Thrilled to be in Midstory Magazine this week with a piece about Andrea Gibson and what we sometimes find — and sometimes lose — in writing. Huge thanks to Steph Sprenger for shaping the space with her always-beautiful words.
I cried at the dentist.
Not because of the scraping. Not even because of my idiotic need to be LITTLE MISS FUN PATIENT. (Let’s be clear, I am fun because I am hilarious.)
It wasn’t pain. It wasn’t fear.
Perhaps it was inevitable.
The night before, I forgot to season my vegetables (not a euphemism), which is not like me. I know how to cook and how to make things better. But I didn’t. And so we ate them, joyless.
When the body runs on fumes, you stop doing the things that make life taste like something.
Maybe it was inevitable because I haven’t listened to much music lately. This is also not like me. Normally, music is everywhere in my life. A soundtrack, a story, a signal. But now? Silence. Or just enough ambient music to fill the spaces, to keep the walls from pressing in.
Music is its own kind of story. And I cannot absorb another story right now. Certainly not while eating sad vegetables. Not while being Little Miss Fun Patient. Not while *everything else.*
Anyway, remember how I cried at the dentist because I just told you I did a few paragraphs back?
It happened when the next song came on. My dentist tries to calibrate the playlist to the patient — something generational, something soothing, something that says, “Pay no attention to the tiny metal hook scraping your bones.” Do I need Megadeth blaring while I’m power-washed in the mouth like a neglected patio? MAYBE. But probably not.
In the lonely space between cleaning and exam, a song came on.
And I cried.
Okay, yeah, it was “Chariots of Fire.” On the cornball scale of tear triggers this, ranks up there with a screensaver or a commercial about butter substitutes. Or “Bubbles” by the Free Design.
There are plenty of respectable reasons to cry, including being at the dentist, practically flipped upside down in the chair, mouth agape, and drowning in the indignity of it all.
Perhaps, though, it was not that.
The world these days is very “The Bear Went Over the Mountain”
On the other side of the mountain is Mount Doom.
After that, Mount Crumpit
And then the tiny sledding hill in my backyard where my kids, without fail, would somehow manage to steer directly into a tree even though the closet tree was about 20 yards away.
Climb one mountain, find another waiting. That’s how it works. So you throw the grappling hook and reach down to pull others up. (Am I a seasoned mountain climber? No. Do I like looking at mountains on Toblerone wrappers? Yes. Same energy.)
I also cried because my heart is with New Orleans, California, Las Vegas, and every neighbor who feels alone and helpless. My heart is not enough and tears unhelpful after a point, so we choose and we do. Because we see what we can see.
“Look for the helpers,” Mr. Rogers said.
Try to be one.
My background and expertise are scattered — writing, education, social policy, the arts. A hodgepodge, but a purposeful one. A toolkit.
The goal now: Help fully. Help precisely.
Say “yes” carefully, but say it generously.
Everyone’s capacity is stretched thin. I’m no exception, but am seeking and finding good community. Lord love a duck for that. (It is not a duck community, though perhaps it should be.)
Still posting my dumb little jokes (Are we connected on Bluesky?). Still writing the blog, working on the book, and seeking joy as we withstand and work.
We can choose to be wild through actions and care, through public voice, through fiercely defending our peace, through a combination of those.
Also have some nachos if you like them. They help.
One of the stories in mass circulation today is a very old one, but it’s taken on a new vigor: women in general are out of control and feminism in particular is to blame… men are no longer in control, mothers are not what they used to be, and it’s the fault of Germaine Greer, Cosmopolitan, and headline stars.
Don’t worry about saving these songs!
And if one of our instruments breaks,
it doesn’t matter.
We have fallen into the place
where everything is music.
Until next time, here’s a combo I ask you to consider: books, pen, paper, us.
* Runs in to the blog page, breathless*
Sorry I’m late. Vacation, then back to school, illness, busy-ness and WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DIDN’T EVEN NOTICE I’M A FEW DAYS LATE WITH THIS POST?
Fine. I won’t pay the late fee then.
Let’s start with some good news, because I believe in having dessert first: I’m now writing book reviews for Reedsy, and I’m beyond excited!. Fret not, my reviews will also still appear in the usual places: Here. Over there. Yonder. Maybe even scribbled on a crumpled piece of paper, locked in a dusty museum chamber, to be discovered centuries from now.
Which is all just to say that those of you who wanted MORE places to read my brain blarps? Wish granted.
I am coming to terms with the fact that summer as an adult is nothing at all like summer for children or teens or even college students. It’s not months of freedom and relaxing and doing what we want. There’s no time for me to go running around after the ice cream truck (neighbors, you’re welcome!) And, in a plot twist as horrible as and then I woke up, there’s less time for me to read than during the school year. My inner Veruca Salt is stomping around, demanding TIME, SPACE, QUIET, COZY UNHUMID NOOKS, AND TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES ICE CREAM BAR, but that’s not how this summer panned out.
And that’s ok. I finished five books I can talk about now, and multiple (*bats eyelashes coquettishly*) ARCs (Advanced Reader Copies) and alpha- and beta-reads that I will be able to share with you soon enough. Trust me when I say that there are some really excellent books to be released in the next year or so and I can’t wait to talk about them with you.
These are the books that I enjoyed enough to finish in the last month:
Fallen Spirits, the second installment in the Mind Monsters series by Diane Hatz, is a gloriously offbeat fusion of satire and sci-fi, perfect for those who enjoy sharp humor and gleeful absurdity. (Also space-time disruptions! Beings from other realms! And possibly the end of the world!)
We reunite with the beleaguered and somewhat bewildered Alex as her life implodes then intersects with that of the lost and endangered Crystal, a woman who seems to be at the mercy of some metaphysical shenanigans. Alex embarks on a cross-country journey for answers and a chance to find anything that might help her crawl out of the wreckage that is her life.
Along the way, she encounters unforgettable characters, like JT, a power-hungry mogul whose craven need for omnipotence imperils pretty much everyone. I’d also like to give a friendly wave to Dr. Max, one of Hatz’s many delightful secondary characters into whom she breathes life with a few keystrokes.
At its heart, Fallen Spirits is about hitting rock bottom, scrambling up again (and again), and just maybe believing in something — whether it’s oneself, community, or unseen guiding forces.
Hatz incorporates these deeper themes into a fast-paced story that is as thought-provoking as it is entertaining. She skewers the moral vacuity of the uber-wealthy elite in scathing commentary on capitalism gone awry. Hatz’s narrative voice is incisive, sarcastic, and a lot of fun. She is also gifted in what I believe to be an underrated skill: ending chapters well. Each “button” works, and putting the book down is a struggle because we just want to see what could possibly happen next.
Word of warning: if bodily functions — even when used satirically — are not your cup of tea, you will want to approach this with extreme caution.
If you’re looking for a full-speed-ahead slipstream novel that cheekily challenges conventions while exploring the power of belief, Fallen Spirits is the book for you.
This novel is a fever dream set afire with a postmodern match.
Oedipa Maas, ordinary California housewife, becomes the executor of her ex-lover’s estate, a task that quickly thrusts her into a bizarre labyrinth of centuries-old conspiracies, and reality soon seems to slip through her fingers.
Pynchon’s novel is dense, surreal, and mind-bending. It’s quite a trip and you may need a DIY conspiracy board to make sense of it all.
The Crying of Lot 49 intentionally doesn’t aim to fully develop its characters. Pynchon is here to play with form rather than character development, twisting narrative to near disorientation. His prose is playful, almost entirely brilliant, and underscored with pain. It’s a nutrient-dense cocktail of words that’ll mess you up in the best possible way.
Pynchon taps into not only a wobbly paranoia, but also a sense of how lost we can feel in a stubborn country of lonely souls pointing fingers at each other.
The novel is also about the greater dread that nothing is connected, that everything is random and meaningless. And Pynchon takes not a few shots at 1960s counterculture. Even rebels can trap themselves in their own belief systems.
Reality. Just sound and fury, signifying nothing — or perhaps, everything.
Tom Hazard, a man who appears to be in his 40s, has rather inconveniently been alive for over 400 years due to a rare condition that slows his aging. While everyone he knows bustles about living and dying, Tom just…doesn’t. While the world spins on, Tom lives a life of history and solitude. He’s hobnobbed with some historical greats, sure, but immortality-ishness comes with its own set of problems — chief among them being found out, but also the agony of loving and losing and living with for centuries. This isn’t a novel about history so much as a look at time — how it moves, how we cling to it, and how hard and how necessary it is to live in the present.
This book is like a slow, deliberate sip of whiskey — smooth, then burn. The timeline jumps the author makes put us in Tom’s shoes as he increasingly “slips” back and forth in memory. You feel his disorientation as time plays tricks on him, causing him memory headaches. This novel does not shy away from THE BIG STUFF: resilience, fear, regret, mortality, the urgency and blessing of a lifespan. And in the end, it’s the stubborn optimism of it all. It’s a gentle nudge toward living our best lives in this very moment. (It’s also eminently quotable and a lot of fun.)
A quirky, sharp novel about what happens when modern life pushes a creative soul to the edge. Semple critiques absurdities of modern life, particularly suburban conformity, tech culture, and the pressures of social status. The story follows Bernadette Fox, a brilliant but eccentric architect who doesn’t quite fit into the neat little boxes that society — and suburban Seattle — tries to place her in. Bernadette disappears just before her family is to take a trip to Antarctica. Narrated through a series of emails, letters, and documents pieced together by her 15-year-old daughter, Bee, the novel painfully and hilariously pokes at creativity, family, and the lengths people go to maintain appearances or reject them altogether.
The satire hits HARD from the get-go. Bernadette’s reluctance to engage with her community is relatable for anyone who’s ever felt like there was some fun partying going on in a private breakout room during a Zoom. The struggle against absurd norms is the heartbeat of the novel, emphasizing how fricking exhausting it can be to keep up with the Joneses when you don’t even want to be anywhere near that racetrack. But Semple lets us know there’s always a different (hilarious! charming!) path.
A quick side-eye to how some characters — ELGIN — get handed one too many Get Out of Jail Free cards, but that’s a minor quibble in an otherwise deeply resonant, offbeat, well-balanced novel that may make you reconsider wild trips to the end of the earth or lawn warfare.
A thoughtful guidebook/kick in the pants for anyone trying to be creative while the world tells you to go faster, do more, and SMILE while putting nose to grindstone. Despite sounding like something an overenthusiastic AI model would suggest, concepts like “Creative Rhythm” and “Idea Management” are actually quite brilliant, even for non-business creatives like me. He emphasizes balancing focus, relationships, energy, and time to help you generate ideas without burning out or losing quality. It’s something to keep close by and a good reminder that slow, steady, and deliberate make those big moments of creative inspiration possible. Make your creativity bulletproof. I’ll let you know as I buckle down to work on my own book if these ideas are more than inspiration.
I’m off to go figure out my new Reedsy stuff now. Wish me luck. I, a Luddite, stopped keeping up with tech once my iPod Gen 2 gave up the ghost (to the tune of Bubbles by ARTIST). Maybe I’ll reward myself with a quick jog behind the Good Humor truck, should those bells toll for me.
What did you love reading this month?
Jackie Pick 