Issue #212: I Will Never Get the Life I Want (Unless I Stop Doing This)

The biggest thing I'm working on in therapy.

📚 The Wilderness by Angela Flournoy: Flournoy’s second novel follows a group of women from the late 2000s into the late 2020s navigating “the wilderness,” that period of adulthood ripe with decisions and challenges around careers, marriage, and parenthood.

💿 ‘Baby Man’ album by Fruit Bats: The sonic equivalent to an autumn golden hour, this latest album from Fruit Bats is melancholy, yet warm with stripped-down vocals, guitar, and piano. Perfect for lighting a candle, and playing it in your living room on a chilly evening.

🎥 ‘The Baltimorons’ in Theaters: An instant classic and untraditional holiday rom-com, I wish I’d waited to see this in December since it’s so perfect for the season. On Christmas Eve, two misfits find each other when a comic chips his tooth and connects with his dentist, keeping each other company when they have no one else.

P.S.

Samin Nosrat

’s latest cookbook Good Things is also out today, as is the short romantic novel Exit Lane by

Erika Veurink

!

Camille Styles and I will also talking about our September Book Club selection, Culpability by Bruce Holsinger over Zoom tonight at 5 PM, PT! Scroll to the bottom for the link to join. x

I have never wanted anything so much in my life, as I did the nineteenth-century Dutch Colonial I came across a few weeks ago. The photos in the listing featured a home that had been designed with so much care, I could practically see the owners carrying the handcrafted tiles and mugs that lined the minimalist kitchen from their travels to Sweden and Japan. Listed at a million dollars, it was double the price I paid for my current home and entirely out of reach. Still, that didn’t stop me from sending the listing to my friend El and swiftly opening a tab with a mortgage calculator.

My current home, while the landing place I desperately needed post-divorce, was never meant to be a long-term solution. I’ve always intended to stay here at least five years, possibly as many as ten, before ideally moving to one of two neighborhoods I frequent for their proximity to cute coffee shops, restaurants, and nature.

“I have to point out,” El immediately texted back, referencing one-such neighborhood, “This house is nowhere near Mt. Tabor.”

Fair point. But had she seen the cement sink in the back ADU, across the olive tree-filled yard? The wood-burning hearth in the living room? I spent another hour running numbers, wondering if my real estate agent would think I was completely insane if I requested a viewing—and if I could possibly swing such an astronomically high mortgage. I could see the ways in which the house went entirely counter to many of my current priorities—simplifying and slowing down, traveling next year, saving up to live in my dream neighborhood—and yet, the fantasy consumed me completely.