Vol. 91: Noir novels and flow with Pride

Is this thing on? Every time I take a pause from the newsletter, intentional or not*, I struggle to come back. I find it boring to over explain myself, but I also feel pressure to return in a meaningful way. Particularly when the world has been such a shit show: Gaza nearing (or in?) famine, attacks on higher education, the firing of Dr. Carla Hayden, ICE targeted families at graduations in Los Angeles and ripping families and communities apart across the country, attacks against the federal workforce, the impact on the DMV, on Black women, shall I go on? A laundry list doesn’t feel particularly helpful when there are so many other writers and news outlets keeping a historical record of this moment. But It feels inauthentic to come back and say nothing.

I guess that’s why I’ve been gone for three months.

You have Erin to thank for my return, who texted me and encouraged me to come back:

I still don’t know what to say about the state of the world, but I’ve enjoyed lots of art and some classic beat-em-up novels lately that I wanted to share with all of you.

*Let’s be real, the pauses have never been intentional!

Yoga Updates

• I’m teaching a Flow with Pride yoga fundraiser at Grace Studios in downtown Silver Spring on June 22 at 2 PM. It will also be live-streamed so my non-local friends can join! This is a donation-based class celebrating the joy & resilience of the queer community; all levels and all identities welcome.

• Coming Soon: Keep your eyes peeled for Peace in Movement, a new Black-owned aerial, yoga, and pole fitness studio that will be opening up in downtown Silver Spring later this summer. Maybe you’ll see a familiar face on the teaching line up!

Local Theatre - I saw two amazing plays in May:

• We Are Gathered by Tarrell Alvin McCraney at Arena Stage follows a Black queer couple, Dubs and Free, as they explore what marriage means. The two are ten years apart and met cruising at a local park five years prior; the park served as a prominent setting and character throughout the play. I loved Dubs and his neurotic mind, the actor pulling in the audience from the very beginning, monologuing, even asking a group of older white people in the audience who they voted for. Free was exactly as he should be given his name: free spirited, creative, young. We see over the course of the play not only him go deeper in himself but Dubs, and thus the audience, getting to know all facets of him better. We Are Gathered explored a lot of topics without feeling overhanded, and also looked at shame in homosexuality in a way that didn’t discount the deep, abiding love that comes from queer love. As someone who wants to be a Free, but is much more a Dubs - endlessly in my head, questioning, downplaying what I deserve - I absolutely loved this play.

• I saw Paradise Blue by Domonique Morrisey at Studio Theatre, which was such a fun, immersive experience. The play is set at a 1940s jazz club in Detroit’s Black Bottom, and Studio Theatre bought the set to life: as an audience member, you’re seated in the jazz club, watching the actors move about freely between you. You can also arrive early to grab a drink at the bar and enjoy the band! The play features an all-Black cast: a money-hungry club owner, a beautiful woman seeking financial freedom who is assumed to have a checkered past, and Detroit on the verge of neighborhood “blight” removal targeted Black clubs like Paradise. Highly recommend.

What Have I Been Reading Lately? S.A. Cosby Cuties Rise Up!

• I picked up S.A. Cosby’s Razorblade Tears from Kindred Stories during my trip to Houston and read this breathlessly in the week after the move. It was an absolutely stunning, unputdownable thriller that TRIGGER WARNING HAS A LOT OF VIOLENCE. It follows two dads, both with checkered pasts, who are mourning the loss of their sons, an interracial gay couple murdered in Richmond, Virginia. The dads form an unlikely bond and encounter lots of new enemies as they try to find the killer. After reading all of them, Razorblade is still my favorite as it was thrilling and emotional throughout, 

• Blacktop Wasteland is his second novel I read, and also the runner up; it moved a bit slower at the start but there is one car chase scene that was SO intense I almost couldn’t even read it. Picture me sitting on my new, spacious outdoor terrace in the sunshine trying to relax by reading fiction that makes my heart POUND.

• My Darkest Prayer was his first novel, and you can tell. I read an edition that features a letter to the reader at the start of the book essentially saying, I’ve grown a lot as a writer since then. It was fine, there was some sexism and it just wasn’t as compelling as the others but by this point I’m committed.

• All the Sinners Bleed is his most recent novel and it was also the most traditional mystery in that it features the county sheriff as the protagonist exploring a series of murders. It was compelling, but I missed the drama of the characters operating outside of the bounds of the law that we got in Razorblade and Blacktop.

Life Lately

We moved! Consider this your formal announcement if you missed it on social media. We moved on April 21 (still within the DMV!) a week after tax day ended my wife’s busy season, and a week and a half before the annual conference I spend my whole job planning. It. Was. Chaos. We’d been in the old apartment for over four years, got married there, lost two grandmothers while we lived there. It was home. We were ready for a change but both of us underestimated how destabilizing the change is. We spent four weeks aggressively unpacking and decorating, spending lots of money at the hardware store, and hosting my father-in-law to mount our television and artwork as we settled in. On June 1, we hosted friends over for a cookout and it’s started to feel not only feel like home, but feel like I’m living my dream life. Minus the whole aforementioned political turmoil - I’m leaning into my safe space.

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