This evening, Michelle Tea is participating in my reading series! We’re celebrating Mermaid in Chelsea Creek. Last night I was in bed, reading Getting Pregnant with Michelle Tea articles and a friend told me that a party near Dodger Stadium was still going on. I said I was too cozy and sleepy to go and continued reading Biggest and Longest Update To Date, Diva Cups and My Stevie Nicks-ian Higher Power, and The Pysch Eval. I was feeling all hopeful and romantic about relationships as I read her articles.
Last week I put a daily affirmation on my Google calendar, so each day I get an email that reads Better to have your failure right in front of you than the fantasy in your head. Which is less of an affirmation and more of a quote from How Should A Person Be? by Sheila Heti. In the novel, the main character fantasizes about this delicious, glorious grilled cheese sandwich and then “Outside on the picnic bench I eagerly unwrapped the sandwich, but when I bit into it, it was soggy, and there was almost no cheese. It was not what I wanted, not what I had been picturing, but I adjusted to the reality of it.” When my daily reality-check affirmation arrives in my inbox, I think of relationships, I think of J. Sometimes I feel bad to think of J. as my failure but what might be worse is thinking of J. as my soggy, cheeseless grilled cheese sandwich.
So yeah, these Michelle Tea articles are good medicine for me, especially when she writes things like:
I love making late night cookies for Dashiell. She asks in this sneaky way, like she can’t believe she would ask me to do something like make cookies at nine o’clock at night, and then when I say yes she just can’t believe her good fortune and treats me like I am a miracle, a unicorn, a miraculous cookie-baking unicorn.
And when I actually walk into the living room with a plate piled high with chocolate-chip cookies and a couple glasses of milk, she loses her shit. It’s way too fun and plus chocolate-chip cookies are amazing and I make them really good.
Or when she talks about how she doesn’t smoke anymore. She writes, “Smoking is for single people. Now that I found Dashiell, I want to live forever.”
I recently read The Animal Family, which is delightful and full of romance and love. I recommend the book for any age and any occasion. If I had more time, I would go on a noble crusade to get this book more well known.
This week, Jillian Lauren blogged about sexuality and motherhood. She’ll also be reading tonight, as will Wendy C. Ortiz and Sara Finnerty! When I was procrastinating the other night, Sara sent me her Mortified video and it’s pretty hilarious.
