Midweek Obsessions, Vol. 93

The Ball Without Billionaires, Kermit covering the Talking Heads, and a MAN in my HOME.

Happy birthday today to Alanna Bennett, who is the midst of a Goodreads giveaway for her debut novel, The Education of Kia Greer.

Some random updates from previous issues:

• GreedFall 2 continues to be good fun—I’m at least halfway through—but I’ve just learned the studio Nacon dissolved Spiders (the French game devs) right after GreedFall 2’s March release in a bit of very un-Gallic union-busting.¹

• KJ Charles’ How To Fake It In Society did not end up being a favorite of hers for me—between this one and her last release, All of Us Murderers, it seems like the author or her editors are trying to edge her work into general historical fiction, and her romance writing is so good I want her to stay in-genre. Perhaps that’s selfish.

• Everyone is telling me to see The Devil Wears Prada 2, and I simply have not yet for no reason other than not prioritizing it. Will you go with me? Y/N? DM me.

• I’m on Chapter 10 of A Drop of Corruption and still having a darned blast in that biopunk AU. It’s so smart. What a sprawling critique of empire.

• I’m not watching a ton of TV right now, because I have to rewatch 10 romcoms in 10 weeks for the Writing the RomCom I’m in the midst of teaching at Northwestern right now. For my money as a lifelong Chicagoan, Love Jones and While You Were Sleeping remain the best Chicago-set romcoms. Fight me if you wish.

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💎 The tide shifting on the Met Gala

Was it labor hero Chris Smalls getting arrested outside the event? Was it the emptiness of the spectacle? Was it Zendaya, Taraji, and Bella Hadid boycotting? Was it Lisa Ann Walters co-hosting the “Ball Without Billionaires” event across town?

I have a long and documented history of hating on the Met Gala, but usually I am treated like a nag who doesn’t appreciate the Art of Fashion, rather than a Marxist Cassandra. The tide sure seems to have shifted this year, though.

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✒️ “Hope: An Owner’s Manual” by Barbara Kingsolver

Look, you might as well know, this thing
is going to take endless repair: rubber bands,
crazy glue, tapioca, the square of the hypotenuse.
Nineteenth century novels. Heartstrings, sunrise:
all of these are useful. Also, feathers.

To keep it humming, sometimes you have to stand
on an incline, where everything looks possible;
on the line you drew yourself. Or in
the grocery line, making faces at a toddler
secretly, over his mother's shoulder.

You might have to pop the clutch and run
past all the evidence. Past everyone who is
laughing or praying for you. Definitely you don't
want to go directly to jail, but still, here you go,
passing time, passing strange. Don't pass this up.

In the worst of times, you will have to pass it off.
Park it and fly by the seat of your pants. With nothing
in the bank, you'll still want to take the express.
Tiptoe past the dogs of the apocalypse that are sleeping
in the shade of your future. Pay at the window.
Pass your hope like a bad check.
You might still have just enough time. To make a deposit.

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🐚 Vegetarian stuffed shells

I am meal-prepping a version of this dish for a special evening later this week. Your girl needs comfort food.

The linked recipe is similar to the one my mother taught me, though she uses parmesan and mozzarella shreds along with the ricotta in the filling, and no lemon or red pepper flakes or grated garlic, but I’m going to try them that way this go.

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🥬 Farmers markets re-opening in Chicago

May marks the magical time of the year when Chicago’s farmers markets resume. Catch me running between the Lincoln Square/Ravenswood one (which started this week) and Andersonville market (which starts next week) from now until October. You can spend SNAP/EBT and get matched dollars on produce; I’ve done it myself.

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🔨 Making my hovel a home

This week, I’m a touch preoccupied with the fact that, starting Friday, I’m going to live with a boy.² I’ve lived alone for long stretches of time before; my most recent roommate moved out in August, and since then, I’ve settled into the ferity³ of being alone in my own space, but I’ve never totally liked it. I always worry about choking to death with no one around to Heimlich me.⁴

The opposite of this feeling

After a bit of a whirlwind romance—literally reconnecting with an old friend on the street while traveling ten months ago—he is moving across the country for me. I keep texting my friends pictures of his boxes (19 so far, sent by media mail) taking over the tiny apartment, as if to prove it is actually real, and this is not a delusion or a movie I wrote. I have no reason to truly fear that I’ve lost touch entirely, but as a lifetime daydreamer, my relationship with reality has always been a little tenuous.

THIS IS NOT MY BEAUTIFUL WIFE!

My friend Allie was quoted to me as having said, about the situation, “Hope is such a romantic, it’s nice something really romantic finally happened to her.” And this is true. I am, and this is. I told another friend that I was stunned this was happening to me, because I’ve always been so critical and dismissive of the conventions of partnership, and she (gently) laughed in my face. “No, you haven’t,” she asserted. This is what I mean about being delusional. We are mysteries to ourselves. I thought I was a queer feminist holdout, but it turns out, that’s not in conflict with the idea that, er, love is real.

I’m excited, and also constantly nauseated. My sister, who knows me better than I know myself, reminded me that I have always had a deep discomfort with any change in my living situation. This is true, even though I’m genuinely so happy about this one. How—and I really do mean this—do you metabolize big life transitions? Tranquilizers? And where are we buying shelves?

1. https://kotaku.com/union-blasts-greedfall-2-publisher-over-studio-bankruptcies-years-of-mismanagement-and-strategic-nothingness-2000681513

2. I’ve actually lived with men before, but they were just platonic roommates (shoutout Clay and Colin).

3. I did have to check this word and correct from “ferality”

4. If this sounds like a bit on a ‘90s sitcom, that’s because I was raised on ‘90s sitcoms.