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"Read to live."

-me quoting joan didion to myself when I'm lying wide awake at 3AM consumed by the fear of death for no reason. And then i get up to go read a book and it's all better

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Follow me to the land of southern Illinois

like reading, road tripping is like takes you beyond time and space to learn about things external and internal to you. This year, i've road tripped around Carbondale, IL (my new home) to learn about the history of the USA and i guess myself? and here goes:

First stop: Cobden (population, 1,000-ish)

Overall, the demographic makeup of region is majority white and the next percentage African-American; there are, however, strong enclaves of immigrant communities, particularly latino agricultural workers. Cobden is home to this particular demographic. So much so that many of the road signs are in Spanish. Also, the mascot for the local public school is the Apple Knockers, or someone who harvests and/or sells apple - a clear homage to the industry-driven identity of the area.

Second stop: Makanda (population, 539)

Ten miles (ten minutes driving) north of Cobden lies the tiny hippie village of Makanda. Think of this even smaller than Cobden village as Austin, Texas in its first trimester. It's tiny, it's weird, it smells like hippies and weed. Paul Simon is a well-known, esteemed Illinois politician whose name is proudly displayed on buildings across Southern Illinois, especially in Carbondale. He was a state legislator and eventually took on a presidential campaign in 1988. His trajectory was similar to that of Obama's I suppose; such a common political trajectory. Unsurprisingly, around the time of his campaign his house in Carbondale began to see many visitors such as the media, and naturally, shortly thereafter, constituents wanting to meet him and talk to him/his family. Paul Simon's daughter is Sheila Simon who followed in her father's public service footsteps, becoming lieutenant governor and serving on the Carbondale City Council. She is also faculty at the SIU school of law; a colleague of mine. Once at lunch, she mentioned to the group that during the campaign her father relocated their family to Makanda as a result of this unwanted attention. It was secluded and inconvenient for "just anyone" to "stumble upon." In Illinois there is an unspoken tension among its residents about whether or not Illinois was part of the South during the eras in which slavery to civil war to reconstruction occurred. Unfortunately, it's not so cut and dry - Illinois is a tall state, reaching well into the north but also reaching well into the South. that means that, it therefore, because of its geography, was part of the north and the south. Northerners (read: chicagoans) claim that there was no history of slavery here, however, in Southern Illinois there is more transparency about the messy history of slavery, discrimination, and racism of the state. In many parts you will see remnants of the failed promises of reconstruction, with abandoned railroad routes and dixie flag flying towns illustrating where capitalism froze. At least in Makanda, which can be said for Carbondale, as well as for individuals here and there across southern Illinois, there is documented history of active defiance against slavery and pro-slavery organizations (around the time of Lincoln's inauguration). So this should be a point of pride for Chicagoans if they only looked outside of the city downstate.

Third stop: Marion (population, 17,000-ish)

In Marion there is a collective chip on the shoulder among residents for how much more attention Chicago gets from the state legislature. In the mind of a Marion resident, anything Springfield and north has abandoned the rest of the southern part of the state. Marion is the second largest town in the region of southern Illinois and also where to mostly likely encounter a Trump bumper sticker and lawn sign within the same block.

Along with this traveling, i've also picked up Women, Race & Class coincidentally discussing many of the regions near Illinois. What this has all taught me is that a lot of the history of the country happened in this area. Giving it more attention would spur important discussions about race class and liberation domestically and abroad.

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Thank you to everyone who got me to 50 likes!

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Ode to Portland

This summer I traveled to Portland to attend a conference on law librarianship. I was so excited to learn technical skills that I scoured the schedule for the two weeks leading up to departure (I flew) for workshops on cataloging, the densest task known to man.

While I am well-versed in describing historical documents, since transitioning from archivist to librarian four months ago, understanding my raison d'être has been brain-wracking. My mission for this conference quickly became to "be the protege."

One is someone my boss put me in touch with the person formerly in my position at this library - he was head of tech services, so a slightly different title, likely slightly different responsibilities, but altogether the same position, nonetheless. Famously, operations in libraries changed dramatically (and I mean dramatically) between the 90s and 2000s, which is when said librarian worked in my place, so I plan to ask how things were "back in the day," in that sort of oral history kind of way. The other librarian is another senior librarian who is an EXPERT on the library system I use, so she has been remotely helping me a lot on how to learn the back-end of it (seeing as we don't have a systems librarian at my institution, i've been doing a lot of this back-end systems work, yikes, but developing technical skills is one of the reasons I got excited about this job, so this is secretly an exciting thing I get to do). This librarian is also from Texas, so she's a nice connection to home.

The latest scoop: I unfortunately got a bad haircut (which I thought was going to be a fun haircut in preparation for this trip). I said to the hairdresser, who is very sweet, loves watching The Valley just as I do, and reminds me of an old friend from grad school, "give me like a 70s shag, choppy, fun layers." We had a fun chat in which I definitely aged myself as a millennial (she is thoroughly Gen Z) and felt myself getting self-conscious about talking too much, as is always the case when I go to the hairdresser (the other thing to get self-conscious about is talking too little); however, the haircut was bad. Bad. Now I have to break up with her silently, and, as are the woes of living in a small town with scarce hairdresser options, start dating her co-worker, whom I enjoyed the first time I got a haircut at this location. Anyway, enough about hair. As much as it is the theme of this blog.

Learning priorities: how to manage a two-year processing backlog, how to conduct legal research (i work in a law library), how to get good at original cataloging serials.

Things I am taking: Angela Davis's Women, Race, and Class. This book is always relevant, always timely, always teaching us something.

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I'm back on my exploration grind. Planning to post a July newsletter next weekend after I attend a professional conference for Librarians in Portland.

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Currently Reading...

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Books in 2025

Lupita Mañana

Yesterday I read a book called Lupita Mañana about a girl who illegally crosses the US-Mexico border to work and send money back to her struggling mother in Mexico. If this story sounds familiar that's because since 1981, the year this book was published, reality has pretty much remained the same.

The book was written by Patricia Beatty, whose books were published open access -- meaning without restrictions like any disgusting paywalls (fun fact: Patricia was a librarian and it shows).

I digress.

Yes, The book is fetishistic for depicting the "Poor Mexican Immigrant" as almost inherently tragic. We start with Lupita's dad, a fisherman, dying out at sea, which forces Lupita's mom to take out a massive loan that can only be paid back to the evil lender if both Lupita and her brother travel to California and toil in the hot unforgiving fields picking produce for pennies on the dollar. En route, Lupita and her brother get mugged, raided by La migra, hunted by vigilante border trolls, witness a murder, and even come face to face with rattlesnakes in an abandoned shack where they seek shelter after being shot at by Mad-Max-like gringo teens in a beat up truck. Lupita and her brother are so unable to catch a break that it makes the reader feel the need to gasp for air at every paragraph.

However, I thought of how horror literature is having a moment right now because this book reads almost like a horror book. Lupita experiences trauma after trauma, chapter after chapter. In the last chapter, SPOILER, her brother is captured by ICE which means she is alone and thus unsafe in a foreign land. Ultimately, maybe the story should be this simple if only for the purpose of teaching the anti-immigrant camp how to feel compassion.

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Neuroticism and Curiosity: on being an artist-adjacent adult in late-stage capitalism

It's just an idea. For now.

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Books in 2025

Yesterday I read a book called Lupita Mañana about a little girl illegally crossing the US-Mexico border to make money to send back to her widowed mother.

A few weeks ago I read the classic Greek tragedy Antigone.

I guess I was on a throwback kick these last few weeks so I picked up books I remember from when I was a kid. My general review is that millennials were reading some bleak material in the 90s-early 2000s. This must explain my often bleak outlook on life!

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Coal was the bedrock of my town, literally and figuratively. There were large deposits of it everywhere in the region of northern Mexico (that's why it is known as the land of dinosaurs to Mexicans, and maybe to some American academic researchers, too) therefore it was a driving industry for decades in the town of Palau. I never really took in or embraced that fact until now that I live in the US region of southern Illinois, where coal mining was once also an important local industry. The poetry of this similarity is not lost on me. It makes me miss home.

There are tons of antique shops in this part of the country and I visit them. Often, i will find booths filled to the brim with coal mining objects - memorabilia is the first word that comes to mind; while it sounds like a trivializing word, that's exactly what the items are for me. They set off memories of the adult men in my childhood who worked at the coal mines nearby; all night, too, so we would see them walking home past my grandma's front porch. They'd wave at us with their headlamp and lunch pail in hand, looking tired and sweaty. Ready for bed at 8AM. "I wonder if that's how it was here," I'll whisper to myself as I peruse these booths at the antique shops.

One year when I was maybe eleven, there was an explosion at the mine where my uncle worked the night shift. The explosion happened overnight during his shift so that morning when we woke up his wife ran to our house freaking out as she had just heard the news but had no way of getting in touch with anyone about it. This is rural Mexico in the early 2000s so there were no cell phones. I did not understand the weight of life then, but realizing today that my uncle trading shifts with one of his cohort members saved his life makes me miss home. "I wonder if there's any stories about brushes with death here." I wonder.

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Pansies in the Woods, part 1

Mr and mrs pansy had no worries. they never really thought about it. Or anything, really. They liked their life - quiet, clean, free. their cottage nestled in the shawnee forest was little and surrounded by green. drenched in morning light around 7am and blanketed in sherbet pink and orange hues at sunset.

"ooh, sun is out." mrs pansy said one morning over coffee. she and mr pansy were watching their regular morning tv of ru paul's drag race.

"mmm, pretty." mr. pansy couldn't shake off the terrible feeling that something big was about to happen to both of them.

"do you think flowers are destined for greatness, mary?" mrs. pansy's name was not mary but they both called each other that. They didn't know when this started, but they didn't really wonder.

"don't know, mary. why are you thinking about that? why are you thinking at all? how's the coffee?"

"well i don't know mary, every day, we open up our petals and greet the sun in the east, we follow it across the sky until it sets, then we close our petals at night. Just to do it all over again tomorrow. and the next day. is there nothing else? Coffee's really good this morning"

"well, yes." mrs. pansy slurped on her coffee pensively. "i suppose that's true. We don't really do much else, do we?" "we stay beautiful, though. Staying beautiful is doing something other than opening and closing."

"yeah, but." mr. pansy slurped the rest of his coffee like whatever, got up off the couch and headed to the bathroom. "i don't know. anyway."

That day in the shawnee, the forest giant looked up how to eat pansies.

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For the last several months, I have been working on a project to pick up a library back to its former glory. I plan to stay here and focus on it and the people I can help, rather than on myself. Done thinking about no one else but me.

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Things I love

aka things that bring me joy for no reason that I can explain, I just know I feel good at the thought or sight of them:

my nephew

the pacific coast

road trips

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Frida Kahlo Walked so Zizek Could Run

"And in the end, I believe that we don't need to do anything to be loved.

We spend our lives trying to seem prettier, more intelligent.

But I've understood two things.

Those who love us see us with their hearts and attribute qualities to us beyond those we really have.

And those who don't want to love us will never be satisfied with all our efforts.

Yes, I really believe that it is important to leave our imperfections alone.

They are precious to understand those who see us with their hearts. "

Frida Kahlo

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Why are couples in horror movies either on the brink of divorce or "writers"?

Or both. Two recent examples:

Speak no evil (2024)

Wolf man (2025)

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Moving from the Southwest to the Midwest has its perks. For example, I am not expecting 108 degree days this week.