Charcuterie of Written Words - Vol. 11

LEE & MICHAEL WATCH™, some recent reads, and so much more...plus--little hands as bullet points!

This one got so long, but I just couldn’t leave a thing out! If your email cuts off the end, click through to your browser. We’ve got books, poems, other shorter reads, my reignited love for Dido, an update on the hostile relations between myself and my downstairs neighbors, tips and tricks & notes from the Joy Journal™. Royal we, of course. Dig right in!

---

A Book:

☞ The Madness of Lord Ian McKenzie by Jennifer Ashley

This book was a romp and a riot, and I highly recommend to anyone who’s into regency romances—and anyone who thinks they’re not. And actually, especially to anyone who has no idea what I’m talking about! Jennifer Ashley (which to me obviously sounds like either the name of a furniture brand or a website where you can cheat on your wife—sorry, Jen) is truly a queen. The writing is so good and not repetitive, which is one of my pet peeves when it comes to some romance novels. Ian McKenzie is a fox and Beth Ackerly is no wilting flower. There’s also a murder mystery storyline, which I used to think I didn’t like in my romance, but I now realize kind of works for me because it allows the conflict to be something other than some dumb thing that comes between the love interests like, oh I can’t get married because I’m afraid of bees (looking @ you Julia Quinn).

---

Two Poems:

☞ “Yes” by William Stafford (via Maya C. Popa)

☞ “The Love Cook” by Ron Padgett (via my mom, via Poetry Is Not A Luxury)

poetryisnotaluxury

A post shared by @poetryisnotaluxury

---

Some Other Reads:

☞ This DREAM of a guide to the best 100 bookstores around the world. I was drooling. I’m off to Paris today (I knowwww!!!!!) and I will be visiting alll of the booksellers available to me while there. Will probably need to buy another suitcase.

☞ Valentine’s Day, New York Times, 100 Small Acts of Love. Read it and make a list of the ways you show your love to the ones you love, then make one about the ways your people show love to you. It’s sweet as sugar. My predictable favorite:

☞ TBH I didn’t understand some chunks of this “conversation” between a physicist and a literary scholar (mainly the physics parts—quantum theory???), but I still really enjoyed it. It’s about the constancy of uncertainty in our world. I understood the parts that I understood. Uncertainty is cool anyway—read up!

---

Substack Specific Reads:

☞

Unbox Inbox

by

Chloe List

is a weekly deep dive into the packaging of one thing or another you can buy at the grocery store—recent weeks have included pasta, mustard and beans. Highly recommend.

☞

Love and Other Rugs

is a Substack I discovered a couple months ago while

Lily Sullivan

was on hiatus between Volume 1 & Volume 2. Now she’s back! Just in time for you to subscribe! She writes about romance & home furnishings, and it’s sooo good.

---

Sounds:

☞ Dido. White Flag Radio on Spotify in particular. It slaps. Alan’s Morissette, Fiona Apple, Tracy Chapman, Sixpence None The Richer, Kim Carnes, The Cranberries, etc., etc.

---

Tastes:

☞ Russo’s Mozzarella & Pasta in Park Slope is a MUST visit. Their Italian Hero has the most delectable roasted red peppers. The bread—perfect. Their fresh pasta and frozen ravioli, tortellini, etc. is also next level. I put some pesto agnolotti in a soup this week instead of ditalini, and that’s something everyone should do whenever they can.

☞ My lover made steak au poivre for Valentine’s Day, and it wasn’t hard to do, and it turned out so well. Not to downplay his talent and/or achievement in having made it. I’m sure none of you could make it as well as him. But you could try if you want!

☞ My contribution, on the other hand, was a 6-inch chocolate cream pie for two from Petee’s Pie. The little good leaf chocolate heart on top? Need I say more?

☞ Chicken Soup, ICYMI.

---

Lee & Michael Watch™:

☞ In the latest news from my incredibly sound-sensitive downstairs neighbors, I’m still too loud. For backstory read this. Without further ado, hot off the presses LAST NIGHT:

☞ The first response that I scratched out on a pad of paper in the five minutes after I arrived home to their irritating missive:

Lee & Michael—

For you to imply that I have acted with anything but the utmost consideration throughout all of our interactions up to this point is frankly preposterous. For you to say that my footsteps are “constant” is even more outrageous. I work in-office every day, for fuck’s sake! I leave my apartment around 8:00am every morning and don't return until around 6:00pm. Even after 6:00, I am mostly out and about, and with very few exceptions, I am in bed by 11:00pm. Not that I OWE you these explanations. I PAY RENT to live here, and while you may not think that my style of living is “normal,” I can assure you that literally anyone else you asked would think that it is. I am not doing anything outlandish up here—I don’t work out in the apartment! I don’t rearrange the furniture every week! I don’t have sex on the floor! And I don’t pace! I just occasionally WALK from my kitchen, to my living room, to my bedroom, and sometimes back again. I weigh roughly 135 lb., though again, that’s none of your business. You think that I don’t listen to the sound of my own footsteps when I move about the apartment, but I do—TRUST ME, I do—because you have made me so nervous and uncomfortable with your repeated (entirely unfair) complaints. My footsteps do not reverberate from where I’m standing. There is nothing else I can do, and clearly nothing I can say to convince you that I am truly thinking of you all the time. Why don’t you come upstairs and face me? Don’t write to me again.

Eve

☞ A second, slightly less heated draft:

Lee & Michael—

I can’t tell you how troubling it is to learn that you’re still hearing so much noise. I truly can’t account for it. As I’ve said before, I am doing my best to keep quiet. I’m not sure what you mean when you say that my living is not “normal.” I spend on average six hours in the apartment per day, if that. It’s probably true that for some of the time I spend here, I am moving back and forth between my bedroom and the living room and the living room and the kitchen. I do not stomp because I live in fear of further notes from you. I will not tiptoe because I pay rent to live here and deserve to be comfortable in my own home. It seems there’s nothing I can say to convince you that I am trying to be quiet for you—that is, up to the point at which it would materially inconvenience me. As you’ve said before, the building is very old—perhaps there’s a ghost in my apartment?

Eve

---

Tips & Tricks:

☞ Buy a novelty shower curtain if that’s something you’re into. Novelty shower curtains were a total fascination of mine as a child, so when I needed to replace my shower curtain earlier this month, I bought one with rubber ducks on it. Why would I not do that? I feel like the novelty shower curtain industry has really taken a nosedive, and I’d like to be a part of turning things around for them—whoever they are.

☞ Think about the fact that it’s almost spring. I was walking down the street the other day, and it wasn’t even a warm day or anything (it’s still quite cold here in NYC), but I had this warm springtime feeling come over me, and it gave me the lump. Spring is coming so soon. It really couldn’t be sooner without already being here. Just think about it a little and daydream and enjoy.

In my dreamy state, I was reminded of this poem I wrote about around this time last year. Yes, one more poem for good measure.

---

Notes from The Joy Journal™:

☞ 2/4: A little bird in the park

☞ 2/11: Eating a fresh hot bagel with my hands walking down the street

☞ 2/19: “I Feel the Earth Move” playing in the outdoor shed at Mary’s Fish Camp when I passed by on Westley’s nighttime walk.

---

A Parting Vibe:

via Sarah Nilson

---