I am really, really, really, really bad at staying in the present.
I first noticed it when I was brushing my teeth this morning. I’ve said before that I hate being bored, and that perhaps my greatest fear in life is tedium. Or discomfort. Or anything that doesn’t feel “good.” Type 7/Aries moon/ADHD, we all know the drill.
I have been on deadline for a while now, and I’ve been dealing with a lot of financial, personal, medical, and mental stress, and my god — I would rather be anywhere but here.
I’m fine. I keep saying it because it’s true, but that’s also because my coping strategy appears to be to jet off to whichever alternate universe that seems more interesting than the one I’m in right now.1
Taking brushing my teeth, for example. I don’t hate brushing my teeth or anything, but I find it a tedious task and frequently dilly-dally about before getting around to it — watching YouTube videos, or even doing other chores in order to put off the tedium. Before brushing my teeth this morning, I washed the dishes left overnight in the sink, took the dogs out for a morning walk, and drove to Dunkin Donuts for an iced coffee as an excuse to have something to drink while I took my meds.
But, you know, at some point, I rallied, and forced myself to brush my teeth.
I’d forgotten my phone upstairs in my office, so I couldn’t listen to a podcast or something to stave off the boredom, so for a while, it was just me and my thoughts so I just...drifted off into another universe. What if, what if, what if.
And then my buzzing on my Quip toothbrush stopped and it was time to get back to the present.
In this issue:
Personal
Lexical Gap: Filipendulous
Writing updates
The Morning Realms Dispatch
Stuff you might have missed
What I’m watching
What I’m listening to
Other things of note
🧩 lexical gap: filipendulous
Noun. suspended by or strung upon a thread
This word is more literal than metaphorical, meaning it’s used to describe things actually suspended by a thread (for example, a tire swing) instead of like...my mental state but I am choosing to use it to describe my mental state at the moment.
✍🏻 writing updates
The reason I’ve been under stress is because I’ve been having some issue with my medications. I had to ask for an extension on GUARDIANS 2 because, well, let’s just say that the past three months have been hellish on my health — both mental and physical. The fact that my Self has to exist in this decaying meatsack of mortality is incredibly disgusting if I think about it too hard.
🌞 the morning realms dispatch
*Professor Farnsworth from Futurama voice* GOOD NEWS, EVERYONE! If you missed the previous announcement, my publisher is hosting a preorder campaign for Guardians of Dawn: Zhara. Hang on to those receipts, and submit them here!
news & other press
Zhara is named one of The Boston Globe’s Best New Books of Summer 2023! (Thanks to Renata Sancken!)
Publishers Weekly enjoys Zhara’s “expansive world building.”
Kirkus Reviews says Zhara is “an engaging fantasy set in an original magical world,” and that “this magic-filled story will hook readers with its endearing lead; they will finish this volume and beg for the sequel.”
Booklist loved the characters of Zhara, saying that “there is no shortage of well-rounded friendships and world-ending disasters to keep readers on the hook for future installments."
other things 🔥
The Morning Realms Dispatch No. 9: Korean dramas, or chasteness and longing
The Guardians Gazette No. 6: “Children’s fiction,” or the adultification of YA. For my 절친 only.
✨ stuff you might have missed
Several of you might have gotten a few half-finished essay thoughts that I had scheduled but forgot to draft because ADHD-brain and also deadline. Oops, sorry about that! I promise I’ll finished those thoughts later. Until then:
Negative capability: priorities, distractions, time, AI. For my 절친 only.
📺 what i’m watching
Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets. This was fascinating, not because I’m interested in the Duggars, but because I recognized the insidious influence of white evangelicalism in my own upbringing. I grew up a Korean Presbyterian church, but the teachings of the IBLP are everywhere in fundamental churches, regardless of race or ethnicity. The older I get, the more I realize how the US is just a country made of cults and capitalism. How depressing.
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. On the other hand, this movie was a DELIGHT. I need more like this. I miss when fantasy used to be fun! Is this good? No? Does it matter? No! This movie has Chris Pine playing a bard, Regé-Jean Page as an autistic-coded paladin, and Hugh Grant at his most charming, roguish, chaotic best. I need all the sequels ever.
The Idol. I have...mixed feelings about Sam Levinson’s output, but I will admit to being curious about this newest show for all the wrong reasons — namely all the negative attention it’s been getting. And friends, let me tell you: it’s all true. The Idol is BAD, but nothing and no one can prepare you for just HOW BAD it actually is. It’s not even entertainingly bad. It’s boring and bad. I quit after two episodes. It’s so bad, it might have actually retroactively changed my opinion of The Weeknd’s music (which was positive!).
🎧 what i’m listening to
June is Festa2 month for ARMY, and this year the boys gifted us with an OT7 song. 😭
Not me bawling my eyes out.
I mean, if you’re ARMY, this is going to be an emotional song because of all the references to the history this group has had with their fans, but if you speak Korean, this is clearly a song that...levels up the relationship, if you will.
Let me explain.
For the most part, pop songs in Korea use 반말 (banmal), which is one of the more informal modes of speech. The tú/usted divide, if you speak Spanish. Most songs are speaking directly to someone, and most of the time, that mode of speech is informal. “You” as tú. It gives a sense of intimacy and familiarity, as well as an emotional immediacy that lends itself well to music.
But for the first time, BTS addresses ARMY as 당신 (dangshin) in 존대말 (jondaemal), which is formal.
It’s hard to explain this impact to people who don’t speak Korean or another language with a similar stratification of speech in terms of formality, but this was a punch to the gut. In a good way. Strangers or people who are not close don’t use the second person pronoun with each other, but people who are peers and equal do. Married couples, for example, use dangshin.3 It really signaled a shift in the BTS-ARMY relationship on a fundamental level, especially as the members group ages out of youth into mature adulthood. BTS & ARMY are no longer childhood friends; they are friends, peers and equals in every way.
We always think love songs are about romantic love, but that is not the love BTS has for ARMY, nor the other way around. It’s so intimate in a way that we typically associate with romantic love, but it’s not romantic. It’s parasocial, but parasocial in both directions. It’s also just...pure.
I also watched Agust D’s D-Day in Seoul concert with
, and it was an enjoyable time, as always. As per usual, BigHit needs to release an album of stage mixes, and this time they need to include the acoustic version of “Seesaw.”💾 other things of note
“Is AI destroying fantasy?,” Bookborn. YouTube, May 2023.
Yoder, Rachel. “In the Glimmer,” Harper’s Magazine. May 2023. (via
)“The Playlistification of Music,” The Venus Theory. YouTube. June 2023
We are...ONE MONTH AWAY from the release of Zhara. I do have a few events planned, which I’ll update y’all with the details when I get my life together. And finish this deadline.
Until then,
When one of the Daniels said that Evelyn in Everything, Everywhere All At Once had undiagnosed ADHD, I FELT THAT TO MY CORE.
Anniversary festivities for BTS.
In fact, I used to think dangshin meant “darling” as a kid because I only ever heard it used between married couples.