Queens in the front & doms in the back
A KB update full of Halloween sugar, pumpkin spice, and everything nice
Lovers & Friends,
Yoyoyoyoyo. It’s KB, here with my silly monthly (?) scoop. I tried a pumpkin spice latte for the first time the other day, so it’s safe to say it’s ~spooky season~. I hope this newsletter is catching you post-stress about finding a cutesy Halloween outfit.
As you know, I like to start w/ some writerly updates. This month’s are pretty light.
I had a poem about high school fights & friends I miss published with Variant Literature here.
In the midst of statewide turmoil (as it pertains to anti-trans bills), I had to relearn how to take care of my body. Read my essay with TransLash about this here.
Please ask your local public library, bookstore, university, college, book club, or political education group to please carry my debut poetry book, “How To Identify Yourself With a Wound”. It would mean the world to me! The ISBN is 978-1-952224-13-3. Let's get it poppin’ baby!!!!!
Now that that’s out the way, I must confess: I don’t have much in the way of profound thoughts this month. School has been a LOT, y’all! In many ways, it has been rewarding and just what I needed to reinvigorate myself around the art of reading and writing. In others, it has made me realize that I HATE having to be somewhere at a certain time, lol. I’ve also been offline for the past month, so much of my long thoughts and such have stayed between friends and a journal. But – as any writer with ADHD will tell you – I am always thinking, so please indulge in some short thoughts that I’ve had this month. Fleeting thoughts, if you will.
I randomly remembered that I went to a college party called “swalloween” during my freshmen year of college. Isn’t that the best marketing of all time?
Went to a new reading series in Austin called “DOWNPOUR” at Vintage Bookstore & Wine Bar and liked it. It was likely the first fiction reading that I went to that I didn’t find boring (no offense to my fiction writer friends; y’all just be reading like y’all didn’t write it)!
I’m taking this “Ways of Seeing” class that has forced me to read a lot of stuff outside my general taste. Do you think taste and sensibility – as it pertains to what you like and dislike media (TV, movies, etc) wise – changes, or stays over time? I think I’ll always be a person more partial to writing that prioritizes sense, but I appreciate and respect writers that prioritize other things (like sound, feelings, etc) over sense. Does that make sense? Another way to phrase my question: do you think you’ll always like the stuff that you like currently, or will it change as you change? Ideally, it would widen, but would it change?
I think you have to be neurodivergent in order to be into American poetry. Especially 21st-century poets. Let me explain in a later newsletter (or Twitter thread)
Tokischa’s Tiny Desk Concert has been gagging me for the past week. It’s so GOOD omg.
I understand why the white girls go up for pumpkin spice lattes. They are… quite nice! I’m not a coffee drinker (& have tried to be many times); the PSL I got from Starbucks didn’t taste like coffee, so maybe that’s why I like it! If I could give out “KB-approved” stickers for random products, I would, and this would be one of them.
Fergie is a national treasure and I won’t be taking notes on this at this time.
Who was the first human to decide that humans were the most important species living on earth? It’s a shame we still – consciously & subconsciously – believe that honestly. While hanging out after a swim, this squirrel up in a tree was eating nuts & dropping them on me & my partner’s head. At first, I wanted to be mad, but like, I was an intruder, you know? Bro was just tryna eat lunch. I think about how many things exist at the same time as us and get overjoyed sometimes. It’s a shame I can’t meet all of them. It’s a very understandable shame that so many of them are scared of humans.
Björk’s Sonic Symbolism podcast might be the best thing that’s happened to me.
Went to see a play called “The Pact” at Vortex Theater in Austin. Lisa Scheps (who is the founder/co-artistic director of the amazing Ground Floor Theatre) was amazing in it. I love seeing trans people just… being cool and fun. If that was a TV show – trans people being cool and fun – I would watch it. Maybe I’ll make that into a pilot and sell it to HBO Max; it would be considered adult bc #trans, so HBO is my best bet.
I’ve read more books this year so far than last year; yay (add me on Goodreads). I wanna write two essays – one about reading Assata: An Autobiography in 2022, and one about reading Measure for Measure in 2022 – both about how the past is a reflection of the present, in ways I wish it wasn’t, but in ways I hope can inform our future.
If I were the new Queen of England, I would mandate that everyone listen to the full version of Kelela’s “All Night” to fulfill the daily recommended serotonin levels.
That’s all I can think of today. I could keep going, but….. You’d get bored, and ask how I can think about all these things at the same time (answer: I can’t, but I do). But !!! I must go !!!
Til next time.
Love, Peace, and Chicken Grease,
KB