Dear Reader,
I’ve been in my new place about two weeks now, and it’s all starting to feel a little more settled. I’ve got art on my walls. I know where to find the eggs and cream and Ezekiel bread at my neighborhood grocery store. My cat has mapped out the coziest napping spots for each part of the day.
I’m still in a little bit of a reading lull. I piled all my physical books onto their shelves, with a bunch of to-be-read titles in the mix, and at least once a day I look at them and think, “I should read something.” And then my splintered attention catches on some other little thing to do first — laundry or checking messages or starting a fresh pot of tea — which leads to another thing and another, and the poor books are forgotten again.
I’ve also started dating again, which might have something to do with the reading lull. As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been separated from my spouse and living on my own for quite some time. So far venturing back into the dating world has been quite invigorating. Perhaps a little like finding a favorite piece of clothing that got lost in the back of the closet, shaking out the creases, putting it on and just remembering how good it feels, how well it fits.
When I set out to start dating again, it was with a little hesitation. Once I’d settled on moving, it felt like a natural turning point also to open a new chapter in my love life — not just that it’s nice to meet new people when you’re in a new place, but also in having that feeling of being a little more settled and confident in terms of where I’m at and what I have to offer. Still, it’s been a while, and I’m continuing to work through some big life change. So, a little hesitation, not just for my own sake but also with respect to a very deeply seated desire not to hurt or mislead or disappoint anyone else. If I’m still working through my own shit, I don’t want to overcommit to a new potential relationship and then not be able to muster the spoons to actually follow through.
One thing that’s different as I’m approaching dating again is that I’m pursuing polyamory. That might sound counterintuitive if I’m afraid of overcommitting my energy, but it hasn’t felt like that at all so far. A big appeal of polyamory for me is being intentional in approaching each new relationship with the idea that we don’t have to be all the things for each other — that each relationship can evolve organically and find its own natural level. I don’t have to look for a checklist of “perfect match” wish list attributes in the person I’m seeing, and I can feel confident that they are not going to expect me to be their absolute everything in all the ways. I can indulge in pouring out my openhearted affection with new partners, and be wholeheartedly supportive of their other relationships, and continue to enjoy my independence and space. At least, that’s the dream right there. And it’s not like I expect things to always be magically easy, but “how do we best support each other’s autonomy” is exactly the emotional and relational labor that I have a pretty endless well of energy for.
And to my mild astonishment and certainly to my delight, I’ve found myself already in a lovely fledgling relationship and enjoying a very promising start with a few new connections, and that’s probably a full dance card for me. So, wish me luck, and we’ll see where things go.
With the people I’ve been seeing, my days have also gotten rich in amazing conversation. Just a glorious wealth of meandering exploration, over all kinds of topics. As you may have noticed, I am super, super into that. We’ve talked about power and privilege and wealth and shitty capitalism, and systems as safety nets versus systems as vehicles of bias and oppression, and political polarization and community development, and the promise of developing technologies, the problems of commercialization, the importance of compassion. How we can do better with this world, how we can be more real to each other. Spider monkeys. Uses for ChatGPT. How to make a good shortbread.1 All kinds of things.
And then in the midst of this, beyond my little personal corner of the world, I am also thinking a lot about Tyre Nichols. I’m not going to try to capture any thoughts in writing other than just, fucking Christ, Jesus wept, but I will share Garrett Bucks’ piece from the weekend, which was excellent:
And ok, also: Fuck the complacency of systems that perpetuate this culture of violence. Fuck the dehumanization of ordinary people just trying to get on with their lives. Fuck any pundit who wants to use this as a talking point to further their own brand. Fuck anyone brandishing a “blue lives matter” flag as if that’s a counterpoint. Any cop who wouldn’t lay down their own life rather than risk murdering an innocent civilian should turn in their fucking badge. Fuck the glamorization of throwing the rule book out the window. There is never, never, never a justification for police beating the shit out of somebody. Ever.
In romance novels, where there’s a character who is a lawyer, sometimes authors will take a stab at the age-old question of how lawyers justify defending criminals. Occasionally they even do a decent job of it. Alexis Hall had a fair take with Oliver Blackwood, the criminal barrister in Boyfriend Material:
“The short version is: an adversarial justice system isn’t perfect, but it’s the best that we’ve got. Statistically, yes, most people I defend in court are guilty because the police can broadly do their jobs. But even people who probably did it are entitled to a zealous legal defence. And that’s a principle to which… to which I am ideologically committed.”
And L.A. Witt did a pretty nice job with Aaron Taylor, the criminal defense attorney in Extra Whip.
… “I’m not there to prove [my client is] innocent. I’m there to make sure the prosecution is doing their job to prove he’s guilty.”
… “I like what I do, and I’m glad to do it because if there’s no one there to force the prosecution to present a bulletproof case, then there’s no such thing as a fair trial. I don’t have to believe the defendant [isn’t] guilty. Hell, sometimes I know they’re guilty. All I have to believe in is the defendant’s right to due process.”
The guarantee of due process starts waaaaay before the courtroom, even before anyone is arrested. It starts with the cops having a reasonable basis to stop an individual in the first place. It continues with how that stop is conducted, whether and to what extent a search of person or property is justifiable, whether a person is wrongfully detained, whether they’ve been properly notified of their rights once in custody, how evidence is handled, how questioning is conducted. All of these things implicate civil rights that most law-abiding people (and even white-collar criminals) take entirely for granted — the right to be free to go about your business and not be stopped by law enforcement on a mere pretext, the expectation of being free from verbal harassment or physical violence or coercion, the assumption that you will not be detained or taken into custody for some trivial bullshit.
One of the primary methods we have of backing up those rights is that if the cops violate them by not adhering to proper procedure, then any evidence resulting from that wrongful stop or that wrongful search is deemed tainted and can’t be used against the person. In TV and pop culture, this often shows up as the defendant “getting off on a technicality” because there’s a strong mainstream cultural bias in favor of law enforcement. But in reality, someone who “gets off on a technicality” is most likely someone whose civil rights were being violated.
If an innocent person is wrongfully stopped, harassed, pushed around or yelled at a little, and then the cops realize “oops, my bad” and just let them go again, that person can register a complaint about it or try filing a civil rights claim, but mostly the consequences are pretty unimpressive. So it is really, really important that the cops are meaningfully disincentivized against abusing their authority and violating people’s rights, in the form of making sure that evidence obtained through police misconduct can’t be used in court. Protecting the rights of the guilty is our best backstop in protecting the rights of everyone.
Also, if you don’t want innocent people getting kicked to death in the street by the cops, then it helps to set out as a core value that (all caps here) NO ONE SHOULD EVER GET FUCKING KICKED TO DEATH IN THE STREET BY THE COPS. Even, like, a really bad guy. It’s never fucking ok. Period. For fuck’s sake.
So I suppose that’s another, very different reason that I haven’t been feeling the romance reading vibe.
And yet, because we do have to live in the world, because all our stuff is here, and sometimes the world is a dumpster fire but also it remains full of beauty and kindness and kids eating cheese sandwiches and cats jumping at cucumbers, and all those things can be hard to reconcile — well, sometimes there’s a lot to be said for a little healthy escapism. This isn’t going to be a review because I haven’t actually read it yet, but I am very keen to start Can’t Spell Treason without Tea by Rebecca Thorne.
All Reyna and Kianthe want is to open a bookshop that serves tea. Worn wooden floors, plants on every table, firelight drifting between the rafters… all complemented by love and good company. Thing is, Reyna works as one of the Queen’s private guards, and Kianthe is the most powerful mage in existence. Leaving their lives isn’t so easy…
What follows is a cozy tale of mishaps, mysteries, and a murderous queen throwing the realm’s biggest temper tantrum.
This sounds like a perfect cozy fantasy read. Do you know how much I love tea? My friend: so much. Also books. Also love and good company. All those things.
It also might be time for a reread of The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle, which isn’t a romance but is totally wonderful. The Rankin/Bass animated version is also very charming and captures the spirit of the thing, but if you’ve never read the book, it’s worth poking your nose in, and also has a lot of potential for applying a queer reading.
When I was a kid watching the movie version, I was enamored with the unicorn’s lovely human alter ego, the Princess Amalthea. As an adult, I came to identify much more with Molly Grue, and was particularly struck by the scene where Molly meets the unicorn and demands, “Where have you been?” and “How dare you come to me now, when I am this?”:
The unicorn made no reply, and Schmendrick said, “She is the last. She is the last unicorn in the world.”
“She would be,” Molly sniffed. “It would be the last unicorn in the world that came to Molly Grue.” She reached up then to lay her hand on the unicorn’s cheek; but both of them flinched a little, and the touch came to rest on the swift, shivering place under the jaw. Molly said, “It’s all right. I forgive you.”
And now? I find myself identifying more with the unicorn. Not the poor bewildered Princess Amalthea, but the nameless ancient unicorn who remains uniquely herself, navigating a world that is perplexing and changeable and that doesn’t even really see her most of the time, and working her slow steady magic by means of simply being herself. At least, that’s who I’d like to be.
Hope you’re doing alright. Just saw a social media post today reminding the northern hemisphere that we’re now past the darkest weeks of the year and have turned the corner toward spring. So, days should be getting brighter. Hope you feel that where you are.
Love,
Beas
My recipe, which yields a tender and pleasingly crumbly shortbread: Preheat oven to 275F. In a mixing bowl, stir together 2 cups flour and a half cup sugar. (You can also throw in a teaspoon of cinnamon and swap white sugar for maple sugar, or add cardamom and lemon zest, or a pinch of cayenne — whatever tickles your fancy.) Plop in 8 oz. cold butter, cutting up your butter into chunks before tossing it in the bowl, then cut the butter into the flour/sugar using a pastry blender or a plain old fork, until you’ve got something that sort of resembles a crumbly bowl of sand, maybe with a few pea-sized lumps of butter remaining. Dump your crumbly mess into an 8” or 9” baking dish (metal or ceramic, either is fine), and use your clean hands to press it flat into the bottom of the dish. Bake about 45 minutes, until golden. Remove from the oven and immediately slice into small portions with a very sharp knife, then leave in the pan to cool. Store at room temperature.
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