August 11, 2023

Hot Fun In The Summertime 🌞

Just kidding it's pretty maudlin in here this week, sorry 💀

CW: death, grief

First of all, please join me in sending some funds via the Maui Mutual Aid Resources & Guide if you can.

Grief is such a complete and total asshole. Two years ago right now I was spending what would be the last summer vacation with my best friend Alli, who died of breast cancer on September 28, 2021. As I write this, I’m getting ready to go to my friend Pilar’s family camp on Silver Lake in the Adirondacks. Alli, Pilar, Molly, Amy Jo, and I have been going every summer since our early 20’s. Partners have come and gone many times but we’re all still together except for Alli who we’ll never see again, at least not in any way that we currently have experience with or knowledge of, I don’t know, my brain is irreparably broken and sometimes I think I can will the afterlife into existence like lots of nonbelievers who lose someone they never imagined living without but now the unimaginable is your whole fucking life. 

Last year Alli’s husband Ben and their kids came and we all mourned Alli’s absence and scattered some of her ashes along her favorite hiking trail and it was hard but it also felt good to pay tribute to her and miss her and love her together. This year the kids have camp the only week the rest of us could all make it and Ben’s not coming and I know we’ll get it back on track and we’ll all keep getting together but it also feels like yet another end. The ends sneak up all the time. Dave and I were driving back from the Cape a few weeks ago and “Whenever I Call You ‘Friend’” by Kenny Loggins and Stevie Nicks came on. At first I was like “I can absolutely handle “Whenever I Call You ‘Friend’” at this point and tentatively started singing along. It was mine and Alli’s favorite duet at karaoke and suddenly I realized she was never going to sing it with me again and by the time Kenny and Stevie got to the first “I know forever we’ll be doing it right” I was sobbing and Dave was once again holding my hand and saying “I know, I know.” 

Earlier this week Dave and I went to see Kathleen Edwards play at the beautiful Clark Art Institute in the Berkshires. I was unfamiliar with her work, but Dave looooooves a country-folk-rock lady and heard about her via Laura Cantrell. (Also Dame Margaret mentioned her in this very newsletter in 2020!) Turns out Kathleen Edwards has a gorgeous voice and is incredibly famous and Canadian but took nearly a decade off from performing and then released a new album in 2020 and we all know how that went. Now she’s touring with Willie Nelson, no big deal.

She was incredibly open and guileless the entire time she was on stage, admitting she was “terrified,” discussing the embarrassment but necessity of vulnerability, complete with Brene Brown jokes, and at one point she introduced a new song she’d written in honor of a dead friend and she choked up and cried a little when she talked about how much that loss continued to affect her. (I think she was talking about Neal Casal; I learned she went viral on Twitter right after his death when she wrote about her own mental health struggles.) I cried, too. Maybe Kathleen is missing Neal especially hard because the anniversary of his death is coming up. As time goes by, the more you live, the more you mourn. I get shaky and sad and scared just thinking about it, but it’s unavoidable and the best we can do is remember we’re not alone in those feelings. If you’re also mourning anything at all right now, I’m so sorry. Here we are. Alive and mourning.

Hey, there’s other things, though!

Twitter is dying a little more every day but there’s still fun and camaraderie to be had there so I am hanging on until the sad, stupid end. This week I enjoyed “Summer reading recs but it’s 1600 and there’s only ten books” by Eleanor Morton and Naima Cochran’s #31DaysOfHipHop50 celebrating, yes, 50 years of hip-hop, especially the [occasionally unexpected] selections for THE definitive hip-hop track.

Cool, very cool

Did you see Dame Sophie’s latest Vulture masterpiece?! Strange New Worlds’ Secretly Sad Space Saddies, Ranked — I know we have fans of Star Trek, sadness, and ranking out here in Dames Nation. This has all three! 

Why did Barbie look Like That?! It’s the three-strip Technicolor film technique seen for the first time in 50 years and dubbed TechnoBarbie, because of course! 

RIP, Sixto “Sugar Man” Rodriguez

Just let people work at home and, among other benefits, avoid the constant onslaught of microagressions and other racist bullshit! Don’t go to WeWork, though. Womp womp.

I worked on this story for Vinyl Me, Please about Dolly Parton superfans and their relationships with each other for MONTHS and it came out in June and I don’t think I ever linked to it here. (Maybe I did? Sorry if so!) Anyway, I would love it if you read it; the people I interviewed were amazing. Thank you! Also VMP inexplicably linked to my LinkedIn profile in my byline, which is extremely weird and funny. Alli would have loved that.

And finally…

I’m told that when an Austen fan sees that sea wall, they’ll lose their minds so… if you know, you know. Common Ground newsletter subscribers get a full day to register for these trips before they open to the general public and this lead time might be crucial: there are 30+ former Margaret pilgrims and only 16 spots available on this trip. So, if your interest is piqued, sign up here and may the odds be ever in your favor.