Not Even a Niche Noodle

And other live, laugh, love moments from the past few weeks.

Photo: Martin Kallur

Maybe it’s the unseasonable sixty-degree weather in central Ohio, and maybe it’s Maybelline, but I’ve been swerving toward the glimmers lately. I use the word “swerve” intentionally. Leaning toward joy suggests that the joy was sitting in your path all along, accessible by a gentle turn of the steering wheel. Swerving, however—swerving entails an abrupt departure from that eye-numbing sprawl of highway. Spying that billboard for the Largest Peahen Sculpture in America and making the conscious decision to go there, instead of wherever you were heading. Swerving is how we start to surprise ourselves.

Life has held some heaviness lately, which makes it difficult for me to pick things up that also feel weighed down. So most of the media I’ve been choosing is light and funny and curiosity-inducing, though not without heart. That seems to be the right spot for my mind at the moment. If you’re looking for a swerve toward joy too, I included a list of links and ideas below to prod you in that direction. Please add to the list in the comments, if you want!

Before all that, I also wanted to share that I’ll open up a future issue of Wallflower Chats to an AMA (Ask Me Anything*). There have been quite a few new subscribers since the last AMA (thank you for being here!), so I’d love to answer your questions about creativity, publishing, “bad” television, books, and whatever else you’re pondering. If you have a question, you can leave a comment on this post or respond to this email. 

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Reading

• All the Dolly Alderton. Good Material was a funny and poignant look at breakups and male friendship, while her memoir Everything I Know About Love is perfect for consuming in short bursts. She well earns her title as the modern-day Nora Ephron.

• More romcoms I read and enjoyed: Seven Year Slip by Ashley Poston, You, Again by Kate Goldbeck, Bride by Ali Hazelwood, Funny Story by Emily Henry (out April 23), Cole and Laila Are Just Friends by Bethany Turner (out June 4), The Improbable Meet Cute Collection by various authors

• Ready Player One by Ernest Cline: A fun romp through ‘80s video games, movies, and pop culture, all surrounding a Willy-Wonka-like quest for an Easter egg of epic proportions. Immensely readable, especially if your patience is running thin at the moment. 

• ‘I Think My Husband Is Trashing My Novel on Goodreads!’ (The Cut): Wild. And, I hate to say it, but scant on evidence? What do you think? 

• Reader messages about my book. I’m lucky to receive notes from readers when they finish Banyan Moon, sharing what the characters meant to them, or telling me that they passed the book along to their mothers or daughters. For a novel about generational inheritance, this seems particularly resonant and special. Thank you for holding the book close; it keeps me going!

Watching

• Summer House, vintage Real Housewives, Vanderpump Rules (Peacock): The only thing that gets me to the gym is the prospect of mind-numbing audiovisual indulgence as I steadily walk the road to nowhere on the treadmill. This season of Summer House, in particular, promises to be satisfying. (Niche noodle content.)

• One Day (Netflix): I read the book and saw the movie back in the day, but I like this interpretation best of all. Ambika Mod, who plays Emma Morley, gives a wry and vulnerable spin to the character, which makes her irresistible to watch.

• The Brothers Sun (Netflix): Only one episode in, but I’m hooked. Two brothers, a strong matriarch, and multiple triad assassination attempts. Plus Michelle Yeoh. Plus a predominantly Asian cast. Yes to all that.

• Abbott Elementary (Hulu): This sitcom keeps getting better and better. Heartwarming, hilarious, and surprising, each episode continues to make me feel a little better about humanity. I giggled throughout the whole smoking episode.

• Clips of Ronny Chieng’s stand-up. His comedic timing and delivery hit every single time.

Listening

• Quinta Brunson’s podcast episode on What Now? With Trevor Noah: An honest and enlightening interview with the Emmy-winning star and creator of Abbott Elementary. I especially love what she says about the role of art in an age of message-driven content.

• Dan Levy on We Can Do Hard Things: Another warm and often-hilarious interview. In this one, Levy talks a lot about grief and his motivation for creating a show like Schitt’s Creek. I’ve always appreciated what he says about the world of show. The creative team purposefully omitted instances of homophobia in the town, because they wanted to create a better world than the one we know. No wonder each episode always feels like the tightest hug.

• Don’t Ask Tig: This three-season podcast by Tig Notaro is no longer running but, being the late adopter I am, I found it just this week and loved it. The Jessi Klein and Julia Louis Dreyfus episodes are particularly good. (Tig has another podcast called Handsome, but I haven’t listened to it.)

• My friends sharing their experiences as People of Color in creative industries. I’ve been thinking about these issues for a long time, and my takeaway is that we find our strength in unity and community. We rise by making visible that which systemic forces seek to obscure. These conversations aren’t exactly light, but they never fail to create deeper connections and spaces for vulnerability. And that is the best part of friendship, IMO.

And other miscellaneous things

• Walking the metroparks with my (new to me) Canon AE-1. The medium forces me to slow down. I’m more deliberate in my framing choices—even my decisions on whether a photo is “worth” memorializing. I did some film photography a decade ago (and had the same camera then too!) and it’s neat to see how everything circles back around. Speaking of—

• Trying out Clinique’s Black Honey Almost Lipstick. The second romcom (more on that below) is a very enthusiastic ode to the 1990s and early aughts, so between writing that and watching these amazing ‘90s mom TikToks, I’ve been happily reliving some of the trends of my teen years. I’m still not sure the whole vampy Cordelia Chase thing is for me, but YOMO.

• Playing Kirby Star Allies on the Nintendo Switch. This pink puffball warrior goes on an intergalactic mission, adopting some (pretty random) powers along the way. At one point, he cooks his friends as part of his “chef” power. It’s the best kind of weird.

• Shopping for fabric. My mother sews áo bà bas for my grandmother and I asked if I could send some cotton for these handmade sets. I’m also sewing summer pajamas for my daughter, so I hopped to the local fabric store to pick out some yardage. There’s something so intimate and inspiring about selecting fabric (and sewing) for someone you love. And I found space cats! I’ll let you guess whether that print went to my grandmother or my daughter.

• Drafting a new romcom. This one has been more joyful than any other project I’ve ever worked on, with characters who dance in my mind even when I’m far from my laptop. I’m usually pretty private about my books before they’re published, but I have been feeding my friends pieces of this story because I can’t keep these characters to myself. 

• Deleting social media from my phone. This one’s self-evident. Immediate results; no regrets.

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*I won’t actually answer questions about anything, because: boundaries. But you know what I mean. 

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