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To My Sister -- Our Wildest Dream

There is a dream. There are even multiple dreams. And then reality comes and blows the dream so out of water, so out of bounds.


It started with a whisper after dinner, once, when she was like 11 (12? 10?)—basically that age when everyone wants to be a doctor. But then hers grew into a dogged but steady pursuit; gently going through every single obstacle. Ha.


I always say there are two kinds of people—those who come out of the womb knowing exactly what they want to do and the rest of us who spend all our lives figuring it out. Even though my sister is the former, it was HARD. Nevertheless, she persisted.




International Women's Day 2024

Call it being weary. Call it laziness. Call it being pedantic. But this year on International Women's Day (IWD) 2024, I decided there wasn't any point to writing anything original. As you know I've always posted on International Women's Day on this blog. This year is no different. Except for all the ways in which it is different. I'm pulling words from over the years that I have written on IWD. I don't know how many times you have to say something for it to stick. Here is what I know: I won't and can't tire of reiterating the need for equality in our world; the need for women to have it better; the need for women to be heard and seen. The goal is to wake up one day and realize there is so much fairness, enlightenment, and equity/equality that we no longer need IWD. Ah a dream. 


Let's count down, shall we? My words over the years. Here ya go.




It's The Usual Things

It’s the usual things. One of my fave YouTubers said she recently rushed to the ER thinking she was having a heart attack. It was a panic attack. If you’re a millennial who hasn’t had the heart attack scare, only to be told it’s panic/anxiety, you’re one of the luckiest ones of our generation. It’s the usual things. Health challenges. It’s the usual things. Career lows. It’s the usual things. Rejection. It’s the usual things. Relational issues. It’s the usual things. Fear. It’s the usual things. Depression.





Fools Are Multiplying Too Rapidly; We Can't Stay Quiet

I recently saw an extremely bizarre thing. It was a  short clip of a podcast (we have to abolish these things once and for all. Podcasts are killing us, folks) where a man, let's call him Man A, asks another man, let's call him Man B, to say which animal he is least afraid of. Man B says fish. Man A attempts to correct him by saying "fish is not an animal". The rest of the almost two minute clip, is Man B being absolutely gobsmacked while Man A continues to scream that fish is NOT an ANIMAL, but a SEA CREATURE. They launched into a screaming match arguing the most basic fact. My God.


How long do you think humanity is going to last before we destroy ourselves?






Book of the Month: Nightcrawling

Welcome to The Book of the Month! Y'all... no need to explain the long absence from here. See previous post for an explanation. Alright, let's dive in. The book of this month  is Nightcrawling by Leila Mottley. 


I am going to give extraordinary grace to this book because I honestly believe it suffered from the curse of being read after two Chimamanda Adichie novels—I recently reread Americanah and Purple Hibiscus.  Listen, once you’ve experienced the ease and delicious smoothness of Chimamanda's work, everybody else just seems like they are trying too hard. But I'm getting ahead of myself.


In sum, the book is about Kiara, steeped in abject poverty and neglect, who has to scrap by on the streets of Oakland, and who, one night, mistakenly stumbles into the failure of America's justice system. For a longer version of the preceding sentence: Kiara and her brother, Marcus, live in a rundown apartment in Oakland called Regal-Hi. Both had to drop out of high school and their family has been fractured by death and prison. Meanwhile, rather than find a way to care for his sister, Marcus is too consumed by his dream of rap stardom; leaving Kiara to hunt for work to pay their rent and take care of them. At the same time, she has to keep the nine-year old boy next door (whose mother has abandoned) fed. In any case, as a minor and high school dropout, her options for work are limited and thanks to a misunderstanding on a drunken night, she turns to a job she never wanted but definitely needs. 




The Blog is Ten, So Time To End It?

This blog/site turned ten this year, rather unceremoniously. But yes, it was ten years ago I published my first post ever on the Internet. And there have been various iterations of this blog and quite frankly, of me too. I meant to make a big deal of the blog turning ten, but honestly life happened. The exact day (July 24) I was traveling for work and the farthest thing from my mind was this blog. 


There have been times I didn't know what to do with it and wanted to shut it down altogether; delete everything and go into hiding. My sister said if I ever delete this blog, she would "never forgive" me. Those were her exact words. If you know my sister, you know she's not ever that aggressive so it was a little shocking to hear her say that (haha). And I believed the threat so I decided against that. I won't delete. The threat did not include not ever writing though. So I thought that for a while: that I wouldn't post anything here anymore. Ah that lasted all of 2 seconds before the next idea for a post came. The whole writing thing comes so naturally for me sometimes, that it feels a little foolish to quit it. 





I have been consistent. I have been inconsistent. People have read. People have not read. But if we are keeping it real (or vulnerable, as the Internet loves to say) it hasn't grown nearly as much as I would have liked. In the beginning, it did. People read a lot. But eventually that growth fizzled out. I wouldn't call this blog a failure. And trust me, having actually failed at things, I know what failure looks like. This isn't that. Yet, I don't know that I would call it a success. So here we are. As with most things, in between. 

Book of the Month: The Hopefuls by Jennifer Close

Welcome back to the book of the month! I love doing these because people love reading these haha. The book of this month is “The Hopefuls” by Jennifer Close. The thing about giving summaries of books is they are never quite enough. And I’m admittedly not the best with summaries but I’ll try. It tells the story of a young wife who follows her husband to Washington, D.C. to follow his political dreams in the newly minted Obama administration. Matt, the husband in question, is a White House staffer (who was also a campaign staffer) perennially frustrated and antsy about his career. Beth, the protagonist and from whose perspective the entire book is written, is a writer unsure about everything. And when I say everything—I literally mean everything and everyone.  Early on in the novel, at a birthday party for another White House employee, Beth meets Ash and Jimmy. Ash is a Texan who also moved to DC for her husband, Jimmy’s, work as an Obama staffer. The foursome quickly become close, going on vacations today, sharing everything including a “cleaning” lady. The book uses the discomfort of a new DC transplant to tell the story of important themes  of marriage, friendship, career, political campaigns, and envy.