July is for reading.
Some of my favorite books of the year are coming out this month and you should definitely pick them up. The first is my pick for the Fantastic Strangelings Book Club and it’s Meg Shaffer’s The Lost Story.
Inspired by C. S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia, this wild and wondrous novel is a fairy tale for grown-ups who still knock on the back of wardrobes—just in case.
Want a taste?
As boys, best friends Jeremy and Rafe went missing in a vast West Virginia state forest, only to mysteriously reappear six months later with no explanation for where they’d gone or how they’d survived.
Fifteen years after their miraculous homecoming, Rafe is a reclusive artist who still bears scars inside and out but has no memory of what happened during those months. Meanwhile, Jeremy has become a famed missing persons’ investigator. With his uncanny abilities, he is the one person who can help vet tech Emilie Wendell find her sister, who vanished in the very same forest as Rafe and Jeremy.
Or if horror is more your style, check out my pick for the Nightmares from Nowhere Book Club, I Was a Teenage Slasher by Stephen Graham Jones (one of my favorite horror authors).
This is one of the most anticipated books of the summer for good reason and I’m thrilled to tell you that we’ll be hosting Stephen on July 18th at Nowhere! If you’re a member of the Nightmares bookclub check the email I sent you a few days ago to reserve an early free ticket to the event. If you’re not a member we opened up ticket sales a few minutes ago ( ticket price = the price of the book which you’ll get when you arrive) today and I suspect they’ll go fast.
Need more than one book to get you through the month? I got ya. Here are a few July books I recommend:
Nicked by M. T. Anderson – Based on a bizarre but true quest to steal the mystical corpse of a long-dead saint, Nicked is a fantastical, genre-defying historical romp.
Bury Your Gays by Chuck Tingle – A nuanced and smart horror novel by one of my favorite weirdo authors. A heart-pounding story about what it takes to succeed in a world that wants you dead.
Catalina by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio – A year in the life of Catalina, a smart but vulnerable student at an elite college forced to navigate the world as one of the undocumented.
Colored Television by Danzy Senna – A suspenseful dark comedy about second acts, creative appropriation, and the racial identity-industrial complex.
We currently have spots available in the Fantastic Strangelings and Nightmares from Nowhere book clubs if you want join the club. It literally keeps our shop in business and we can’t thank you enough. Come read with us, friend.
It’s Friday!
First off…click here for an update to my post about car footrests that caused a firestorm of discussion.
Secondly, it’s Friday and this week has been long as shit, so that means it’s time to come into my office so I can show you all of the videos I saved for you.
Ready? Let’s go.
But still, I would push people over to pet it:
I mean, eventually it’s gotta work:
This has been explained to me multiple times and I still don’t get it:
Me watching this with 18 unexplained bruises:
What.
I wanted to try this but I’m pretty sure Victor would involuntarily boot me like a soccer ball:
Yup:
Relatable:
Mine does too:
Yup:
Sigh. But yeah:
Me and Victor every single time I run after a stray cat:
Happy weekend, y’all!
Is this a universal problem between husbands and wives or is it just us?
Yesterday I was getting my oil changed and when the mechanic came back to the waiting room to give me my keys I had a question for her:
Me: Quick question. I always put my right foot in that footrest thingy on the bottom of the passenger side door of my husband’s car but now I’ve worn a hole in it and he’s furious so I wondered if there was some sort of protective covering I could buy for it?
Mechanic: That little pocket on the bottom of the door? Oh, I put my foot on there too and my husband hates it. I don’t think they make a cover for it but if they did I’d buy one.
random man in the waiting room: Oh my god, my wife does that too. Y’ALL ARE RUINING THE DOOR.
Lady next to him: Wait, are there people who don’t prop their foot on the footrest?
me: Apparently it’s not even a footrest.
Mechanic: Girl, it’s totally a footrest. What else would you do with it?
me: In my car it’s for straw wrappers and feet.
guy: *head in hands, sighing loudly*
Mechanic: I don’t know why they don’t just make a cover for it the same way they do for floorboard covers?
Guy: Because you’re not supposed to put your feet on it.
Lady: Then what is it even made for?
Guy: Nothing. It should just be empty and clean.
me: Oh, every car maker makes a perfect footrest to just never be used? Now who sounds crazy?
So now I’m wondering if this is a universal problem and if it’s just women who prop their foot in the door pocket or if we were just a weird accidental focus group?
PS. I’m not sure why other people do it but having my foot propped up relieves the pressure on my arthritic joints so Victor said I should just get one of those small “squatty potty” stools for the car, and that seems like a good idea until I get into an accident and then the paramedics wonder forever why I was using a stool to help you shit better in the car. I guess I could just write “NOT FOR POOPING” on it in sharpie but I think that might look even more questionable.
UPDATED: As requested, a photo of the footrest. Please excuse my unmanicured feet. I am very lazy.
UPDATED!
Just got back from the hardware store where Victor picked up some pipe insulation and used it to wrap the edge of the footrest and now it’s even better because it’s padded. WHOOP.
Maybe everyone is getting gay possums?
Shit feels like it’s coming apart at the seams sometimes but then I open up my instagram “for you” page and it’s all gay possums and I think to myself, “Nah, baby girl. You’re doing just fine.”
sharks and toddlers
Me: I wonder why shark dorsal fins stick out of the water?
Victor: Because they’re hot and want to cool off.
me: But it’s always colder in the water than outside it.
Victor: Because they’re cold and they want to warm up.
me: You’re just confidently guessing until you get to one that sounds right, aren’t you?
Victor: Because they use their fins to help them turn.
me: Wait, that one actually sounds right.
Victor: Totally is. Trust me.
me: I just googled it and apparently the dorsal fin shows up on the surface because “that’s just the top of the shark”. Well, now I feel stupid.
Victor: No. I like my answer better.
me: Apparently sharks don’t even realize their fin is sticking out of the water. That’s…kind of adorable.
Victor: Adorable?
me: They think they’re sneaking up on us and the whole time we can totally see them coming . It’s like when a toddlers is playing hide-and-seek by hiding their face under a blanket but they don’t realize you can totally see the rest of their body and also they’re giggling loudly.
Victor: And also the toddler also has several rows of deadly shark teeth and maybe a machete.
Me: Oh yeah. That’s slightly less adorable.
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