sarah HANNAH gómez

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I’m sitting on a bus heading back to Boston from DC, where I spent the last two days with my aunt, uncle, cousins, cousins’ significant others, and cousins’ kids. I had a great time, and even though I didn’t want to admit it, it was definitely preferable to spending the holiday alone. Also, I got to go to a speakeasy on Wednesday night and drink old, Ragtimey drinks, some of which come with raw egg in them.

But I am not a big holiday person, even when I try to be. There are some things about a person inherent and unchangeable, and my inability to care about books and movies about war/military strategy or to get excited about holidays is something I can’t change, even when I know that it’s an award-winning film or that the entire rest of the world thinks it’s interesting that once a year at midnight it becomes not only a new day and a new month, but also a new calendar year. I’m not big on commemorative or celebratory things that are deemed obligatory. I didn’t go to my college graduation and a year later, I still don’t care; even if I weren’t someone who had never had the option of celebrating Valentine’s Day with a boyfriend I don’t think I would be big on celebrating it; I haven’t really done much for my birthday the past few years because it’s always awkward and an exercise in finding out how little my friends care about me. I much prefer showing people I care, and being shown they care, in random ways that mean a lot more because they come from the person just thinking about you and doing something special, not seeing a calendar date and feeling like they’re socially obligated to do something. And it’s not that I’m anti-capitalist or trying to make a stupid hipster statement; I have honestly tried to get excited and buy Halloween costumes and I always end up not following through, even if I mean to. Continue reading →

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I shelve my books; I don’t just put them on shelves. And I know that I’m somewhat unique among even scholars and book lovers, because I have seen plenty of English professors, avid reader friends, and writers who are happy with their disorganized bookshelves. But my books are organized, which I think speaks to my natural affinity towards librarianship and also to my bibliophilia.

The two big wooden shelves are fiction. All fiction, no matter whom it was written for, whether it’s speculative, realist, surrealist, science, fantasy. If it’s a story that was made up, it’s here. I love stories, and this is obviously the biggest part of my collection. I don’t distinguish between subgenres or audience because I think that tends to demean them, and there is merit in all types of fiction. It all just goes on these shelves, alphabetically according to last name. The shelves you can’t see because they are blocked by the chaise are filled with old magazines, piano and choral music, and tons of binders of my own writing, literary magazines, and photocopies of readings I’ve done for class, workshops, and more. Continue reading →

I’m in the middle of reading a fabulous book, The Ecstasy of Influence by Jonathan Lethem. I already can’t wait to finish it so that I can write my review, but I also don’t want it to stop, so I keep putting it down and picking up magazines or Anthony Bourdain memoirs (un-put-down-able, really) every few pages. Right now Lethem’s riffing on comic books, a topic which usually bores me, because I’ve never cared about superheroes. I didn’t read comics as a kid, nor do I read them now, and I’ve only seen two or three superhero movies in the last ten years. Actually, no, I can count them. Four. The first two Spider-man reboots, and the Christian Bale Batman movies, because, well, it’s Christian Fucking Bale.

So I was sitting on the T thinking while reading, and then I remembered that I actually spent two or three years really into one comic book series (technically it’s like twelve different series, but they’re all the same): Archie. My best friend in elementary school and I were going to the pumpkin patch with her moms, and since it was a long drive to Willcox, she handed me a comic book (I’m still wondering why I hadn’t brought a book of my own–that’s so unlike me, even eight-year-old me). I was a little confused, because I had never even read the Sunday newspaper comics, but after I accustomed myself to reading panels instead of prose, I was fairly hooked.

It’s not that big of a stretch, I guess. It was about teenagers, oooh, exotic! And they did quaint, small town things like ride bicycles without getting hit by cars and went to the Chocklit Shoppe after school. Basically it was all my dreams of Americana life wrapped into convenient sitcom characters who never evolved. Comics, I’m realizing, are like television, and actually, that may be why I was drawn to them. Either that, or reading Archie so much drew me to television and movie writing as that secret thing I want to do more than public library service and literacy. But, err, I still really want to do that, and I’m not dropping out of school. K? Continue reading →

the belzhar

february reading in review

what else i’m up to, and where

the walls around us

i accidentally secretly watched the entire twilight saga

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