the slow and unyielding march of time | episode 8
pardon any typos and the general lack of links in this missive — I’m writing on my phone in tinyletter’s very-much-not-web-responsive UI.
I think this is the year I learn how to grow plants. I don’t mean learn to garden, although I’d like to get better at that too someday — I grew a bunch of vegetables last year, but I made some really dumb mistakes like not thinning out my raised beds so I ended up with an infinite number of beets. (You may think it’s impossible to have too many beets. You are wrong! I grew too many beets.) That was satisfying but what I’d really like to learn is how to keep plants alive inside my home. I’m not quite sure what I find so lovely about walking indoors and seeing a wall of green, or a vine (or several) slowly reaching towards the ceiling.
I’m in Buenos Aires right now, and the city is so, so green and lush. Every balcony (there are so many tiny balconies) is decorated with pots and pots of plants. There are cut-flower kiosks dotting the sidewalks. The one flower store near my home in Seattle closed in the past year (bulldozed for a mixed building development) and so I’ve stopped buying flowers to liven up my space. The current greenery situation inside my home is an aloe plant my friend gave me years ago that somehow retains its color despite never ever being watered. I ... think I can do better.
debris:
I’m far less stressed than I was last year, traveling around Argentina. (Yes, I’m the luckiest bitch, I’ve gone to Argentina twice in two years.) part of it is familiarity, of course. But I think part of it is just how much I’ve worked on my anxieties in the past year. Therapy works, y’all.
We went to a tango show and the dancing and music and singing were so great! There was a half hour of patter that i couldn’t understand that nearly put me to sleep which was a bit of a bummer, but of course my own fault for not knowing Spanish. One of the numbers featured an extremely elderly conductor who needed to be helped onstage; he was adorable and also I feared he might keel over right there, but he made it through. The final number was a hugely over-the-top version of “dont cry for me argentina” which killed.
we went to a dude ranch and watched an Argentinian cowboy (a gaucho) stretch out a horse and then do a handstand on top of it. Truly something. Also I rode a horse (slowly, clumsily) for the first time in 20+ years. I did not fall off!
We went to an ice cream place called “alchemy” that had lots of different cool flavors. I had a salad cone; a scoop of beet (I’m back on the beet saddle I guess), and a scoop of avocado and wasabi. They gave me a giant scoop of the beet because I think no one ever orders it and it was SO good. Claire has a cafe-themed cone (matcha, tuneric latte) and tim had two different cocktails; a cynar julep scoop and something else I can’t remember but was bitter. (Compari perhaps?)
What Am I Reading?
currently:
Broken Harbor by Tara French: I love these detective novels so much. I started reading this on the plane to Argentina and it’s so far a fun read. A family is found murdered in their home, which is locked from the inside; there are some weird holes punched in the walls, and lots of baby monitors focused on the holes. I’m not far enough along to have any idea what’s happening, but looking forward to finishing it while sitting in the Mexico City airport for ten hours on my way home.
finished:
this is how you lose the time war by Amal el-mohtar and max Gladstone: I read this in Mendoza, mostly poolside while drinking a bottle of sparkling wine from santo Julia, a lovely winery we had visited the day before. Claire asked me what it was about and I started and stopped three different times because it’s complicated and I wanted to get it right. It’s about the relationship that two rival agents in the time war — a war that takes place between the strands that make up our existence. They secretly begin sending letters to each other, initially jocular and taunting. The beauty is in the details as they describe their victories to each other, slowly building up the world they live in, as their relationship builds apace.
All Our Pretty Songs by Sarah McCarry: this is a modern day retelling of the Orpheus myth? I guess? Through the lens of two teenage best friends who have grown up with missing fathers and present-but-absent mothers. It’s an interesting idea, for sure, but none of the characters really jibed in a way that made sense. I’m always into stories about friendship leading into hell itself, so it was enjoyable but ... there just was less there than hoped.
Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson: I received an email from my father to myself, my mom, and an email address that I didn’t recognize, written to the “unofficial book club of the stratosphere” positing that this is a retelling of Moses and the burning bush. I don’t think the theory holds up, but I like that this was a book myself and my dad could riff about.
Ruin of Stars by Linsey Miller: this was the sequel of the YA book I read a few weeks ago. It ... wasn’t very good, which is disappointing. It had some interesting social justice-y elements, which I was excited about but a lot of the storytelling was contradictory or just plain didn’t make any sense, or really repetitive. It kind of felt like when I write a story and get really excited about a sentence and then move to it another paragraph bc I think it fits better there but forget to change some key tenses and words and then also forget to remove it from its original place.
i love you all so so much. i hope you’re having a great week.
<3 davida