February RoZone
I'm 30! Plus books. What else is new?
Hi, everyone!
Apologies for the late RoZone. On the first Friday of February, I was busy being 30 and wishing my brother a happy birthday. (I’m a twin, we have separate birthdays, it’s a whole thing). I thought I would feel sadder about leaving my twenties behind, but instead I felt an immense wave of relief to have ~whatever the hell that was~ behind me.
My twenties were messy! I had bad bangs and cycled through varying dosages of antidepressants. I yelled poems in bars. I lived in Illinois. I left Illinois. I watched my friends bands. I published books and bit my nails. I didn’t sleep. I flew on a plane by myself for the first time. I said goodbye to my dog & cradled two perfect kittens in my hands. It was a global pandemic. I went to grad school on Zoom in my old bedroom at my parents’ house. I went on long, anxious walks and attended group therapy where I ate McDonald’s breakfast sandwiches for a week straight. I wrote a full calendar year worth of DILF novels (Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and Valentine’s Day), then I worked at a content gulag where I didn’t legally own my work laptop.
These things were fun, but they were also gnarly and arduous. I’m excited to enter a new decade of my life where I feel more grounded in the physical/emotional/esoteric sense.
Besides! Your thirties are when the first season of Sex and the City starts!
For the February RoZone, I toyed with the idea of a Valentine’s Day special. I came up with one solid joke about Hinge (Even the name sounds physically painful, hinge is such a violent verb!) Then I thought about how the Audrey Hoebert record is probably the best documentation of ~modern dating~ in the past five years/ youth as a fading currency and how I found out that retinol is actually in carrots.
TLDR, if my twenties were about being seen/ noticed etc, my thirties are about observing and absorbing. I’m along for the ride. My co-pilots are fuzzy! Love & friendship are abundant! Here are some things I’ve been enjoying lately.
Flat Earth by Aneka Jade Levy: I’m devouring this book. The prose is piercing and sardonic, divided up into perfect bite-sized morsels that almost mirror the anesthetizing peace of scrolling through your phone at a party.
Uncanny Valley Girl by Zefyr Lisowski views your favorite slasher films from the ‘00s through a trans and disabled lens, which is to say it’s the kind of cultural criticism that thrills me. Because, yes, the girl from The Ring is disabled, why is she villianized? And yes, the Iraq war coincided with the rise of the Saw franchise. It’s an absolutely brilliant collection, the kind of book where I’m so glad it fell into my lap. I’ve always loved when writers use scary movies as vehicles for larger conversations about cultural criticism. This collection is a wonder.
The Sunflower Cast a Spell to Save us From the Void by Jackie Wang: These poems are perfect. They’re funny and strange, the images are so rich. The illustrations add such a cool texture to the whole book.
Wuthering Heights by Charli xcx. I’ll say it: this album is a career-defining feat and it’s probably better than the movie itself. (I still haven’t seen it). I’m obsessed with the strings and how Charli plays with the Bridgerton modern waltz sensibilities.
Thanks for being here with me! Prompts are below! Also, a brief housekeeping note: The RoZone will now be published on the second Friday of each month. I figured that was a good compromise with feeling rushed about the first Friday and wanting to let people know about events. I love you guys!
