my culture diary

Welcome to my Culture Diary: the place where I share what I’m reading, watching, and listening to.

SIGN UP HERE

1. I’ve been a longtime fan of Lisa Olivera on Instagram. Equal parts therapist and writer, her words about trauma and healing have always moved me deeply. I was so excited to receive a copy of her newest book: When the Ache Remains: Lessons on Tending to the Unfixable and Finding Beauty Anyway. Not only is the book so aesthetically pleasing, but it was a master class in the power of weaving memoir, poetry, and self-help together, always with a political lens that resists the narrative of being FullyHealed™️. I found myself underlying most of the book and know that it will be a reference point that I will continue to return to it for a long time to come.

2. Hacks might be one of my favorite shows on television and I’m so so sad that it’s done. The final season was the show at it’s peak, and so maybe it’s good that it ended when it did. I don’t want to give away any spoilers, but the romance between Jean Smart and The Summer I Turned Pretty’s Christopher Briney killed me — but not as much as Episode 7, “Montecito,” where Eva and Deborah end up on a couples weekend together. I laughed so hard I quite literally cried, as Deborah fails to understand what a “pillow princess” means.

3. I joined a book club! And our first book was The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa. First published in 1994 in Japan and then translated into English 30 years later, the book feels like it could have been written in today’s current moment in the rise of facism. Set in a world where every day, new objects are disappearing and memories are erased, the novel follows the unnamed narrator and her sea captain friend, as they help the narrator’s editor escape capture by the Memory Police — a militaristic group that is on the hunt for anyone who is somehow able to remember what has been disappeared. One of my favorite arguments that the book makes is that memories are not something held in the mind, but that live in our hearts. 10/10 would recommend.

4. You know I need to have one trashy reality TV show on the go so that I can totally tap out of reality and enter a landscape where nothing truly matters. Enter Season 3 of The Perfect Match. The premise is that contestants from other reality TV shows return to try and find their perfect match. It’s fun to see people you recognize from other shows like Love is Blind and The Ultimatum come back and see their growth — or lack thereof. But this was probably my least favorite of all of the seasons because there were very few people I recognized and all of the couples were pretty much “meh.” Will I watch the next season? Probably. Because I’m a glutton for punishment.

5. Every one under the sun in the literary world has been talking about Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke. Normally, I’m not drawn to books with this much hype — but I am, very much, perversely curious about Trad Wives. The book follows Natalie, a woman who becomes an influencer by documenting her seemingly all-too-perfect life with her family on Yesteryear ranch. But it’s all manufactured. The plot twist is that she wakes up one day and finds herself back in the 1800s, living the actual life that she’s been performing — and then the question becomes: How did she get here? Like Natalie, the reader is left wondering: Is this an elaborate hoax or has Natalie gone mad? While I’m typically not interested in books about privileged white women, what I appreciated was Burke’s choice to give us a deeply unlikable protagonist without any real redemption arch. Overall, the writing was incredible and I found myself compelled by the story. Didn’t leave with any huge takeaways, but my guess is that many readers will.

6. I know that I watched at least some Buffy back when the show was first airing, but outside of the characters, I have no memory of the plot. So when my girlfriend suggested that we watch it with our partner, I was stoked. I love starting a show with so many seasons, already ready for you to watch. Also, it’s sooooooo refreshing to watch a show made before the time of smart phones. I love everything about the 90s aesthetic, obviously, and love how the show centers friendship and intergenerational bonds. We’re only three episodes into the first season, so we’ve got a long ways to go. Can’t wait until we get to more of the queer content!