The Fracture, March 2025

Letterlocking, a low-key birthday, and me with a spiky bra and mesh white contacts

Mar 31, 2025

I’m ready to take a nap in April. With all of the busy-ness, I feel I missed a lot this month. It’s like I floated through the days. Here are the things that managed to catch my attention.

The articles

I have a love-hate relationship with categorizations and definitive labeling, but here: “Research suggests lovers fit into four categories.”

Along the same lines, here’s Mark Travers (I swear, he’s all over the place when it comes to these psychology pieces!) with how to know if your relationship will make it with these four questions.

I still haven’t seen Anora, and I don’t know if I want to. People were having a kerfuffle over the movie winning big on Oscar night, but the biggest takeaway from the noise (and the linked Forbes article) is Marla Cruz’s referenced stance (as a sex worker BTW): “Whatever satisfaction I could have derived from the representation of sex workers in film is suffocated by the condescension of liberal representation politics wherein marginalized people are depicted as most authentic in states of suffering.”

(Love when an okay-ish big pub article leads me to nuggets of gold.)

I get so fucking tired with people not knowing what queer means. A sweet Los Angeles Times love story with one stupid comment. There’s always one. (But I still wouldn’t cancel the individual.)

Another one from LA Times: “Why fans are still coming to ‘The Office’ 20 years later.” (Eeks, paywalls!)

In this edition of “The Kids are NOT All Right,” when you’re used to composing papers with AI, the scariest thing is… writing a personal narrative.

My three gifted NYT links:

In part two of “The Kids are NOT All Right,” “Gen Z is Tired of Chasing the Trend Cycle.” (Understandable but exhausting, kind of like how we have all of this overwhelming access to news. We created these monsters.)

“Why Is Dining Alone So Difficult?” (I like dining alone. Don’t feel sorry for me.)1

“Truths to Remember in a Time of Lies.” (The sad thing is, the chaos has grown substantially since this piece was published in early March.)

Let’s pass notes again, and keep ‘em top secret with the art of letterlocking, ya uncultured animals! (For such a time as this, right?)

The music

“Freedom! ‘90” - George Michael

I’ve always loved this song, but as a child, I was even more mesmerized by the video. The (female) models! Swoon! Every vignette evokes power and confidence in the mundane.

That’s what you get for changing your mind.

“Saturnine” - Justice feat. Miguel

Another great song from the French duo’s Hyperdrama album. (It’s not “One Night/All Night,” which really puts me in a trance, but I feel like I’ve listened to all the music.)

But I like feeling the rush
I'm exactly where I wanna be

The books

Two DNFs to add to the mountain: Wake Up and Open Your Eyes and A Separation. I got about 30% into Wake Up, but too many cases of “Why are the characters not asking the obvious questions?” made me give up. With Separation, I painfully arrived at 50% completion. The story seemed to slow down, and I lost interest. The narrator also made me want to take a nap while driving.

If I had more time, I would start a Substack of all the books I didn’t finish.

The random

As mentioned earlier, the paywalls! But I’m at a place where I want to subscribe to more of my favorite pubs because the freebie reads run out too fast. I admit an article from The Cut on facial dysmorphia is going to make me cave.

I love getting a surprise book I forgot I pre-ordered months ago! Should I open it or finally finish Best American Short Stories 2023?

A peek into my glamorous life à la my nightstand. Warm water in a mug (What’s a Stanley?!), hair ties, lavender stick, diffuser, skull book light, and multiple bookmarks.

My birthday was unusually warm, and I was unusually introverted for such an occasion. (I asked my husband to cancel our reservation at a fancy restaurant and just order takeout sushi.) My cake was perfect though. He was also brave enough to buy a beauty device for me.

Aside from my family, I typically travel alone because I’m a very particular person. I decided to bravely accept the challenge of traveling with a friend I very much like. (This usually does not end well.) Well, her particulars meshed well with my particulars, and we’re still friends.

She also served as a de facto creative director for my photo shoot. This was my dip into “erotic art as social commentary.” We set up my ring light and tripod, and she had control of the clicker, telling me to move this way and that. I’m still trying to figure out what I think about the pictures (which I’ll post in a future Lookbook)2 I plan on going back to some of my lingerie pics on some upcoming trips, but it was nice to dabble in something new. Here is one of my favorites.

I am in the very beginning stages of working with a writing coach, and I have a deadline for a messy, vomit-it-all-out draft for my memoir: May 31. We ain’t playin’ anymore. So far, so good, but I had to say no to some previous commitments.

Ten flights of stairs. A magic potion. When I dream, it’s only about losing people. Warm water, good. Warm water, bad. Where are my three pairs of glasses?

How unlockable are you? I’ve been gauging this with a number of interactions lately. I don’t like small talk, so I enjoy randomly asking people about weighty matters, usually within context of whatever the topic is (or not). I think of myself with a figurative chisel, just chipping away, so we can escape and hop off this conveyor belt of mechanical life. As usual, I’m the gift that keeps giving.

This evening, my older teen to the younger teen: “Just shut up… but respectfully.” I will miss this one day.

My Clavicle Romance

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