I just don’t have the words to express the whirlwind of emotions I felt today, as we careened from the high of winning the Georgia Senate races to the low of racist domestic terrorists storming Congress at the behest of the President.
D.C. went into a lockdown at 6, so I did take a break from work in the afternoon in an attempt to get some extra groceries. I didn’t make it to Safeway before they’d locked their doors, but I did manage to find most of what I was looking for between the mom & pop shops and drug store.
But, honestly, it was exhausting being out, looking over my shoulder at anyone who passed me by, wondering if they were a threat. They’re staying at all the local hotels and at many of the Air BnB’s in the area, including one a couple doors down. (A pair of them mistook Rudi’s red baseball cap for a MAGA hat the other day.)
So, in the end, I hurried home even before I needed to. I finished my work, answered all the tweets and texts from those worried about me, called my folks, and took a fitful nap.
It was quiet in our neighborhood tonight. There are no cars on the road or passersby on the sidewalk, which is disquieting. There is an uptick in helicopters overhead (albeit less than during this spring’s protests or during the last Inauguration), which always adds a level of constant uneasiness to daily life.
Two more weeks. It’s a false goal, of course, because all of these dangerous jerks will still be here, lurking beneath their rocks, and now recruiting more to their cause who saw heroes in the display of toxic masculinity today. I despair for America tonight, which just seems like a lot when this morning was so hopeful.
Today’s Top Ten Tuesday topic from That Artsy Reader Girl invites us to share ten books we’re excited to see coming out in the next six months. I don’t tend to have my finger on the publishing pulse, so this topic is always fun as I scroll through upcoming new releases.
This week kicks off Bout of Books 30, and I’m going to join in as a way to ease into 2021. What is Bout of Books and why should you join in?
The Bout of Books readathon is organized by Amanda Shofner and Kelly Rubidoux Apple. It’s a weeklong readathon that begins 12:01 a.m. Monday, January 4, and runs through Sunday, January 10, in YOUR time zone. Bout of Books is low-pressure. There are reading sprints, Twitter chats, and exclusive Instagram challenges, but they’re all completely optional. For all Bout of Books 30 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. – From the Bout of Books team
I’m going to share my participation a couple times this week. There are no blog challenges this time around, but since I’m not on Instagram, I might just put my answers here anyway.
For instance, I’m currently listening to Samantha Irby’s hilarious collection of essays, Wow, No Thank You. On paper I’m reading One Day in December by Josie Silver, but I might put it aside in favor of something else this week.
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I finished a book this morning. It was a cute, holiday-themed romance that was perfectly adequate — too many characters left underdeveloped, but generally a feeling of coziness and caring even among the ones who should have been edited out.
But its ending annoyed me, because there was a proposal, and it involved all the secondary characters knowing before the main character, as well as the casual comment about the love interest having asked the father for his permission or blessing or whatever.
I recognize that both those things happen in real life. Proposals, like so many other events, have become an opportunity for grandiose public gestures. There is intense pressure on the person being queried for an affirmative response, and unless that person has already confided that a) they’d like to marry you and b) they’ve always hoped to be proposed to in front of a million strangers, I’d suggest you keep your important questions to a more intimate setting.
But the part that more sets my teeth on edge is the asking of parents (particularly fathers) for permission to marry their daughter. It smacks of old-fashioned patriarchy and transactional relationships (“I will marry your daughter, as long as you include three cows and a hectare of land”), and I find it a wholly offensive gesture, rather than a romantic one. If you’ve already spent any significant amount of time with your love’s family, you know whether they like you or not. And, at the heart of it, it’s really not about them. It’s about the person you actually want to spend the rest of your life with, and their opinion should matter most of all. For the record, I told Rudi early on in our relationship that should he ever feel the need to propose, if he asked anyone else about it before me, my answer would automatically be no.
I recognize that not everyone feels this way, including some of my close friends. And in the end, marriage — and how you get there — is one of personal preference. So, you do you. But every novelist that includes that scene as something they feel is to be admired is getting knocked down a star in my rating book.
Like everything else this holiday season, New Year’s Eve & Day were a little off, but otherwise fine. Usually, we spend the afternoon and evening of the last day of the year with our friend Sarah running between cinemas for a movie marathon and squeezing in a pizza dinner downtown.
Time with friends, dinners out, and movie theaters all being disallowed this year, we stayed in. We ate Christmas Eve leftovers (crepes and the last of the baked brie), watched a couple films (Die Hard and The Last Dragonslayer), and counted down the New Year by toasting with bubbly drinks and special French desserts I picked up on my way back from the eye doctor earlier in the day.
The traditional way to spend the first day of the year normally involves watching the Rose Parade and getting outside (Rudi usually rides with friends) before whipping up a traditional Southern New Year’s Day supper of greens, black-eyed peas, and cornbread.
The parade was canceled, so I slept in, but we did eat the rest of the Christmas morning cinnamon rolls once I got up. It was raining heavily all day, so neither of us felt especially motivated to get outside, and I never got out of my pajamas. And then, although I’d bought the ingredients for the usual supper, I forgot about it until we’d decided on something else and had it reheating in the microwave. We decided it would be no less lucky to have it this weekend, instead.
So, there we have it. I’m glad to see the year switch over, but apparently not so much that I was willing to make a fuss over it. A low-key greeting seemed best; I’d hate for 2021 to think it needed to outdo last year in terms of memorability.
