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I sat down in Jenessa’s chair yesterday and for two hours talked about life, my dad, my upcoming plans while she foiled and washed and cut and styled my hair (so long overdue, she really had her work cut out for her), and afterwards felt like I’d just been to therapy. It’s good to talk about things. It’s good to have the words out there in the world, and so I’ll say them here, too.
My dad is dying. Not in the sense that we are all dying, sooner or later, by ways we thankfully can’t imagine, but in the all-too-real, hospital bed and oxygen machines way. He’s reached Stage 4 of his COPD, and while it’s hard to know how much time is left, it’s clear the time is shrinking. There’s much to be done, and that’s kicked me into high gear. I’ve always been able to perform on demand. I’m able to compartmentalize quite well: meet with a hospice care team one day and give a final exam the next, for example, as if two entirely different women are performing these very different tasks. I’m less good at sitting, listening, reflecting. When I’m still, the ache in my heart is too heavy. I can feel it pulling me down, the weight of things said and unsaid, done and undone. And so, I keep moving. ** It’s a Wednesday morning and I’m at home, thighs still throbbing from the YouTube workout I just finished, freshly showered, two dogs napping next to me while I write. I’m not madly printing something out and figuring out what I’m going to wear and packing a lunch and letting the dogs out one last time and making sure there’s at least two hours left on my audiobook. I’m on summer break, even if it is the strangest summer break of my life, where each day has tentative plans that may or may not happen, and it’s impossible to see far enough ahead to do practical things like book plane tickets, build itineraries. Still, I’m ticking things off, slowly, one sub-task at a time: -clean out spare bedroom for Sarah -finish transition documents for Paul -figure out food and transportation for Yosemite retreat ** In Central California, it was a weird spring—far wetter than normal, and colder, too. We were all glued to our weather apps for flood alerts, and when we met in line at the grocery store, all we could talk about was the rain. So much rain. Last year I don’t remember ever wearing a winter coat and this year I took it out to wear and put it away four times thinking that was it, winter had to be over, before taking it out once again. I even wore socks to bed every single night—me, the living furnace. This morning, I woke up shivering, and for a long moment before it all came back to me, I struggled to remember what day it was, what month. But a new season is coming. It’ll be here before we know it. It'll be here, whether we're ready or not. *
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There’s a mood in here today:
A woman walks into Starbucks wearing a shirt that says FREE HUGS in large letters, and lower, in smaller print: Don’t touch me. She leans back against the wall while she waits for her order, like she’s daring someone to approach her. Two other women sit in the near dark and don’t remove their oversize sunglasses as they eat their heated muffins and stare at their phone screens. The table near the bathroom is free, which is great, because it has a power outlet, and not great, because bathroom traffic passes that way, but it’s where I sit. There’s work to be done, and the clock is ticking. I have two hours to write before my next Zoom meeting. ** Without specifics, it feels like the world is crumbling. In the news, people do horrible things to other people, in the name of their beliefs. Closer to home, people I love are sick and waiting for answers or relief. I’m in limbo, waiting on responses to a half-dozen things. The in-between is a tentative space, like a bridge that might crumble when I’m only halfway across. It feels like the right time to drink hot chocolate and eat buttery cookies and read some Mary Oliver poems. If there was a button that could stop the world, just for a few days or a few million years, I’d push that thing right now. Can’t we all have just a bit more time? ** In my little corner, I’m down to three more teaching days, one-workshop-discussion-day, one more final to write, one literary magazine launch event, a towering virtual stack of things to grade, and my own life to live around all of that. The list greets me every time I log onto my computer, and no matter how much I pick away at it, it never fully goes away. “Some of my professors are so far behind on grading,” one of my students lamented yesterday. “In one class I haven’t had an update since week three.” While this is horrible—I’d be pissed if I were on the receiving end of that non-grade—that did make me feel a bit better. I’m only one week behind, not twelve, after all, and so I have adjusted my level of panic accordingly. I will get done with all of this, somehow. Maybe it will be with wild, high-fiving success. Maybe there will be failures, hopefully minor, and hopefully the people I have failed will be forgiving. Maybe they will extend me grace as I am learning, always, still, to do myself. I wish the same for you. It’s just me, six baristas behind the counter and on the other side of the building, a Couple Having a Serious Discussion. Neither of them looks at me as I enter. Neither of them looks at each other. It’s been a week since I sat here with my manuscript, really liking the way that last scene played out. I figured I’d be back in two days, but then some life happened, and all the things I was behind on demanded my attention at once, and then on the weekend there were two conferences at the university, a workshop I was leading, dinner with the poet laureate, a birthday party, a luncheon, and a long overdue dinner with friends, plus all the stress that comes with my commute (2.5 hours due to traffic yesterday) and my Monday classes, and so, I’m almost crying with relief to be back here. It's been too long, and I have business to attend to. ** I try not to let my gaze rest too long on the Couple Having a Serious Discussion, but I notice they have stopped talking. Both sit with their chins cupped in their palms. What’s so weird about this tableau is that they aren’t looking at their phones. I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen people together just being together, with no media in sight. If I could paint, I would paint them. It’s an Edward Hopper, 2023 style. ** This morning I started the dishwasher before the dog walk, since LG cannot handle the subtle cycle switches and needs to be out of the house during the hour-long cycle. When the three of us returned, one side of the sink held about six inches of brownish water. I took a picture, texted Will, and then went about trying to drain the puddle, which was only accomplished by scooping water with a very small scoop to the other side of the sink. It was then I remembered we have a disposal (a relatively new addition to our lives) and that the last time I tried to use it, which was pre-fall holidays, nothing at all had happened. No whirring sound, no rumble from deep within. I’ll deal with that later, I thought at the time. Today is apparently later. The disposal chicken has come home to roost. ** The Couple Having a Serious Discussion is probably breaking up. They look younger than me, although it’s hard to tell. His head is either shaved or he’s bald, and she has the kind of well-kept beauty that makes age difficult to pin down. Maybe one of them has cheated, or both. Maybe it’s a financial thing, a lost job, lost house. Maybe they’re discussing how to split the assets—furniture, kids, dog. Maybe it’s another scenario entirely. It is, of course, none of my business. ** Today’s high will be 62 degrees, and on Saturday, when I have big plans to clean off my patio for the summer, it will be twenty degrees warmer. This has been one long-ass winter, with a smidgen of spring, too much wind, a whole lotta rain that, this being California, we have no idea how to handle, and day after day of grayish skies. Eighty degrees sounds nice. It feels like find-last-year’s-shorts weather, work-up-a-good-sweat-walking-around-the-block weather, get-out-the-box-fan weather. In no time it will be ninety, one hundred, and we’ll keep our A/Cs running all night and still feel sticky underneath the air vent. ** I get distracted by an email, and when I look up again, the Couple Having a Serious Discussion are holding hands across the table. He’s talking and she’s nodding, and then she talks and he nods. Maybe it’s not a break-up after all. Maybe it’s one of those “we’ve hit this moment and we need to make a decision” talks. Maybe they’ll agree to disagree. Maybe they’ll agree. I wish them the best. It’s 10:15 and I’m in my usual writing spot, only a bit later due to a routine dental appointment. Now I’m sipping my skinny vanilla latte, the old standby, and hyperaware of the fluoride coating on my teeth. I have seven more days of class/three-and-a-half weeks/one lit mag launch/one creative nonfiction workshop/one 47th birthday party/one grant-funded discussion/one writing retreat to plan until the end of the semester, and Lord knows I am ready for it all to be done. ** The older I get, the less I understand how time passes. It is April 11. Yesterday it hit 80 degrees for the first time, and my students, arriving sweaty to class, pronounced it the official beginning of summer. I have planted some seedlings in the raised bed, and other than two squash which look very sketchy, nothing has died. I’m still in the leggings-under-dresses phase of my annual wardrobe, and it seems both too late to be wearing warm clothes and way too early to be thinking about the punishing heat that will soon be here. ** I wrote in an essay-in-progress about something that happened to me recently, followed by my question How the hell did I get here? “What did you mean by that question?” my writing partner asked, tapping her pen against the line. I suppose she was looking for the short-term answer--I got in my car and drove, which was more or less how I’d intended the line when I’d written it, but the answer didn’t seem right to me now, at the moment we were considering it. It seemed more of an existential question, something meant to probe years of decisions and coincidences and accidents, family history, the branches leading backward to the beginning of time. This is the story of how the hell I got here. ** At the Starbucks where I park myself for four hours every Tuesday and Thursday, as well as some Fridays-Sundays when life permits, they have a keypad lock on the bathroom door. At times, the baristas sing out the five-digit code to anyone who asks, and at other times, like now, that information is strictly need-to-know. Something must have happened, like vandalism or a patron who wouldn’t leave, and so now when they are asked, the baristas make an effort to conceal their annoyance, come around the corner, and punch in the code for each guest. “I’m sorry to bother you,” I say when I arrive, fresh from an hour in the dentist’s chair, the orange juice I consumed before that heavy in my bladder, “but could you let me into the bathroom?” The barista, her impressive head of hair piled in a high bun on the very top of her head, glances left and right and leans forward. “I’ll just tell you,” she says, and whispers the five digits that I immediately commit to memory. I have passed a test. I have been deemed worthy. ** Yesterday, after my last class, three students stayed to talk to me—one making a plea for leniency, another providing an explanation for the wrong file that had been uploaded, the third just needing someone to listen. I was lenient with the first, assured the second that we all make mistakes, listened to the third. I left exhausted and made my way straight to the parking lot. It was still warm—the unofficial start of summer, after all—and students were out and about, sitting on benches, skateboarding past. Two students were taking pictures on the sidewalk next to the building with the owls’ nests, and I stopped to ask if they had seen the owls. It had been weeks now since I last spotted them, before the time change, back when I was leaving campus in the dusk. In response, one of the students pointed—not up to the third floor where the branches from their nests still hung over the louvred shades—but straight ahead, just behind the hedge, to where an owl was watching us. It wasn’t one of the parent owls, with their impressive wingspans and weathered faces, and it wasn’t the baby owlet that had blinked down at me weeks earlier. Except, of course, it was—bigger now, maybe an adolescent, with the cool gaze of a teenager. And once again, I don’t understand how time passes.  Yesterday, a student emailed me to ask if we had class—basically, if spring break was really over. And while I barked a laugh of amazement at her question, I was kind in my response. We do, I wrote back with a smile emoji. We’re in the home stretch now! But on a deeper level, I get it. I entered spring break with a to-do list a mile long and finished about half of those things, some which I’ll push to summer (closet sorting in the spare room) and some which I’ll scramble to finish this week (notes for a presentation I’ll give next week). For a combination of reasons—tooth infection, lingering cough, exploding sunroof—I’ve felt wrong-footed all semester, only a step ahead when I should have this in the bag. But here we are, back at it. ** Yesterday, I left a mandatory department meeting twenty minutes after the hour and rushed to my class across campus, arriving five minutes late, while my students were clustered near the door debating whether to leave. “It’s only been five minutes!” I said, breathless. Wind had been gusting at 45 mph, and my hair was a tangled knot I itched to work my fingers through. “But you’ve never even been one minute late before,” M. pointed out. He is over six feet, a gentle giant, and his gaze is sympathetic as it travels over my windswept appearance. “It felt momentous.” ** Today I’m at Starbucks for a few hours ostensibly to write, but also I’m behind on my grading, and if I don’t finish at least five papers, I’ll be well and truly screwed by tonight, when I need to read/skim sixty poems and short stories for the lit mag class for which I’m the faculty advisor. These are the kinds of motivational bargains I make with myself: grade one paper, answer an email, grade another paper, five minutes of online browsing for a new area rug. Grade five, and I get to work on my novel. The other day, meeting our nephew’s new girlfriend for the first time at a hotel bar, my husband said, “Paula has a more interesting job than I do” and I nearly choked on my martini. ** Grade, hate myself for assigning so many words in the first place, repeat. ** But even though I’m trying to focus, I can’t turn off the fiction writing part of myself so easily. For example: Two people just entered in full winter coats, hats and boots, abominable-snowman style, asked the barista for the bathroom code, and as I watched writer-eyed, entered the same single-stall bathroom. Was this the perfect setting for a romantic tryst? Were they naked beneath those heavy coats? Would they buy coffee afterwards? Ten minutes later they emerged, hoods clinched tight around their faces, and exited the store. Sometimes the stories just write themselves. Yesterday I planted for the first time in the raised bed planter that was last April’s birthday gift. I meant to plant then, but we were heading out of town for three weeks, and then it was summer, which is unspeakably hot around here and lingers until the middle of October, and then it was winter, and this winter has been wet and windy with surprising cold snaps, and so today in full but feeble sunshine, I finally did the planting.
It was only when the seedlings someone else had started were in the trunk of my car that I realized I have never planted anything before—not really. I transplanted a jade from my father-in-law, and I’ve assisted Will in replacing things that died in our 115+ heat wave last September, and I wrote the check years ago when a nursery came in and planted the trees in our backyard after considerable manipulation of our basically-clay soil. I’m the planner, but not the planter in the family. And so, as I gently removed plant after plant, making a well in the topsoil, and tamping soil firmly back into place while the neighbor’s German Shepherd whined on the other side of the fence, it occurred to me that this entire effort might be a colossal failure. It was suddenly clear that I bought far too many plants for the space, and a whole pack of Swiss chard and three jalapenos won’t be going in. The strawberries are too close together due to a basic math error, I ended up with a squash that is probably perfectly lovely but is not the squash that I thought I was buying, and already I am fighting the urge to overwater everything. On the YouTube videos I watched, too impatient to do anything other than skip ahead to the good parts, people have vibrant gardens, lush and leafy and natural and (seemingly) effortless. These growers seem calm and happy, and probably garden only after half an hour each of yoga and meditation each day. I know I will tend my plants haphazardly, distractedly, my body a ball of stress, the mere existence of my endless to-do list producing great anxiety. But. I have started a thing. It’s a very small act of bravery, a very small act of creation, a very small sign that after this long winter there is hope, and maybe even a vegetable or two, on the horizon. * [I used to do "morning pages" on the regular, but I've gotten out of the habit. It's a way to get all my thoughts out so my mind can just focus on fiction. But lately I've been dabbling in creative nonfiction, too, so I've decided to start posting some of these entries. Here goes nothing.] The barista calls me “hon” twice while filling my order for an English Breakfast tea. She is probably twenty years younger than me, which means I have possibly reached the age where age is a liability, where age makes me grandmotherly, where age means I have to be talked to loudly and slowly, in a patient customer service voice.
I pay the $3.45, which is basically just for the tea bag. The manager compliments my shoes, which are green, and asks if I wore them just for today. It’s not until I’m sitting down with my laptop open that I realize it’s St. Patrick’s Day and for possibly the first time in my life I have unconsciously dressed appropriately for the situation. “We’re all out, I’m sorry,” the barista says to someone picking up a mobile order. The man looks annoyed, takes his drink in disgust, and leaves through the double doors, which flap shut behind him. Someone taps me on the shoulder and I jump. I’ve been thinking about nouns and verbs, and when I think I imagine I’m invisible. “Is there a code for the bathroom?” the woman wants to know. She is old enough to be my grandmother, although really I’m referring to the age my grandmother was when I was younger, because if alive, both of my dead grandmothers would be well into their 100s. It’s only because I’m startled by the touch that I don’t help her. I know the code. I’ve heard the baristas sing it out to every other person who enters. “You can ask for the code at the counter,” I tell her, and go back to thinking. Out the window, cats slink by, dash under the outdoor furniture, scuttle around the corner and disappear into the bushes by the drive-thru. Why doesn’t someone adopt one of these cats? Why don’t I adopt one of these cats? That’s crazy, I can’t have a cat. The Usual Couple come in. I see them here often and wonder how they can afford treinte iced teas and grande mochas every day, since they are clearly retired and drive a car that has had a sizeable dent as long as I’ve been aware of them. He has had an injury of some kind and walks deliberately now, one foot forward and the other forward exactly to the place where the first foot stops, and repeat. I wonder why the wife who can clearly afford Starbucks on the daily doesn’t spring for a haircut; she would look so much better. But even as I think it, I know that’s rude of me. Once I heard the husband refer to Michelle Obama as a man, and so by default I don’t like them. But also once I saw him pay for a homeless man’s coffee and sandwich, and sometimes people are more complex than they seem at first sight. Not all good, not all bad, not always wrong, not always right. The weather is lovely and so we aren’t talking about it. People enter in shorts, exit to linger under the green umbrellas to smoke and chat with friends. Four women have been talking at a table on the other side of the restaurant for a couple of hours now, ever since I entered with the big plans for what I was going to write, how I was going to revive my flagging writing career, how I was absolutely not going to go online and look for a new dress for an occasion that hasn’t yet presented itself to me. One of the women is the one who tapped me on the shoulder. I decide to forgive her for this, since anyway she doesn’t know there is anything to forgive, and the burden is all mine. The women look happy. The women are glad to have each other in their lives. A young couple comes in. Young is relative, like old, or older. They are each wearing hoodies and joggers and carrying books. Maybe they are coming right from campus, which is just over the freeway. Maybe they have met to study. Maybe they meet here every day before class because they can’t imagine a day where they don’t see each other. A man smiles at me as he enters, and I wonder if he thinks I’m someone else. It takes a beat before I remember how to engage my facial muscles, and I smile back. Ok, so I'm late with this list. Also, for the first year in a long time, I didn't meet my reading goal. I planned to read 75 books and read 69. But the teacher in me knows this is a 92%, so I don't feel too bad. :) Here's the list! 1. Real American by Julie Lythcott-Haims 2. The People We Keep by Allie Larkin 3. Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid 4. The Ungrateful Refugee by Dina Nayeri 5. Embassy Wife by Katie Crouch 6. My Darling Husband by Kimberly Belle 7. Hell of a Book by Jason Mott 8. The Last Karankawas by Kimberly Garza 9. One Night, New York by Lara Thompson 10. Watch Out for Her by Samantha M. Bailey 11. The Rib King by Ladee Hubbard 12. Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner 13. Dark Roads by Chevy Stevens 14. American War by Omar El Akkad 15. Hard Cash Valley by Brian Panowich 16. No-No Boy by John Okada 17. Dietland by Sarai Walker 18. The Guest List by Lucy Foley 19. The Many Daughters of Afong Moy by Jamie Ford 20. The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donaghue 21. Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism by Amanda Montell 22. Pieces of Her by Karen Slaughter 23. Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi 24. The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris 25. Nowhere Girl by Cheryl Diamond 26. Blue-Skinned Gods by SJ Sindu 27. Ralph's Party by Lisa Jewell 28. Stay and Fight by Madeline Ffitch 29. The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley 30. Reputation by Sarah Vaughn 31. Five Little Indians by Michelle Good 32. The Henna Artist by Alka Joshi 33. The Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentill 34. The House on Fripp Island by Rebecca Kauffman 35. Sankofa by Chibundo Onuzo 36. Marriage of a Thousand Lies by SJ Sindu 37. Wish You Were Here by Jodi Picoult 38. The Maid by Nita Prose 39. The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert 40. Saint X by Alexis Schaitkin 41. Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen 42. Goldilocks by Laura Lam 43. Mrs. Everything by Jennifer Weiner 44. Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt 45. The Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead 46. Lady Killers by Tori Tefler 47. How to Write an Autobiographical Novel by Alexander Chee 48. Women Talking by Miriam Toews 49. The Bookseller by Cynthia Swanson 50. Bel Canto by Ann Patchett 51. Into the Jungle by Erika Ferencik 52. Moloka'i by Alan Brennert 53. Perfect Little World by Kevin Wilson 54. Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson 55. The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson 56. A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley 57. Blake Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson 58. The Last Housewife by Ashley Winstead 59. The Midnight Library by Matt Haig 60. In My Dreams I Hold a Knife by Ashley Winstead 61. Fake by Erica Katz 62. The Misfortunes of Family by Meg Little Reilly 63. The Personal Assistant by Kimberly Belle 64. Nightcrawling by Leila Mottley 65. Deep Water by Emma Branford 66. All You Can Ever Know by Nichole Chung 67. When We Were Bright and Beautiful by Jillian Medoff 68. Dark Corners by Megan Goldin 69. Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadette Evaristo I set a goal of reading 75 books and I read 91, plus some ARCs not listed here and a million student responses. So! A lot of reading. It was a good year, by that metric alone.
Here's the list, in December-January order: 91. Stay Awake by Megan Goldin 90. Saving Ruby King by Catherine Adel West 89. Find Me by Anne Frasier 88. The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones 87. The Undocumented Americans by Karla Cornejo Villavincencio 86. What’s Done in Darkness by Laura McHugh 85. Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah 84. Hidden Valley Road by Robert Kolker 83. The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel 82. The Overnight Guest by Heather Gudenkauf 81. House of Correction by Nicci French 80. What You Wish For by Katherine Center 79. The Younger Wife by Sally Hepworth 78. Bone Canyon by Lee Goldberg 77. Lost Hills by Lee Goldberg 76. What’s Mine and Yours by Naima Coster 75. A Nearly Normal Family by M. T. Edvardsson 74. Who is Maud Dixon? By Alexandra Andrews 73. Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger 72. The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy by Mackenzi Lee 71. Friends and Strangers by J. Courtney Sullivan 70. Never Saw Me Coming by Vera Kurlan 69. We Keep the Dead Close: A Murder at Harvard and a Half Century of Silence by Becky Cooper 68. The Exiles by Christina Baker Kline 67. America Pacifica by Anna North 66. All the Beautiful Strangers by Elizabeth Klehfoth 65. Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich 64. No Hiding in Boise by Kim Hooper 63. Mary Jane by Jessica Anya Blau 62. We by Yevgeny Zamyatin 61. The Talented Miss Farwell by Emily Gray Tedrowe 60. Call Me Elizabeth Lark by Melissa Colasanti 59. The Last by Hanna Jameson 58. Uncanny Valley by Anna Wiener 57. We Run the Tides by Vendela Vida 56. The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz 55. The Last Story of Mira Lee by Nancy Jooyoun Kim 54. Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe 53. You Will Remember Me by Hannah Mary McKinnon 52. The Animals by Christian Kiefer 51. The Road by Cormac McCarthy 50. All Things Cease to Appear by Elizabeth Brundage 49. Valentine by Elizabeth Wetmore 48. Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam 47. Before and After by Rosellen Brown 46. Craft in the Real World by Matthew Salasses 45. When the Stars Go Dark by Paula McLain 44. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel 43. Broken People by Sam Lansky 42. The Monsters We Make by Kali White 41. A Dark and Secret Place by Jen Williams 40. The Best New Ten-Minute Plays 2020 by Lawrence Harbison 39. Contemporary Monologues for Twentysomethings by Jessica Bashline 38. Know My Name by Chanel Miller 37. His Only Wife by Peace Adzo Medie 37. The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee 36. The Book of Delights by Ross Gay 35. The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone by Heather McGhee 34. Saving Beck by Courtney Cole 33. The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah 32. Blindness by Jose Saramago 31. Local Woman Missing by Mary Kubica 30. Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman 29. We Need to Talk about Kevin by Lionel Shriver 28. Lakewood by Megan Giddings 27. Utopia by Thomas More 26. The End of Policing by Alex Vitale 25. The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner 24. The Truth About Melody Browne by Lisa Jewell 23. Utopia for Realists by Rutger Bregman 22. In Her Bones by Kate Moretti 21. Hunger by Roxane Gay 20. The Dutch House by Ann Patchett 19. The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner 18. The Confessions of Frannie Langton by Sara Collins 17. The Absolutist by John Boyne 16. Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips 15. The Gone Dead by Chanelle Benz 14. Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation by Kristin Kobes DuMez 13. Severance by Ling Ma 12. The Line that Held Us by David Joy 11. Good Company by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney 10. Hollywood Park by Mikel Jollett 9. Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent by Isabel Wilkerson 8. Americanah by Chimimandi Ngozi Adichie 7. City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert 6. Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy 5. A Good Neighborhood by Therese Anne Fowler 4. Blacktop Wasteland by S.A. Cosby 3. Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud and the Last Trial of Harper Lee by Casey Cep 2. Sharks in the Time of Saviors by Kawai Strong Washburn 1. All That Remains by Sue Black It’s a good thing the crew came by yesterday and removed the mound of materials that had been gathering in my side yard--the framing posts, the extra drywall, the puffy piles of pink insulation--because this morning, at precisely 5:15, heralded only by the sudden growling of Humphrey, it began to rain. I picked up my phone from the nightstand and saw that three friends had beat me to it with their Facebook posts. It’s raining! I love the smell of rain in the air. Omg, it’s officially Fall. This means we at the DeBoard house have survived Summer Part 3, those endless 90 degree days where the eighteen-year-old A/C still kicks on weirdly late in the night. We have arrived at open-window Fall. We have made it through the last of the Central Valley dust that settles in the middle of July and then hangs around, sweeping into nooks and crannies, lodging in corners, coating our air filters. We have arrived at sweater and legging season, at random afternoon hot chocolate, at roasted vegetables and pumpkin-flavored things. Well--at least in five weeks, I should be able to roast some vegetables.  Look, dogs: a dance floor!  I brought the crew some donuts and because I'm a saint, I didn't even eat one myself. |
Paula Treick DeBoardJust me. Archives
May 2023
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