April Showers, May Flowers

& Everything I've Been Up to Lately

April always tends to be my dreariest month. I get bogged down by migraine and joint pain-worsening storms, unnecessary pre-birthday reflection, and general Minnesotan fatigue waiting for summer to finally break through the final dregs of winter. Now, it’s the second week of May, I’ve had to mow my lawn for the first time of the season, and it’s finally finals week. Granted, I only get a week off in between my spring and summer semesters, but still, I’m trying to lean into the potential for rejuvenation. 

Juggling work and school continues to exhaust me, pushing me past limits I didn’t know existed, and moving forward, I’m promising one monthly wrap-up/ true newsletter type Substack and one longer form essay. Writing for fun and writing for just myself (and all of you) has become a privilege dependent on both time and fatigue, and I am continually trying to find ways to allow my life to blossom around my schedule. (That said, I have dreams of using my week off to batch write several essays that have been bopping around my brain. We shall see.) Thank you, as always, for your patience with me as I try to survive this degree pursuit.

So, here’s what the last month or so has included for me. Some pop culture musings, some reading, some sports, and of course, some good things. 

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April Reading:

Audiobooks continue to be a saving grace. I listen to them most frequently in the two hours of work before the library opens, when I can focus on words while pulling patrons’ holds for the day. I switch between using my premium Spotify account, library books from Libby, and advanced copies from Libro.fm. In April, I listened to three books:

- Canto Contigo by Jonny Garza Villa: I adored Ander & Santi Were Here on audio, and Canto Contigo was no different. Following two boys, one of whom is trans, who go from Mariachi rivals to lovers, it was the perfect balance of teenage angst and the complicated feelings of moving through grief. One of the characters struggles with the heavy pressure of living up to his recently passed grandfather’s legacy, and his grief reminded me so much of my own. It brought tears to my eyes multiple times, and I highly recommend that fans of YA give this one a shot. 

- Baseball’s Leading Lady by Andrea Williams: I loved learning more about Effa Manley, an influential and passionate Black business woman who contributed to the growth of Black baseball in the 40s. It made me consider how many women that I’ve never heard of have left their marks on sports.

- Dear Black Girls by A’ja Wilson: Like with Andrea Williams’ book, I chatted about my experience reading this in my last newsletter. As I prepare for the WNBA season (I write, as though I am an athlete who needs to hit the gym) I wanted to learn more about one of the stars of the league. After listening to this short book, narrated by A’ja herself, I can easily say I am a FAN. I loved her vulnerability discussing being a Black athlete, coping with the death of her grandmother, playing under Dawn Staley, and growing up with a learning disability. I can’t wait to cheer her on this season!

I also finished one physical copy of a book (please clap): I finished Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri. This is my first Lahiri work, and it’s one of my favorite short story collections in recent years. The characters in these stories fight for connection - to one another, to culture, to homes they have immigrated away from. I read this collection as part of a literature course last term, and I am so glad I did. 

May Reads thus far:

A dear friend gifted me a Kindle for my birthday, and though I never thought I would be much of an e-reader fan, the convenience, ease of which my arthritic hands can hold it and flip pages, and ability to connect to my library through Libby has been a game changer. For the first time since starting school, I even stayed up until 3:00 one night, finishing two books and brimming with giddiness over this ritual I hadn’t experienced in months. 

- An Island Princess Starts a Scandal by Adriana Herrera: if you thought I would break in a Kindle with anything but sapphic smut, you’d be wrong. I wasn’t obsessed with this one, but it was precisely what I wanted: easy on the brain, sexy, and sapphic. No complaints!

- Icebreaker by A.L. Graziadei: GAY! RIVALS TO LOVERS! MENTALLY ILL! HOCKEY! I started this YA novel when I checked out the physical copy from the library months ago, but I never got the chance to finish it. After finishing An Island Princess Starts a Scandal and realizing it was available, I stayed up way past my bedtime giggling, kicking my feet, and devouring the rest. I love a slightly older YA - this one takes place in college - and there’s nothing I love more than a queer sports romance. Add in a depressed character with a streak of self-sabotaging? I’m all in. I loved!

A wee update on sports fandom (Am I cursed?):

I turned 25 and every single one of my favorite teams started losing. Badly. Chelsea lost to Barcelona at home after pulling off the unimaginable: beating them - one of the best, if not the best, teams - at home 1-0. Then, they lost to Liverpool. PWHL Minnesota went on a 4 game (now 7?) losing streak (smashing our inaugural playoff hopes - or so I thought) including a loss to Boston in the final seconds of the game, with my father and me in the stands. The Chicago Red Stars went on a losing streak after a shockingly strong start to the season. 

A photo of Autumn, a white twenty something with shoulder length auburn hair, clutching their hands and grinning a squinty eyed smile while at a hockey game. They do not yet know that their team will go on to lose in the final minute and may never win again. (Dramatic)

Like a lot of sports fans, I am deeply superstitious. Even worse than my superstitious streak, there exists some innate feeling deep in my heart that tells me that if I just yell at the screen hard enough and hope with enough fervor, I can will the game into falling my way. Sports have the power to be magical, even a little miraculous (see: Miracle on Ice, Minneapolis Miracle, etc.) Inexplicably, when I’m watching sports, I can stop being a pessimist, if only from whistle to whistle. And now, during a year filled with pain and multitasking and horror, sports are a bit of a refuge from the dread that accompanies every other moment. It’s nice to have something to believe in. 

It makes the wins glorious. It makes the losing streaks hard. 

Alas, sports are just sports. I’m not cursed, nor is my 25^th year (as tempted as I am to believe it.) Chelsea pulled off an 8-0 win, placing them back in contention for the league title, and the Red Stars won their last game. PWHL Minnesota snuck into the playoffs, and though their losing streak continues, I was able to buy a cheap ticket to the 3^rd game of the series.

So, I may not be cursed, but I am learning to love the rollercoaster of wins and losses. If nothing else, it feels good to not be the only one taking L’s. 

Listening:

I’m still primarily spending my time listening to podcasts rather than music. It’s nice to fill my brain with conversation, and it helps ease the perpetual loneliness. Podcasts are the only way I can sleep, the distraction of someone else’s voice easing my brain into quiet. When I’m not listening to podcasts, I’m listening to the standard rotation of Noah Kahan, Kacey Musgraves’ and Beyonce’s new albums, and Chappell Roan. 

The songs currently stuck in my head are:

- Tyrant by Beyonce (what did she put in this song? It makes me feel alive)

- Buckle Bunny by Tanner Adell

- Good Luck, Babe by Chappell Roan

- Espresso by Sabrina Carpenter 

- Kendrick Lamar’s Drake diss tracks (I am who I am, and who I am is a hater) 

Miscellaneous Good Things:

- Alice Wong’s newest anthology has been published! It’s called Disability Intimacy, and though I haven’t read it yet, I hope that you will! I cannot wait to spend time with it soon. 

- I learned that I can cook hard boiled eggs in the air fryer! This is abundantly silly, but my air fryer has become one of my most utilized kitchen accessories. Something about the speed and ease with which is cooks things compared to an oven makes it a bit of an accessibility tool for me, particularly when feeding myself gets hard. I’ve found hard boiled eggs to be such an easy way to add protein throughout my day, so I love that I can just pop them into the air fryer, no boiling water needed.

- I got to have a FaceTime birthday with some of my best friends, and April was a month full of reminders of how much people show up for me, regardless of distance. 

- Finally, at the grand old age of 25, I have given up on the pointless requirement I’ve put on myself to get straight As. Despite the fact that I’ve been kicking college’s ass - something I’m deliciously proud of - after an 18 credit semester, I’ve fully embraced getting a B in Operations Management, a ludicrously pointless course that forces me to use calculus to determine things like supply chain management and inventory and… you get the point. Realizing that I have no desire to raise this grade or put in energy I don’t have to get an A was revelatory. We call this character growth, I believe. 

- I got a $5,000 scholarship for my final year of school after writing an essay about being a disabled, nontrad student. I won’t use the word lucky here, though I’m tempted to. I am so grateful that my hard work and the effort I put into sharing my experiences with academia thus far was appreciated in this way. 

- I have a summer full of sports and concerts and visits with friends I haven’t seen in far too long ahead of me. One of the very few bright sides to being so isolated and going months without plans is that I cherish those moments more than anything. I’ll never take minutes with loved ones for granted.

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I hope that summer brings warmth your way in more ways than one. Keep an eye out in the next couple of weeks for a newsletter on Taylor Swift, ableism, and my own recent journey into psychiatric care.