Not Without a Fight

Listen. Let me tell you. If you are medicated, please make sure you are on the right dosage and do not try to ration your meds, especially if you’re on a wrong, lower dosage than you should be. If you’re supposed to take 300mg daily but the pharmacy gives you 200mg, and then you start trying to spread it out by taking 100mg every other day because you have no income, just know… shit gets dark. Luckily, I do not go gently, and neither should you. 

Enough of that. Here are a bunch of things I’ve enjoyed so far this year, including this very thorough analysis of Thirst Aid Kit:

Television/Streaming Series

• Port Protection, Alaska. Never heard of this show until one day, a family member left the tv on NatGeo while I was cooking. Next thing I knew, I’m cross-stitching and watching a bunch of white people float houses on barrels of air and walk through a graveyard of abandoned cars. 

• Professor T. (linking the imdb because the PBS landing page is a bit spoiler-y). British remake of the Belgian show, following a criminologist professor with OCD, autism, and an overbearing mother. He serves as a consultant for the police. I used the 7-day free trial of PBS via Amazon to binge all 4 current seasons. I cried at the end of season three. British crime dramas are not supposed to be moving! 

Social Media

• I recommend following flower accounts to brighten your feed and give yourself a break from the news cycle’s daily devastation. I like cutie pie guys doing flower arrangements and rose farms. The peony accounts have gone a little quiet, unless the algorithm is being a hater, but I do love peonies. They’re toxic to cats so I can’t have them around, but they’re so pretty! I used to buy flowers for my apartment almost weekly, and until I’m in a position to do that again, the bursts of colors on my screen will have to do. 

• Afro LoFi Youtube channel. Vibes. 

• Various low stakes games I play on my ipad, including something called Family Tree!- Logic Puzzles (ios link). As I get older and watch family members succumb to dementia, I worry. And if I’m gonna be addicted to my screens, maybe I can do something that makes me think a little bit. Gotta keep my brain active in this world that wants me to hand over thinking to chatbots and men, both of which are often wrong and harmful. I honestly have no clue if this kind of thing actually helps stave off memory loss and deterioration. I’m gonna put a screenshot of one match with the answers at the end of the newsletter. 

Movies

• G20, starring Viola Davis. A movie to watch with friends and family so y’all can say “girl, what is this?” at all the ridiculousness, but it was entertaining. 

• Superman (2025), starring David Corenswet. Into it. 

• Sinners, starring Michael B. Jordan. I keep saying I will do a separate newsletter dedicated to this movie by itself, and maybe I will. I resented the From Dusk ‘Til Dawn comparisons, especially after I saw it. I think the hoodoo, even with Hollywood gloss, was handled fairly respectfully and highlighted in such a way that it didn’t fall victim to the usual “Black people and their scary mumbo jumbo” angle. In Sinners, hoodoo was a source of knowledge, hope, and peace. I definitely need to talk about Ryan Coogler’s approach toward Black intimacy, but that’s for another time. Cooz. 

Books

• Aftertaste by Daria Lavelle and These Summer Storms by Sarah MacLean. Two very different books but they both deal with the loss of a father, love, grief, and identity. I read them both as I was dealing with the loss of my own father and trying to figure out my complicated, messy feelings. I cried at various parts of both books, which, yes, could be about my own issues, but I think it’s also a testament to the power of good writing. 

• Once Upon a Time in Dollywood by Ashley Jordan. Dollywood is about 3.5 hours away from Nashville, so I was very curious about this novel. I’m really glad I read it. A New York playwright returns to her late grandmother’s cabin to wrestle her muse and traumatic past into submission. Luckily, a very handsome single dad still recovering from an intense custody battle lives next door to the cabin. I encourage you to seek out content warnings. If you need a love story covered in unicorn sparkles with no conflict and no drama, this is not the book for you. If you enjoy Kennedy Ryan’s work, you’ll be into Once Upon a Time in Dollywood, a really good, strong debut. 

• The Wilderness by Angela Flournoy. My goodness. Please pre-order this book, which is out next month, September 2025. It’s been about 10 years since Flournoy’s last book, and The Wilderness is worth the wait. It’s about 5 Black women friends, over the course of roughly 20 years, trying to figure out how to grow in a world that wants to keep them stunted. If I were teaching college literature, I would add this to the syllabus immediately. 

• Toni at Random by Dana A. Williams. Absolutely fascinating. It covers Toni Morrison’s work at Random House, where she served as editor and helped change the course of publishing. Morrison is one of my favorite writers, and I loved this look into that part of her life. 

• Along Came Amor by Alexis Daria. The final installment in a trilogy about Puerto Rican cousins trying to avoid love. Each book can be read as a standalone, but Along Came Amor is definitely my favorite out of the three. A middle school teacher decides to celebrate her divorce with a one night stand with a hotel magnate who ends up being the best man in her cousin’s upcoming wedding. I was barely 10% in when I started texting a friend “please get this book.” I’m still thinking about it several weeks later. 

• Sucker Punch by Scaachi Koul. I’ve been reading women’s memoirs about divorce and living full lives despite societal expectations, like This American Ex-Wife by Lyz Lenz and I’m Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself by Glynnis MacNicol, which I have recommended in previous newsletters at that other platform. [Full disclosure: I have been colleagues of sorts with all three of these authors]. Sucker Punch was a natural choice to keep that train going. Have you ever been in a situation where someone is telling what they think is a funny story but everyone listening is like “honey, that’s not funny. That’s trauma?” Yeah. 

• Faster by Andie J. Christopher. Another preorder recommendation that will be released in September 2025. To oversimplify, think F1 meets Challengers. Why Choose? On the racetrack. Fucking your ex’s dad goes vroom vroom. If you like to clutch your pearls, pick this one up. 

Music

Earlier this year, I asked people to recommend love songs to help me kickstart some writing on a romance novel. Here’s a playlist with those suggestions. I found a lot of good, new-to-me music that definitely gave me a creative boost. 

Okay. Whew. That’s it for now. Hope you find something you enjoy from these lists. 

Here’s the answer to the family tree logic puzzle:

Sending you sweet vibes. Make art. Don’t let them take away our humanity.

And remember: you don’t have to earn pleasure.