AnnaGrams

September is Deaf Awareness Month, so it seemed like a good time to (re)share this essay on hearing loss—with a smattering of Greek mythology, Yaqui sweat lodge ceremonies, and the quiet, insistent aches of living with limitations. Walk with me into a tiny, padded room, gray as grief except for the wires and headset dangling from the wall, a square piece of glass serving as a window to a different gray room. Sit in the gray chair, which faces a poster detailing the warning signs for swimmer’s ear.

Last year-ish, Vika and I were interviewed for this great podcast/NPR show, Embodied, on how hearing loss complicates and informs our relationship. They re-released it recently and you should give it a listen wherever you get your podcasts. (It’s also on YouTube, though the subtitles there are 10% wrong. But on the main Embodied page, there are transcripts.) Here’s a teaser.

Living with hearing loss impacts every aspect of my life. It shapes how I communicate, navigate the world, and connect (or, more often, don’t connect) with others. During Disability Pride month, I find myself thinking lately about unexpected support—the small, impactful ways people have shown up and advocated on my behalf when I couldn’t. There’s my wife, of course, who helps translate basically everywhere we go, and who’s learning ASL with me so we can communicate a little easier.

I recently returned from a writing retreat in Mendocino with smart, fun bosses and (and, for a hot second, ). While TCF and I go way back, Sarah and Amanda’s work was new to me. (Go read their ‘Stacks if you’re into nuanced, accessible takes on topics like motherhood, identity, pop culture, and more.) This was the first writing retreat I’d ever done with people.

Happy Pride, friends! I posted a photo of me and Vika on Notes and immediately got trolled by some bigot telling me to “stay away from children,” so we’re starting the month off right! I've been thinking about poetry. Particularly when the "debate" comes up (as it tends to) about whether poetry is necessary, especially in times of great strife and uncertainty. (It is and it isn't. If you're starving, a poem will not feed you. But then again, it might.) We don't need poetry.

In his essay, “I’m Still Standing,” David Sedaris witnesses a man shitting his pants on a plane. “The man went into the bathroom and stayed there, no doubt looking for something to kill himself with.” The incident serves as a springboard for Sedaris to delve into his own deep-seated fear of experiencing a similar embarrassment. “For surely that day is coming,” he writes, then shares a series of close-calls courtesy of a stomach virus he contracts while on a book tour.

“There is no love of life without despair of life”—Albert Camus It's been two weeks since Nex Benedict, a 16-year-old nonbinary teenager, died after a hateful attack at their Oklahoma school. I keep trying to write this newsletter—ostensibly about joy and creativity and queerness and books—and I can’t seem to. When I was a repressed queer teenager in Arizona, every story I heard about queer people involved violence. There was Matthew Shepherd, of course, and Brandon Teena.

I went on social media to do something else, so when a post popped up in my feed that my former college professor had brain cancer, I didn’t really absorb the information. I saw the ghost of it, the faint, murky outline. I may have even caught the words brain cancer, but I didn’t stop. I clicked away to do whatever (surely) inane task I was there to do, and promptly forgot about it. “It used to be that stories remained still.

Happy new year, friends! I spent the first day of 2024 on a five-hour hike at Point Reyes. It’s the same hike I’ve been doing for years—to the ocean and back, no frills—except this time we went half a mile farther than usual and were rewarded with a magical beach waterfall. It felt like a metaphor. Go a little further, be a little more curious, reach a little beyond your comfort zone, and be rewarded with the sublime.

Last night I was thinking about fame. About how I am technically one degree of separation (in the Kevin Bacon sense) from Tegan and Sara, because I once slept on a couch in Wilmington, North Carolina, with Tegan’s ex-girlfriend. (Platonically. It was a huge couch.) Because some days it feels like there are approximately seven queer women in the world, the odds are likely that we all know each other in some capacity. That’s not destiny, that’s just math.