the actual synopsis:

   Linda knows that she can’t tell anyone she’s sexually obsessed with planes—nor can she reveal her belief her destiny is to “marry” one of her suitors by dying in a plane crash, thereby uniting her with her soulmate plane for eternity. But when an opportunity arises to hasten her dream of eternal partnership, and the carefully balanced elements of her life begin to spin out of control, she must choose between maintaining the trappings of normalcy and launching herself headlong toward the love she’s always dreamed of.

   I won’t lie: I really liked this book.

   I know I know I KNOW! But hear me out… Sky Daddy was more of a dark comedy than its description led on. What I thought would be uncomfortable object-based erotica was actually a sweet story about a troubled woman making friends. The story is anchored by a healthy recognition that her sexual fixation is abnormal, and we’re slowly given enough backstory about her childhood (aka daddy issues) to make it make sense. While bizarre — a major plot point is the protagonist’s belief that her quarterly vision boards are altering the universe — the story was also heart-warming??? And, more importantly, it was hilarious!

   I figured none of you would trust me on this, so I pulled quotes. Sky Daddy has workplace humour:

   “It was unclear whether we were meant to eat the bagels or if they were merely the mascots of the meeting, and so they remained untouched.”

   Honest interiority:

   “And Judy, with the long neck.”

   “Judy’s my best friend from high school.” Karina paused. “I don’t think her neck is that long, is it?”

   “I suppose not,” I said to be polite, though Judy’s neck was indeed freakishly long.

   Incredible comparison of the other women in her outer circle (who hasn’t felt like this in another woman’s home?)

   “I emptied my bladder into Esme’s chic black toilet. The dimmer switch was turned low. A cone of incense burned on a ceramic plate set on the toilet’s tank. Beneath the sink sat a metal wastebasket the size of a juice glass, within which lay a single, seemingly unsoiled cotton ball. The sight of the tiny trash can filled me with self-loathing. Compared to the women of the VBB, I felt like a soiled tissue deposited in a seatback pocket. The universe had shone favourably upon them, bestowing them gifts like this condo and Nikki’s robust infant. I hoped the secretion of their success would ooze onto me.”

   Commentary on visionboarding in general that genuinely made me lol:

   “I noted they didn’t directly ask for higher salaries— overt material requests must have been considered gauche. Instead, their boards featured items like the satisfaction of helping younger coworkers, learning from their mentors, or, in Nikki’s case, revamping her business website. All of these seemed like tasks that could be accomplished without the collaboration of an infinitely powerful universe.” 1

   Some pretty sound transportation logic:

   “…all plans are male in spirit, just as all boats are female, and helicopters possess the souls of mischievous children.”

   Philosophical notes on flying:

   “Flight was suspended animation, a period in which a person was exempt from obligation, cut off from the grounded world.”

   And, if none of that convinced you that this book could be worth 4 stars, this blurb from the author’s acknowledgements really says it all:

   “Many books and sources contributed to the writing of this one. Foremost among them is Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, with which Sky Daddy is in casual conversation.”

   Kate Folk, I don’t know what kind of drugs you're on, but please keep taking them. You’re reminding me that the best art is freaky, weird, and more than a little taboo.

   Because of you, I will never board a plane the same way again.

Last Thought:

How it feels reading Romantasy

Epilogue

• What did you read this month?

• Anything I should add to my TBR? Maybe something nice and normal and inoffensive???