I would say happy Sunday, but it is decidedly not one.

I’ve waited two long months.

I’ve sat idly by.

But the disrespect has become too great to ignore.

Why hasn’t anybody liked my post about the eel pit????

I tried to be vulnerable with you, and this is the thanks I get?

No comments.

No shares.

No nice messages.

Opening up my Substack dashboard feels a lot like this:

Look.

I don’t want to fight about it.

I get that you all have your own things going on.

Unlike you, I have empathy.

Below is an exhaustive list of all the reasonable excuses I can think of.

The only 25 valid reasons why nobody liked my post about the eel pit

1. You hate me.

2. The post went to your spam folder. Maybe you should go check right now, just in case…

3. You thought you already had. An honest mistake! Now that you know, you can go fix it.

4. You didn’t realize I was being serious about this piece. I’m always serious? This is my art? Why would I joke about this?

5. You didn’t get it.1 That’s okay! Here, try it again! Maybe you’ll love it the second time around:

6. You have editorial notes. I’m all ears! I’ll be totally chill about it, I promise! Hit me with your feedback!

7. You actually really liked it, but saw that no one else liked it, and got insecure

8. You actually really liked it, but you didn’t think I cared about likes. Which, I don’t, obviously. But also, it would be nice to be acknowledged…

9. You actually really liked it, but don’t know how to like posts on Substack.2

10. You switched emails and never saw it. In which case, why haven’t you resubscribed with your new email???

11. This whole time, all of you have been pretending to like my writing to keep me busy, but now the joke has gone on for too long, and you’re about to hit me with a heavy dose of reality.

12. You’re jealous! Not all of us have the same gifts, and I know my unbridled talent is overwhelming to some. I think if you meditate on this, you’ll realize you’re being ridiculous.

13. You thought I already covered the eel pit well enough the first time and didn’t see a need for me to write about it again. See, this is exactly what’s wrong with media! Not everything has to be built for short attention spans! Challenge yourselves to slow down!!

14. You hadn’t read the first eel pit article, and so it felt a bit jarring and out of context. Fair! Why don’t you try that piece first, and see if you feel any different?

15. You’re a new subscriber. This doesn’t apply to you! This is between the long-standing, ungrateful readers and me. I’m sure you would have been the first to like this piece!! In fact, why don’t you go toss a like on it right now?

16. I was super weird the last time we hung out, and you’re trying to figure out how to slow-fade our friendship. It’s working!

17. You’re skeptical about the ethics of keeping eels in an underground rain cistern. Don’t hate the messenger! It’s not my eel pit.

18. You think eels are gross.3 Again, that doesn’t really have anything to do with my writing? You can like the article without liking eels… that should have been clear…

19. You’re @cowturtle himself, and didn’t want all the fanfare that comes with a feature in this newsletter. I get it. Fame isn’t for the weak.

20. You sustained a massive concussion and can’t be on screens right now. Tough luck! You’ll come back to it, I know you will. Rest up!

21. You forgot! Duh! You loved it, and you just forgot. So relatable. Haha. Here’s the link one more time so you can check it off your to-do list.

22. String theory! After I hit publish, I was transported to a reality where no one liked this post, and there’s an alternate reality where this same article landed me a book deal.

23. Espionage! You’ve purposefully subscribed to this newsletter with no intention of ever reading anything to mess with my metrics. This is diabolical! A silent protest! Kudos to you, you spiteful queen you. Who do you work for? What is your end goal???

24. Digital warfare! For some reason, my content is being screened and blocked by the tech overloads (i.e., Substack). My genius is too risky for the masses to consume, and that’s not your fault! You’ll never even get this post anyway!! I’m just screaming into the void!!

25. You genuinely didn’t like it???? Really???4

    

So, which one is it?????

Not that it matters!

We’re totally chill and cool and normal and I’m barely even thinking about it at all anymore, actually!

Hahaha.

No worries!!

WE’LL TRY AGAIN NEXT WEEK!

I’LL JUST KEEP RIPPING OPEN MY CHEST FOR YOU OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN UNTIL I INSPIRE YOU TO TAP THAT LITTLE HEART BUTTON.

I’LL JUST BE HERE, BLEEDING OUT, WAITING FOR YOU TO GIVE ME THAT SWEET SWEET VALIDATION.

I’M JUST KIDDING!!!!

HAHAHA.

NO WORRIES!!!!!

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Happy Sunday!

I just got a spray tan, and reading doesn’t matter to me anymore.

Sorry!

I am simply glowing too much and looking too hot to write more than a few paragraphs.

You’re lucky you’re even getting a newsletter today!

She is multifaceted, but she is not God.

I should be in the sun! I should be parading around town in a mini skirt! I should be sipping a drink with a tiny umbrella!

Alas, I would never leave you completely empty-handed….

Onto the books

The theme of my May reading was“flagrant delusion.”

I read about:

• A cohort of robots, which famously do not eat, opening a noodle restaurant.

• A tradwife pretending to live like a pioneer woman so hard that she manifests herself back to 1855.

• A musical theatre actress refusing to accept that she can’t sing.

• A tabloid reporter insisting he’s not like other tabloid reporters because he felt empathy one time.

What a fun array of denial!

1. 🤖 Automatic Noodle, Annalee Newitz ⭐️⭐️

   A cozy, near-future sci-fi where abandoned food service bots start a restaurant.

   I wanted a wholesome story about a gaggle of ragtag machines. I got a half-baked allegory about immigrants in San Francisco. I know that sounds cool, but it didn’t quite land. Partially because the characters felt stunted, partially because the immigrant-to-robot comparison is a bit weird in the age of AI. And, call me crazy, but I’m just not really looking for social issue commentary in my culinary robot books… If you’re interested in heartwarming robot books, I suggest these instead:

   

2. 🐄 Yesteryear, Caro Claire Burke ⭐️⭐️⭐️

   A tradwife influencer wakes up in 1855

   What have I told you??? Time and time again, I scream into the void that I don’t like thrillers. And here we are!!! Swindeled again!!!

   Yesteryear, at least, had an incredible premise. This book had the potential to be 5-stars. I love being in the head of an insane, morally corrupt woman! It’s my happy place. I know nothing else!1

   For 90% of this book, I was transfixed. And yet… There had to be a twist.

   This is the sin of thrillers!! No matter how great the story is, thriller writers can’t resist a “gotcha!” moment. They are the Aston Kutchers of literature. This could have been an amazing literary novel! It could have been a bleak portrait of an image-obsessed, right-wing woman! It could have been the coolest magical realism book ever!! Caro Clair Burke, why!?!?

3. 🎭 She’s A Lamb, Meredith Hambrock ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

   An absolutely psychotic Vancouver-based actress will stop at nothing to be the lead of The Sound of Music.

   Just incredible stuff! This is the crazy theatre kid horror novel I didn’t know I needed. Jessamyn is the most unlikable character of all time. She orchestrates a novel-length crashout of epic proportions. The plot is basically this for 312 pages:

   

   She’s a Lamb is Satirical. Uncomfortable. Hilarious. Campy. Bonkers. These are a few of my favourite things!

4. 🐍Waiting for Britney Spears, Jeff Weiss ⭐️⭐️⭐️

   A memoir from a tabloid writer who spent his early career following Britney Spears around LA

   I’m torn about this one. Jeff has an indulgent writing style that only a man can pull off. I was completely immersed in this ostentatious, over-written, pop-culture period piece. Give me all of the eloquent prose about 2000s depravity!

   That said, he spent a lot of time trying to convince us that he wasn’t really part of the papparazzi problem because, deep down, he knew it was bad.

   He just didn’t have a choice, okay!?!? Someone was going to make a quick buck of Britney’s demise, and why shouldn’t it be him?!?

   And, if it was him back then, why shouldn’t also be him right now!?!?

   It’s all pretty icky, especially when he barely grapples with his own culpability in the book. Instead, he includes what I can only assume is an exaggerated moment at a bar where he apologies to Britney on behalf of America… I don’t buy it! Wrestle with it more! Take all that flowery language and toss it into your ethics!

Last Thought:

Epilogue

• What did you read this month?

• Anything I should add to my TBR?

Happy Sunday!

It’s the end of May and summer is nigh!

After coining Olivia Summer 2025, I feel compelled to christen 2026 with a theme.

This year was obvious. Summer 2026 is about nostalgia.

It’s about girls’ nights.

It’s about dancy slutty.

It’s about keeping boyfriends out of the club.

It’s about overconfidence.

It’s about cancelling travel plans.1

It’s about using complex vocal runs to instigate conflict.

It’s about impractical stilettos, fake tans, and bare midriffs.

It’s, of course, a Pussycat Dolls summer!

There is something so funny about releasing a new single with ad-libs like, “PCD forever, baby” and “we’re back,” only to cancel the entire North American tour a month later…That’s more iconic than any stadium chair dance could have hoped to be.

I aspire to this level of self-assured delusion!

PCD forever, indeed!

My 26-item bucket list for 2026

1. Find a pair of denim shorts that don’t make me nauseous with insecurity

   1. A feat I haven’t been able to achieve in 31 years. Maybe this is my time!

2. Flip my sassy little bob around at an outdoor concert

   1. The PCD Forever tour cancellation left a void in my summer calendar, and I am frothing at the mouth for the next hair-whipping opportunity.

3. Redo our shed

   1. I won’t be doing this personally, but I’ll oversee my husband’s work. What’s the point of owning a backyard if not to sit in a bikini and watch men do physical labour? How else are we using this space???

4. Do a Toronto indie book store tour

   1. Who’s down? We can treat it like a pub crawl! Maybe this will turn into a bob-flipping occasion! We must always allow for the possibilty or spontaneous slutty-dancing…

5. Party in Vegas with Flavor Flav

   1. Hilariously, not a stretch goal, but a real, actual thing happening in my work life. Clock it.

6. Patron a local kid-owned lemonade stand

   1. Your annual reminder to support local, small businesses(even if they directly oppose child labour laws)!

7. Take a hot picture in a bikini

   1. Self-explanatory.

8. Read the local paper every week

   1. Beach Metro has been one of the unexpected joys of moving to the east end. When was the last time you read about a local high school bake sale? What about small business profiles? Or the architectural history of buildings in your neighbourhood? There is so much to be learned from community-centric news.

9. Go to every patio on the Beach Metro “Patios in the Beach” list, including Pizza Nova, which feels like a stretch, but okay

   

10. Release myself from the shackles of counting protein

    1. Enough is enough! I’m putting my foot down! I can no longer live my life doing mental math at every meal. I must unlearn the caloric density of my snacks! I must abolish the mini food scale! DEATH TO TRACKING APPS!

11. Go on a boat and remember to bring Gravol

    1. Nothing undercuts the boating aesthetic quite like motion sickness.

12. Listen to the new Ariana Grande album without developing an attitude problem

    1. Easier said than done. Yuh.

13. Stop hiding my Substack like a teeny tiny little wimp

    1. Every year, I say I’m going to share more of my writing. Every year, I chicken out. But it’s 2026! We have PCD ad-libbing confidence! Let’s go, dolls!

14. Have a weekly morning coffee on the beach with my husband

    1. Just nice, wholesome, family time.

15. Wake up with my first alarm

    1. This is my personal Mt. Everest. I am down to two morning snoozes and absolutely hating it. If you have tips, drop ‘em in the comments.

16. Find a way to make more of my writing physical

    1. I spend all this time click-clacking on computer keys, and would love a tangible archive of my work. Maybe via a local ‘zine contribution, a My Side Piece Snail Mail Club, a Beach Metro submission, or a good old-fashioned mental-breakdown-infused wall scribble…Any would do!

17. Taste test a Christian energy drink

    1. And on the 8th day, God said, “Let there be taurine.”

18. Set up an easel on my front porch so I can paint with an oversized white shirt, no pants, and a joint

    1. This is a sneaky double goal. First, it will encourage me to spend more time on my painting practice. More importantly, this is a performative manic pixie dream girl aesthetic purposefully developed to piss off my boomer neighbour...

19. Obnoxiously run through a sprinkler

    1. The ultimate activity for kids and manic pixie dream girls alike. It’s important to double down! My neighbour loves to monitor the neighbourhood, and I’ll give him a show, goddammit! There will be no mercy!!!

20. Put up the funky wallpaper I bought three years ago

    1. I had a vision, and it’s important that I see it through.

21. Summon some worms

    1. Why the heck not?

22. Dust the baseboards

    1. If I don’t keep this on the list every year, I’ll never do it. The demands of family life are ever-present.

23. Have one single flight depart and arrive on time

    1. Please. For the love of God. I’ll do anything!

24. Revisit old creative writing files

    1. Listen, we all have to clean out the attic sometimes. My Notes app is a scary place. My desktop is full of dusty, dusty drafts. Maybe there’s some treasure hidden with the trash! Probably not…. but I can’t keep this digital clutter forever.

25. Start and quit the Artist’s Way (again)

    1. A creative person’s rite of passage

26. Support Gary in his weight loss journey

    1. Being a cat owner isn’t always glamorous! Gary is on track to lose 2 pounds by September 14th. He doesn’t like this plan, but he also can’t feed himself, so his options are limited.

If you got this far, you are now my accountability buddy. Surprise!

I am literally begging for someone to please just grade me on something. Help me live my dream of being an A student forever!

I’ll even cut you a deal!!

Let me know what’s on your list, and we can keep each other honest. Maybe we can even cross a few items off together.

Teamwork makes the dream work, amiright?!?!

Last Thought

I got too competitive during an inflatable jousting match this weekend, and today I’m paying the price.

My knuckles are bloodied.

My elbow is bruised.

But I won the championship, and so it was all worth it!

I was born to joust, forced to have a 9am-5pm job.

Life is so unfair.

In the midst of my pain, I was blessed with a divine message from my Lord and Saviour.

“What’s up world? So I’m ‘bout to go see The Devil Wears Prada 2. I personally prefer Chanel or Gucci, but yo, if the devil says Prada I guess we should listen right? Anyways, I can’t wait for buttered popcorn and a Slurpee.

FUCK YA!

SLURPEES!!

YES, MAN YES!!!!”

My diva.

My queen.

My Slurpee-obsessed goddess.

I simply could not love you more.

This is what we fought for!!

This is exactly the kind of freedom Britney deserves!

Buttered popcorn and Slurpees!

FUCK YA!

SLURPEES!

YES, MAN YES!

When was the last time you had a Slurpee?

Not recently enough! That’s for sure.

In middle school, Slurpees were a fact of summer.

Most days, I would walk to my friend’s house. She had a pool and a private computer room.

She also had a shitty little stinky dog, but the smell was worth it for unsupervised internet access and the underwater handstand practice.

Kids with pools love to pretend they’re too cool to swim.

All break, I would beg to please pretty please use the pool. It’s literally right there, you don’t even have to come in, but obviously it would be weird if I just went in, so why don’t you come out there and hang, and it would be super duper fun, and I’ll tell you who I have a crush on, pinky promise, just pretty pretty pretty please can we go in????

Of course, I would say all of this with a bright purple tongue because I passed the local gas station on the way over and chugged a wine bottle-sized cup of grape-flavoured ice.

Those were the days!

How many times have I gone to a gas station as an adult and denied myself the sweet, sweet nectar of the Slurpee machine?!

What have I been doing!?

The gas station is little treat central.

Over the years, my snack preferences have evolved. I’ll opt for a pepperoni stick. Trail mix. Or, sometimes, an energy drink — the adult Slurpee equivalent.

Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, do I love to guzzle an energy drink!

YES, MAN YES!!!

Energy drinks are basically like doing drugs in the middle of the afternoon. Why treat my mild ADHD with prescription stimulants when I could pound a Monster and have heart palpitations????

Recently, I’ve learned that we’re in the midst of a Christian energy drink boom.

Religious-themed drinks are popping up with names like 4GVN (built for believers) and Praise Energy (fuel the grind and honor the soul)

Before you ask, no!!!!

There aren’t any give-back programs or donations to make these brands Christian.

They are getting by with marketing alone.

The drinks are just God-flavoured, or whatever.

They’re hawking cans of “preachin’ peach” and “berry blessed” to a core demo of Christian frat bros who will pay extra to signal their religious beliefs with canned beverages.

Yahweh Energy’s slogan is “take Him anywhere.”

They claim it’s “more than a drink — it’s a bold invitation to live your faith out loud.”

ie: To drink Red Bull is to denounce God.1

Fun fact:

“Any product can be a Christian product if you’re willing to treat Jesus as just an uncopyrighted Mickey Mouse.”

If this isn’t taking the Lord’s name in vain, I really don’t know what is….

This is exactly the type of stuff the Israelites were penalized for in the Old Testament!

The golden calf was nothing compared to this Jared Leto-looking Jesus on a can of for-profit chemicals.

This is the definition of claiming God for selfish and pointless means.

But why stop there?!?

Why shouldn’t Jesus be the mascot of everything???

This is the marketing power of the public domain!2

The devil wears Prada!

Surely the lord can claim other gas station essentials!

His bounty is so great!!

Everything, hallelujah!!!

Here’s my list of gas station products Christian influencers should start grifting:3

• Lamb of God Meat Sticks. Tender and mild

• Soul Cleanser. Take of this, my body wash.

• Creation Crisps: Let there be light(ly) salted chips

• For Hymns. An over-the-counter Viagra alternative. Sing your praises to the lord!

• Crucifix Mix. Nuts, dried fruit, and cross-shaped candies for your daily pilgrimage.

• Walk On Water. For miraculous consumption.

• Praisins. Prayer-themed raisins. Each box has a blessing written on it.

• Last Supper Wine Gummies. Self-explanatory, no?

• Cain & Maple Coffee Creamer. Don’t sacrifice your mornings.

• Yah-Whey Protein Bars. May beast be with you (and also with you).

• Ice Cream Sundays. Ice cream sandwiches with Bible facts. Stay cool at Sunday school.

• Holy Trinity Pretzels. Always photographed upside down to make a little triangle of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Give us this day, our daily bread.

• The Disciplined Disciple: This could be a whole company of different workout products, like:

  • B.C. Powder. Your Before Christ pre-workout.

  • A.D. Drink. After death (or deadlift) recovery drink. Filled with electrolytes to fuel your resurrection

• The 5000: Two types of fish-shaped crackers, multiplied to feed the masses.

Last but not least:

• The Holy Slurpee Altar featuring flavours like:

  • Mount Acai

  • Blood Orange of Christ

  • Forbidden Fruit Punch

Please comment more below if the spirit moves you!

A religious gas station-themed playlist for your week:

Last Thought:

The macros are bad (10g protein/100grams), but the feeling is oh so right.

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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.

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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?