I was raised with an intentional prejudice against video games — they are time wasters. This rule of thumb was allowed one exception for DDR, which as a tween I loved deeply, and which essentially counted as ‘exercise’. But on the whole, I have spent my life as a good video-game-hating Protestant work-ethic-loving Midwesterner.

Until, that is, my fiancé and I became a real American family, equipped with a television that is too large for our sitting room and a PS4.

I was biased at first, but after a few days I came around. Video games! What a revelation! They are like TV, only they give you the sense of being slightly more active, and you sometimes even receive the dopamine boost of having accomplished meaningless goals! Since graduate school is designed to make you feel you’ve never accomplished anything in your life, and likely never will, the appeal of such leisure activities is all too abundant.

Now my favorite time-wasting video game we got for free, and is called Hitman. In Hitman, you play a terse bald white man who kills people, and you do it for fun! Which is insane, I realize, but the controller shakes in your hand as you slowly cut off the air from your targets’ throat, and that is strangely satisfying.

But to get to my point. I began this silent blog to reignite my love of writing, or at least my sense that writing is something I can do. Sufficiently reignited, I turned my attention towards the humiliating task of writing cover letters. And in that process, all I can think is of the many ways my soul is being crushed. I will explain via Hitman metaphor:

Writing cover letters…

…crushes my soul like a garden baler crushes the dead body of a millionaire in the Sapienza level.

It dissolves my soul in radioactive waste material, like the body of the unconscious scientist I once accidentally put into the wrong sort of box.

It pushes my soul from the balcony of a large building, the way that the terse bald white assassin sometimes does to an elegantly dressed socialite in Paris.

It watches my soul enter the yoga balance of tree pose, self-satisfied, then tumbles it off the side of a remote cliff in Japan.

It sneaks behind my soul and punctures it with small needle carrying 20 milligrams of lethal poison.

It explodes my soul with a blinking red explosive rubber duck (don’t ask — clearly video game designers have strange minds).

It subdues my soul, crushing the life from my creativity with a strong one-armed vice hold, until my self-respect crumbles to the floor like a waiter whose uniform a terse bald white man needs in order infiltrate an ice cream shop.

Which is to say, I really dislike writing cover letters.

Perhaps one day I’ll be employed, until which I am yours,

M

I’m a self-identified politically-liberal, racially-conscious, pretentiously-cultured, literary millennial. So naturally it took me six years past the point of publication to read a widely lauded award-winning novel by a renowned Nigerian novelist. Sigh, after so many years I may breathe again; I have done my duty, and I have enjoyed it. Best book I’ve read in some time, congratulations M — you may continue to be the person who you imagine yourself to be.

But naturally, having steeped myself in such literariness, I immediately retreated to the slums of reading: I reread my favorite YA novel from my time as a hormonal and yet terribly undersexed teen. And I read it quickly, I might add. In less than 24 hours, no less, choosing to ignore my partner on our seven and a half hour drive and leave him to his own thoughts while I mercilessly tore through a book I had already read at least three times.

And then it was done, my small fiction drug-of-choice trip over with, and I had to turn my sad eyes to the empty road and the plain acknowledgement of my own complicity in global climate change (I did mention we were on a seven and a half hour road trip, no? Even worse, we have now become a two car family — I shall go to environmentalist hell, which I suppose we also sometimes call Texas).

For the purposes of this story, I should like to say I then floundered about in my own shame for a few days before turning to my next hit (for my favorite YA book was obviously a part of a book series, and clearly it was about witches); that I sat with myself and contemplated the degradation of mind and its pleasures; that I wallowed, mired in my own shame. And I suppose I did, during the, admittedly, less than 24 hours before I picked up book two. Yes, I did feel some shame, lying in my bed voraciously turning through digital pages, for perhaps an hour, until I came upon the following:

“Let’s see. … She kisses Gypsies in the woods and once locked me in a chapel after asking me to steal the communion wine. By the light of a pale moon, I saw her kill a deer and climb from a ravine naked and splattered with blood. She is also, strangely, one of my best friends. Do not ask me to explain why.”

Rebel Angels, Libba Bray

At which point I became, as the title suggests, shameless. How could a sensible woman, of whatever age, not be drawn to such willful oddity? Such strange comedic timing? The patent absurdity of writing the words “by the light of a pale moon” and not following up with a self-published erotic novel about werewolves who are working through their issues with the globalization of the industrial economy is enough to justify any level of devotion to Ms. Bray, regardless of its excesses. To that conviction I shall ever stand true.

So tonight I believe that I shall shamelessly binge upon a third YA novel by Ms. Bray, and who knows if tomorrow I shall not find a fourth. And then, full of my shamelessness, I just may make my way to a local ravine, and by the light of a pale moon nakedly announce my loyalty to the world.

‘Til next time,

M

As Monique Heart says, facts are facts, America. And I have some facts to share.

Fact: Angel hair pasta is superior to spaghetti. Spaghetti is worthless when there is angel hair in the world

Fact: There is no whole wheat angel hair pasta. Therefore whole wheat pasta is worthless.

Fact: Whole wheat pasta is only acceptable in penne or rotini form, when a more bite-y bite is desired.

Fact: Buying the expensive tomatoes is always worth it for Italian food. I’m looking at you, $5 can of pomodoros.

Fact: After doing a quick Google search, I’ve discovered that whole grain angel hair pasta does exist. But they don’t sell it at my Lucky’s, so I steadfastly maintain that on the whole, there is no such thing.

Fact: Linguine is consistently mediocre.

Fact: Fresh basil is too expensive.

Fact: There is no such thing as too big a serving of pasta, even if after gorging on a mound of angel hair pasta you find your stomach bothering you during Tuesday night trivia at the bar.

Fact: It’s possible I’m speaking from experience, but also possible that I do not exist, and am not shouting into a void, but in fact am a void myself (the word ‘myself’ of course having no meaning, as a void is definitionally bereft of a sense of selfhood).

Fact: Frequent pasta eating is essential to a healthy and fulfilling life.

Fun Fact: The bean ball recipe in Veganomicon is magical and delicious even if it does require you to put up with the noise of a food processor for five minutes. Worth it.

Also a Fact: Monet X Change won All Stars 4. Long live the Queen.

M

Dear Wallace F. Ackley Co.,

I have emerged clean and new, washed of sin as much as of sweat, from a luxuriously warm shower with a brand new shower head. When we wrote you but less than 24 hours past, quietly bemoaning that we should have to hold the shower head in our hand for the foreseeable future (its holder having broke), we but little thought you would respond so soon.

But look! You do care. A kind and competent factotum appeared at our door, and saw to all our issues. Did we write only of a broken shower head? Yes. Did he nonetheless install new blinds in an upstairs window and replace a faulty outlet uncomplainingly? Yes, he did. With decent Midwestern reserve and a can-do attitude he just said, “Yes, I think I have an outlet in my car. I’ll go check, and if I need to get any supplies I’ll be back in 15 minutes.” And, like a faithful lover, he kept his promise.

You see, I have been ill-used before–been faced with both the blind bureaucracy of a company which advertises itself on trucks driving up and down the campus district and the dumb incompetency of patchwork half-fixes from a would-be slumlord. I have even been asked by a potential landlord to sign away my right to seek legal counsel! Having passed through these wrongs, I am amply rewarded by my current repose in your responsive and responsible arms, O Wallace F. Ackley Co.

Did you once raise my rent by $10? This much must be admitted to be true. But certainly, we all have faults, and the best of couples know not how to not fight, but how to squabble and still love. And in my turn, I’m certain sometime somewhere I’ve scratched some paint on the walls (though I write so in a completely facetious matter and as part of a comedic online document, which I assert here and now may not be used in legal proceedings against me or in decisions to withhold my deposit–on second thought I have treated the house with scrupulous care and it is, in point of fact, in better condition now than it was when entering my hands).

My point is, I’m happy to pay the extra $10, it was probably appropriate given local neighborhood rental rates, and for such a landlord/lady/company of unknown size as you, I would do anything (except pay a raise of my rent of $100 a month–a bitch ain’t made of money).

Thank you for my blinds, my outlet, and my shower head — you are the best rental agency a girl could ever hope for.

Love,

M

Brought to you almost exclusively by the vegan tome Veganomicon (all hail Terry Romero and Isa Chandra Moskowitz):

Chickpea Cutlets (who knew that there could be a meat substitute that was actually delicious? I know, I know, coming from a vegan herself, but these things were good! Crunchy, some bite, and a lovely lemon flavor — halleloo)

Red Wine Herb Sauce (who doesn’t want their gravy to be made out of wine instead of animal juice, I mean really? Also, shallots are the star of any show they show up to. Side note: it is hard to find marjoram. Also, I deeply fear that after my investment of three dollars and forty nine cents, not to mention a solid two minutes of my life, I will never find occasion to use that marjoram again)

Roasted Broccoli and Brussels Sprouts (keep it simple, keep it classy, oil, salt, and pepper, and let that good good cruciferous flavor shine)

Herb Scalloped Potatoes (don’t you hate it when a recipe works better the first time you make it, then the second time around it’s like, meh, compared to the memory? Of course, I imagine it helps when you actually follow the instructions, instead of going rogue like a fool…)

Orange Glazed Carrots (honestly, didn’t really get to these I was so happy munching on those cutlets and sauce, but yay! Winter-y Christmas-y vibes! I spent two dollars on fresh thyme! I probably didn’t need to!)

Arugula and Pear Salad (generously provided by good friends, with just a hint of sunflower seed crunch and a flavorful Italian balsamic dressing)

Plush Coconut Cake (that Deb Perlman of Smitten Kitchen is not a vegan kills me every day — but when she releases a vegan cake recipe, you know I’ll be all over it. The cake itself had a pleasant nearly savory flavor, and a thick moist crumb that was almost breadlike. Also, it was drop dead gorgeous)

Great Friends (awwwwwwww. But really, I love those guys)

Full of food and with a sink-full of dishes that I will not by washing,

M

“And Lizzie, finding herself to be, as she told herself, unstrung, fell also into novel-reading.”

-Anthony Trollope, The Eustace Diamonds

I find there is no better explanation for my own predicament than this of Trollope’s capricious heroine. Perhaps the appropriate contemporary update would be to say that, “M, finding herself to be, as she told herself, in a fit of the Februaries, fell also into Netflix-watching,” but I so quickly gorged myself on terrible television in the first month of the year that an accusation of novel-reading is far more accurate.

Unstrung, sleeping poorly and too much and too late and besieged by headaches and listlessness, I have at least recently made it through a prodigious score of pages of Victorian literature (though not of the highest kind, it must be said — it is one thing to gobble up Dickens’ fairy tales, and quite another to seek enlightenment through Eliot). It began in a picturesque and pure way over Christmas break — I found an old copy of Vanity Fair at a used book shop in rural Michigan. A mid-century hardback with a decorated spine and faded gilding, it chastised me for never yet enjoying Thackeray. And, as a volume without academic historical footnotes, it beckoned me to open it in a holiday spirit, to continue blithely ignorant of specific political context and literary reference. Needless to say, I did.

But one is apt to feel a strange sense of emptiness upon finishing a book, especially when one has devoured it quickly, and especially when the book in question is extraordinary. It was at this point that I resorted to the above mentioned contemporary media diet–with the sun barely shining and the world blanketed in the frozen hellscape of polar vortices, why not watch episode after episode of Suits? After all, Megan Markle is now an American princess, and that provides enough interest quite by itself!

Though in the end, despite a royal presence and guest appearances by Bunk from The Wire, the show became tiring. And so, unstrung, she fell into Dickens.

I began with Our Mutual Friend, as it was available at the library, and after dutifully slogging through the first 200 pages found myself very much in love. For the longest time it seemed to be the very darkest thing Dickens had ever written — imagine a book with not one character of Uriah Heep-level villianery, but four! Luckily in the end all was well, and it became clear that the novel’s concern with the corrupting power of wealth applies to all but those who truly deserve (and conveniently inherit!) it, namely very attractive young members of the upper middle class (oh Dickens, you dastardly conservative!).

I moved then to A Tale of Two Cities, which I did not like as much at all. Still charming, from page to page of course, but anything under 800 pages simply does not allow the man the proper scope for his imagination–shocking that he should even attempt such a work. Satisfied but briefly with my accomplishment of finishing another book (that’s the thing with accomplishments, they seem so jolly from afar but turn to ashes almost immediately), I passed over Hard Times (I mean really, why can’t my library keep a copy of Little Dorrit handy), and am now engaged on my first run at the awfully prolific Trollope. If nothing else, it certainly cannot be said that the man was succinct.

For now it will do, this charming confection, all gossip and glitter and Real Housewives of the Palliser Novels. Though it, too, will be done in time, and I will be all the same unstrung.

Sleepless and up past her bedtime,

M

Tonight, for the first time in over a year, I had a milkshake. See, as I’ve been vegan for, I dunno, over a year now, I don’t often indulge in food products whose names include dairy. But, in the all-vegan haven of a local plant-based burger joint, I decided to kick back my heels, and share a vegan cookie-dough milkshake with a good friend before attending a talk by Ta-Nehisi Coates (because obviously, we’re an incredibly sophisticated pair).

It was romantic, she and I standing there, shivering in there in the lobby, quietly consuming this shake before walking through the bag check and metal detector lines where the guards would certainly steal it away from her purse, where we had carefully hidden it. After a few bites, C said, “I like this. It has that strong, ‘I’m vegan’ taste, and I appreciate when vegan things announce themselves.” Smiling and nodding, I agreed.

Then, lo and behold, the milkshake experience got better! Not only were there small dispersed cookie dough particles throughout, but upon digging one’s spoon into the deeper recesses of the eco-friendly compostable one-use cup, one found whole chunks of cookie dough! Ah, the bliss. Though the weather outside may be frightful, I have a friend with whom to share a vegan milkshake.

And yet, the title of this post lies not. For, as I gluttonously chomped down on my chunk of dough in fervent expectation, I had an unwelcome realization: DATES.

I ask the world, why? Why must my vegan milkshake be made from fruit? Though I choose to abstain from animal products, do I not too share the god-given right of everyone living in a Westernized food environment to enjoy a sugary concoction made almost entirely from some broken down version of corn or soy? To what other effect do we yearly strip the soil of the Midwest in planting seas of mono cultures, if not for my intended enjoyment of corn syrup? And yet, my cookie dough was made of dates.

I hold few allusions–I know myself to be basic in a myriad of ways. I eat as much avocado toast as any millennial, and my fridge is well-stocked with kale, miso, and chia–but I will never give in to the hegemonic rise of ‘healthy’ desserts, and I will never accept that dates are a delicious treat.

When I want to eat fruit, I shall. But when I reach for a shake, it should be made as God, in her infinite wisdom, clearly intended — from almond milk and Haagen-Dasz non-dairy ice cream. That is all.

-M

I was suddenly assaulted the other night by a now long-forgotten memory: there was a time in my life when I loved to write. Writing gave me not only a burst of joy, it gave me a sense of identity; I was a person who wrote, and wrote rather well, I was pleased to think. Others shuddered at the prospect of an essay, but no, not I — I was a writer. And, of course, having now taken an introductory course in graduate level Literacy studies I understand well that if one writes, in any way, be it grocery lists or lyric poetry, one is a WRITER, though that progressive stance has done little to allow me to attach the title to myself once more.

For, in the course of however many years it’s been since the writerly mantle slipped from my shoulders, I have enrolled in and attended a graduate program, which has fully convinced me that not only am I not a writer, but that I can barely write at all, and that which I do write is certainly not fit for the light of day, much less for the eyes of my committee. To attempt to write anything, now, is to struggle to proceed through a suffocating miasma of self-doubt and anxiety (I have been reading a good deal of Dickens recently — my mind is quite occupied by miasmas). Even now, I have a deep sense of fear that my sentences are, in fact, unreadable, and punctuated by far too many clauses (in fact, I know this to be true–so much so that I will stubbornly refuse to reread any of this before it is posted to the expanses of the semi-anonymous web).

And so and so, I must come to a point soon — though as I suppose I have no intention to have any readers I really must not do anything but exactly what I wish. Though the point — do I intend to take upon myself once again the honorific of WRITER? No, I have no such aspirations, nor allusions about my wounded ego’s ability to sustain the title. But, through daily exercise, I should like to make setting hand to keyboard easier, to impose certain environmental regulations upon the anxiety-miasma-producing polluters, as it were (yes, I am well aware of how strained that metaphor is — I shall continue nonetheless). Will my writing improve? I certainly hope not! But whatever state it is currently in, or to whatever state it may devolve, I intend for my writing to be leisure once more.

Adieu,

M