Left Coast
Currently reading:
Star Wars: Queen’s Shadow by E.K. Johnston
Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism by Amanda Montell
I found Queen’s Shadow saved on the Nook app on my iPad on my redeye flight home from San Francisco, after I decided I didn’t want to risk disturbing my seatmates with the overhead reading light (hashtag-social-anxiety). I forgot I owned that book and it’s a bit silly, but cute. Sabé forever.
Cultish is currently sitting on my bed, waiting to be started.
Books finished this week: 1
★★☆☆☆
Where this book came from: I can’t remember if I got it from Kew & Willow or Barnes & Noble, but it was definitely one of the ampersand places.
Why this book: I’m pretty sure I heard Amanda Lund talk about this book on one podcast or the other, especially about how it helped inspire her podcast The Complete Woman. But maybe don’t quote me on that.
Thoughts: Though I’d have to say I probably agree with most of the views the author holds, the presentation didn't quite work for me. I liked the main character, Sasha, at first, and enjoyed her narrative voice through most of the book, but by the end I didn’t quite understand what she wanted out of life. I know that the point of the novel was to satirize womanhood——and specifically being a housewife and mother——in the 1950s and ’60s, and I guess the point was that even someone with ambitions that lay elsewhere would find themselves put into those roles against their will. But I was still left feeling like there was more for Sasha to do. (Excellent cover art, though.)
Library updates:
There are few better feelings in the world than getting picked up at the airport. I travel alone a lot, which usually means calling an Uber or figuring out public transit when I get to my destination, and making my own way home again when I get back to New York. It feels exciting and sometimes frustrating, but mostly it can just be lonely.
This past week, I was lucky enough to visit friends first in Washington State and then San Francisco. When I landed at Sea-Tac, I was scooped up and whisked away by someone I deeply missed (hi, Sabrina!), and I think it made all the difference for my whole trip down the West Coast. I just felt loved and missed and appreciated in a way I usually don’t in my daily life. Someone cared enough about me to drive (or, well, make her husband drive) to the airport and show me around. I’m not usually someone who thinks I’m deserving of that kind of love. It was nice to be reminded that I am, and that people do, in fact, care about me.
While in Washington, I was mostly traipsing around the woods (a.k.a. drinking beer by a campfire), but we did get to both Olympia and Seattle. It was hilariously cloudy and rainy, even for the Pacific Northwest, and my chances of seeing Mount Rainier were beginning to look grim. But on the drive back to the airport, on my last day in Washington, she peeked out to wish me well.
I am not opposed to staying on couches and would not trade any visiting experiences I had in my early 20s for the world. But if being in my 30s means getting to stay in friends' honest-to-god guest rooms, count me in. I slept on both a luxurious air mattress and a real-life goddam bed this week and I don’t think I ever could have expected such lush delights before my thirtieth year.
(That said, I will obviously always curl up on a couch when needed. Invite me to your cool places!!)
As you know, since I was traveling this week, that meant all bets were off to purchase books. As you also know from my last missive, I immediately bought two books in Olympia. I restrained myself in Elliott Bay in Seattle, but then obviously had to buy more in San Francisco. It was touch and go for a minute there on whether I would make the checked bag weight limit.
I also learned this week about——or perhaps simply decided to articulate——the dangers of traveling to a place you like too much. The thing is, going to a place you already like a lot, especially when people you love live there, means you might start to love it, too. And that might make it feel weird when you land back at home, and home, for a split second, doesn’t feel like home for a minute.
Wait, why did I leave those people I love? Why did I leave behind a city I adore and the possibilities of an entirely new state? There’s so much still to see and do, perhaps more than a simple visit can cover next go-around. Of course, you love people here, too, at home, and you would miss them terribly if you left. You long for your own shower and your own bed, and you need to water your plants, because your dad tried, he really did, but your petunias are in a sorry state. You won’t actually leave, and the feeling of unreality will fade after you catch the few hours of sleep you couldn’t take hold of on the flight.
But maybe. One day.
Closing thoughts:
If it feels right to cry——in the back of an Uber on a dark freeway, when the flight attendant welcomes you home after landing back in the place you come from——do it.
Total books read from the Moratorium Library: 5
(Total books added to the Library: 6)
I bought two more books at Green Apple (one of them was Cultish) and another at Black Bird. I will not be taking questions at this time.
