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All the Summer Reads

July 17, 2017 Leave a Comment

You probably know from my summer reading lists in 2016, 2015, 2014, etc. that I don’t believe in the “beach read” concept. I just want a book that grabs me, I don’t care if it’s light or heavy. But, as always, I’ll make sure to make it clear how far on the light-to-heavy spectrum a book is. I’ll start light and work my way up. As usual, links are to Amazon, and if you purchase through them I may get a small commission.

First up a few honorable mentions because this list was ridiculously long: I’ll Eat When I’m Dead by Barbara Bourland (murder mystery at a high fashion magazine featuring lots and lots of outfit descriptions), Standard Deviation by Katherine Heiny (character-driven domestic drama with top notch writing), Universal Harvester by John Darnielle (creepy literary fiction if you want something midwestern and moody), Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood (memoir of a highly unusual family with a distinctive voice and I hear it’s great on audio), and This Is Just My Face, Try Not to Stare by Gabourey Sidibe (celebrity memoir that’s super fun and perfect plane reading).

Startup by Doree Shafrir. My review of this book calls it, “frothy,” “smart,” and “compulsively readable.” If I was going to give my top pick for beach/plane/speed reads of the summer, this is the one. At the center of the book is an app, a startup founded by the same guy who has founded every startup, and an online media site focusing on tech news, where a reporter starts to hear about some possible dirt on the company. If you have ever worked in this kind of setting, this book may be a little too real.

The Prey of Gods by Nicky Drayden. A friend of mine called this American Gods meets District 9 and that’s not so far off the mark. This is a WILD sci-fi/fantasy novel set in South Africa with a diverse set of characters and a storyline that is unlike anything you have ever read. If you feel like every book you read is the same, that they’re all cliches, I can promise you this book is different. It’s a rollercoaster ride that won’t ever go where you think it’s going to. And if you’re tired of the white-male-ness of SFF, I highly suggest supporting this book from a black female author. (I am also reading N. K. Jemisin this summer, who I like even more.)

Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz. A mystery-within-a-mystery, one of them of the old school English countryside variety, the other a modern thriller set in London. Our narrator is an editor, and the internal mystery is the manuscript from one of her most successful authors. But there’s a problem, and a real-life mystery to solve. I am nostalgic for old-school Christie-esque mysteries and most of this book hit the spot, and the two plots means that nearly any mystery/thriller reader is going to enjoy themselves. One of my go-to recommendations of the year.

The Birdwatcher by William Shaw. A mystery novel for fans of melancholy British series like Broadchurch, a solidly written police procedural. Protagonist William South is not your gritty, grizzled detective. He’s a rather soft, inexperienced patrol officer in a small town on the coast of Kent. In the first chapter we learn of two murders: that of South’s neighbor and birdwatching partner, and one South himself once committed. In parallel stories we’ll follow the search for the new killer and South’s efforts to evade detection. It’s a solid, slow-burn procedural that isn’t trying to shock you with twists but get you slowly more and more tied up with its quiet central character.

Long Black Veil by Jennifer Finney Boylan. I will read almost anything that is compared to The Secret History and this one, while very different, actually is one of the few books that makes that comparison that actually does seem to have a kind of kinship with TSH even if I can’t put my finger on exactly what it is. A group of college friends are at the center of a murder that will impact them all in unexpected ways. Years later new evidence is found that puts them back under the microscope. At first it seems like more of a suspense novel, but about halfway through you realize that this is actually a very smart character study with the crime as the impetus for everything else that happens. I would recommend going into it with as little information as possible. Even reading the jacket copy could be too much. Go into it cold, and I especially recommend the audiobook, which is read by the author.

Surpassing Certainty: What My Twenties Taught Me by Janet Mock. I enjoyed Mock’s previous memoir, Redefining Realness, which is at its heart about gender identity and finding the courage to be true to yourself. (It’s also a solid recommendation when you want to give someone a book with a real person they can root for and plenty of Trans 101 info.) Her second memoir is less your traditional queer suffering/coming out story and more traditional memoir and it’s a story most people will be able to relate to. Janet navigates first love, heartbreak, striking out on your own, finding career, and more. A good one for anyone currently navigating their way through their twenties who could use some inspiration from a great source.

No One Can Pronounce My Name by Rakesh Satyal. In a lot of ways this is part of the growing Indian immigrant fiction genre, joining the likes of Jhumpa Lahiri, Mira Jacob, and many others. These books can be difficult or heavy, they can be deep explorations of identity and culture. But Satyal has written a book that keeps that sense of purpose but is also lighter and has a sense of fun. Our main characters are Harit, a middle-aged man living with his aging mother, and Ranjana, whose only son has just gone off to college. Neither of them feels fulfilled, either by the American world around them or their Indian immigrant communities, and they slowly reach out in search of more. I found this book so incredibly satisfying and emotionally fulfilling.

Woman No. 17 by Edan Lepucki. A dark, suspenseful novel about the intertangled lives of two troubled women? Tell me more, please. If you do not enjoy books about unlikable women, please move along. Lady has clawed her way up to a life in the Hollywood Hills, a wealthy (currently estranged) husband, and a life story she has decided to write as a memoir. Esther is freshly finished at Berkeley, freshly failed at a big performance art project, and ready to start a new one: to take on the persona of her mother at her age. Her first requirement is to get a job as a nanny, which is how she ends up living in Lady’s guest house and watching her young son. They slowly accumulate possibly dangerous secrets in this study of challenging women and difficult mothers. (Note: there are some problematic discussions of autism and deafness in this book if those are issues for you. See my full review for more.)

The Changeling by Victor LaValle. I am always excited about a new LaValle book. He mashes up and messes with genres so enjoyably, he explores characters and fears so deeply. This book is all about the way family makes you afraid and vulnerable, even as it makes you brave and strong. Apollo, son of a struggling single parent, suffering from chronic strange dreams, rises from humble beginnings to become an unlikely dealer of antique books. He meets a wonderful women, and they are thrilled to start a family together until things start to go wrong. It’s spoiling the journey to say much more. But this is a book that plays with horror and fantasy and the worst fears of every parent. (Note: probably best to pass for people sensitive to issues of PPD and other postpartum mental disorders, as well as those who struggle with stories of a child in peril.)

Chemistry by Weike Wang. The unnamed protagonist of this book seems to have a perfect life. The child of immigrants, she has worked hard and made it into a good school. She is in a prestigious chemistry postgraduate program. She has a handsome and smart boyfriend. But she is slowly falling apart. Her boyfriend, also a chemist, is a better worker, faster, and more successful. Her parents constantly pressure her to succeed. She isn’t sure if she wants to continue with her studies, or her boyfriend, or much of anything. This is a book that takes a little while to get used to, where you have to get accustomed to the narrator, her prickliness and her difficultness. She is slow to open up to the reader and it is only near the end that you realize just how and why she is broken. An unusual and interesting character study.

Amatka by Karin Tidbeck. This is one of my favorite books this year and perhaps the most under the radar on this list. This is Scandinavian dystopia and I didn’t realize how much I needed it in my life. This is the kind of science fiction that does things you have not seen science-fiction do. It reminds me of how it used to feel reading sci-fi as a teenager when I didn’t even realize what was possible. It’s also a masterwork of setting and mood, with Scandinavian sparsity and a bleak society reminiscent of the Soviet era. Vanja is a government worker in this strange world who is sent on assignment to a city she has never been to. People are different in this other place and from the very beginning something feels off. Soon Vanja is pulled deeper and deeper into the mystery of what is happening in this place and to these people and I will leave the rest for you to discover.

Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay. If you haven’t heard everyone talk about this book, I’m not quite sure where you’ve been. Needless to say, this is the best book I’ve read this year. It’s a memoir that makes you rethink memoir. Gay is not just talking about her life but her body, what it is like to inhabit the world in a body that breaks the rules, a body that is black, female, queer, and–most importantly for this narrative–fat. This is a book that cuts straight to the heart like a razor, so quickly and sharply you don’t even realize it’s happening until the blood spills out. Gay doesn’t have any two books that are at all alike, having two from her this year is just a gift. (Note: a difficult book for those who may have struggled with eating disorders or been victims of sexual assault.)

The Fact of a Body: A Murder and a Memoir by Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich. A publicist sent me this book in the mail with a note saying that she thought, given my background, it would be a great fit. I was skeptical. I do not like true crime. But I was intrigued by the introduction, featuring the author’s first day at her internship at a death penalty nonprofit where she watches the videotape of a murder suspect’s confession. She will become obsessed with this case for reasons she does not initially understand. Eventually it will help her open up her own past, family secrets that have remained unspoken. This is a very difficult read for the same reasons that I ended up liking it so much more than I usually like true crime. It is written with deep sympathy and understanding because of the way the author goes through the story of one crime, to arrive at the story of another much more personal crime. (Note: involves murder and molestation of children.)

I am still working my way through this summer’s books, what else should I hunt down?

Online Dating After Divorce

May 30, 2017 Leave a Comment

I dabbled in online dating before my marriage. Back then it wasn’t socially acceptable, to the point that my ex and I didn’t tell people we’d met online. Now everyone expects you to date online, but a lot has changed. If you haven’t dated online before, it’s a whole new world. Even for the experienced, apps, etiquette, and expectations shift regularly. People now text the person they’re dating all the time and this remains kind of wild and weird to me. But welcome to the present, I want you to enjoy it, so here’s a primer to help you get started and get comfortable.

To start: who is this post for? This post is for you if you are looking to get into online dating after divorce, with or without kids. If you are totally new to online dating, great. If it’s been more than 5 years since you were online dating, also great. All ages, genders, and sexualities welcome.

Start When You Are Ready

There is no official time when you will be ready. Do not date because other people are wondering why you haven’t started yet. Do not date because it seems like it’s been long enough. Date because you are ready to date.

Dating can be a very long slog. It can have high points and low points. You need to feel ready for that.

I started dating almost immediately after splitting with my ex-husband. I know people who have been divorced for years who are still not ready. Both of those are fine.

Set Up a Separate Email Account

This is one of the first things I did and I’ve never regretted it for a second. My regular email is the one I have pulled up at all times, the one with my name on it, the one that’s tied to my Google profile complete with picture. So before I started online dating, I set up a new email account that’s not tied to my regular one. I used an email program I don’t normally use so that it wouldn’t ever come up as my “inbox” or “email” app on my phone and I wouldn’t have to toggle between accounts.

For the separate email I have a similar username to my online dating profile, and I do not list my full name. (I list my first name and last initial.) I can go on with my normal life and dating will not intrude into it. I can opt in to plenty of email notifications from my dating app but I won’t get push notifications from the mail app so I can ignore until I feel like dealing with them. I very much prefer the compartmentalization of dating into one tidy email box.

Create Your Profile

You do not have to create it all right away, I regularly tinkered with mine for months and I still check it every now and then to see if it needs a tweak. You can leave it blank and just browse for a while if that helps you feel like you’re getting your feet wet.

I recommend using OKCupid. It has basically everything you need in the free version, it lets you screen very effectively, the match algorithm is pretty good, the pool is large, it has more options for sexual orientation and gender, and people there are more responsive than Match or Tinder in my experience. If you find the app version of OKCupid a little confusing, the desktop version is easier.

On OKCupid one of the first things you want to do is answer a bunch of questions. At first this will be tedious. But once you answer enough questions (100 or so should do it) you won’t need to do it ever again! It’s a one time thing and it is crucial because this is where your match percentage comes from and it helps you screen out the most obvious bad fits. These are questions that will make you wonder who on earth would say no, but believe me, someone will, and you definitely don’t want to be matched to that person. You can answer questions before you fill out much of your profile, which is great because you’ll already be able to start seeing who you match with and how well it’s working.

OKCupid gives you some prompts for profile creation, don’t put too much pressure on yourself, and if you’re worried you can always send your profile to friends for their comments. Reading other people’s profiles will help you see what makes a good one. The worst profiles I see are the ones that say they enjoy things that literally everyone enjoys and have qualities that basically everyone thinks they have. (“I enjoy spending time with friends.” “I love going out, but I also enjoy a quality night in.” etc.) Try to give a picture of your personality. And remember that taste and personality are not the same, so do more than list your favorite music.

Do not lie. Do not lie about your age, your height, your relationship status, your parenting status, etc. Anyone who will screen you out based on one of these factors is not someone you should be dating anyway. And the people who don’t care about those things will care that you lied about them.

Profile Pictures

Once you browse around a while you will start to see the trends. Climbing mountains, running races, monuments, beaches, dogs, cats, yoga poses, low cut tops, shirtless flexing, etc. Do not feel like you have to define yourself by your profile pictures. Do not feel like you have to impress anyone. The goal of your profile pictures is to let someone have an idea of what you look like that is accurate enough that they can pick you out on a first date.

Selfies in a well-lit room are great. If you wear your hair a few different ways, if you are prone to grow then shave a beard, or if you make other regular changes try to have pictures of yourself in various states. If at all possible, don’t have other people in your photos, especially not your primary profile picture. If you don’t have pictures of you that fit the bill, just take a few or ask a friend to take some. It’s not rocket science or professional portraiture, just a decent pic of you.

If you have pictures that show your personality, great. If you like to add snarky captions, fine.

Do not use pictures that are more than 5 years old unless you look exactly the same. Do not use the best pictures of you that exist.

Do NOT put pictures of your kids in your profile. This is not the place for that. It already says if you have kids in your profile. These sites are full of weirdos you don’t know who can see your pictures. So let’s just not.

Writing and Responding to Messages

The first thing you need to know about online dating is that there will be people who try to game the system. The second thing you need to know is that women who date straight men will get the most messages and straight men will get the least messages. The second thing is connected to the first.

More women get messages because more men are trying to game the system. They figure the best way to get a date is to put out as many messages as possible. The good news is this is an easy system to fight. The first step is to set a message filter. Anything with a match % below 70 doesn’t go to my inbox but a “Filtered” folder in OKCupid. To set up filters, hit the settings button while in your inbox. You can filter within your parameters or by match %. Going paid unlocks more filters.

The second step is simple: never respond to a message that could have been copy/pasted to 100 other people. Because if it could be, it probably was.

If you receive a message and it feels… off in a way that you can’t describe, good news: you do not need to respond to it. The social contract of online dating is that you are never obligated to respond to a message.

If you aren’t happy with the number of messages you’re receiving, good news: you can also write messages. Writing messages is kind of scary, which is why some people resort to the super boring opening line of “hey.” But if you’ve received a “hey” you know how useless it is, so avoid that. My best advice on writing messages is to find one or two things in the person’s profile that sound cool or interesting, things you’d like to do or have a conversation about. You can ask them an opinion or say you enjoyed something that’s they’ve said they like. A lot of people write me asking for a book recommendation, which is a very very very good way for me to smile and write you back because I LOVE books.

If someone doesn’t write you back, never fear. This is a long game. It’s not the end of the world. I recommend not getting too invested in any one message. I will usually send 2-3 messages in one go and then try to immediately forget about them. Low stakes is the name of the game.

Straight men: I know it feels like online dating is stacked against you, and it may be, but the fault here lies with other straight men and not women. If men weren’t trying so hard to game the system, women wouldn’t be so bombarded, and it wouldn’t be so hard for a well-meaning message to get through. If creepy guys weren’t sending women messages over and over again, they wouldn’t be so worried about their safety. It is not hopeless, women are not to blame for not writing you back, and you can absolutely meet someone you connect with. But if you decide it is all a big plot by women against men, I would suggest you take a break from online dating for everyone’s good.

Messaging vs. Meeting

Here is a story that happens to almost everyone in online dating. You start messaging someone, they are incredibly charming, you keep messaging, you share details of your lives, you message for weeks, and finally when you get to meet in person you are convinced this is IT this is THE ONE. Then you meet in person and the date is so bad you cannot fathom how you got to this place.

This, my friends, is chemistry. It is very, very real. And internet chemistry is not the same as irl chemistry. This is where you have to make the very important meeting vs. messaging decision.

Personally, I set a high bar for responding to a message and after that it’s a very low bar to meet. If someone doesn’t creep me out intensely after I decide they’re worth talking to, I will suggest we meet for coffee within a message or two. I am very frank about it and say that I like to check in person chemistry sooner rather than later. It is rare that people have a problem with this, I suspect because they have also had that horrific date I described above. (It was one of the worst dates I’ve ever had.)

For a first meeting, coffee is always a safe bet. Buy your own coffee, you can offer to buy the other person’s if you like but going dutch is generally the expectation. You can always say you have somewhere to be in an hour to have an out if things aren’t going well.

Intro to Ghosting

Ghosting is an essential part of online dating these days. It allows you to draw the kind of wide net you need to in messaging and meeting people without having to awkwardly remove yourself from every conversation. It is acceptable to ghost in many situations.

Ghosting means that you stop talking to a person. You can ghost while messaging but before meeting at any time. The only exception is if you have planned a meeting with someone. In that case, if you change your mind you’ll need to say so.

You can ghost after meeting someone if it was only one meeting. Sometimes you can ghost after two dates. If you liked the person just fine and had a nice time but didn’t really feel a spark, ghosting is okay.

If the person messages you to talk about going out again, then you should reply with a simple refusal along the lines of, “Enjoyed meeting you, but I didn’t get the connection I’m looking for.” If you’re only a few dates in you can do this via message or text and it’s okay. The old rules of having to do this in person or via phone call only apply if you’re past the very early stages.

People You Know

If you are in an area where you know a lot of people, you will inevitably see some of them pop up. This is not horrifying or awkward, it is just you both existing as single people. I just hide their profile and then act like we have not run into each other on a dating app. There is no need to make it awkward, it is okay to be two people who are both single. But since people may share some details about kink or other NSFW topics in their profile or questions, it’s best to hide before you peruse and just be chill.

The odds are very good that any time you set up a new dating profile you will be matched with your ex. I have basically stopped setting up new profiles when I am curious about a new dating app because this happens so predictably every time.

If your ex is dating, this is a thing that will happen. It is best to hide or block that profile so you cannot look at it. They will probably see you there, too. But you can pretend that they never do and this is definitely my recommendation.

Once you’re on an app you like, just stay there. Forget your ex is also on the app. Do whatever mental gymnastics are necessary.

Safety

No, I’m not talking about the old school version of internet dating safety where you tell your friends where you’re going and all that. I mean, you can if you really want to, but these days people meet people from the internet constantly and serial killers aren’t using online dating to identify victims. (Also there is a clear digital record of all of it! Not a very smart serial killer strategy!)

What I’m talking about is creeps and stalkers. They may not be more than just kind of skeezy or a little off, but if you decide you do not want to talk to a person sometimes that person will keep talking to you anyway. Sometimes you will not realize someone is creepy until things get physical. Some people are very good at keeping their inappropriate behavior confined to the bedroom and can come off as pretty normal and okay in conversation.

You can never 100% avoid creeps, but you can take steps to make sure it’s harder for them to access you.

I never give anyone my phone number until after I’ve met them and feel comfortable with them. If they are confined to contacting me only through online dating messages I can block them. (One unfortunate thing is that most dating apps still don’t have a strong enough block function, but you can keep their messages from getting through at a minimum.)

I also don’t give people my address or have them pick me up or drop me off at my house. I’d rather not split a cab if it means they find out where I live. I’ll just take my own, thanks. If someone offers to buy you an Uber or Lyft home on their account, they will see the destination you go to, so accept carefully.

Find out if you are easily google-able or if someone can find you on Facebook. Adjust your non-friend and friend-of-friend Facebook settings. And in those situations try not to give someone your last name.

If you are a queer person, you can actually set your profile so straight people can’t see you which may help you avoid a large amount of creeps, who are often of the cishet variety.

And of course, use the kind of normal care you’ve always used in dating. Don’t let yourself drink too much with someone you don’t know well. Leave a situation if you feel weird about it. Etc. Etc.

Parents

If you have kids, do not hide this fact. There are people who won’t date parents and if that’s the decision they’ve made, you do not have a chance with them.

Do not use your kids’ names or identifying information in your profile. Do not put your kids’ pictures in your profile.

I mention in my profile that I have kids, that I have joint custody of them, and that anyone dating me can basically not worry about that because I do not introduce my kids to people I date. I do it in one sentence so it’s just a small portion of my profile, just as it is a small portion of my conversation when I’m on a date.

If you have not already, have a conversation with your co-parent about when you introduce your kids to new partners. (My agreement is 6 months, I feel like that’s pretty reasonable.)

Initially I worried that people without kids would find it weird to date a parent but that honestly hasn’t happened at all. When I date other parents we do have that additional thing to talk about, but many people I date don’t have kids and there’s no weird distance between us because we are both adults capable of talking about a variety of things.

Do keep the conversation about your kids minimal on early dates.

The “Rules” No Longer Apply

If divorce has made you wonder if you even want to date again, I have good news for you. The “rules” as you probably knew them last time you were dating no longer exist.

You no longer have to date around until you find the perfect person, date, fall in love, move in together, get married, whatever set of steps you were supposed to follow. You probably feel like you were sold a fraudulent deal there.

These days that set of rules is called the relationship escalator, this idea that you step on and then you must move up a very specific path at a certain speed. Now is a good time to rethink whether you want a relationship at all and what you may want from one. It can be hard to separate your brain from the cultural expectations around relationships. It definitely takes time. But it’s a good thing to process and you can work through that while you date.

One of the nice things about online dating and specifically about OKCupid is that you can find people who are not interested in having that specific culturally mandated package. Most dating apps are still incredibly heteronormative or binary. We have made a slight amount of progress in that many apps now let you look for same-gender partners, but most still let you only select one gender. But great news! You can date as many genders as you want and you can identify as such in your OKCupid profile with a label like bisexual or pansexual. If you are trans, nonbinary, genderqueer, or genderfluid you can say so. And if you are anything besides 100% straight you can say so. If you are questioning your sexuality or gender late in life, you get a fresh start to declare your identity on your dating profile to be whatever you want it to be (including “questioning”). Even if you are not fully out to friends, you can be out on your profile.

Next, you can date looking for love, you can date looking for sex, you can date looking for neither, and you can date looking for both. Aromantic and asexual people date, too! You may even realize that you are one of those people once you are not forced to step onto the relationship escalator. There are also demisexual people who only feel sexual attraction with a strong emotional connection. If you have struggled in the past to reciprocate romantic or sexual feelings, it may be worth doing some reading to see if you align with one of these groups.

Finally, you can date without the usual expectations around commitment. You can date many people at once. You can also be committed to many people at once. OKCupid lets you designate your “Relationship Type” as Monogamous or Non-Monogamous. Non-monogamy is a really big category with many different styles. If you are reconsidering the idea of having one partner for the rest of your life, this may be a good category for you. If you decide to do some research, you will find most discussion of non-monogamy is framed around polyamory, although that is only one form of it. People burned by divorce or parenting young children may find that solo poly, for example, is a good fit. If your friends ask you if you have a new person in your life, saying you are “dating around” is an acceptable answer that people will hear with smiles and nods.

If you don’t think you will be able to find anyone else interested in non-relationship-escalator-relationships in your area, you honestly may be surprised. While it’s always easier in big cities, there are many nontraditional communities even in more rural areas.

If you are sure you are a cisgender straight person who wants love, sex, and a committed long-term partnership, that is okay! There are lots of other people like you! You are still the most common type of person dating online. But do read people’s profiles with the understanding that they may not all be cis, straight, and monogamous. You may find a trans person or a queer person is a great fit for you. It won’t make you any less of your identity to date them just like it won’t make them any less theirs.

Safe Sex

Yes, I know you’re an adult but if you’ve had just one partner for a long time you may be out of the habit. Always use protection with new partners, not just birth control but barriers as well.

If you have more than one partner in a 6 month period, get tested for STD’s. I shoot for every 6 months, as a rule. If you don’t have a regular physician or insurance doesn’t cover more than once a year, there are usually community health organizations where you can get tested.

Always have your own protection. Don’t just assume the other person will have it.

Insist on protection, and if a potential partner is trying to avoid it or go without it you may want to reconsider the entire relationship. A lack of responsibility and safety around sex doesn’t bode well for long-term compatibility.

Ask your partners about their STD status and preferred protection. You can do this before sex. If you want to do it via message or text and not in person, that’s just fine. It’s sub-ideal to have this conversation in the heat of the moment.

Feelings

Remember your first love when you were a teenager? Remember how silly and moony you were about the whole thing? You may expect that having all those years behind you means you are no longer susceptible to acting irrationally about a romantic partner. You are probably wrong.

It’s really important to ask yourself early on what you want in a partner and what you want in a relationship. Because if you start falling for a person, you will immediately stop thinking about those things and focusing on this person and how perfect they are. Setting up your expectations early will help you look for those potential red flags and set out guidelines and rules you’ll be able to follow even when your heart tells you to break them.

You’ve probably learned a lot from your marriage and your previous dating life. You probably have a pretty good idea of the mistakes you don’t want to make again. But don’t assume you won’t make those mistakes. It is really easy to forget just how irrational dopamine can make you. Think back to the earliest phases of your previous relationships and consider the things you could have done to make the relationship better or see that this partner wasn’t a good fit.

A therapist is also useful for processing those previous relationships and helping you set healthy standards for yourself. If you are coming out of a particularly difficult relationship involving trauma, domestic violence, emotional abuse, etc. this should be a high priority.

Friends, Family, and Everyone Else

Everyone is going to want to know about your dating life. It will be the first question people ask you now. If they are partnered and haven’t dated in a long time, your friends and family will start looking for fun stories so they can live vicariously through you.

You can share as much as you like! Tell them everything, tell them very little, it’s up to you.

If you would like to keep your dating life private or limited to your closest friends, it’s easy to say something like, “Oh, more of the same,” or “Not much to talk about.” Shut it down quickly and simply.

You also get to decide who you introduce to your friends, when you do it, and under what circumstances.

Keep in mind that sharing information about people you’re dating on social media will invite a lot more questions. It’s also something you should ask your date about before you put up their picture, mention them by name, or tag their account. If you have a very large social media presence or you have public accounts, this is even more important.

I will probably continue to add to this post as more subjects occur to me. There is a lot to consider in the world of online dating, especially if you’re just getting into it. Feel free to add thoughts or questions in the comments below.

Faster, Smarter, Better

April 17, 2017 Leave a Comment

This post is a compensated editorial partnership with Voices for Healthy Kids, a joint initiative of the American Heart Association and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

For the last few weeks, Graham reported that he is the fastest person in his class. He used to be 2nd or 3rd place the first few months in his new school. Now, though, he is the fastest and almost always comes in first. A second grader now, he has dived into a whole new set of obsessions and passions. There is Pokemon card collecting, reading chapter books in bed with a flashlight, his ranking in an online math game, and his position as fastest in his class.

“You’re a fast runner,” I tell him. “I used to be pretty fast, too. And your dad is a runner. So maybe you’ll be a runner when you’re older.”

One of my favorite things about school is getting to see him learn about something and realize he’s good at it. I remember being in Elementary School and feeling like I could do anything.

In Elementary School I ran the anchor leg for the winning relay team. I did the most pull-ups of any kid in the class. I remember feeling strong and confident in my body and what it could do. Left to my own devices I always chose a book. I still do. I didn’t always love PE, but it always broke me out of my own world.

Graham runs a lot. When we get out of the car, he runs to the front door. When I pick him up from afterschool, he is often running around the playground. But he also has that same urge I do to sit and get lost in his head, sometimes for a little while, sometimes much longer.

I am still working on it. When we moved to warmer weather I started going on walks. I follow a trail around a lake for 2 miles. I feel the sunshine, watch the ducks, listen to an audiobook, and remember that my body is here and how it feels when I use it. I have gone years without regular physical activity in my life, happily ignored it and avoided it. But I am old enough now to recognize the difference between how I feel after a day of work at a computer and free time with a book and nothing else vs a day with all those things where I also go outside and use my body. My brain is different, my body is different, the two feel more connected.

I want Graham to develop healthier habits than I did. I want him to find physical things that he is good at, ways to use his body that help him feel like a sharper person. And I know that the best thing for him right now is PE at school. He needs the structure and the coaching and the instructions. He needs someone to tell him what the goal is and how to do it well and what makes you the best. At home, the mornings are short and the evenings are short and we barely get enough time together. In the winter it’s usually dark before we even get to our apartment. PE is what I rely on.

But Graham doesn’t get PE every day. And that’s not uncommon at all. Only 4% of Elementary Schools provide daily PE year-round for their students. I care a lot about my kids’ education, of course. But I also want them to get more than just academic skills at school. To me, school is where you go to prepare yourself to live in the adult world, and that includes not just subjects like math and reading, but classrooms full of students to help learn social skills, teachers in the arts to foster creativity and PE to develop good physical habits.

When Graham started school I assumed that all those things just happened. Over the years I talked to teachers, I took positions in the PTA, and I learned a lot about his classroom and his school. I learned so many good things, but I also saw that there is still a lot more we can do for our kids. And that’s true in his new school just like his old one.

Now that we’re here and we’ve gotten settled, it’s time for me to get back in the saddle. I have to get in the weeds and start going to PTA meetings and figure out what I can do to create a better school for my kid and all the other kids he walks in the doors with every day. And PE is part of that.

I’m partnering up with the American Heart Association today to talk about an initiative to get PE in every school for every child. In partnership with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, AHA has started the Voices for Healthy Kids initiative to reach out to parents like me to be more involved in our school and to advocate for physical education. Not only to help improve kids’ physical health and fitness, but to help them learn. Research has shown that increasing PE in schools improved children’s physical fitness and reduces obesity. They also do better on standardized tests! In fact, taking some time away from academics to use on PE didn’t have any drop in test scores at all. Kids do just as well in school with more PE and they’re building a better set of healthy exercise habits. (Want more data? There’s a whole bunch right here.)

So what can you do? Well, you can head over to the Voices for Healthy Kids initiative to get their PE toolkit and join the action team. You can also talk to your school, your school district, and your state representatives about the ESSA (the Every Student Succeeds Act). ESSA requires all states to develop a comprehensive plan to give all students a high-quality education. Voices for Healthy Kids wants PE to be included as a part of that comprehensive plan. ESSA includes PE as part of a “well-rounded curriculum,” but it’s not mandated that it be included. You have to make sure your state puts it in their plan to get the funds in place to help schools create better PE programs for our kids.

When I was in high school, you only had to take a few semesters of PE. You definitely didn’t have it every day, you could go a whole year without it if you wanted. But some of my best memories are from one of my PE classes. It was called Rocky Mountain High and it was the best PE class I ever took. We did problem solving, ropes courses, rock climbing, orienteering, and trust exercises. I was always happy to go, even though I was always exhausted when it was over. By then I’d lost all that physical confidence I’d built up as a kid. For years, no one had been there to show me how to keep that confidence, how to make it part of my life. I wonder sometimes how things might have been different if I’d had that.

For now, I keep going on my walks around the lake. On the weekends the kids come with me, bringing their bikes along. We stop to look at the ducks. We talk about the trees. And I hope that I’m doing at least a little bit to help them keep this confidence and joy in being out and using their bodies. I hope they get connected to feeling spent and happy and satisfied that happens every time we come home and sit down together and put our feet up. I hope I can give them something better.

Winter Book Picks

April 3, 2017 5 Comments

Ummmm so the first three months of the year have come and gone without a book post. Horrors. Going to squeeze in all my picks from 2017 so far in a slightly longer-than-usual list. As I often do, I’ll go from lightest to heaviest reads. All links are Amazon affiliate links that provide a small commission for this site.

Schadenfreude: A Love Story by Rebecca Schuman grabbed me with its cheeky cover. I have no particular love of Germany or Kafka, which are the book’s true loves, but I still laughed and cringed my way through this memoir or the author’s adventures through Germany and the German language starting with her infatuation with a boy who was really into Kafka. As a lover of personal essays, the format really worked for me. Chapters are very episodic, and Schuman is a writer for Slate so the writing itself will remind you of online humor writing. I tend to prefer memoirs that aren’t built around a really awful upbringing or traumatic event, just ones where I can enjoy seeing someone’s experiences and get to know the writer’s personality and this definitely checks those boxes.

The Wanderers by Meg Howrey. I love space books and movies but I often find them either too genre-y to the detriment of character or insufficiently science-y and mostly built around action. The Wanderers cares about character above all else, but it also felt deeply researched and thoroughly imagined. Basically it passed my tests for literary fiction and science-fiction. It follows three astronauts and their families as they train for the first mission to Mars. It is mostly concerned with what makes an astronaut who they are and how it is to be a person in their orbit. (Yes, that was on purpose.) What happens when three astronauts must share very tight quarters for over a year? What makes a person want to be an astronaut in the first place? If that doesn’t sound quite interesting enough, just read the first chapter. You’ll get a taste of Howrey’s smart take on science, feminine conditioning, corporate-speak, and much more. I think you’ll find you can’t stop reading.

Ill Will by Dan Chaon. Dan Chaon always puts out crime novels to fawning reviews and while I usually like them I haven’t loved one in a deep way until now. Ill Will was a reading experience that left me exhilarated. I listened to the audio, usually on long stretches of several hours while on a road trip, and I was still sad to turn it off when I arrived at my destination. This is a crime novel that moves backwards and forwards in time centered on Dustin, a psychologist in a midwestern city whose new patient is obsessed with conspiracy theories a series of suspicious drownings of young men. Dustin is no stranger to horrible crimes, there is a big one in his past that I don’t want to spoil, but I will say the chapters set in the 80’s do involve the height of the Ritual Satanic Abuse hysteria that once swept the country. When Dustin’s wife dies, he slowly begins to spiral out of control. While this is a suspenseful novel that I couldn’t stop reading, it’s also about how men deal with (or don’t deal with) trauma in their lives and the effects that trauma can have.

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee. I really loved Lee’s debut novel, Free Food for Millionaires, and this is a great follow up. An epic family saga set in Korea and Japan from the 1930’s through the 1980’s, it does what all the good family sagas do and shows you how one person’s choices ricochet down through the generations. This is a big, fat book with plenty of character and plot. It doesn’t feel as long as it is, and while I’m usually not big on historical fiction I dived deep into this one. There is a lot here on the Korean immigrant experience in Japan, something you rarely hear about in the United States, but that will feel familiar to any country that is considering what value immigrants have and what role they play in society.

Everything Belongs to Us by Yoojin Grace Wuertz. This is one of two books on this list about the upheaval in South Korea that began in the 1970’s with worker and student protests. This is a book about friendship, ideals, and family in times of upheaval. The three friends at the center of this book–Namin, Sunam, and Jisun–all come from different social classes to a top university. Namin comes from nothing and is her family’s last hope, Sunam is middle-class and longs for acceptance from the elite, and Jisun is from a wealthy family with a tyrannical father she longs to escape. They come into each other’s lives and have incredible power to befriend and betray one another. It is not a political novel, but a story about people in highly politically charged times.

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. Heavy subject matter but it’s in a Young Adult package so it’s a little higher on this list than it otherwise would be. This is perhaps the most hyped YA book of 2017 and I was very nervous about it. But I couldn’t put it down and it’s one of the best YA novels I’ve read in the last few years. Starr lives in a poor Black neighborhood in Chicago but her good grades got her into a fancy prep school in the suburbs. Starr’s life isn’t simple, but she has family and friends she loves and she’s okay until she’s in the car with a friend when he’s killed by police during a traffic stop. The story makes national news and Starr suddenly finds her two worlds colliding while she’s in the midst of her own deep pain. It sounds like an after school special, but in Thomas’s hands it feels real. Starr’s problems aren’t obstacles created to give the book a plot. There’s so much real life and nuance here that will feel real to any kind of reader.

The Refugees by Viet Thanh Nguyen. A collection of short stories from the Pulitzer-prize winning author of The Sympathizer, a recent favorite of mine. If you didn’t love the style of The Sympathizer but appreciated what Nguyen was going for, you should definitely pick up this book. The stories don’t have that book’s plot devices and complex storytelling style, this is spare and simple and focused on presenting you with stories and characters that stay in your head like ghosts. I love a collection where I can’t really choose a favorite story, where you can read several of them in a row because there is something that happens when you put them together that builds a larger tapestry. These stories are generally about Vietnamese refugees in the US and while there is a lot that unites them, they provide a real depth of experience. It’s an impressively done collection.

White Tears by Hari Kunzru. Kunzru is the kind of author where you always want to know what his next thing will be. He’s ambitious and exciting and unexpected. White Tears starts off feeling like a contemporary novel set in Brooklyn with a hint of a ghost story but becomes something very different, veering into full blown phantasmagoric horror by the end. This is a book about music that cares about more than just how music makes you feel or how it came to be. It is at its heart about the appropriation and exploitation of Black blues artists in the US and how ghosts seek their revenge. The main character is an awkward guy named Seth in his early 20’s who is obsessed with music and is actually working in music, focusing on obscure samples, thanks to his rich friend Carter. But one day they choose the wrong record, one that may be haunted, that has a history of obsession and destruction. The kind of book that isn’t like any other you’ve read before.

Exit West by Mohsin Hamid. While it’s pretty far down on the “heavy stuff” list, this is the lightest book about war and being a refugee that you will ever read and I don’t mean that the book isn’t serious. There is just something so delicate about Hamid’s writing, his narration feels so generous and intimate, that it doesn’t seem so heavy. Saeed and Nadia are normal people who fall in love just as their country is torn apart by war. Their love story feels in many ways like any other, where there is one day after another, even though war changes the course of their courtship, speeding it up and making decisions for them. Eventually this book becomes something else as magical realism enters the story. It reminded me in that way of The Underground Railroad, where the magical realism is not really central to the story, something that is there but not the issue. A really beautiful book and an important one that I just really loved reading.

Difficult Women by Roxane Gay. I don’t know what to say to you if you don’t know Roxane Gay. You have Google, you can figure it out. She is one of my favorite writers and Difficult Women feels like something significant from a writer who has plenty of significant work already. This is a short story collection, the stories were written over a long period, but putting them together does something that makes it larger than the sum of its parts. Put together, it is about the complexity of being a woman in the world. Most of that complexity is about love and sex and wanting. These women and their stories don’t all feel the same, they are different races and classes and sexualities, but there is always some contradiction or complexity there. It is hard to read more than one of these stories at a time and several can be quite brutal, it took me a few weeks to finally finish but it was absolutely worthwhile.

Human Acts by Han Kang. Last year Kang caused a bit of a sensation with her novel The Vegetarian, which was not in any way a normal or simple novel. It’s still hard for me to explain. Human Acts is much more straightforward, which makes it easier to see just how good Kang is. It begins with the Gwangju Uprising in South Korea in 1980, a horrible and violent conflict between protesters and government forces in one town. The novel moves forward decades into the future as Korea continues its conflict and even when peace has settled in but the effects of the brutality still linger. If you have trouble with books that include violence, this will not be an easy one. I started in audio but eventually had to switch to print because it made it a little easier for me to get through the hardest sections, though the audio was gorgeously narrated. While only a few parts of the book detail violent acts, the ones that are there are truly horrible. Kang is looking at some of the biggest questions of the human condition here: why do humans cause pain and how does pain stay with you.

What were your favorite books from 2017 so far?

This Was My First Protest and I’m Sorry

January 22, 2017 3 Comments

I’m proud of us for marching. But we don’t get a cookie for this. There’s no medal. There’s no award. This is a few hours we gave to the work. We came, we stood, we walked. It’s not really all that much. And we should have been there earlier.

Especially white women. We did not show up the way we should have before now. That’s true of the election. It’s also true of all the protests and all the marches of all the people we claim to stand in solidarity with but did not show up for.

I’ve seen discomfort and frustration from white men and women when confronted with signs that people of color brought to the Women’s March calling out white women for their inaction. “It’s supposed to be about coming together,” they say. Yes, that is what it’s about. And coming together on this day requires us to acknowledge all the times we did not come together before. We should have been there. We weren’t. We didn’t come out until it was about us and that is not how it should be.

I have my reasons for not being more involved in activism before. I suspect many of us do. And while they are reasons they are also excuses. Mine don’t cut it anymore. I should have come to that realization earlier. I was wrong. It’s funny how hard it is for us to acknowledge that, to accept it when we’re called out, to not get defensive and angry. But it’s important to stop putting up walls to protect ourselves, to acknowledge when we’re wrong, when our cultural biases have worked against the people we should be trying to help. And it’s important to say it and resolve to do better.

None of this is to say that we all have to fight every minute of every day. We have to be able to stand on our own feet if we are going to stand for others. But we shouldn’t go celebrate simply because we stood up. Instead we stand up again.

An important part of standing up for others is understanding what they are saying. The Women’s March was full of signs and symbols that actively excluded trans women. We have to understand marginalized communities. It is on us to do that work. Don’t ask members of marginalized communities to explain it to you. Google exists. Use it. There are going to be many times when we realize we are wrong about something. We need to admit it and own it and do better.

For me, one of the most important ways I can listen is on Twitter. Marginalized people are speaking and you can listen. You can also amplify. Hearing their voices every day helps me examine where I stand. One example from yesterday: white women everywhere who had never marched before posted with pride about how there were no arrests at the Women’s March, women of color who had marched many times pointed out that when the protesters are mostly people of color, police are more likely to instigate the kind of tactics that end in arrests. We need to listen when our privilege is called out and acknowledge it. (If you’re wondering how I find them, it’s quite easy. I start with a few people I know of who are more visible or high-profile. I try to read thoughtful articles and essays from marginalized people and if I like what they have to say, I find them and follow. I also look for who other people are mentioning, sharing, and retweeting. Gradually you build a larger and larger group of voices.)

No one is asking us to be everywhere or do everything. We do what we can. But we need to do more. Much more. How we do it will vary, but one thing I’d suggest is making sure at least one organization that specifically works with and supports a marginalized community like people with disabilities, LGBTQ people, POC, immigrants, Muslims, people in poverty, etc. We say we stand for love and empathy, which should mean loving and caring for not just those who are like us. I am also a member of a marginalized community as a queer person and I am going to work harder to connect and build roots in that community, to be a more visible and active member of it.

Protest selfie. #WomensMarch #WomensMarchRaleigh # LGBTQ

A photo posted by Jessica Woodbury (@jessicaesquire) on Jan 21, 2017 at 9:22am PST

I am sorry for waiting so long, too long, to start. I can’t give money yet but I can give time and that’s what I’m focusing on. Time is a pretty precious resource for me and saying I didn’t have any of it was one of my excuses before. But as I often tell people, you have time for what matters to you. So I’m taking a few of the hours I gave myself each month and giving them to the causes that matter to me.

I’m sorry. I was wrong. I’m going to do better. (Turns out it’s not such a hard thing to say.)

Don't Mind the Mess