Monday Miscellany: A splashy little bathtub and a fire hazard amount of candles

Notes from June 23 -29

Jul 01, 2025

Happy Monday! The day slipped by faster than I realized, and then we went to the bookstore to play trivia, and now it has gotten late. Let’s talk about some books and stuff!

Read this week

Last Monday I intended to start Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin, which was my literary fiction pick for Casey’s Pride Reading Bingo, but seeing words like “heartbreaking” and “devastating” and “heavy” as I was skimming reviews sent me searching for something a little lighter. I landed on Just By Looking at Him by Ryan O’Connell, a lighthearted novel about a TV writer in LA named Elliott, who has cerebral palsy, a growing alcohol problem, and a new habit of cheating on his boyfriend with sex workers.

This is by no means fluff—O’Connell addresses some pretty intense topics, like ageism, sexism, and homophobia in Hollywood, and of course addiction—but the reading experience feels fun and gossipy thanks to the tone of the writing.

I wanted to not drink, but I was wracked with nerves and just needed to pass out. Ugh, it is SO FUCKING BORING to talk about this shit. Maybe people wouldn’t get so addicted to things if they knew how fucking tedious it was. Did D.A.R.E. cover this? A substance problem is the opposite of crazy drama and destruction. It’s like being a hamster on a wheel. Here we go again. The same thing. Day in and day out. Dominating your thoughts, taking up all the space, pushing out anything new and exciting. (244)

I enjoyed the ending, which was hopeful and warm but still realistic and not too tidy. I also liked all of the millennial pop culture references, my favorite one a mention of the show Zoe, Duncan, Jack, and Jane, which I had FULLY forgotten all about.

Alas, I shan’t be fully completing my Pride bingo card this year, but I did get two diagonals! A good effort.

On Saturday morning I spent a solid hour or so on my strollway bench with a cappuccino, a slice of pumpkin bread, and Run for the Hills by Kevin Wilson. This is a road trip story about four half-siblings whose father is a serial leaver. None of them are aware of each other until the oldest hires a private detective to track down his dad, who peaced out almost thirty years earlier and hasn’t been seen or heard from since. When he finds out that he isn’t the only one to have been deserted like this, he decides to rent a car and drive across the country to track down his deadbeat parent, picking up his newly discovered family members along the way.

I’m a fan of Wilson’s previous work, especially Tunneling to the Center of the Earth and Now is Not the Time to Panic. He’s so good at writing the delightfully weird! And Run for the Hills does have its own charming quirkiness, but where it fell a little short for me was in its relative normality. It wasn’t strange enough!

Still, I very much enjoyed the virtual book club meetup on Saturday afternoon, which Kevin Wilson himself attended(!!),1 and it added to my appreciation of the book to hear him talk about his thought process in coming up with these characters and fleshing out their story. Greta Johnsen also interviewed him ahead of the discussion, which is entertaining and free to all:

GRETAGRAM

Listen: An interview with Kevin Wilson!

Helloooooo!!! For two summers in high school, I worked at a Gold Rush-themed historical park in Fairbanks, Alaska. (Whatever you're picturing right now, make it 75% shabbier and less cool, and that's what it was…

11 days ago · 21 likes · 1 comment

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Seen and heard this week

I was born and raised in Durham, North Carolina, have gone to countless Durham Bulls games in my lifetime, and am the daughter of a man who loves telling people to stop lollygagging, and yet I somehow just saw Bull Durham (1988) for the first time this week. What I knew about it going in was pretty much just (1) baseball, (2) Kevin Costner, and (3) Durham. So I was a little surprised at how little it actually focused on the sport and how much it instead focused on doin’ it.2 Also, I didn’t realize Tim Robbins was in this movie! Dude has played a lot of roles in his acting career, but to me he will always and only ever be John Cusack’s neighbor Ian in High Fidelity.

Here, he plays the second male lead, a young pitcher with an impressive arm but no focus or finesse, who kind of just wants to “bring the heat” (pitch fastballs) and one day make it to “the Show” (the major leagues) but who can’t be bothered to show up on time or listen to anyone. It’s up to Kevin Costner and Susan Sarandon, then, to respectively coach or bang those rough edges smooth… though they might be dealing with some chemistry of their own? involving a splashy little bathtub and a fire hazard amount of candles?? Bull Durham was not what I expected and I had a good time.

Man, speaking of enjoyment, let’s talk about The Last Vampire on Earth (2010), an unapologetic and very poorly made Twilight rip-off. It is, how you say, BAD. The actors deliver their lines like middle school dum-dums reluctantly reading out loud in English class. The music sounds like those same dum-dums amateurishly covering Postal Service or Death Cab songs. The title is never referenced or explained. There are multiple inaccuracies involving the facts of being a Jehovah’s Witness. Someone holds a gun with her finger placed behind the trigger and is somehow able to fire a shot. The vampire main character’s face is seemingly incapable of forming expressions, possibly because it was molded from Play-Doh? Oh, and the movie is allegedly based on a novel—which is basically just a written version of the screenplay, with absolutely zero attention paid to the rules and conventions of spelling, grammar, or punctuation. I highly recommend watching (and fully roasting) it with friends who enjoy bad movies, then reading through the reviews of the book on Amazon. Here’s my favorite:

In music news, are there any Motion City Soundtrack fans in the house? Have you heard they’re back?? I listened to the new single, “She is Afraid,” a few times this week and I like that it feels true to the band and their style but also doesn’t just sound like a rehashing of what came before. I’ll be excited to hear the rest of the upcoming album, The Same Old Wasted Wonderful World, when it releases in September!

Haiku round-up

Haiku is a poetic form that originated in Japan, containing seventeen syllables in a five-seven-five pattern. At the beginning of 2024, I started writing one every day, and while traditional examples include thematic reference to the seasons, mine tend to be a bit more all over the place. Here are this week’s efforts—enjoy!