I should be in bed right now ( Read more... )

Book 2 - 6.17.17, 12.25am

New Words: 3971

Total Words: 36497

Page Count: 171

Reason for Stopping: End of chapter.

Notes: A late night Thursday night meant I spent the morning leg of the commute fast asleep. Proceeded to spend the rest of the day falling madly in love with the new job, then had a long-awaited Shake Shack dinner with an old law ( Read more... )

Things I found out on the drive back from visiting family friends who are what I envision when I think of a loving, immensely successful, grounded, gorgeous black family ( Read more... )

Books to me have, and will likely remain, exercises in empathy. The splitting of consciousness that tells you “be Bigger Thomas,” “be Katniss Everdeen,” “be Quentin Compson,” “be Emma Bovary,” “be Jean Valjean,” “be Tom Sawyer,” “be Janie Crawford,” “be George Smiley,” “be Rand al-Thor,” and be yourself also.

I’ve finally started reading ( Read more... )

-- A Return to Nigeria - Enuma Okoro, New York Times, April 23, 2014 ( Read more... )

Mom swung by to visit and drop off some food after having picked up her sister from the airport. Auntie is visiting from Nigeria, and this was the first time we'd shared a room, the first time I'd seen her face even, in more than 10 years. Another aunt, who shares my mother's first name, came down for the trip and as soon as I met them outside my ( Read more... )

This is what I mean when I speak to people of Nigeria and what it is like to trace roots there. The uncanny ability of alchemists like my mother and countless others to turn misfortune and despair and hopelessness into golden laughter. I envy them.