Monday Miscellany: Stubborn as a mule when tested

Notes from November 24 - 30

Dec 01, 2025

Rabbit rabbit! It’s December, can you believe it? Time for me to finally take down the spooky decor and put out the greenery. I’m making my winter list as we speak, and looking forward to all the goodness this month has in store: knitting, cookie baking, tree trimming, gift wrapping, walks around the neighborhood, favorite holiday movies, hot tea, soup, and everything cozy. What are you looking forward to this month?

Read this week

In the past few newsletters I’ve mentioned prioritizing 2025 releases before the end of the year, and now that we’re in December, that’s pretty much all I’m doing. Not that January first’s arrival makes any practical difference, but there’s something to be said for reading a buzzy book the year it comes out, before it can be overshadowed by the next publishing season’s shiny new offerings.

The Wilderness by Angela Flournoy was on my radar thanks to several online book people and outlets I follow, so when I saw a copy at the library just SITTING THERE with no hold queue, I snatched it up, overambitious and unrealistic end-of-year reading goals be damned. This is the story of four friends, all Black women millennials, in their twenties at the beginning and growing together into their forties.

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published
There is no over the hill,
just a series of small hillocks, plotted out before me,
each one I pray
not to die climbing. (203)

It’s not as much about the plot as it is the characters and the connections between them. Aside from one event where they’re all together, mostly we get to know them individually or in pairs, which I thought was an atypical and compelling way to set up this kind of book—an ensemble, deconstructed. My one complaint, which is really more of a compliment in disguise, is that I wanted more time with everyone. Just as I was finding my groove with one particular person, a new chapter would begin from a different friend’s perspective and I’d be left missing the previous one and wondering what she was up to.

The Correspondent was an impulse purchase at Bookmarks Festival back in September after I was completely charmed by Virginia Evans in conversation with Lily King. I’d heard about this book earlier in the year, recommended by Anne Bogel on What Should I Read Next podcast, but I didn’t think it was for me because:

Sometimes Anne’s taste tends a little cornier and more sentimental than mine
I assumed Virginia Evans was a dusty old white lady writing exclusively for the Mary Kay Edwards crowd
The book cover looked like something I’d give my mother-in-law for Christmas (derogatory)

Well. Turns out Virginia Evans is my age, and she’s smart and funny and thoughtful. And I was wrong.

Yes, her protagonist, Sybil, is an older white woman in her seventies, but she is not bland or schmaltzy! She is a creature of habit, she appreciates decorum and likes things just so, and she’s stubborn as a mule when tested. She’s honest and silly and unafraid to speak bluntly.

Let the matter rest I WILL NOT, as you know very well. (158)

She has written letters all her life, to friends and family members but also to famous authors and other celebrities, and this story is told through about six years’ worth of correspondence. There are difficult conversations with her children and bittersweet reckonings with past mistakes, there are exciting possibilities of late-in-life love and unexpected new acquaintances, and there are absolutely flawless zingers directed toward those who would do Sybil wrong. I was so happy to have been mistaken in my assumptions about this book. I loved it wholeheartedly.1

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Seen and heard this week

We finally finished our full rewatch of Arrested Development, which had been going for a solid several months. The first three seasons (2003-2006) are gold—there are definitely moments that haven’t aged well, but overall it’s still infinitely hilarious and quotable. The fourth (2013) is fine, but it suffered from being first released in single character-focused episodes and then later re-cut to more closely resemble the ensemble cast vibe of the original run. And the fifth (2018-2019)… maybe didn’t need to happen? The plot is so convoluted I often lost track of what was going on, and toward the end I started feeling like we’d been watching it for years. It’s too much of a murder mystery to be funny but not enough of one to be tense or compelling, so it just kinda falls flat and drags on too long. I’ll likely stick to the first three seasons in future.

Have you seen Wicked: For Good yet? I haven’t, but I’m very excited about it and I’ve been listening to Wicked: The Soundtrack (2024) in the meantime to hype myself up! There’s nothing new to say here besides yeah, shocking no one, it still fully slaps. Who has two thumbs and is forever crying to “The Wizard and I,” “I’m Not That Girl,” and “Defying Gravity”? THIS GAL!2

We did see Wake Up Dead Man (2025) in theaters over the weekend. It feels different from the previous two Knives Out movies and I’m trying to put my finger on exactly why. It’s visually and thematically a little darker, maybe? Leaning more gothic? There are lots of small twists that I enjoyed—I kept thinking I had figured it out, and then something else would happen to make me doubt myself. I always appreciate when a mystery can keep me guessing all the way to the end.

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!