Final File_30

June in review.

June was beautiful and electric. The days were long and there was so much to celebrate you could hear the city humming with energy and excitement. We all became Knicks fans (for what it’s worth I was already, albeit ambiently, a Knicks fan by way of being a Liberty fan) and we all found the energy to be outside three, four days in a row. It was gorgeous. I don’t know if I’ve felt so aware that a good thing was happening collectively, that we’re all happy at the same time. It was special. I had the absolute best time.

Also! If you’ll be in Chicago on July 30th, I’ll be reading the short story I wrote for issue 05 alongside Ivy Sole, who created a soundscape to hold the piece. Camille is calling the pieces sonic cradles. She’s a genius. Here’s the link to that event. Tickets are $25, but if you need assistance attending, you can reach out to Jupiter, as they’ve reserved some free tickets.

Okay! Onto the post.

Notes from June

• To start off the month I got a facial at Ställe Studios in Soho with Elizabeth, the brand’s founder. I’d been meaning to visit for a while and I was happy to finally get some time in her treatment room. We did a gentle peel and it did wonders for my skin. I’ve been glowing for weeks.

• The following day, I went back to Ställe for the launch of the Dreaming Angel tea. It’s a sleepy time tea with soothing herbs like chamomile and tulsi. It has a slightly sweet flavor thanks to the inclusion of dried strawberry. It’s yummy! After I went over to Joanna Goddard’s for a mixer, this time for Rec League, a recommendations platform. I’ve been curious about it, as Ali Labelle has a cool looking one, and I’ve been considering getting on there to keep a log of the books on my TBR as well as things I’ve already read and loved.

• Jade and Nicole came over to watch the first episode of Love Island. It happened to coincide with a professional milestone for Jade so we celebrated her too. Nicole brought an incredible strawberry cake from a bakery in Jersey that I’m still thinking about.

• I recorded something cool for a project that’ll be out in a month or so. More on that soon!

• Allie turned 31! We gathered the birthday club, minus Rae, who was traveling for work, and went to Hupo, a Michelin-starred Szechuan spot in Long Island City that we frequent. We split spicy fish nuggets and roasted duck fried rice. After, we went to Jack’s, a fireman bar with exceptional wings, to watch the game.

• Not too long after I went on a perfect lunch date with Doreen St. Felix at The Four Horsemen that went for hours. We ordered half the menu. I was changed by the pavlova on a cellular level. Every time we had the opportunity to get the check we ordered another glass of wine. At the potential fourth glass we agreed we had to call it. The Knicks were playing that night and we both had somewhere to be.

  

• That weekend, C, Allie and I went in search of good pancakes and ended up at Cafe Luluc in Park Slope. The food was incredible and even though I don’t like them as much as Lulu and Po (RIP), they’re a solid option. Later that night, Allie and I dressed up and went out to St. James, a bar in Bushwick where we ran into so many people we knew. It was great people-watching. A perfect night, a perfect weekend.

• I was asked to present at the Lammy’s, which is where Lambda Literary presents their literary awards. When I mentioned that seeds I’d sowed were bearing fruit, I was in part referencing this. I’d been a Lambda Literary resident two years ago so it felt very full circle to do something with them again.

  

• Most of the birthday club birthdays are in June. Allie is the 5th and Carrie is the 13th then Sarayah is the 27th. For Carrie’s we went to Cocodaq, which she’d been wanting to try for at least a year. We ordered the caesar salad (my favorite in all of New York), the fried chicken and four chicken nuggets topped with truffle and caviar. I don’t like caviar even though I’ve never had it. I don’t like the way it looks, slimy and clustered, and from what I’ve heard of the taste, I’d rather eat a salt flake. Recently on Threads (a cursed place) someone said we have to stop with the cocaineification of caviar and I agree. We’re getting very laissez-faire with bump culture and at some point it’s going to show up in the bloodwork. From the restaurant we went to Sasha and Eny’s rooftop to watch game five. They have an insane view of the skyline so it felt divine and lucky that they won and we got to watch it there. I was so invested in this series I never want to root for a sports team again. It’s too much!

  

• Went to Hannah’s to watch Interview with the Vampire season three, one of my favorite shows. Season three is very different tonally and aesthetically, marking the shift from IWTV to The Vampire Lestat but still very very good. Per my request she made lasagna, which I devoured. We left her place close to midnight and when we got outside it was pouring. I turned on Summer Rain by Carl Thomas when we got to the car, my clothes soaked, and it felt fitting and cinematic.

• Jet is one of my favorite thought partners so I was delighted that we spent a morning voice-noting about Sula, a book I am constantly talking and thinking about. This time, the discussion revolved around the idea of Sula as evil, a label I wouldn’t necessarily ascribe to her even though she behaves the way she does. I view her as being at odds with the society she was born into and resisting any roles or motivations that are ascribed to her. Jet pointed out, brilliantly, that Morrison positions the Bottom (the town they live in) as evil, a leftover relic of white supremacist ideology and that if we’re thinking of her as a “bad” or “evil” character, it’s because she’s an antagonist of the Bottom, which requires complicity to be considered “good.” I loved her analysis and framing of Sula as a place novel, which sent me down a rabbit hole of novel craft and construction. Another Jet bar—”the place always does something to the person,” which is now etched into my mind. For me, Sula is particularly activating in my understanding of love and attachment. One of the main questions Sula asks is why couldn’t this person love me enough to do right by me? To think of me outside of herself? The question cuts both ways—and their unwillingness to bend for each other in this way or even acknowledge each other’s need for this bending is the great tragedy of the book. It’s an incredible novel. Everyone should read it.

• C and I had an impromptu date night. We went to Cleo, a new rotisserie chicken spot with dim, sexy lighting. We got a last minute reservation so we sat outside on the sidewalk, our dinner illuminated by the harsh light of the dry cleaner’s next door. The food was fine! Now we’re on a rotisserie chicken tour. Will report back.

• That Saturday, I went to Belonging, a writers conference hosted by Roxane Gay. It was a day of panels and mingling. There were lots of authors present that I really admire, like Kiese Laymon and Deesha Philyaw and Nana Adjei Kwame Brenyah and Rion Amilcar Scott, authors whose work has shaped our collective consciousness. I also ran into so many people I love like Sesali and Adrienne and Mbiye and Jessica and Jet.

• After, I popped over to Aya’s solo show ‘In the Life’ at Company Gallery. As I was walking over I ran into Illeshia, who owns The Way (it’s where all the cool girls get their hair done). She’d just left the show and assured me that it was incredible. As I walked in I ran into a girl I used to work with at Nordstrom in college and then my preschool friend Keha, who was there with her baby and husband. The entrance was filled with people excited to see the show and excited to see each other. I maneuvered through the crowd and entered the main space. I was struck first by a large mural depicting a group of girls on the parkway, flags hanging from their hips. Two are squatting, the others posted up like their forefathers and uncles might. Then I migrated over to the boxer collages, which depict boxers with harnesses made from different materials that are suspended in a frame. I was really moved by these. It felt like it was created specifically for the Black lesbian gaze. The absence of the strap but the presence of the harness affirms the notion that it isn’t just about whatever penis-shaped thing goes in the harness—that the intimation of this setup could elicit desire on its own. It removes lesbian desire from the misunderstood notion of simulating heterosexual sex and leans into its lexicon, creating imagery around our most intimate spaces. Aya really understands desire and what makes love between two women its own special kind of thing and I’m grateful to witness her work. My favorite piece of the night is a portrait of a woman looking at another woman she desires. You can see the want in her face, the slight smile on her lips, the anticipation in her eyes. She is both soft and hard, and looking at the painting I felt brought into a moment so intimate I felt like I’d walked in on something. It’s incredible and up until July 31

  —everyone should go see it.

  

• After, C and I went to Alena’s birthday, which she had in a concrete backyard behind a photo studio in Greenpoint. We sat at a long table filled with snack foods and games, the table illuminated with fairy lights. We grazed on cherries with homemade whipped cream (my new favorite dessert) and ate hunks of bread with French butter. We danced to Aretha and Diana and Chaka. We played spades until midnight and took lots of photos of the birthday girl. Best night!

• C brought home the sweetest dark cherries and just thinking about them fills me with wonder at the fact that it’s possible for something to taste like that.

• Sarayah turned 30 so we convened the birthday club for the last time in June. We went to Cafe Zaffri, which has stunning decor, and celebrated our gorgeous girl!

• The next morning I stopped by Aesop’s Queer Library, where they replace the products on the shelf with books. It’s one of my favorite brand activations because it makes Aesop look good, gets books into readers hands, and increases an author’s book sales. I picked up A Last Supper for Queer Apostles, a book of essays.

• Pride weekend was sort of insane, in the best way. That Thursday, Alex, Britt, Mal and I threw a Pride kickoff thing at Rhodora called Keep This Between Us. We shut down the wine bar for the night and invited every lesbian we adore. The result was transcendent. It was the most beautiful room I’ve ever been in with friends and exes and future lovers sipping wine, lingering on the sidewalk, deep into conversations no one else could hear. On one table, people were playing dominoes (someone slapped one down so hard it cracked in half), on another, mancala. We anticipated people coming and going throughout the night but were surprised that when someone got there they stayed put. The best surprise of the night was that my best friend Noor flew in from California and surprised me. I nearly fell to the ground when I saw her walk up and immediately started to cry. It was one of the best nights of my life and felt like the manifestation of my wildest dreams. I told Alex later that there’s something powerful about imagining something and making it real. I wish I could live that day all over again. The next day I went to dinner at Markette with a new friend. We split the codfish fritters, hamachi crudo (I’m not a raw fish girl but I’m working on being open-minded), lamb shank and prawns. We loved everything and vowed to go back. After I went to The Josie Club Harlem Renaissance-themed party where I was woefully underdressed and then to St. James before finally meeting up with Jade and Nicole and going to Raw Honey where we ended up behind the DJ booth dancing until 4AM. The next day C and I went to a Josie Club dinner downtown. Chef Tajeh Porter made the food and I’m still thinking about the greens and hanger steak situation. We went home after because our friends had tapped out of partying for the weekend. The next day, C and I had lunch at Walter’s (the wings are good!!) and popped over to see Madison U who recently moved into the area. She gave us the tour of her new place—it’s something out of a Nancy Meyers movie—and we drank wine and talked late into the night.

  

  best night!!!

• The following day we went to Skylar and Temi’s house for Office Hours where they open up their gorgeous home to friends so people can get work done, workshop their projects and gather. We brought biscuits and yapped about Love Island.

• At the end of the month my mom stayed with me for a week. It was unexpected and I felt unmoored by the sudden rearranging of my schedule, but it ended up being really nice. We haven’t spent this much time together since I was maybe 17 and it was interesting to see how much of my personality and idiosyncrasies are really just her mannerisms remixed. We’re both delighted by small things—she squealed when I gave her a moisturizer from Bubble and she realized the pump dispenses product in a flower shape. I was similarly delighted by this the first time I tried it. I’m easily thrilled and entertained. Seeing my mom’s reaction reminded where I get that from.

Reading

The Waterbearers by Sasha Bonét

Before I met Sasha I’d been thinking, when is someone going to write about that sacred, complicated relationship between Black girls and their mothers? Then Sasha did it and she did it correctly. I often say The Waterbearers is the most important and relevant book published in the past five years and I mean that. It’s both a look at Black motherhood and a history of Sasha’s family and the women who mothered her. It doesn’t shy away from telling the truth about these women and their choices, which at times are complicated and . With this clarity, we are asked to witness their triumphs and their failures and interrogate how these choices have shaped the women they beget and so on and so on. It’s an incredible book and everyone I’ve recommended it to has come away better for it.

Girl’s Girl by Sonia Feldman

This debut novel follows a group of three friends whose lives are changed when two of them kiss. It’s a sensitively observed novel that captures the subtle social cues of adolescence and, perhaps inadvertently, lays bare the way young white women relate to and punish each other. I enjoyed it!

Gathering Blossoms Under Fire: The Journals of Alice Walker

I was talking to a friend about wanting to discuss The Color Purple and she asked if I’d read Gathering Blossoms Under Fire. I told her no but that I would. I bought it same day and read a few pages. It sucked me in so completely I looked up and was 60 pages deep. I had to send her a voice memo shortly after telling her it was rude of her to recommend a book that sliced through me like that. The journals cover decades of Alice’s life, starting with her short-lived stint at Spelman. Oh Alice! Alice the Aquarius, Alice the griot, Alice the eternal. Even at 21 you see the makings of a free woman. She’s incredibly sharp and funny and concerned about the same things we’re all concerned with—money, love, happiness, gay shit. She has the courage to be free and by sharing this intimate meditation with her own mind she offers a model for how we get free too. It is so so essential and required reading for every Black woman in pursuit of a creative life that attends to the self and the work simultaneously. I’m a little over halfway through, pre-Tracy but post Purple, and deeply grateful for having this book in my life, especially as I think through my own career, longevity as a writer and loving and living while in the pursuit of excellence.

Watching

Nothing blew me away this month!

Matt and Mara - This is a movie about two friends who have a thing for each other but are unable to articulate said thing out loud. Complicating this further is the fact that Mara is sort-of happily married. I thought it was an interesting portrait of the fragility of white identity, especially white women who choose to be writers. There’s this hypersensitivity to criticism but this deep need to be liked. No tolerance for friction and this affect of being trapped within a life they’ve constructed. There’s always this sense of things happening to them rather than them being full participants. There’s this need for invitation, as if to assert one’s desires is unthinkable. It allows for shirking of responsibility while still pursuing their deepest desires. I think the film does a good job of character development. It’s doing something interesting by utilizing her lectures as this roundabout way of describing her character and evolving them. It also utilizes metaphor in a way that I don’t find annoying. There’s a running scene where she asks husband to run with her and then runs out ahead of him without looking back, displaying her desire to escape. It’s a movie

Love Island - Perplexingly, I have returned to the villa. I blame Jade. This season I can watch with more passivity, probably because I’m not as heavy on Threads. I like the girls this season a lot, particularly the core four. Trinity is maybe my favorite. She’s funny and comes from where my wife’s from, so it feels like I’m rooting for the home team. Besides that, I care very little about the rest of the show and am not interested in the love plot. I will be trying out I Kissed A Girl instead and seeing if that’s more interesting to me.

Bring Me the Beauties - Me watching a cult documentary? Shocking! Anyway—this one is about a spiritual cult called Eternal Values that took beautiful people and made them celibate. The leader was this slight-looking man named Fredrich who purported to be an heir only to be a grifter in the end. They were very into astrology and crystals and believed the world would end in 1999. Run of the mill cult behavior.

Kla$h - This romantic thriller stars Giancarlo Esposito who plays a music journalist on assignment to shoot the Kla$h music festival in Jamaica and Jasmine Guy, a girl he used to know. The film isn’t great and Jasmine’s accent is painful but the visuals are gorgeous and I love the clothes. Early in the film she wears this purple knit dress that reminds me of Nia Thomas.

Criminal Record - This show is fine, a lesser Slow Horses, but good if you like British crime thrillers, which I do.

The Agency - This is similar but better done. All of the actors are good at their jobs. I also like that it balances the external crimes with internal office politics and backbiting.

Runaway Bride - I’d never seen Runaway Bride so I set out to correct that. This is about a small-town woman who has dated and been engaged to damn near everybody only to pull out at the last minute. She does this in obscurity until she’s discovered by a journalist who wants to tell her story. Naturally he falls in love with her. Of course he does, it’s Sandy Bullock, but the movie tracks the development of their relationship from rivals to lovers. I can’t say that I liked this? My favorite bit was her realizing that her behavior probably impacts her friends. It’s one of the few romcoms that seems to be aware of the supporting characters as sentient beings so I’ll give it a few points for that.

This is Poly - I signed up for a random reality TV streaming channel subscription because I wanted to watch the reboot of Bridezilla so I ended up getting sucked into this show about a handful of poly couples. Everyone is insane in their own way. There’s the Yahweh’s who are in a plural marriage and also part of a religion that might have a Netflix documentary in its future. Then there’s Bri and Marley, who used to be in a throuple and then got rid of the husband and now date women together. There’s also BA and Tahmeenah, a Long Island couple who see poly as a way to cure his chronic cheating (it doesn’t). And then there’s Kami, Trent and Nita, a married couple who added in a third. Inexplicably, one has Senegalese mini twists and the other, box braids. Lastly, there’s a couple whose names I can’t remember, where one woman is dating two men. They seem to be the best adjusted of the bunch but looks can be deceiving. All that said, it’s a fun, messy time.

Maternal Instinct - This was nuts. It’s about a woman who is a compulsive liar and has a love addiction and does something drastic to keep her lies going. She’s one of the more terrifying true crime villains I’ve seen in a while, as she has zero remorse for the choices she’s made or the harm she’s caused. Spooky stuff. That said, the documentary could’ve been better.

House of the Dragon - I’ve been half watching season three but this is a show you have to watch with full attention so I will be rewatching it when I get a free stretch so I have a better sense of how I feel about it.

Wish List

I had a vision!!

• A book case for my bedroom. There was a now-sold-out plywood one at Lichen that I should have jumped on when I had the chance. It was the right shape, size and depth

• This Tiffany bracelet

• I like what Banana Republic has going on right now, specifically the tops. I want this and this

• Already scoping out a birthday dress. On the list, this monochrome patchwork situation from Ani Kaleila

• Denim shorts that aren’t bermuda long but also not short shorts

• This Randall Kenan novel about a Black boy from the south grappling with his queerness, which was reissued with a new introduction by my favorite playwright, Tarrell Alvin McCraney

In Heavy Rotation

Wearing the blush and the brow gel here!

• These Elisa Johnson sunglasses. I bought them for C two years ago and then stuck them in a drawer but I’ve been wearing them nonstop.

• L’Oréal laminate brow gel. It really holds my brows up and locks them in place without it looking too stiff or flaking.

• The Merit foundation and concealer stick. I dot this wherever I want my skin to look a bit more even. It blends like a dream.

• I love red blush—my favorite right now is this one from Violette_FR. It’s a powder but it blends like a cream, which I love because it gives me that same diffused look with better staying power.

• Victoria Beckham lip liner—my all time favorite. 10/10, no notes. I wear shade 06.

• Kiehl’s Creme de Corps. I won’t shut up about this lotion, which is funny because I was deeply dismissive of it for many years. I didn’t get the hype, thought it was too expensive. I still believe that! Let’s be clear I get sent this stuff for free because of being a beauty writer but I’m just reporting the news. It has turned out to be my go-to summer lotion, it makes my skin feel soft, glowy and hydrated but doesn’t feel heavy. Almost like I’m wearing a lotion and a body oil without the greasiness.

Expense Report

• A Co-pay at the dentist and the dermatologist

• Dresses for the Lammy’s I didn’t end up wearing, including this one from Ronny Kobo

• Tickets to Pride parties

• Many dinners out thanks to many birthday dinners

  Until next time! And by next time I mean next Tuesday (ideally), when I’ll publish the next book date.