And we’re back! It feels like I just did the first Final File, but that was actually a month ago now, which feels strange. If you noticed, there was no post on Tuesday, but that’s because I’m writing a longer essay and didn’t want to rush it for the sake of putting something out. Excited for you all to read it one Tuesday soon! To everyone new here, Final File is my monthly wrap-up post, where I talk about all the stuff I’m buying, reading, and listening to. I’ve spent this past month avoiding the draft of my second novel, writing this newsletter, trying to find some consistency in the gym, planning a wedding, and watching a lot of TV. Below, my month in review.
The Highlight Reel - standout moments from February
My dad found a baby picture of me in his economics book, which he says I stuck there. Seems like something a young me would do.
My anniversary! My fiancé and I turned 10 this year, which feels like a long time and also no time at all. We met when we were 18 and 19 and it still amazes me that we had the foresight then to see something beyond what was in front of us and make that real. Love that lady! If you want to read something sappy, I wrote a long IG post.
My fiancé and I, who I’ll call C from here on out, run a biscuit delivery business called Sundays Only. She bakes, and I do almost everything else (our friend Allie helps us with the packing). We’ve been doing it consistently since 2021 and have built up a bit of a following. Recently, we’ve gone back to doing deliveries ourselves, and that’s been fun because I love meeting our customers on the route and delivering all over the city. Fun stuff always happens and sometimes, our customers give us things like Mexican hot chocolate or a banana moon pie. Everyone’s also very sweet. During our last run, someone told us that we were on their Brooklyn bucket list (high compliment!), which made our day.
A book date with a new friend that turned into a friend date. I’m excited about the interview but also very excited to finally hang out with someone I’ve admired for a while. We ended up grabbing dinner, talking for hours, and ending the night with dessert. That date is coming soon to Extracurricular!
For the past few years, C and I have given our friends Valentine's Day gifts. I really loved the classroom Valentine's era, when everyone got something just because they were part of your community. We wanted to keep that up, so this tradition emerged. This year, we did candy gift boxes from Bon Bon, the Swedish candy company. In the past, we've done gift cards. It's a small way to say thank you to our community and remind them that we love them!
On that note, C bought me a Boat and Tote for Valentine’s Day that I’ve been wanting: long handles, medium, and she monogrammed it with the word love bug, her nickname for me.
My mom saying “period, barbie” every time she approves of something
My mom’s reaction to a photo of my sister and I Discovering the Patrick Ta Major Volume Plumping Lip Gloss. I get lots of beauty products in the mail (hazard of the job) and often don’t get to them all. I found this while going through my sample drawer, and now I’m obsessed. I have it in the color full syringe, and it really gives my lips that plumped pouty look.
I did an event with Mariah Stovall for her debut, I Love You So Much It’s Killing Us Both, a novel that’s both a love letter to punk music and an all-consuming platonic friendship that’s fallen apart. It was my first time being on the other side of an event like that (interviewer vs. interviewee), and it was really cool to hear about how the book came to be, along with the intention behind her work. I also got to meet a newsletter reader, who said she came out because she saw the event in a previous send (this sent me over the moon!)
My friend Chayla and I visited Simone Leigh’s exhibit “Simone Leigh,” before it closes at the Hirshhorn. I’ve been a fan of her work since Brick House, a massive 16-foot bronze sculpture that lived on the Highline. I used to pass it all the time on the way to work and I loved being greeted by this immovable Black woman. I could write an essay on why Leigh’s work matters to me and what I believe it to be saying, but I love the way she’s able to communicate our vulnerability and strength simultaneously while also interrogating legibility. Lots of her work features sculptures of women partly revealed or half-hidden, which highlights the ways we may never be known or seen or understood. And in some ways that protects us too. In case you can’t make it to the show in person (closes in DC on March 3rd and then it’s off to LACMA/CAAM in May) there’s a self-titled monograph, Simone Leigh, which I’ll be adding to my collection soon.
My friends Madison (of cool journal fame) and Sydney hosted a dinner for Black History Month and the guest list was filled with women I admire. We played Black Elephant (white elephant but with gifts from Black-owned businesses), ate peach cobbler (more on that later), and sang along to 90s R&B. It was the best way to spend the last Friday of BHM.
The day after Madison’s dinner I popped down to Philly because my little sister asked me to be her plus one to a wedding. C and I had a couple hours to kill before I had to go, so we stopped by Yowie, a design concept store/hotel/coffee shop owned by Shannon Maldonado. Shannon and I are internet friends by way of me loving her taste and asking her to be a source for articles. Over the years we’ve stayed in touch and on Saturday we finally got to meet IRL. The shop is beautifully curated and I left with a coffee table book (of course). I can’t wait to stay at the hotel next time I’m in town.
Lowlights
Another spy with a blown cover movie is coming out. Back in Action with Jamie Foxx. I will watch it, which is why I suspect they keep doing it.
Staying up until 3AM itemizing my expenses and trying to figure out if Postmates-ing lunch counts. Also trying to find receipts for the shelves I had installed to hold my books. Because that definitely does.
Amazon Prime adding ads to TV shows and movies.
I got my chin “sugared" and it was a disaster. Fine the first two days and then a flood of pimples on either side of my face. All is well now thanks to Sydney’s recommendations (she’s an incredible esthetician): exfoliating acids twice a week until it clears. I’ve been using the Paula’s Choice AHA/BHA Liquid Exfoliant for this and it’s worked like a charm. It’s mostly gone now after about a week. Now to deal with the hyperpigmentation.
The world is bleak and continues to be. I don’t write at length about all of the things we’re facing (mostly because I have nothing new to say or add) but it’s hard to look at all of the systems around us and not ask what it’ll take for us to burn it all down. To start over and try again. There’s nothing that can reform a system that condemns people to die by bombfire while giving rights to zygotes while also telling us to vote. Every week there’s a new tragedy and every week there’s no new solutions. Every week our tolerance for death and destruction grows. I don’t want to get used to it, I refuse to.
Best Bites
Things I ate. Me and C are making a conscious effort to eat at home, so a lot of this list is stuff she made. She’s the chef, I’m the dishwasher. It works!
C’s mash potatoes which have the consistency of a thick, fluffy cloud. It’s what I imagine eating a cumulonimbus would be if it were made of more than water vapor.
C’s duck fat french fries (the girl knows her way around a potato) - she recreated the meal she made for me on our first official Valentine’s Day as a couple with a few upgrades. Twice-fried duck fat french fries instead of Ore Ida, balsamic brussels sprouts instead of broccoli from a bag, and porterhouse steak from the butcher instead of whatever T-Bone she could find at Ideal.
Prosciutto arugula pizza @ Osteria Brooklyn LIC
Blood Orange Sorbet @ Corner Bar
A burger @ DuMont
Lobster ravioli @ Industry Kitchen
Pepperoni pizza from Ledo’s in Ft Washington, MD
C’s peach cobbler—a hit at the dinner!
C’s seafood grits
C’s chipotle lime chickpea and chicken pita wraps
Things I Want
On the wishlist!
Baggu Nylon Shoulder Bag - This has been on my list for a bit, but after it was co-signed by a few people in the comment section of the Books and Bags story, it has become a need. I’m thinking black or red.
St Agni Tie Up Sandals — I’m going to Mexico City for a friend’s wedding in April and these feel cute and strappy in a way that could skew formal or casual with the right outfit. I’m a big fan of the brand’s footwear, because I have a flat, wide foot and their shoes tend to have a stretchy, adjustable strap. I own two pairs from the brand (found in the sale on Net-A-Porter) and they’ve become my go-tos.
I have two cats but that doesn’t stop me from lusting after this wool/mohair throw from Goodee World, which would surely be covered in hair in just a day or two but would look beautiful until then.
Expense Report
Things I bought
Two books from McNally Jackson
Temple Folk by Aaliyah Bilal
Erasure by Percival Everett
An assortment of art stuffs from the Hirschhorn gift shop
A nice-sized tote that says Simone Leigh
An exhibition poster
Kara Walker: White Shadows in Blackface by Robert Hobbs and Kara Walker
A postcard for the fridge
Lots of candy from Bon Bon (as of writing this they haven’t arrived yet so this will be a just-because we love you gift)
Mati & The Music: 52 Record Covers 1955-2005 by Mati Klarwein and Serge Bramely, which I grabbed at Yowie
Things I watched
Again, I watch a lot of TV.
Rye Lane (Hulu) - I was extremely late to the Rye Lane party. Everyone raved about it which immediately made me skeptical but I decided to give it a chance. It’s as good as everyone says it is. I liked it so much I made it halfway and then started it over so C and I could watch it together. It was so so cute.
Tokyo Vice (Max) - I ate Baby Driver up so I was excited when Chay suggested we buddy-watch Tokyo Vice, which stars Ansel Elgort. It’s about a young journalist who becomes the first gaijin (Japanese for foreigner) to work at the Meicho, a prominent newspaper. He’s ambitious and foolish (as those two things often go hand in hand in shows like these) and soon finds himself caught up in drama with the yakuza and the police. It’s the kind of show you actually have to pay attention to and so I’m grateful that it gets me off my phone. I’m seven episodes deep into the first season and obsessed.
True Detective: Night Country (HBO) - Like everyone else, I’m also watching Night Country. I’m enjoying it! Jodie Foster plays a racist cop, which I think makes for interesting television. There’s a lot of moralizing that goes on in shows to the point of being anachronistic (Gilded Age) or unrealistic and I think it’s interesting to see a character who is openly prejudiced toward the community she serves. It’s less gaslight-y than the rest of cop television and makes for some interesting tension between her and the people around her. That piece aside, I’m really curious about what happened to the people at the science station and this mysterious (and presumably) dark spirit that keeps maiming people. Kali Reis is also unspeakably fine and I wish they’d made her a lesbian.
Expats (again) (Amazon Prime) - I ended up really liking this. It’s well done, the characters have clear narrative arcs and are selfish and delusional in ways that make sense for their circumstances. The best/most moral people in this show are at the periphery and we’re left with morally grey protagonists who are yelled at by people who are morally superior and then essentially disappear from the screen. It’s a choice to not have them interrogate themselves, but one I didn’t mind. I also loved the ending. Felt very novelistic. All in all, it made me want to read the book.
Mr and Mrs Smith (Amazon Prime) - Episode six! Micaela Coel in braids! I enjoyed this freaky little romcom which pretends to be a spy show but is really about two unhinged people who want to be loved and accepted despite their flaws. It had high points (the therapy episode is insane) and low points but when it was good it was very good and honestly if the outfits are fire and the set design is well done I will forgive most anything else. Like the fact that we never get any real answers about what the hell is going on. And not in the cool Severance way, in the we need to go ahead and wrap this on up way. Ultimately, I think what they chose to do with the show was smart because they were never going to out-sex Brad and Angie, but they could be more intellectual or have better clothes and more locations, which is what they did.
Upgraded (Amazon Prime) - I knew going into this that it was going to be bad (I have a sense about these things) so my expectations were low, and this movie pretty much met them. It’s a romcom about n girl who works a lowly job in art and wants to move up. She ends up getting her shot and being whisked off to London. She meets a man on the plane, who she ends up flirting with and then is invited by his mom to hang out with them. Turns out, the mom is her bosses client. The set up is good! The execution is alright. The best part of the movie is the love interest’s interactions with his soccer team (it’s very Roy Kent-coded).
Death and Other Details (Hulu) - At times this show takes itself too seriously. I like it best when it’s being the campy whodunnit it’s designed to be. It feels like a less premium Knives Out, which I’m fine with because it’s on Hulu and I was born during an era where TV was considered the lesser art form.
Scandal (Hulu) - C is rewatching this and so I didn’t watch it as much as I caught snatches of it or listened to it in the background while she cooked. I would watch a few scenes here and there that reminded me that Scandal was revolutionary when it came out and Olivia Pope was clinically insane. Just an unhinged lady, being unhinged all the time. Like what do you mean you don’t want Fitz to sell y’alls dream house in Vermont? You know it’s never going to work Liv!!! Also I forgot that they use that weird, nostalgic elevator music every time they have a moment and it’s really insane that Shonda got people to collectively root for that wild ass relationship.
Good Burger (Paramount+) - It might be sacrilegious to admit that I’ve never seen Good Burger, but it’s the truth. I went home to PG County to see my family for the week and we did a family movie night. Now I get all the little jokes I’ve been pretending to understand for the better part of my life.
They Called Him Mostly Harmless (Max) - A portrait of a hiker named Mostly Harmless who is found dead in a park and the fandom that surrounds finding him. They talk to a range of people who tried to ID him, from competing online sleuths to trail angels to fellow hikers to the EIC of Wired, who also gets wrapped up in this goose chase (and hilariously thinks the hiker was an avid member of the Wired community and is visibly shocked that no one can find him, which I think was a sort of metaphor for how far-reaching and impactful media people believe their platforms to be). I learned a lot about trail culture (it’s apparently totally normal to have an alias on the trail) and when they eventually find who he is, it’s interesting to see how much people had formed this idea of him in their mind and they ways the struggle to reconcile that with the truth—sometimes to the point of being disturbing. There were many moments when I squinted and side-eyed the film (it isn’t the best), but it’s catnip for someone like me, who will sit through any true crime documentary.
Avatar the Last Airbender (Netflix) - I lasted one episode and now I want to rewatch the original, which is one of the best shows of all time. Also they’ll do everything in the world but make Katara darker and I’ll always have an issue with that.
The Equalizer (CBS) - Season 4 of The Equalizer came out, the one with Queen Latifah, and it’s by nature a silly show but it feels like we’re pushing the boundaries of ridiculousness in the season opener. Robin (Queen Latifah), a former CIA operative, comes face to face with her colleague who she thought was dead. Come to find out, it was a classic CIA coverup and now she’s back to try and get revenge on the government for abandoning her in Venezuela. It sounds like it could be good but I promise you reader, it is not. The show bungles its messaging by trying to thread the needle of Robin stopping her colleague from killing the greedy man responsible for her faked death while also preventing the United States government from killing said colleague. There’s some explicit tension here between fealty to empire and doing what’s right but the show tries to skirt the boundaries in a way that makes the whole thing flat. Either go there or don’t. The two wrongs don’t make a right thing becomes silly when the evil is ordinary. Then there’s a knife fight that will go down as one of the most ridiculous of all time because Queen is a lot of things, but a fighter she is not. All that to say, I will be tuning in for subsequent episodes.
Mea Culpa (Netflix) - Tyler Perry should be imprisoned.
Things I read
In reverse order
Little Rot by Akwaeke Emezi - I’m currently reading an ARC of Emezi’s latest novel, their first literary fiction novel since The Death of Vivek Oji. I really enjoyed that one so I’m interested to dig into this, which follows a woman who’s recently separated from her boyfriend and then goes to a sex party with a friend in attempts to get over it. In classic Emezi fashion, the descriptions are vivid and the energy is steamy, but I don’t know that I’m sold on the main character just yet. Reserving final thoughts for when I finish but I’m interested to see where it’s going.
Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar - My first five star read of the year. It was so beautiful. It deserves every award, every accolade, every whisper of praise. I have so many thoughts about this one but I’m waiting to get out of fan girl mode to be able to discuss it. It follows Cyrus, an addict who’s pondering the concept of a meaningful death, and whether it somehow elevates the life lived. It’s also the story of a boy abandoned, and what happens as he’s trying to grow into a man. It was just really well done and it has a trippy ending that made me go wtf? but in a good way. I loved it!
Polar Vortex by Shani Mootoo - I’ve been reading Mootoo’s work since I was in college so I was excited to dig into her most recent novel, which came out in 2020. It’s about a woman who lives in a remote town with her wife and has left everything behind in service of this relationship, including her best friend. The book opens with that long-lost friend coming to visit and as the book unfolds we learn about their relationship and what caused them to separate. It was a beautiful exploration of identity and queerness and the complexity of relationships. This is the kind of novel where nothing happens for a long stretch of the book but I enjoyed every page.
Idlewild by James Frankie Thomas - I stayed up all night reading this novel by James Frankie Thomas, which follows two queer teenagers who don’t quite know themselves but know they love each other. They embark on this codependent friendship where one is hopelessly in love and the other is just happy to be seen and adored. They’re also obsessed with the school’s musical and these two boys who they believe are secretly fucking. I went to a high school similar to the one outlined in the novel so it felt nostalgic for me in a way and I enjoyed getting this up close look at these two kid’s lives. The ending goes a bit wonky—to the point that it shifted my experience with the book—but all in all I really enjoyed it and loved the way it translated high school in the early aughts and the messiness and intensity of being a teen. Would recommend!
Heavy Rotation
Songs I listened to on repeat
“Sweet Life” by Frank Ocean - I revisited Frank Ocean’s first album recently and was in awe of how timeless it feels. I remember hearing it when it came out in 2012 and thinking it was cool, but looking back at it 12 years on, you can hear that Channel Orange was so ahead of its time. It’s a classic, and this song in particular is a favorite. It also has one of my favorite lyrics—”the best song wasn’t the single,” because he’s so right.
“Yeah Glo!” by Glorilla - It’s a bop, it’s a vibe, it gets me hype in the gym.
“Molasses” by Hiatus Kaiyote - I have a tendency to listen to music long after it comes out so its rare that I’m tapping in to a new release. I heard this while I was at LMNO in Philly (a bomb taco spot) and had to Shazam.
“Love Language” by SZA - I need to hear J.B. on the remix.
“Kiss (feat. Alex Isley)” by Devin Morrison - A smooth tune, perfect driving music.
What were y’all into this month? I wanna know!
Baby Tembe in the economics book is to die for 🥹 and reading about C’s cooking is making my drool!
Interested to hear your initial comments on ‘Little Riot’ - I read ‘The Death of Vivek Oji’ last year in the waiting room for the dentist which was ideal when I started the bawl my eyes out. Also ‘Polar Vortex’ sounds so good I haven’t heard of it before!
Will have to sign off w period, Barbie always now x
How coool! I’m reading I Love You So Much It’s Killing Us Both right now 🖤