[SF] little match girl, grown up.

there were a lot of words i wanted to attach to this, a lot about feelings and loneliness and want, about a lifetime of looking in and wanting so badly to be a part of something. that’s a lot of emotional crap to process, though, and a lot to find words for, and it hasn’t been a great week for finding words, so here’s an explosion of pink instead.

last week, the cherry bombe cookbook was published by clarkson potter, and, over the weekend, i went up to san francisco to volunteer at cherry bombe jubilee. for the uninitiated, cherry bombe is a magazine that focuses on women in food, and it has, for the last few years, held an annual conference in new york called jubilee, which it brought to the west coast for the first time this weekend.

i’ve wanted to attend jubilee since i started reading cherry bombe last year, but i left new york (temporarily) this january and SF jubilee cost $250 for the day. $250. on a similar thread, the inaugural women’s march conference is $295. as much as i understand that conferences cost money, with ticket prices like these, i wonder who these groups are trying to target, what kinds of people they’re trying to draw, what kinds of communities they’re trying to build. not everyone has a few hundred to spend on one day (or on one weekend, which also requires paying for accommodation and transportation), no matter how great any of the offered panels is.

maybe that kind of exclusivity is not what is intended, but that is the message that is sent.

(disclaimer: i did fly up to SF to volunteer, but flights between LA and SF aren’t unreasonable. i stayed with my BFF. we cooked a lot.)

(on a related note, i have this giant peeve when authors are on book tour and only do ticketed events in a given city. i don’t care if the ticket costs $12 or $50 or $300 or if it includes the book. maybe i’m hypersensitive to this because i’ve been in positions where i was getting by only because my parents were paying my rent, eating as cheaply as i could [lots of ramyeon, white rice, eggs, and hot dogs — maybe a whole chicken occasionally that i would roast and eat as long as i could], obsessively counting subway rides and saving them for job interviews, and turning down friends and social events. maybe i’m hypersensitive to this, but that ticket price sends a particular message.)

i think this is another reason i wonder who cookbooks are marketed towards. the cherry bombe book is $35, before tax. kish’s book is $40, before tax. benu is $50. who is this demographic, and, more importantly, what about all the people who don’t have these means? and don’t worry — i think about how ridiculously expensive hardback books are, too. $28 for a novel, before tax? why should reading good literature be something that requires a certain amount of means?

(i know we have libraries. the existence of libraries doesn’t negate my point, though.)

i know publishing is a business, and i want publishing companies to make money. i want them to continue to make beautiful books and publish great writing and invest in writers and cookbook authors and illustrators. i want writers to make money, so they can continue to write great books without having to work soul-sucking jobs of drudgery to make rent and put food on their tables.

hell, i want to be one of those writers, and, yes, this is hypocritical, but i would love to have a book out in hardback, too. i'm not immune to that kind of want.

at the same time, the book industry, especially the literary fiction element of it, loves to set itself up as an industry that serves a lot of good, that injects good into communities and into the world. we talk a lot about how books are crucial, how it’s necessary to put good writing out there, and all of that is great and i wholeheartedly support it — stories are foundational to how we see the world, and i do think that publishers, editors, authors, book designers, publicists, marketers, interns do crucial work in putting good books out there.

at the same time, though, i find it all pretty hypocritical when only people of a certain means can, one, afford to read the books the industry touts as beneficial to society and, two, (more importantly) participate in the reading community by attending events and readings and talks. publishing (and food) is only hurting itself by blocking out swaths of people, people with ambition and talent and stories to tell, with unique perspectives and aesthetic point-of-views that can inject something fresh and vibrant into what can only ultimately become a bubble industry (which it’s also doing with the continued stupid, willful lack of diversity that is such an easy “problem” to do something about).

and maybe that’s a lot to attach to a $250 ticket, and i know that publishers do try to contribute whether by supporting libraries, donating books, raising funds for booksellers in need, but i think it still warrants thinking about, even though i clearly don’t have any answers. and i’m also not saying a conference of the scale and detail like jubilee should be free or cheap, but there is something to be said about these things because honestly? how much good comes from only attracting people who look and have like you?

i love the events cherry bombe does. i loved their food fight panel (and i really hope they do more). i love the panels they do at jubilee. i love that they’re a magazine that is socially aware and conscious and encourages their readers, also, to be active, to pay attention, to care. they use their platform to advocate for women in the culinary industry, to boost profiles, to raise awareness for social campaigns, and they do so much that is awesome and vital and praiseworthy.

and this is why my criticism with cherry bombe as a magazine irks me — i know they are capable of more.i know they can be more than just a pretty magazine with a gimmick (women in food). i know they can do this. and yet …

as i was reading the cherry bombe cookbook, i admit i was disappointed, though it wasn’t an unfamiliar feeling — i often feel a little deflated whenever i read one of their biannual issues. maybe it’s the writing, not the quality but the shortness and brevity of the pieces that, for some reason, aren’t given the space to dig deeper, the dominance of [straight] white women, the circulation of the same crew of photographers (alpha smoot, alice gao, etc) from magazines like kinfolk and cereal that means we have this clump of magazines that all look, feel, and read the same. i want more depth; i want more meat; i want a magazine that maybe isn’t so incredibly on-brand but delivers great, strong, thoughtful writing that does more than skim surfaces.

the cookbook is no different in what it delivers and how i feel about it. the cookbook, overall, is a collection of recipes contributed by women, many of whom have illustrated careers in food, and the idea, in and of itself, is a great place to start. there’s a very brief introduction from kerry diamond (editorial director) and claudia wu (art director), and the recipes are grouped into types of food (mains, sweets, etcetera), each recipe given a brief headnote about the woman who contributed the recipe.

again, conceptually, it’s great, but the book is pretty much just a rolodex of recipes. the headnotes are brief (so brief), the bios the most basic identifiers, and, while the book is beautifully photographed and designed and completely on-brand, content-wise, it’s pretty shallow, skimming the surface of what it could have been. we could have gotten more stories; we could have gotten more from these women, about these women, who they are, why they submitted the recipes they did, what makes them special. we could have gotten more about all the things that makes food what it is, what judy rodgers sums up so well in the zuni cafe cookbook (norton, 2002):
 

everything else [other than the cheese program], i am very proud to say, is derivative. i cannot make a dish without trying to conjure where it came from, and where i first had it, or read about it, or who made it, or taught me to make it. and who grew the vegetables, raised the chickens, or made the cheese, and where. in this way, the simplest dish can recall a community of ideas and people. i hope that some of my — and your — efforts in the kitchen sustain that community or provoke you to explore and sustain different ones on your own. jean troisgros always insisted that cooking is not an art, but is artisanal. his distinction acknowledges the necessity of cooking, and honors the collaborative genius of community in coming up with good cooking. i have written this book for those who wish to linger over details in that continuum of ideas, and who consider cooking a labor of love. indeed, food itself is only part of the seduction of cooking. (27)

in the end,  i wanted to know why i should care about the cherry bombe cookbook as something more than a beautiful coffee table book. i wanted to know why i should recommend this to people. i wanted to know why it was essential, what made it unique — or it’s not that i wanted to know this because i know why a magazine like cherry bombe is necessary and i know the work they do; i want everyone who picks up this book to know, too, without needing an event, a review, an article to supplement it.

it’s why i wanted the book, why i want their individual issues, to go deeper, to break past the surface, to get at everything that i think makes cherry bombe awesome — the social awareness, the activism, the conviction and belief that it is crucial to highlight the work of women in food, to change the disgusting gender imbalances, to highlight WOC and refugee women and queer women and women outside the hetero white mainstream. i love the events cherry bombe puts on; i want all that in the pages.

i want more than superficial, on-brand prettiness. i want more than something to look at.

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going back to (and ending on) that $250 ticket, though — you know what i’d have loved to see? an offer for scholarships, maybe reaching out to people in food who have succeeded, who have the means and also believe in the mission of cherry bombe, people (women and men) who would want to financially support a girl, a woman, so she could attend. maybe they could look for and support a girl in culinary school or a girl of color or a queer girl. maybe they could look for and support a girl who wants to write, a girl with a disability, a trans girl.

maybe there was an attempt to do this, but, as far as i know, it wasn’t public — or, at least, it wasn’t posted on their social media, website, or newsletter, to which, how effective is that?

and, again, hey, maybe i’m being hypersensitive, but, as someone who’s been (and still is in many ways) on the side of looking in, not being able to participate in things (admittedly, not all things, for which i’m grateful) because of money, i know how it feels, and it feels like shit.

because, as i volunteered with a great group of women, as i watched the panels (i couldn’t hear anything from the merch table), i thought how awesome this was, how great the things that cherry bombe is doing, how sad that pretty much everyone in attendance looked the same, like they were in the same class with the same means, when i could imagine so many girls out there, girls with so much to offer, who would absolutely love an opportunity like this but can’t take it because of money.

i’m sure those girls will find their own way. i'm sure they'll make opportunities of their own. it still frustrates me, though, the ways we block out people who don’t look like us and have like us when they’re the ones we should probably be seeing and hearing more.

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editing to add that it's been brought to my attention that 10% of tickets were given away to local community groups and all the speakers and F&B people were comped.

earthquake weather.

it's been hot as balls this last week or two, and it's no secret that i hate heat of any kind. i don't care if it's dry heat or humid heat; once the temperature starts inching past 78 degrees, i start raging because i sweat non-stop, feel bloated, and struggle with lethargy. i mean, my insomnia is bad enough in whatever weather, and the heat has only made my insomnia worse.

it feels like a piddling thing to rant about, especially given the hundreds of thousands displaced in houston, in south asia, in LA county, and it feels like poor form, maybe because it is. let’s move on.

on wednesday, i finished kamila shamsie's home fire (riverhead, 2017), and i loved it except for the last paragraph, which left me confused and kind of muddled because i had to read it multiple times to try to understand what she was getting at. (i'm still not sure i "got it.") it's a paragraph that reads beautifully, written in lovely prose, but the ambiguity was too ambiguous for me, too prosey-for-prose's-sake, and it inserted a slight bitter note to a book that should have left me feeling unequivocally wowed at what shamsie has accomplished in these pages.

because home fire is a stunning book, one that achieves its ambitions. it's a punch in the gut, one that makes you look hard at yourself, at your internalized prejudices, and it makes you ask yourself what you think about muslims and islam and why you do and what those prejudices say about you and how they shape the world and affect real people with real lives and real families and real hopes and dreams and fears and loves.

home fire is not a book that lets you read it comfortably.

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i finally started watching orange is the new black the other week, and i don't know that i'll keep watching all the seasons, but i'll keep going until i lose interest, which might be sooner than later. i’m currently halfway through season 3 because i skipped half of season 2 because i was bummed about the lack of alex and annoyed with the drama between red and vee — i couldn’t stand how power-hungry and emotionally manipulative vee was, especially over suzanne, or how she tried to drive a wedge between poussey and taystee. (i love poussey, poussey and her broken hearts.)

there are many things i love about orange is the new black, but, mostly, i love that it's a show about women, women who don't all look the same, think the same, want the same. i love the ways it shows how insidious racism and classism and misogyny are, how they don't always exhibit in obvious, gross acts or words but are often masked in more genteel, nice ways, like in a CO (healy) who appears to be a thoughtful, old white man who's looking out for his inmates. in particular, he wants to protect piper (the main character who's an educated blonde white woman with a male fiancé, for the unfamiliar) and make sure she serves her time without getting into trouble — except, no, his nice intentions are actually entirely rooted in racist, homophobic, chauvinistic crap.

and i think this is the scarier, more dangerous manifestation of any -ism, this kind of -ism that thinks that it's all right, it's not "like that," it's an exception to discrimination, hate, and bigotry. i'd almost rather have the assholes who march around in their polos and khakis, carrying tiki torches in public spaces (then crying about how their faces are being plastered all over the media), than have the assholes who think they're better than that — they're not racist; they're not sexist; no, they would never take to the streets with tiki torches or treat a black person as lesser or rape a woman. they would never.

except prejudice isn't always about brutality and overt violence. prejudice isn't always about assault. prejudice isn't always obvious.

prejudice is in the way you look down your nose at people and don’t want to grant them legal protection or equal rights or second chances because they're trans, they're addicts, they're sex workers, they're homeless, they're simply different from you. prejudice is in the way you think it's your right or calling to protect a woman because she's a woman and she's weaker, more emotional, in need of guarding because she's a woman. prejudice is in the way you think you're better than others like you because you're so nice to people of color, you tip service people well, you would never use the n word or call an asian person oriental or whatever — you’re PC; you know all the terminology; you ask people what pronouns they prefer.

prejudice is in the way you think you couldn't be racist or sexist or homophobic because you're a person of color or a woman or queer.

prejudice is in the small ways your world order betrays itself in your self-elevation, and the world is a more dangerous place for it.

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i think a lot about media and art and content created by women and how they’re held to impossible standards. it makes me think about the 2016 ghostbusters with its kickass female cast, how it’s so much easier to criticize films by women, about women, [arguably] for women because we want them to be representative of so much more than they should be — a film like ghostbusters should be fun, easy entertainment, and, for all its weaknesses, i’d say it delivered on that front, and yet, it’s not good enough — it must be deeper, must contain no flaws, or it’s failed in its implied purpose, and, thus, work by women is not good enough and not worth investing in, and that’s all the fault of this one piece of work.

and i think a lot about art created by people of color, how there’s sometimes (often?) a sense that POC art should contain a deeper message, some kind of morality or stronger awareness of being in the world, like it should be educational somehow, exposing of the deeper humanity of POC that is apparently so difficult for non-POC to conceptualize on their own.

for our inaugural read, my online book club read bandi’s the accusation (grove, 2017), the first collection of stories by a north korean writer still living in north korea, and we talked about how we might read these kinds of “important” books differently from other books. do we give a writer like bandi more room to allow for narrative or style weaknesses because his work itself is important, giving us these glimpses into north korea, humanizing north koreans who are so easily demonized and pilloried by those outside?

similarly, am i relieved that books like moshin hamid’s exit west (riverhead, 2017) and shamsie’s home fire are beautifully written, so i can recommend them to people without having to add qualifiers of the writing isn’t as good, but it’s such an important book, you should read it?

am i glad that writers like jenny zhang and esmé weijun wang and celeste ng and rachel khong patty yumi cottrell are incredible, strong, unique writers because they’re asian-american and i want more of us asian-american writers out there?

if i’m subconsciously putting these burdens on my fellow women, my fellow POC, where does that leave me?

am i complicit in the system i criticize?

this weekend, i plan to read nicole krauss' forthcoming fourth novel, forest dark (harpers, forthcoming 2017), which harpers very kindly sent me — or, at least, i was planning to read it, but i got distracted by orange is the new black and the heat and planning content for national suicidal prevention week.

i’m so excited for forest dark; krauss is one of my favorite living writers; and her debut, man walks into a room (doubleday, 2002) is one of my top ten favorite novels, one i turn to when i'm feeling uninspired and discouraged because krauss' prose is exquisite and haunting. i love the way she writes about memory, about history, about the things that follow us, and hers is writing i aspire to, which isn't something i say about other people's writing in general. (i'm not interested in being another writer; i want to be my own; but, when i read krauss, i think, god, i hope i can capture this kind of ghostly beauty and thoughtfulness in my own way.)

i get a little anxious when it comes to new books by writers i love. will i be disappointed? are my standards too high? will this author be like ian mcewan, whom i loved once, until he started turning out book after book of beautifully written ennui?

and that’s heightened when the author has been away for so long — or, sometimes, when the author hasn’t been away for as long as usual (aka franzen’s purity [FSG, 2015], which was published only five years after freedom [FSG, 2010]) — and, yeah, this is all kind of dumb, but i want the people i love to do well, to thrive, and, so, there it is, this branch of my anxiety, like i don’t have enough to be anxious about in my own life.

maybe it’s a way of getting out of my own problems, though. who knows?

i’m also reading chiara barzini’s things that happened before the earthquake (doubleday, 2017), and i’m reading it as my commute read, something light and easy for those in-between hours when i’m zombie-ing it between home and work. i can’t say i’m loving it; barzini’s prose style is one i decidedly don’t enjoy, all clipped sentences and abrupt phrasing; and it’s something i don’t linger on, simply pass over as quickly as i can speed read.

in another instance, i might just stop reading things that happened, but the thing is, barzini’s novel hits familiar spots for me because it’s set in the san fernando valley in the 90s, and i grew up in the san fernando valley in the 90s. the streets she describes, the people, the attitude, the heat, the general feel, from the social post-LA riots tension lingering in the city to the narrator’s unhappiness being here — it’s all familiar, and i’m finding that, sometimes, that sense of familiar is nice.

as someone who grew up in the los angeles area, though, LA is not somewhere i write about because it’s not a place or a personal history i want to explore. it’s a place in time i’ve wanted so long to fold over and forget, to move on from and recreate myself, and, when i read about it, it’s very much like seeing a place in a dream, somewhere familiar but not, knowable but not.

it’s a familiarity that i enjoy exploring through the ways other people write about and capture LA.

it’s oddly a way for me to remember this place i came from, while also maintaining much-needed mental and emotional distance.

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going back to orange is the new black, i can’t stand piper, and i don’t seem to be alone in this. i spend a fair amount of time thinking, oh, you white woman, and her naïveté and privilege are one thing, maybe, to some extent, something she can’t help, but it’s her sanctimonious but i’m a nice person! crap i can’t stand.

(alex deserves better.)

at the same time, though, sometimes, the reason people or situations or things make us uncomfortable is that there’s familiarity there, a realization of, shit, i’m kind of like that. i don’t like that about myself, too. i think like that. it’s not pleasant to come face-to-face with that ugliness, with the ways we try to guard ourselves from learning that, no, we’re not actually very nice, we’re all kinds of messed up and manipulative and self-protecting. we’re all kinds of selfish.

and piper is kind of the character who’s meant to play that part, just like she’s meant to play the part of the naive, ignorant, sheltered girl who’s suddenly thrust amongst people she likely never interacted with in the “real” world, who’s forced to reckon with her actions in the past and their effect on the present.

and yet … i’m so annoyed with piper that i’m close to dropping the show. or maybe it’s more accurate to say that i’m bored with the lack of alex, and i’m tired of piper being her deluded, sanctimonious self, and i’m tired of her running to alex when she needs her and leaving alex when she no longer does.

i just really like alex.

because, hey, i’m the kind of TV-watcher who shamelessly and unapologetically watches something for one person/character. what can i say? i have a weird loyal streak, and season 3 of orange is the new black is boring me because alex is just there to be piper’s girlfriend, and i want more of alex as her own human with her own interesting, complicated history and self and not as a cipher for a boring, annoying white girl who doesn’t seem to grow. end rant. and end post. i feel i’ve gone on for long enough.

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september is national suicide prevention awareness month, and national suicide prevention week is september 10-16. are you ready? let’s talk.

here's to lazy sundays.

i have to say my last post was kind of a mess; i shouldn’t really try to write things when my writing brain is still recuperating; but i had photos i wanted to share, though i suppose i could have just shared the photos, forget about attaching so many words … but, anyway, on to the next thing.

sometimes, i like to spend chill, uneventful weekends at home, doing little else but running the most basic errands (usually just to the grocery store) and reading and doing little else. sometimes, i’ll meet friends for dinner; sometimes, i’ll clear my schedule so i can rest for the upcoming week; and i don’t know, i suppose the funny thing is that my idea of resting is to clean, cook, and clean some more.

you can’t cook without cleaning. it just doesn’t work that way.

anyway, so maybe i should stop saying “anyway” so often, but, anyway, i read multiple books at one time, hopping from title to title until something captivates my full attention and demands that i commit. now that i’m done with my book (for now), that means i have the time and energy to read again, and it’s been such a pleasure, diving back into the world of words i didn’t write, stories that aren’t mine to tell, to be reminded again of the vitality of stories and voices and narratives, especially given the state of our world today.

right now, my three main books are kamila shamsie’s home fire (riverhead, 2017), which was recently long-listed for the man booker, paul graham’s in memory of bread (clarkson potter, 2017), and eun heekyung’s beauty looks down on me (dalkey archive press, 2017). i’m about halfway through the shamsie and the graham and just barely started the eun. none of this stops me from having an opinion about everything.

i suppose, first things first — this is not my house. i’m temporarily staying at my parents’, and this is their house, the house i grew up in. it gets great light and is spacious, and it’s got counter space galore, which is great for making pasta, working with dough, cooking in general, hanging out, eating while doing some writing, reading, creating. when i think of home spaces, when i think of whatever future home i will make, i think of kitchens because, to me, the kitchen is the heart of the home, the center that holds it together.

(when i think of home, i think of you. i think of the meals we’ll make together, the messes we’ll create and clean, the life we’ll build from this core.)

i keep hearing that home fire is a retelling of antigone, and here is where i confess that, yes, i did read antigone — over ten years ago — and i’ve a bare bones remembrance of that story. here is also where i confess that i didn’t bother to google antigone; i don’t really care for retellings or “inspired by”s or “loosely based on”s or whatever; and maybe that’s a weakness in myself as a critical reader — shouldn’t i be interested in the source of things, the inspirations, the places things come from?

i don’t particularly care for greek tragedy, though, and never have, and i like walking into a book without external influence. it’s why i very rarely read reviews before reading the book (and, also, very rarely read reviews after reading the book), and it’s why i stay away from books that are newly published to absurd levels of hype. it’s also why i tend to stay away from the books that circulate heavily through instagram and media at-large.

going back to home fire, though — i’m about halfway through now and have hit the third part, the third character. the book is divided into five parts, each focused on a different character, and the novel, overall, tells the story of a family, of three orphaned siblings really, the children of a jihadi. the eldest is studying in northampton; the younger daughter is in london studying law; and the son has run off to join isis. it’s a book that has a lot to say about who we are, and it’s a book that might have fallen into the trappings of pedantic moralizing in another writer’s hands. (i feel the same about moshin hamid’s exit west, also riverhead, also long-listed for the man booker.)

rather than dive into content, though, i’m going to end this with a note on form: i’m always wary of walking into a book that focuses on multiple characters because, oftentimes, the book falls prey to ambition, the voices all sounding the same. shamsie, however, avoids this trap by staying in the third-person, simply honing in very tightly on each character. i’m tempted to say that i love this kind of narrow perspective, but i’m tempted to say that about any narrative form that’s done well. it’s the execution that matters after all.

but this is connected to what i mean when i say that it’s a book that could have been something else in another writer’s hands. instead, shamsie has thus far delivered a very human book, one that is unflinching in examining and presenting its characters as who they are, that is uninterested in casting one-dimensional judgments about one kind of person being morally better or superior to another. at the same time, home fire is also not interested in making excuses for people’s heinous actions or questionable behavior and thinking; shamsie doesn’t shy away from being critical, from drawing lines where they ought to exist, while still asking us, the reader, to be self-critical of our own assumptions and the narratives we force and enforce on people who might, on the surface, be Other from us.

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in the mornings, i keep my skincare simple, though some may argue that applying five products to my face isn’t simple at all. i don’t wash my face in the morning, not with cleanser, because i don’t want to over-cleanse my face, so i just rinse with water in the shower and have that be that because, yes, i shower every morning, and, yes, i wash my hair everyday — if i don’t, my hair becomes a greaseball, and i have neither the patience nor the desire to “train” my hair to require a wash only every 2-3 days.

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also, hi, i love eggs.

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i picked up graham’s in memory of bread at elliott bay book company in seattle, and i picked it up because i loved that cover. (isn’t it beautiful and clever?!) i wasn’t planning on buying a book at all, but that sounds like a stupid statement to make because why would i walk into a bookstore in the first place if not to browse, hopefully find something that catches my interest and calls out to me, read me, read me, read me, i KNOW YOU WANT TO.

and, why, yes, i did want to read in memory of bread. i felt like i’d relate quite a bit, though it isn’t celiac that i have.

in his late-thirties, graham is diagnosed with celiac disease, and, after becoming deathly ill and being misdiagnosed several times, he has to make drastic changes to his life. to put it simply, he can no longer eat gluten, and it sounds like a deceptively simple thing — just don’t eat gluten, and you’ll be fine — much like living with diabetes sounds deceptively simple — just don’t eat sugar, and you’ll be fine.

the problem (also condensed down) is that gluten is in everything, much like sugar is often in everything, and, beyond that, graham has an emotional connection to food. to him, bread is not just bread; it’s ritual, familiarity, history; and a meal — the prospect of meals — is more than simply physical sustenance.

it’s all that emotional complexity to which i relate so heavily, and i’m marking up passages in this memoir while nodding along vigorously because, god, it’s nice just to know that someone gets it. food is not just food; it’s how we make connections with other people, other cultures; it’s one very visceral, very intimate way we learn about the world — and, for someone like me, someone like graham, that initial sense of loss is a terrible, terrifying thing.

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part of me thinks this is a dangerous thing, writing about books before completing them. i mean, i might end up not finishing them at all; i might read further on and realize that this book is starting to fall apart, it isn’t worth my time; or i might finish them and think that i actually disliked them intensely.

and yet i don’t think that would invalidate the thoughts i’ve recorded here, how i’ve felt about them thus far.

i mean, if it hasn’t become clear yet, i’m interested in the process of things, whatever they are, even if it’s reading a book, not simply the end result or thought.

i never used to be the type of person who did much work or reading or anything other than sleep in bed. this has changed in recent months, usually as my day job wipes me out so i like to catch up on stuff in bed before i turn in for the night. i still need a desk, though, and i do most of my work at my desk, currently this blue one from ikea i’ve had since college. it’s my favorite still, and i love it, and i hope one day to take it to brooklyn with me, whenever i make my way back home.

now that the book is done (for now), there’s an essay i’m trying to finish, an essay i started writing late last year, one that’s gone through several iterations before settling into the shape and form it’s in now. it’s an essay that was born out of a desire to write about depression and longing, about love and desire, about the lingering, hateful will to survive, and, as always, i’m surprised by the ways any writing project grows, how it begins as a seed and goes through life cycles, how it attempts to flower, fails, lies fallow.

maybe that’s the fun of it, the malleability of projects, and i love this about creating content in general, whether it’s an instagram post, a blog post here, a long-term writing project i’ll spend hundreds, thousands, of hours on and try to publish. i don’t think one is lesser or greater than the other; it’s all work; it’s all something to create and to create well because work is work is work and i have to believe that all of this means something.

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the great accomplishment of this weekend is that i managed to take down my cookbook tower (which was balanced precariously on a barstool for months) and arrange my collection on a shelf. i’m (obviously) being glib about that being my great accomplishment; i’m impressed my collection only toppled off my stool twice and didn’t damage anything; and this shift in space was a long time coming.

(speaking of, that massive cookbook post is still coming.) (also, that post-it on my macbook? it’s from seattle last month, and it has a list of restaurants on it. it’s still hanging on pretty impressively; i mean, i take my macbook to work everyday.)

if you hadn’t noticed, i like parentheses a lot — and, honestly, i don’t know what the point of this section was, maybe just to show: if you live with a reader or with a writer, you should be used to books everywhere.

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(sometimes, i think about you, and i think about one day having to bring our books together. i imagine we’d read pretty different things, maybe with some overlap in food. i wonder if we’d end up with any duplicate copies. i wonder what we’d do with those. i wonder if i’ll ever write this goddamn story i started writing about you.)

brine, sear, bake — my holy trinity when it comes to chicken breasts and pork chops. brine your meat in a salt-sugar-water solution (i added some smashed garlic this time) (there’s something so therapeutic about smashing garlic); let it sit in the refrigerator for 30-45 minutes; while it does that, heat your oven and your cast iron skillet to 400 degrees; take your pork chop and rinse, pat dry, salt and pepper it; transfer the hot cast iron to the stove on high heat; toss on a chunk of butter (and some apples here); sear your meat on one side (for this pork chop, i seared the first side for 4-5 minutes); flip it; bake in oven (chicken takes about 20 minutes, pork chops from 6-10, depending on thickness) (chicken is done when the juices run clear; pork is done when you press a finger to the surface and it feels firm but still springs back).

you’d think i could have written that out in a list instead of a giant paragraph.

*insert shrug emoji here.

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i first came across the library of korean literature, published by dalkey archive press with the literature translation institute of korea, at mcnally jackson, the bookstore i still consider my home bookstore, as funny as an idea of that sounds. (it’s true, though; my other home bookstore is greenlight.) (when i think of home, the one and only question that always starts ringing through my head is, will i ever get back home again?)

over the last two or so years, i’ve been growing my collection of books from this series, and i absolutely love that this exists. i love the range of authors, though it remains pretty contemporary in time, which i actually don’t mind, and i’ve even come to be fond of the covers, which are, at least, consistent and stand out, despite the plainness and, idk, un-aesthetically-pleasing-ness. every time i went to mcnally jackson, i’d check their shelves to see if they had any new titles (new meaning anything i didn’t already have), and, if i wanted a specific title, i’d always order through them. (if i wanted to preorder anything in general, i’d always order through them.)

truth be told, i haven’t really kept an eye out for new titles recently, not since coming back out to los angeles, but, on friday, i went to the last bookstore because i’d had dinner at grand central market and was debating whether or not to read home fire. i found this eun heekyung in the same display as the shamsie and had to pick it up. it’s new to the series, published this year, and i’m interested in any writing out of korea that has to do with bodies and food and people who don’t belong, marked as they are by their physical appearance. korea is largely a conformist society, and it expects sameness — it expects you to wear the same makeup, be the same size, want the same things — and, as someone whose body was always too big, too tan, too un-made-up, i’ve always existed outside that, spending much of my life looking in, wanting to be a part of that world, to be accepted and considered beautiful and desirable within those standards.

it’s a terrible way to live your life.

one of my favorite korean novels-in-translation is park min-gyu’s pavane for a dead princess (dalkey archive press, 2014), and it, too, is a novel that explores people who exist outside contemporary mainstream society, whether for socioeconomic or physical reasons. in pavane, the main female character is ugly and has been shunned her entire life for it, relegated to a life that would never attain much, would never be able to aim for anything outside her station, and maybe that sounds overly dramatic, but i dare say there are many women who might relate.

anyway, so, i started reading beauty looks down on me in the bookstore, was interested in the way eun writes about food, how often the mentions of food seemed to appear as i flipped through the pages, and i can’t wait to read this. i’m waiting to finish the shamsie first though, maybe wrap up the last one or two stories i have left of jenny zhang’s sour heart (random house, 2017) — i’ve been lingering over that collection because i don’t want it to end; i want more from jenny; i always want more from her because i always want more from the writers i love.

and the other thing maybe is that going back to korean literature-in-translation is also a way of going back home again. there’s a strangeness to it, yes, because korean culture is a place both familiar and intensely foreign to me, but there’s a comfort in all of it, in that base recognition of names and cultural cues and patriarchal bullshit. it’s a thing both attractive and repulsive to me, and that’s my way of negotiating my relationship with my ethnic identity, this simultaneous intense love and reproach that hold me close while often making me wish i could pull away, all the while knowing i never will.

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this was supposed to be a simple, short post.

the brave in the mundane.

sometimes, LA looks like soho, just sans the throngs of people, and it makes me homesick. in 32 days, i’ll be back home in brooklyn, and it’ll only be for a weekend, but i am so, so excited, especially because i'll be there for the brooklyn book festival, and i am very much looking forward to that. i've gone every year since i moved back to NYC in 2012, and i was worried i'd miss it this year, but i shan't!

but, ugh, where to begin — what a horrific weekend we’ve seen, what gross displays of despicable human behavior, from the privileged who lit up tiki torches and waved confederate flags and proudly toted the swastika to the ones at home who raise, love, and support the people on the streets and the institutions that enforce that privilege to the cheeto in the white house who’s been faster to call out women by name but wouldn’t condemn white supremacists.

ugh.

anyway, hi, i’m having a hard time coming up with words, so here are some words i put up on instagram on sunday, words i've expanded on here.

the 2016 election has exposed and fortified a lot of the ugliness many of us knew still existed in this country, in this world, and the horrible reality is that that this ugliness is going to continue exhibiting itself in the near future. we're going to see a lot more fragile white [male] egoes exploding in irrational, hate-fueled rage, and we're going to see a lot more white privilege protecting itself in the delusion of "but i'm not like that," never mind that that statement itself betrays complicity.

we're going to get more statements from politicians but no action that supports said statements or moves toward change, and we're going to get more half-hearted, easily-appeased pseudo-disapproval from GOP congressmen over the mess that currently occupies our seat of government. we're going to get more senseless racist, bigoted, sexist tweets from the cheeto, emboldening the racism, bigotry, and misogyny that will further endanger the lives and livelihoods of POC, queer and straight, whatever our gender and/or our beliefs.

we're going to have days when it's easier to rally en masse and put up a fight. we're going to have days when it's easier to be diligent about keeping up with the shit our governments, whether federal, state, or local, are trying to pull to take away our rights. we're going to have days when it's easier to know what we're fighting for, to believe that change is possible, that the better future of equality we're hoping for can and will be the reality in which our children and their children grow up.

the other side is that we're going to have days when everything is simply harder. we're going to have days when it all feels futile, when change seems impossible, when the world appears to have progressed one step only to be regressing ten. we're going to have days when we feel small and insignificant, when we feel like we're just one human, one insignificant, scared, tiny human, and what can we accomplish when we're nobody and the whole of society seems to be against us, determined to see us as subhuman, to take away our rights but claim ownership of our bodies, our labor, our cultures?

but here is this: bravery isn't about super-strength or super-smarts or super-whatever. it's not about being an extraordinary human being. bravery is simply getting up in the morning and going about your day as best you can, refusing to fold over in the face of hatred.

bravery is being you, whoever you are, and existing because, sometimes, simply being here, being present, being alive in a hostile world is the most powerful form of rebellion there is because it's staking claim to your right to exist, to be seen and treated fairly, to be respected and known. it seems like nothing, going to work, taking your kids to school, paying your taxes, worshipping at your chosen place of worship, shopping for groceries and household supplies and clothes, but it's not nothing — with every act, you say, i have every right to be here, and the truth is that it's no small thing to be a POC, a queer person, a woman out and about in the world. that alone requires so much bravery, more bravery than we might even imagine we contain, although we do.

so i'm going to say this again: stay.

even in the face of all the hatred and violence and truly disgusting displays of human behavior we're seeing these days, stay. don't hide. don't run. don't take your own life.

stay. stay and fight, and, together, we'll make this world a better place. stay.

here are a few articles, some good reading amidst all the crap, because i spend a lot of time at work reading articles, and these are a few that have stuck with me.

01.  missbish, “bringing heat in and out of the kitchen”
might as well start with something nice about someone who makes me smile, and i’m sure my crush on kristen kish has been well documented by now, so here, start with some kristen.

02.  missbish, “the youtube who feels like a best friend”
i. love. claire. i secretly think about running into her in DTLA (or just, LA) and being her friend because the article title is right — claire marshall really does feel like a best friend, and her vlogs are my favorite. sometimes, i don’t know why they’re so fun to watch; they’re literally of her running errands and talking into the camera and doing boring day-to-day things; but i love them. i find them so soothing.

03.  electric literature, "jenny zhang doesn't care if you feel comfortable"
jenny's been doing some spectacular interviews during her press tour for sour heart (random house, 2017) (just do yourself a favor and read this fabulous collection already), but this one miiiiight be my favorite so far. if i had to pick a favorite.

(this one with i-D is also fabulous. and this one with lithub.)

04.  the white review, "interview with han kang"
han's human acts (portobello, 2016) is one of my favorite books about one of the most horrific acts in contemporary korean history, and the way han writes trauma is so visceral and intense and thoughtful.

05. the white review, "interview with jorge semprun"
also this from the white review: i first read this interview while doing research for a comp lit course in 2011, and i still think about it now, six years later. i love what he has to say about memory.

06. the new yorker, jia tolentino
tolentino has been killing it for the new yorker recently. i was going to try to pick a favorite, but i decided i didn't want to, so here's her archive instead. have at it; she's great.

07. salon, "kate mckinnon and hollywood's big gay test"
i love kate (who doesn't?), and her career is one worth watching, not only as that of a great comedic actress but also as that of an openly gay woman in a still-long-ways-to-go-as-far-as-any-kind-of-diversity-goes industry. i hope she continues on the rise; she's just too good.

nine years (because we're counting years).

let's be honest: this is procrastination, pure and simple.

hi, i’m in the throes of editing my book, a collection of interrelated short stories about suicide that i’ve been working on for nine freaking years, and i’m procrastinating (of course), so here’s a list of shit i’ve learned over these long nine years.

one. writing takes time, and it always takes more time than you think it will, and there’s no point trying to run a race against time because that is a battle you will never win. be patient, and give yourself time because your writing will be that much better for it.

two. that doesn’t mean you shouldn't set deadlines for yourself, though. set deadlines, and try your damnedest to meet them, but don’t beat yourself up if you reach that deadline and look at your work and think, well, shit, this needs more work.

three. trust yourself. trust yourself as a reader, and trust yourself as a writer, and trust yourself as a reader of your work. none of that trust comes easily, and you’ll only build it as you read more of everything and learn to trust your taste and your standards. and, while we’re talking standards, it’s okay to have high standards for yourself, so long as you learn to balance that with kindness to yourself, for yourself. you’re not perfect; i’m not perfect; and it’s the endeavor that counts, which leads to …

four. the writing has to be reward enough. the act of the work itself has to be reward enough. the fact that you are able to do the work at all has to be reward enough. god knows if and when any other “rewards” will come, and, if you’re chasing those arbitrary things, if you’re chasing fame and glory and success, how ever it is you define any of those, you’ll just rot in envy.

five. if you can’t be happy for the successes of other people, no matter how big or small those successes, you will never be happy for or content with your own. envy is toxic, and envy is poison, and it’s never too soon to work to inoculate yourself against it. you’ll never be truly, 100% free from envy; we’re all human after all; but you can dismantle it and prevent it from destroying you (and your relationships) (don’t trick yourself into thinking that envy doesn’t have a cost).

six. a huge part of writing is being part of the literary community, so read, be as active as you can and want to be, and advocate for your peers’ work. truth be told, we’re all in this mess together, and we’re the best supporters we’ve got.

seven. people don’t have to understand or even necessarily believe in your work or your abilities to support you. support comes in all forms, and, sometimes, support comes in doubt. learn to fight your way through that and test your own faith in yourself — if you need to depend on the unwavering support of other people to do the work, you won’t last. find that in your core and hold onto it and protect it.

eight. that said, find people who believe in you and your work, not because they’re your friends or they like you or whatever but because they believe in you and your work, and lean on them for support. i would not have made it nine years working on this book, going through so many rewrites and so many disappointments and so many crazy stupid reckless idiotic decisions were it not for every single person who has believed in and continues to believe in me and my ability to write and tell my stories. that support is priceless, and i don’t take any of it for granted.

nine. do the work. lie fallow when you must. rest. know your limits. take care of yourself because writing isn’t a sprint, and it’s not even a marathon, it’s just constant non-stop running for god knows how long. you don’t know how long a project will take you, so settle in for the long haul, and do the work. writing hurts like hell, and there’s so much crap to deal with along the way, but none of it will ever mean anything if you don’t do the work. so show up, sit down, and do the work.

and, for funsies, while i procrastinate, here are nine random things about me:

one. i love eggs. eggs are great. you can do so much with eggs! you can soft scramble them and fry them and make them crispy and poach them and steam them and boil them, and any dish is elevated automatically by adding an egg (or two)!

two. i totally bought these baby cocottes because i wanted to make oeufs en cocotte, and so i made oeufs en cocotte, which are delicious and so easy to make, but now i’m like, … what else do i make with these?!? i might make mini curried chicken pot pies next. (i also love curry.)

three. i have a weird sense of brand loyalty. the first dutch oven i bought was from staub, which means that all other future cast iron enamel cookware will now always be from staub. most of this is visual consistency; i like things to look nice; and part of things looking nice is being consistent.

four. i wash my tights with face wash — yup, that means i wash my tights with glossier’s milky jelly cleanser. i also only wear opaque tights. i don’t like stockings or nylons or pantyhose or whatever else they’re called; the sheerness is weird to me and seems pointless.

five. if i were ten years younger, i’d go to culinary school in a heartbeat. it’s one of my few regrets — not going to culinary school. another is that my family moved out to california when i was young, so i didn’t grow up in the east coast, where i was born. a third is quitting piano. two of these were in my control, but the regret comes from a combination of fear and ego, i suppose, because i have a tendency to talk myself out of things i’m afraid of finding out i’m not brilliant at. does that make sense? 

six. because that’s maybe the strongest manifestation of my ego — i want to be brilliant. i don’t necessarily know where that comes from; maybe it’s an effect of having grown up in the distant shadow of my brilliant cousins (seriously, they’re brilliant); but i’ve always carried this with me, this desire not to be average and this fear of realizing that i am. it’s something i’ve been teaching myself out of, and i’d say i’ve definitely gotten better and am much more at ease with myself, with who i am, and with what i can do, but it hasn’t been easy.

seven. i also love [cow] milk. i like it whole, but i also like it 2%, and skim (or non-fat) milk is not milk. it’s milk-flavored water, and i’m sorry, but it’s gross. also, nut milk is not milk. it’s nut juice, let’s be real. it just doesn’t sound as appetizing when you call it that.

eight. i’m finding it really hard to think of nine things … to be honest, i don’t find myself that interesting a human. as it turns out, i am pretty average, and you know what? that's okay!

nine. my favorite band in the world is still nell.