Monday Miscellany: Morbid defect of moral control

Notes from June 8 - 14

Jun 16, 2026

It’s another late one, but here I am to wish you a happy new week under the wire! This morning the temperature was in the 70s and it wasn’t aggressively humid, so I decided on a whim to go running, and my schedule was slightly thrown off as a result. But absolutely no regrets—it’s supposed to heat back up again over the next few days. One has to take advantage of opportunities when they present themselves, no?

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The week in books

My most recent reading has been a true exercise in polar opposites—today I’m starting with a nonfiction book I really didn’t like and following that with a novel I loved.

Because The ADHD Field Guide for Adults was such a slam-dunk a few weeks back,1 I went into ADHD is Awesome by married couple Penn & Kim Holderness with high hopes. It’s centered on the same topic and I saw it generally well-reviewed during a recent online hunt for books about ADHD and autism. But man, this one was not for me, and here are a few reasons why:

Despite acknowledging that everyone experiences ADHD slightly differently, Penn (the book’s main author and the member of the couple who has ADHD himself) goes on to constantly generalize about “we ADHDers” when it’s clear he’s just talking about his own symptoms and tendencies.
The early sections of the book are mainly about how ADHD is great and you shouldn’t feel bad for having it, and how with the help of systems and techniques for managing it, you can totally thrive. But when I got to said advice in the later sections, I found it to be pretty surface-level and specific to the author, less “here are some ideas to try if you have x, y, or z symptom” and more “here’s how I’ve dealt with this” without much detail. For example, Penn mentions that he used to be chronically late, but then he made a whiteboard with “it has now been ___ days since I was late for something,” and now he hasn’t been late in like ten years. Okay, but what did you do to help yourself be more on time? There’s no explanation given.
On one hand, Penn says that people with ADHD shouldn’t use the condition as an excuse for behaving badly or inconveniencing others. But then he turns around and describes all the things he asks of his wife, how she’s just “had to get used to” how he is as a result of ADHD, aka compromise almost all of her own preferences and needs and take on the majority of the mental and emotional load for their household. Ew. I spent much of my reading time feeling uncomfortable about their dynamic and upset on her behalf.
In a section offering advice for becoming a better listener and staying present in conversations, Penn literally recommends using the phrase “whoa, that’s crazy” if you’ve fully spaced out and missed everything someone just said to you. “It works 87% of the time,” he promises, and covers a multitude of situations and emotions. WHAT?! I can’t imagine anything more hurtful or dismissive than pouring my heart out to a friend, updating them on something serious, or excitedly telling them about recent or anticipated upcoming events, and them going “whoa… that’s crazy” with no idea what just came out of my mouth. Simply be honest and say you got distracted, and ask the person to repeat themself! My god.
And finally, in the kindest way possible, the tone here is simply too corny for me to take seriously. Look up The Holderness Family on socials and perhaps you will see what I mean.

Alas, can’t win ‘em all. On the plus side, I did feel seen a few times, and I learned some fun facts, like that ADHD used to be called “clumsy child syndrome” and “morbid defect of moral control.” Overall, though, if you’re interested in this topic, The ADHD Field Guide for Adults does it much better and I will continue to heartily recommend that one instead.

Oh, but Almost Life by Kiran Millwood Hargrave.

This is the story of Laure and Erica, who meet in Paris in the 1970s and weave in and out of each other’s orbits for the rest of their lives. The former is a Parisian doctorate student, smoking cigarettes and reading Roland Barthe’s Fragments d’un discours amoureux (A Lover’s Discourse) on the steps of the Sacré-Cœur when the latter, a seventeen-year-old tourist, strikes up a conversation. What follows is an emotional saga spanning decades, full of romance and miscommunication and heartbreak and friendship and beauty and illness and longing. The longing!

“Don’t be afraid,” she said, and she said it to herself, for it felt as though she offered Erica her heart on a plate, bloody and beating, raw and precious meat. “There is nothing we could not do together.”

And the writing! It took me a while to sink into the story, and I do think the pacing is a bit slow at the beginning, but once I got to know these two women, I was hooked. Hargrave’s prose is perfectly matched to her subject matter here—it feels languid and full of desire, like an endless summer day in Paris spent drinking wine and debating art and philosophy with a group of queer young intellectuals. She expertly captures the bittersweet sense of nostalgia that comes with getting older and pondering what could have been.

The world held them in stillness, the pause between heartbeats, and there was only the two of them balanced on this patch of earth, like the bright dress against the sand.

Without spoiling any plot details, I will say that certain aspects of Almost Life reminded me of Call Me By Your Name, The Great Believers, and Heart the Lover. If you were a fan of any of those books, or you enjoy slow-paced, emotional stories of young love and how its effects ripple through adulthood and beyond, absolutely give this one a try.

Right now and upcoming

I’m in that blessed moment between books, excited to decide what’s next. Perhaps last month’s The Stacks pick, which looks to share a few thematic elements with Almost Life? Or should I go on a cruise ship vacation via an anticipated 2026 release that I bought back in April for my birthday? I could also reach farther back on my unread shelf, maybe for nonfiction about lesbians in the woods?? The options are so plentiful.

Tell me: what are you reading now, or looking forward to starting soon?

The week on screen

I rewatched Adventureland (2009) with some friends this week. It’s the story of James (Jesse Eisenberg), a recent college graduate who has to get a summer gig at the local theme park after his dad loses his job and can no longer fund the international trip he’d been planning. While we’re supposed to be focused on James and pulling for him as he deals with his white boy problems, the real stars here are Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig as Adventureland management team Bobby and Paulette.

There’s also Kristen Stewart as Em, James’s coworker and love interest. A friend pointed out that she’s basically just Bella from Twilight in this movie and now I can’t unsee it. We joked about a drinking game where we’d take a sip every time she touched her hair in an angsty or brooding way, but I don’t think anybody was trying to get that turnt on a Monday.

Our local cheap theater screened The Birdcage (1996) this past week in celebration of its 30th anniversary, so I was lucky enough to see this cult classic for the first time on the big screen! What a delight. Robin Williams and Nathan Lane as romantic partners and co-owners of a gay club in South Beach are just chef’s kiss—their individual aesthetics, their personality dynamic, the way they both complement and play off of each other, all perfect.

And don’t get me started on Hank Azaria as their housekeeper, and his inability to wear shoes. Imagine this, with your best friend cackle-laughing in the seat next to you:

This is the perfect summer movie. There’s physical comedy, exaggerated stakes, plenty of dancing, and a real tenderness underneath it all. Would watch again.

Haiku round-up

This poetic form, containing seventeen syllables in a five-seven-five pattern, originated in Japan. I’ve been writing one each day since the beginning of 2024 as an exercise in structured creativity. Here are this week’s poems:

Monday, June 8