Notes on Obsession

On delight, humiliation, and making meaning out of everything.

There is a Mexican grocery store on the drive between my house and my gym. At it’s helm, there is a sign with the face of a bull, El Torito hand lettered next to it. “I love that sign” I say every time I see it. I say it whether someone is in the car with me or not. Last time I drove by with my partner, she said “hey babe, what do you think of that sign?” I gathered up all my enthusiasm, ready to say I LOVE IT! And turned her way to see her smirk. Oh. I guess I’ve already said I love it. I guess I’ve said I love it a lot, actually. Ah, to feel love as if it is new each time it approaches me. This is an aspect of my personality I hope to never lose.

I really do feel joy when I see the sign. I think of someone standing on a ladder to outline the bull, I think of someone climbing up again to touch up the paint when it starts to peel and crack. Probably, the first time the sign was painted, it wasn’t already hung but that’s not how my fantasy goes. When I imagine the sign I refuse to see a task being done in the logical way to do it. I like to think that the person who painted the sign wanted to do it for everyone to see. I like to think that they knew the sign would be a gift to the people for decades to come.

One of the great joys of my life is imagining how things may have come to be. I like to imagine mediocrity as story, to imagine little things accumulating into something great. This is what I love about writing, this is what I love about books and movies and TV. Reality TV thrills me, because random people let us see their lives, their small triumphs and subtle miseries. They get the kids to bed on time, they get to put on lingerie with a flouncy skirt and hearts embroidered on the titties. They get to have sex with the partner they brought over from Tunisia, the one whom they don’t know, not really anyway, but that they have 90 days to decide if they will marry. I love the *kiss* *kiss* *kiss* (cut the camera) that they offer me, the viewer strangely fascinated by the choreography of their everyday lives.

I can form my own opinion on if these strangers should marry or not. (On one hand, why not, YOLO, roll the dice, take the gamble. On the other hand, don’t marry a stranger because holy shit people are so fucking annoying and difficult to communicate with at times, and imagine barely having a handle on the original dialect of the other and trying to make it through! How will you say “when you don’t do your dishes I feel enraged” if you don’t know the word for dish!? How will you say “The truth is, I just want my most disgusting parts to be seen and to be loved anyway” If you can barely grasp the concept of that in your native tongue!?

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A thought I’m having lately, is that I absolutely hate when a book’s conclusion is the person writes the book. I hate when the end of a beautiful TV series is that the beautiful TV series gets made. I think it’s cheap, too obvious, such an easy conclusion to a story. But also, I think it makes sense that the telling of the story gets to be the ultimate prize.

Long distance hiking has been (was?) the thing that I shaped my life around for many years. The last big trail I hiked was the Arizona trail, I finished it to the best of my ability in 2024. I lost a ridiculous amount of weight hiking that trail, despite eating 3500 calories a day, despite drinking cokes and slamming donuts every chance I could. One time I got so dehydrated that I pulled into an area off trail that wasn’t quite a town, more like a dock with a convenience store and a smattering of people fishing and camping. There, I drank 96 ounces of coconut water, desperate for calories and hydration and electrolytes. Did you know that if you have too much potassium, you will get diarrhea? I sure didn’t. And then I did. I shit my brains out in a convenience store bathroom while dads bought fishing licenses at the counter, while moms took the kids to the bathroom and taught them the exact right way to wash their hands. I shit my brains out, crying, and I loved this story, took notes of the phone numbers written on the walls of the bathroom stall, reminded myself to remember just how thin the toilet paper was. I knew that I’d write about every moment of my misery, and that the story would make said misery a pleasure to withstand.

You’ve all seen the final episode of Hacks by now, right?! If not, skip the next paragraph. I fucking hate a spoiler for me and I’d hate a spoiler for you, too.

At the end of Hacks, Ava starts to write Hacks. I hate it, as I always do and I understand it, as I also always do. That show is brilliant, which is not a thing I need to say because everyone’s already said it and probably much more articulately at that. I am not here to write about the final episode of Hacks, despite my grumbling. I am here to write about the episode with the dykes.

If you need backstory, watch this. If you don’t need backstory but just love a behind the scenes, also watch this.

I love lesbo representation. Though we’re thought to be a particularly dry bunch, dyke culture is fucking hilarious. We are funny without trying to be, which is the funniest kind of funny. I am so fucking glad there is a highly popular television show that did an excellent job poking fun so respectfully. I could watch the lesbian episode of Hacks 100 times and never tire of Leslie Bibb saying “do you strap?!”

The real question, LESLIE, is do YOU strap!? And if so, can we have the details!?

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I read a lot in the month of May. Here are my microreviews of the particularly notable!

1. Fat Swim by Emma Copley Eisenberg is a weird, tender, funny, and occasionally unsettling collection of short stories that navigate bodies, power, and sex. Thank GOD this book is horny; thank god this book is gay. The stories are about bodies without being about bodies! Or they’re not about bodies but they totally are about bodies. Does that make sense? Maybe not. Either way, I’m into fat people writing about fatness in ways that aren’t sad. Actually I’m into people writing about bodies in all kinds of ways but in these tragic times, I need to not be devastated now and again.

My favorite story is about a trans librarian that takes a job as an assistant to a famous writer in his 80’s, only to find himself screening Tinder hookups on his employer’s behalf. I will link that story here, because lucky you— you can read it online and you can read it for free.

2. Okay check THIS out: I Keep My Exoskeletons To Myself by Mac Crane is about grief and parenting and amazingly, it is also deeply horny. I hate the word horny. Why do I keep having to say horny!? Any other word sounds too chaste or romantic or clinical, that’s why.

Anyway.

I’m gonna give it to you straight: this book is science fiction AKA not my usual jam. It doesn’t make a difference in the end though, because the main characters are gay and relating when you’re gay is universal. (I won’t think about that statement too hard because it’s almost certainly not true but that’s how I FEEL and this newsletter is about my FEELINGS).

I Keep My Exoskeletons To Myself takes place in the US in the future, so you just KNOW it’s going to involve oppression and repression. In this case, the “Department of Balance” implements a new form of law enforcement: rather than incarceration, wrongdoers are given a second (and sometimes, third, fourth, and fifth) shadow as a reminder of their crimes. “Wrongdoers” are spotted instantly and WHAT DO YOU KNOW, they are treated like absolute shit.

And yet.

Us freaks always find a way to love and to bone.

What a gift.

Hungered by Amanda Rizkalla is a beautiful novel and it’s less than one month old.

12 year old Sofia’s father cheated, her mother left. Her, her mom and her little brother are living in a car and they’re struggling in a lot of ways, but a deeply important detail is they’re seriously fucking hungry. The novel’s strength comes from the way Rizkalla captures these circumstances through a kid’s perspective; Sofia understands enough to feel the weight of what’s happening, but not always enough to fully make sense of why or what the impacts will be.

This story feels real. The details of homelessness, uncertainty, and racism are rendered with care. There is no nice ending, which is sad, but honest.

This is Amanda’s first novel! (I don’t know her, but I did some research). I am deeply impressed.

Acts of Desperation by Megan Nolan hit me where it hurts. It’s a novel about a character that could deeply use a Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous meeting, which is a compliment if you ask me. It’s part confession and part critique. At times, the nameless narrator KNOWS she is acting in ways that she doesn’t respect and at other times, she KNOWS she deserves better than what she gets and so it seems worth it. She also eroticizes degradation, which— hey. She’s not the first and she wont be the last. Power play is hot. To love intensely is to live deeply. I get it!

This book made me so deeply happy that I am not straight. I liked the writing very much.

Little F***** by Michelle Tea was the fun, light, and sweet little joy ride that I needed after reading Hungered and Acts of Desperation. I’ve read every single one of Tea’s novels and while this one doesn’t hit the emotional notes that her memoir work does, it doesn’t fucking matter! It was a nice story about a cute little F-word and his sweet little adventures with his ragtag friends. Sure, he gets the shit kicked out of him in high school. Sure, his parents lack the empathy parenting should require and he has to run away. But then! He sees there’s a whole world. He gets a boyfriend. He leaves the mind numbing concrete of conservative Phoenix, Arizona and gets to see New Orleans. Things are hard, and then they work out. As I write this, it occurs to me that this book may be geared toward the YA crowd. Who cares?! Read it if you want to feel good.

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I will leave you with this.

Last month, I saw two films by Jenni Olsen in an artsy theater that had kombucha on tap and nutritional yeast shakers for our popcorn. The first film, Blue Diary, is the story of a young dyke pining over a one night stand with a straight girl. You can watch all six minutes of it right here, and if you’re of a certain age and disposition, it will feel just like a diary.

The second film was called The Joy of Life and it held two narratives side by side: one about a young butch dyke searching for love in San Francisco, and one about the golden gate bridge as a landmark for suicide. Harry Dodge is the narrator, 20 years or more before he won his Guggenheim award.

Both films were slow and languid and beautiful. I’ve wanted to live in San Francisco since I was 12 years old when I visited with my grandma to see the Phantom of the Opera. I did live there once, for a period of six months in the living room of a townhouse on Bernal Hill. I couldn’t afford it of course; my roommate walked through my room to get to theirs. Once raccoons picked our back door lock and left paw prints on the walls and the ceiling and I didn’t ever see the sun, not for one single day. Still, I am wistful for San Francisco. The place it is in my mind is gone now, I’ve heard about the tech takeover. This movie reminded me I miss something that’s no longer real, and if there isn’t a word for that, there really should be.

I liked a lot of things in the month of May. If you’ve made it this far, thank you so much. Now tell me about some stuff you like.

More soon,

Luca