just another cup of something

Coming up on half past six here in Chicago and the sun on horizon line already. Last night I slept piss poor. I could count off on all my fingers the likely reasons, and like anyone it throws me off. It’s rare I wish I could go back to surfing on six hours a night, but that lifestyle seems both dangerous and impossible to me in 2024. I feel immense amounts of guilt and weakness, because of it. The preclusions of these parameters with regards to how others live their lives, is a tome for another day.

In any case, I’m a week out from being COVID positive. I feel incredibly lucky I could work remote, that I have a job at all, and I try and remember that in spite of [redacted]. I felt the compulsion to send out a newsletter even without some anchor theme or leitmotif. The circumference between Your Newsletter is Yours And Nobody Reads It Write Whatever Newsletter You Want and Your Newsletter is Yours And Nobody Reads It Shut The Fuck Up leads us here.

The first time I got COVID was about the time the first jabs I got (fought tirelessly for when I worked at Trader Joes) had probably about worn off before booster time. And also I was exhausted, moving my body around for about four months between Chicago and the desert and a lot of other things. My friend YK is wildly generous, and I found this really weird sentimentality for being so fucking sick in her and G'.’s house in Phoenix. Like, I still feel very bad that this happened, that I took up this space, did not compute how shitty and tired I felt until we got back from camping and hiking and I lost my sense of smell! In any case, it is a testament to their kind hearts and the desert I feel this weird sense of, wow I was so lucky. Sometimes I think about if I’d been knocked flat either somewhere outside Twentynine Palms or, fuck, West Texas, which, fuck me.

But I managed to get some reading done this time around and so here’s a newsletter that pretends I am much more important than I am. I returned to some of Los Brothers Hernandez compendiums (“Maggie the Mechanic” and “The Girl From H.O.P.P.E.R.S.”) and ZERO REGRETS. Hopey Sun, Maggie Moon, Penny Venus/Rising? IDK.

The first was How It Works Out by Myriam Lacroix. This is one of those books that I couldn’t shake and when books are like that, even if I don’t find the writing especially lyrical or captivating, I won’t shut the fuck up about it. I feel like so many of these stories touch on some queer or lesbian present day tropes: weird true crime aficionados or horror fans or body horror fans or something. I really did appreciate the stories, though, and sometimes I will put something down due to my discomfiture. One day a few years ago my mother asked me if I felt bad that, “All my [queer] friends were married or had kids or going to have kids” and if I hadn’t before, WOW did that make me feel bad! I feel like this collection of fiction is a great place for myself and friends in long-term relationships or families, who are queer, to meet and be like, what the fuck. Do I feel bad? I don’t know. Did this collection oddly resonate with me, as a collection about very serious queers who cohabitate/parent/fuck each other/cohabitate as animals/zombie shit as parents/absorb each other, and make me want to talk to other people who are not me, not in a long-term relationship, giddily arcing my way through that towards family or security? Sure did. It is creepy as fuck though. And yes, sometimes I do feel bad, ma.

I think over the summer I trigger-fingered holds on CPL from recommendations, so number 2 was Horse Crazy by Gary Indiana. I am fairly certain I picked this at random based on a davey davis recommendation, and I am so glad I did. It feels like this is a queer book I would’ve loved to pair with the world I dreamed of as a teenager obsessed with Rubyfruit Jungle, although I’d love to see some longform piece about Rita Mae Brown on what the AIDS crisis meant to her. To be fair I haven’t read that book in years, but should. In any case, I don’t know. I love a book that can take me to a place that specifically I, a queer, could maybe see myself in (read: 1980’s NYC) and that talks about obsession and heroin and AIDS and art and I don’t know. I feel like a halfgay fuckup for not knowing about Gary Indiana, but I’m really glad I read this, and can’t wait for the next one. Also: been there, man.

Really, though, the one I can’t stop talking about is Rough Trade by Katrina Carrasco. The list of people who I either messaged or wanted to message about this book may have fallen apart with COVID. (Dear CR: Can’t wait for new Drunk Bisexual Sailor, here is Drunk Bisexual Genderfucked Stevedores) I think thank you Maddy Court? Someone? God, I loved this book. Will say I love Annie Proulx (Barkskins and the stories especially) and The Overstory but wow. This one was good. This is queer as fuck and also pulpy and also atmospheric and I had to portion it. Honestly, I had actually told YK that I was fucking sick of the PNW, I didn’t get it, fuck the whole thing, but this book? Yeah. I wish I could’ve spent more time in the Olympics instead of crying with a busted bike. I love the sweet memory of wine with beautiful A. and the porch. The wedding, the crushing shores, even the rain, even the bullshit and the rain. And honestly this book? There’s no newsletter I write the virtue of the best second date I’ve ever had. That’s for me. But dear Washington and Oregon, thank you Katrina Carrasco, I now have the urge to return. Read it. Talk to me about it. And I don’t know. Maybe it deserves more than my resentment.

Shows I liked: Dark Winds which are based on Tony Hillerman novels which my ma loved, and I also love mysteries, but Zahn McClarnon, COME ON! Spooky ass mystery white people suck shit. Watch it. Good shit. I miss the desert. Maybe I should just write about driving around missing the desert.

Music I Liked: The Childish Gambino track is good! Otherwise earlier this summer “Long For Ruin” by Joan As Policewoman (which, she wrote for Scissor Sisters? An entire other digression). Fuck, y’all, I don’t know. I wanted to write like 2K words on Cool Britannia and Pulp, and that show was one of the best things that happened to me in months. I’ve enjoyed The Last Dinner Party and what we thought was new Fiona Apple and Iron and Wine, and I’ll get to new Japanrdoids.

It’s about 7 PM CST and the dusk is here. I don’t want to fill thousands of words about _____, ______, _____, and ______, divided over ten years. I’ll just say that the second it starts getting dark and warm in this way, I’m back where I was.

I’ll be doing some live readings soon in Chicago. I had a dream that a press CC’d me on a text saying “X Book is beautiful lets go” and what the fuck, am I right? Get your booster, get weird for the fall, realize it’s time to just let some things compost, manifest TV On The Radio touring in Chicago, buy some poems or zines, register to vote I GUESS, ceasefire now, and stay as safe as you can, please, I really mean it.

I couldn’t stop listening to this earlier this month. I guess I still really like this project. Sometimes there’s shows that you wish you could change because of whatever circumstances, so if Public Service Broadcasting comes back, I’d try that again. Not DEADMAU5, though. Fuck fuck that person. Not enough drugs in the world. You know, not the actual problem. You know, shit I have to keep figuring out. XO