1.) I've missed this so much. It's been so long I did it that I don't even know if I know how to do it anymore.
2.) Regina King talks about the grief of losing her only child. I feel like I should say something profound here but I can't. There is nothing that can be said except I pray God himself comforts her.
3) Yes, after making a hoopla, I came back, rather unceremoniously too.
Another Book of the Month! Welcome. The book of this month is My last Innocent Year by Doris Alpert Florin.
I'm going to start out by saying, I first heard about this book on TwoNightStands. It was one of their best books of 2023. And it did not disappoint.
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.
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. 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.
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?
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.
I have accepted that life comes with a good deal of the good and the bad. It’s very healthy to wade through life with that mindset. Yet some...