By all accounts, 2024 was a big year. I got married. I got serious about writing a second novel. I read more than I did the year before. Worked out less, worried more. I wrung my hands about the state of the world and wrote about it, too. I listened to more jazz and less everything else. I spent at least 1000 hours on FaceTime, down from the previous year by at least a third. I made new friends I adore and continued to love on the ones I already have. December, in particular, was quietly eventful. There were birthdays, holiday parties, a send-off, we hosted C’s cousin, our annual friends Christmas thing, my sister’s birthday, my stepmom’s birthday, my grandparent’s anniversary (62 years!), and actual Christmas. I got lots of last-minute appointments in and discovered I probably have TMJ, so if anyone has any recommendations for relaxing jaw muscles, please let me know.
I also started this Substack, which has crossed the 10,000 subscriber mark—an exciting feat. Despite how bleak things look in the months ahead, I’m excited for what next year looks like for Extracurricular—more essays, more book dates, more franchises (I can’t help it!), and a read-along of Black Marxism coming in early January. I’ll be doing a chapter-by-chapter breakdown and summary, so if you want to join in, I’m hoping to get that started by mid-January, if not a little earlier. Above all, I’m grateful to everyone who reads this letter. It’s become a bright spot in my life, and I hope it's been a good addition to your consumption diet over the past year. Okay, onto the post!
Highlights from December
Looking at old family photos with my grandma and sister. Lots of gems I’ve never seen before, including an incredibly glamorous photo of my grandma on her wedding day.
A mention of Extracurricular in Lithub (!) — thank you Maris for the nod. This technically came out in early November but I discovered it in December, so here it is.
My sister graduated from CRNA school and passed her boards, so she’s now a doctor and a nurse. We’re very proud!
I sent my agent Danielle pages of the new novel and she liked it! This is exciting because I’ve been working on said pages for the better part of the year and I’m happy that they’re coherent.
This conversation between Nikki Giovanni and James Baldwin.
The novel clicked into place and I now have a firm grasp on what’s happening and an understanding of all the characters. It’s a good place to be in, now I need to do the thing all writers avoid, which is sit down and write.
Singing Hamilton at the top of my lungs in a parking lot in Tennessee with my little sister and C.
Our friend Sean and Dontai’s annual Christmas party. We do white elephant and get elf names. It’s very cute. This year I gave the Sephora perfume sampler set and Connay gave a candle warmer (big hits) and I got my very first Stanley. Unfortunately, I’ve bought into the Stanley hype.
Friends Christmas at the house. We started this tradition six years ago at a time when C and I didn’t get to spend the holidays together. Now we do, but we’ve kept it going and we look forward to it all year.
Sending my friend Alex off in style to her sabbatical in Paris.
My friend Blake turned 30 and had her birthday at Deia, a bar in Brooklyn. We were caught outside for nearly a half hour due to an overzealous (but oddly nice?) bouncer but it was worth standing in the cold to ring in a new decade with her.
A trip home to Maryland for the holidays, filled with lots of celebrating: my baby turned 6, my grandparents celebrated 62 years of marriage. We split the holiday between our families: Christmas Eve in Williamsburg with C’s family, Christmas morning in Richmond with my aunt and Christmas dinner with my mom in Maryland.
Getting the Hobonichi Techo Cousin from Carrie for Christmas, which subsequently thrust me into a Tiktok hole filled with stickers and fountain pens.
A perfect kitten. I nearly became a mom of three.
The search for my circle-to-oval table is over—I got one for free from my aunt, who recently bought a new table. I’m thrilled. I’m thinking I’ll pair it with a banquette, but I’m torn because I also like the idea of doing a short bookshelf behind the table or just completely freestanding. Unfortunately I can’t have all of these things at once. Inspo for all three directions below.
Hit my reading goal! I read 30 books in 2024, up from 24 the year before. Hoping to read more this year, I set my goal at 35, though I’m not precious about it.
Hosted a last minute dinner with our Queens friends. Connay made a perfect prime rib and it was a good excuse to deep clean our house before the new year.
I went to a wedding on New Year's Eve. It’s a very fun way to ring in a new year—congratulations to Jenna and Nicky!
What I Read in December
In order of when I read it!
Lazarus Man by Richard Price
This kaleidoscopic novel follows a community after a building collapse. Richard Price used to write on The Wire and you can sense a similar rhythm for storytelling here. Ultimately though, this one didn’t work for me. I’m not against books where nothing really happens but this felt a little too slice-of-life for me—not enough meditations or moments of transformation. It was well-written though, and I would recommend it to anyone who liked Godwin.
The Safekeep by Yael Van der Wouten
I wrote about this—but overall, I really liked it. I read it in two sittings and was wholly absorbed by it. I can’t believe it was a debut. Would recommend.
The Wedding People by Alison Epach
Would not recommend!
Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner
I’m about halfway into this—I wanted to finish it before the new year—and am really liking it so far. The main character is quirky, the observations are sharp and it’s moving. I’m excited to see where it goes but it’ll be a good way to kick off the reading year.
Things I Watched
As always, lots of TV!
Get Millie Black (Max) - I feel like no one is talking about this detective show on Max, which follows a woman who moves back to Jamaica to find her brother Orville. The two were separated on account of their abusive mother and when Millie makes it back to the island over a decade later, everything’s changed. It’s a portrait of contemporary Jamaica from a variety of angles and has elements of everything I love in a show—mystery, larger social commentary—and the Jamaican accents are inoffensive. I highly recommend it and hope it catches on.
Law and Order SVU (Hulu) - I am one of the brave watching present-day SVU and I must say it’s getting better. The past few seasons have been horrible—I hate Amanda’s character and find the Carisi storyline to be so boring—but it feels like season 26 is a good cast combo and the storylines have become slightly more interesting. It doesn’t at all compare to the earlier seasons but old habits die hard.
Black Doves (Netflix) - love the vibes and the dialogue - she has the best kind of bangs—stopping short of the eyebrows by a few centimeters, a little longer than baby bangs. If I were the mother of the bangs I’d say they were about 20 months old.
When Harry Met Sally (Available to rent) - This was my first time watching When Harry Met Sally and I’ll be honest, I wasn’t sold in the first half. I was like this is what all the hype is about? But by the time we get to the New Years scene I was a little teary and rooting for them all the same. It felt like a magic trick. I’m glad I watched.
The Day of the Jackal - Quality international espionage and intrigue. Landed the plane!
Dream Productions (Disney+) - Disney is good at building universes around their already-existing IP. I loved Monsters At Work, for example. Dream Productions expands on Inside Out and spotlights the characters that make Riley’s dreams. It was charming and well-done. I wish there were more episodes.
Dahomey (Mubi) - I really loved this documentary from Mati Diop, which follows the journey of 26 artifacts on their journey from France back to their native country Benin. I appreciated the way this teased out the various threads of thought surrounding the object’s return. I also loved the anthropomorphization of artifact 26. Those monologues were stunning, so much so that I had to look up the writer. Turns out, it’s Makenzy Orcel, a Haitian novelist. His latest book, The Emperor, is billed as part fable, part crime fiction and has earned a spot at the top of my TBR.
Conclave (Peacock) - A proper film. Loved it. Loved it. Also the TikTok of Ralph Fiennes doing the Jools Lebron monlogue lives rent-free in my head.
Making Manson (Peacock) - Pointless! Manson and crew were also very racist, which I feel is often glossed over.
Four Christmases (Max) - I watch this movie every Christmas and laugh like it’s the time. It’s so good and the ending is pitch-perfect.
Carry On (Netflix) - I didn’t really care for this movie, which had all the pieces I typically enjoy—I’m a big Taron Egerton'/Kingsman fan—but didn’t do much for me.
This Christmas (Available to rent)- An old holiday film I really love. No matter how many times I watch it, it never gets old.
That Christmas (Netflix) — A new animated holiday film I really loved. It’s made for kids but has the slightly edgy jokes that made early 2000s kids movies compelling for all ages. For example, in the beginning scene, the kids revamp the Nativity scene with a rendition of Papa Don’t Preach and Mary sings I’m going to keep my baby. It was insane. I loved it.
Into the Fire (Netflix) - True crime rarely makes me feel anything other than disgust or irritation (the shoddy police work!) but I was emotional at Into the Fire which is about a woman’s search for her missing biological daughter. I found the circumstances poetic, that a woman who saw herself as a young, unfit mother, ended up growing into the kind of mother her daughter needed decades after she made an incredibly difficult choice. Would recommend!
The Agency (Paramount+) - I’m really enjoying The Agency, which is about an undercover agent who is reintegrating back into the intelligence community after a long stint in Ethiopia. The cast is great—Jodie Turner-Smith! Jeffrey Wright! Michael Fassbender!—and the storyline is interesting. Interested to see how they’ll wrap it up.
Silo (Apple TV) - I’m a longtime Silo fan and season two is getting real good. Every episode is maddeningly paced, with information revealed deliberately over the course of an hour. I have so many questions I hope are answered by the end of this season—questions I won’t reveal because, spoilers.
The Holiday (Available to rent) - This is my first time watching The Holiday (I know) and I absolutely fell in love with Kate Winslet while watching this. I was already in love but now I’m in deep. Her character is so sweet and Jasper doesn’t deserve her in the slightest. James Franco and Lindsay Lohan are randomly in this movie for two seconds which I thought was hilarious. Cameron Diaz saying foreplay is overrated is kind of wild—am I just a lesbian? Also Jude Law calling her the most interesting girl because she doesn’t fall in love and doesn’t like foreplay is so sticks-fingers-down-throat-and-gags. Regardless I loved this movie and got a little teary when Jude Law’s character when he’s with his girls. Did I say I love Kate Winslet? I really adored everything about her and that storyline.
Netflix’s “Leaving Soon” banner has created a false sense of urgency to watch random movies before they’re kicked over to some other streaming service I probably already pay for. That’s how I ended up rewatching Anchorman and Starsky and Hutch, both of which have a very specific brand of early 2000s humor (both movies came out in 2004 and star Vince Vaughn) that is so over-the-top ignorant it verges on self-aware. Fist Fight also falls into this category. I don’t like this movie mostly because Ice Cube’s characterization is nonexistent—he’s perpetually angry for reasons unknown—but I do love the talent show performance of Big Sean’s annoyingly catchy hit “IDFWU”.
This is also how I ended up watching Catch Me If You Can, which is about a young conman who commits check fraud by posing as a Pan Am pilot. The characterization is excellent and it manages to be both an international crime film and a movie about family dynamics. I also loved that all of the women in Leonardo Dicaprio’s orbit—Amy Adams, Jennifer Garner, Elizabeth Banks, Ellen Pompeo—are now very famous.
My baby sister wanted to watch Mean Girls so we did. It feels like a rite of passage even though she’s six years old and didn’t get it so gave up watching a third of the way through. I haven’t seen the movie in years and this time around I’ve decided that Cady Heron is the real villain and that Regina George deserved so much more.
The Sopranos (HBO) - I’m very late to this show but happy to be here. It’s compulsively watchable and very well done. I love shows and films about power and group dynamics so this one really works for me.
Best Bites
This past month, the best food was homemade
My mom’s lasagna
My lasagna
Soup and edamame from Hupo
Rae’s pork belly
Pizza from BK Pizza
Granola and yogurt from Winona’s
The carrot cake (shockingly good) and branzino at Jenna and Nicky’s wedding
Cheesy grits made by my cousin Kaylah
C’s prime rib
On My Wishlist
A fountain pen
Washi tape — I like this and this (anxiously awaiting the restock)
Wool clogs like these
Embroidering the Lands End sheets I got for Christmas with me and C’s initials - these also happen to be Nancy Meyers’ favorite sheets, which is absolutely why I bought them
A journal charm for my new planner – I’ve been Louise Carmen-pilled. I like this and this and this.
These hair cuffs, which would look nice on a ponytail or braid
I’ve also hopped on the balaclava train. I really want the cashmere one from Naadam (very sold out) so I’m going to ask my friend Dontai to crochet me one.
Learning how to knit. I want to make sweaters! I think I’ll buy some needles and start with a relatively simple pattern
A collection of binder clips
These leaf-like Crocs
K18 Peptide Prep - my hair loves this stuff. I recommend doing a detox shampoo every few washes. My curls look luscious when I use this so I’m ready to upgrade to the full-size. I’ve been dragging out the sample bottle for a very long time.
Expense Report
I saw this bag on Noor and immediately bought it. The color is this beautiful purplish-brown and it’s super roomy. It can fit multiple books and a laptop. I’ve even put groceries in it. It’s even cheaper now than when I bought it. I got it for $60-something and it’s currently $39. I’m considering buying a backup.
A silicone cap for my Stanley cup because I don’t like how hard the plastic is.
Lots of stuff from Sephora because I had gift cards lying around, mostly restocks of products I love
A new tube of YSL Lash Clash Mascara
Dermaplaning razors from Sephora (10/10! Super-sharp)
Cufette Ugg slippers - C calls these my Pop Pop shoes (they are admittedly grandfatherly)
A pair of Playtex dishwashing gloves because I used them at my aunt’s house and felt braver while washing up. Nothing feels gross to me.
A steel bin for washing and sanitizing
I, too, am one clinging to SVU (my dog's name is Stabler, so I feel I must) and feel hopeful about the direction this season is going. The last few have been a sloooog.
On TMJ: If you are able to find a DO, a Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine, they are trained to do all sorts of treatments on the face and body to relax muscles. Seeing Dr. Vaghasia at One Medical for this both helped me with jaw clenching but on the whole has helped with tension all over my body! I love Osteopaths now. Separately, a friend of mine went to a TMJ Doctor in NYC who cured her lifelong issue in one visit - his name is Dr Nojan Bakhtiari.
Also in a journal era and I want all the damn washi tape and stickers!