This Week In My Library: 8.1.23

crying in track changes, nondrinkers, and taking boundaries too far

Bookman:

1. a person who has a love of books and especially of reading. 2. a person who is involved in the writing, publishing, or selling of books. Oh, hi thats me!!

What I binge-read: A book about not binge drinking. In one Sunday sitting, I read a book-long consideration about giving up drinking altogether. Quit Like a Woman: The Radical Choice to Not Drink in a Culture Obsessed with Drinking by Holly Whitaker. Listen, don't read it if your want to keep you relationship with alcohol the same as it is today. Because it'll mind-eff you. DO read it if you're down to change, because you can't unsee what you'll see in the pages of this book. My besties know I've been sober-curious for a minute. Not because I have any issue with alcohol, but precisely because of my ambivalence. Why keep it? I have family members who are nondrinkers. I have partnered with nondrinkers. I have seen the devastation of alcohol addiction up close. And sometimes I wonder how liberating and clear it'd be to just be like, I don't drink. But what about that wedding? Or that vacation? Why does it have to be black and white? Why define it if it's not an issue? Whitaker takes a metal bat to those questions and essentially leaves you wondering, “How IS alcohol keeping me from my power??”

She makes a hard (and not always convincing) case that alcohol is a tool of the patriarchy to keep women down. It reminded me of an essay I wrote in college about high-heels being created by the patriarchy to slow women down. I don't actually think there's a room of liquor executives saying to themselves “ROSÉ ALL DAY (to keep them ladies from running the world)”, but I do think the system benefits when we're disregulated, hung over, and normalizing how incredibly disruptive drinking (any amount) is to our sleep, stress, anxiety, thinking, relationships and creativity. If I'm meeting you at a topic that you were already at, this deep dive into the completely non-existent neutrality of alcohol and this convo about the mindsets are good set points.

What I'm NOT reading: Controversial opinion: I don't consider audiobooks “reading.” And honestly I am not into audiobooks really at all (except my own! If you need 6 hours of listening to yours truly, look no further). But believe it or not, I'm listening to one right now: The Vanity Fair Diaries by Tina Brown. One of my least favorite moments is “running out of podcasts to listen to” or feeling like I can't find anything for lap three of Skye and I's morning walk around Forsyth Park (hi, I have a dog. Did you know about her? She's a real honey and a regular contributor to my gram). Anywho, this non book is so far interesting background noise that makes me feel like I'm living in the drama of celebrity culture in the 80s. Also note, re: Quit Like a Woman commentary above, Tina Brown is not a drinker and says there's no chance she'd have these riveting and glossy stories documented and so readily available to tell had she been inebriated, just sayinnnnnn.

What I'm writing: What's the weirdest place you've ever cried? Beside the bread aisle after I had met the current wife of the guy I spent a solid part of my adult life cycling through “on” and “off” again periods, a guy who wifed up said wife during one of our “on” cycles (you have a lot of follow-up questions about why in lord's name I'd be meeting her, and let's just say: don't date friends of the family folks, don't do it). Anyways, I've cried in some weird places but none weirder than the track changes of That Novel. As we discussed, I've been having a hard time getting my first few chapters to the level we needed...but last week I got my pages back and I DID IT. I didddddd it. And writing-coach Julie's excitement in the track changes turned me into the weepy seventeen year old who finally passed her IB Calculus exam after digging in with my British classmate-turned tutor Lawrence Jesper. Lawrence and Julie couldn't be more different, but my relief to have done an excellent job was truly, the exact same. Lesson learned: it's hard to level up without support that knows more than you.

Women's Studies

What gets passed down becomes our history. A few for the canon: Have we gone too far with “boundaries”? Are people using “boundaries” as a way to only do what they want when they want it and making other people wrong for challenging them? I can't answer that, but this article tried: Is Therapy Speak Making Us Selfish? by Rebecca Fishbein. Relationships are messy. They don't always fit into blueprints, especially not the ones we see on TikTok. But I've definitely seen a lot of people out there trying to “HR” their closest relationships and...well it doesn't work like that. I really liked this examination of boundaries gone too far...and of the reminder that just because there's friction in relationships doesn't make them “wrong”. Also, I'm not going to lie, I also texted this piece to my besties and said, “thank god we don't have friends like this.”Cuz I'm petty.

On a far less serious note, I now officially know if you're lying to me!!!! And if you listen to this wild, wild interview with a badass FBI profiler lady, you'll also know when people are saying something they don't mean. I feel royally f*cked up by this podcast episode, so naturally I need to pass it on. Which apparently is hereditary, because every time my mom says “oh, wow this is disgusting!!!! TRY IT..” we all laugh because like hello, why on earth do I want to try something you think is gross?? I digress. Back to body language, I've always known I can say things with my body positioning. I often throw my elbow back over my chair to say, I'm here b*tch, and I'm unbothered by my immense power. Are you? I don't “sit” in waiting rooms or lobbies before important meetings or speaking events. I remain in a confident stand until they arrive. And when I obsessively twirl the baby curls at the base of my neck until it verges on a mini bald spot, I only do it solo and with the closest of my family and friends (because their opinions of me are set, lets be honest lolol). I don't want to give away the dead giveaways from this convo, so you'll just have to listen for yourself.

Pass It On

Stories are heirlooms. Here's one of mine: There's two types of people. YES people. And NO people. Especially when it comes to casual invites. I'm a YES girl all the way. If you say something casual like, “Hey, we're going to dinner after this, want to come?” you better mean it because I'm probably going to say yes if I indeed want to come. I don't demure. This happened at an art show recently. One of my galpals and I met this amazing couple who are long-time Savannah residents and just really cool humans. They invited us – strangers up until 90 minutes ago – to come to dinner with them, and we did. And it was a BLAST. If you're trying to build friendships, or build your networks, or build your community, sometimes you just need to spend a few months saying YES more than you say no. I know your couch is comfortable and your bra is very uncomfortable (which is why I stopped wearing bras many years ago people! Bra-less is flawless!)...but try saying yes when it's easier to say no.

xx