May's Spilled Milk
What I've been reading, doing, loving in May
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Spilled Milk is my monthly wrap up where I talk about some of my favourite things from the last month. Things I’m reading, enjoying, looking forward to—sort of anything floating my boat.
If you were to ask me what my favourite season is, chances are ‘fall’ would fall from my lips. But these first few weeks of summer make September’s crispy leaves and necessary layering feel like silver medal material.
Pants have turned into shorts (too long or too short—nothing in between). Substantial shirts have turned into dainty gauze-like fabrics. Neighbourhood jaunts! Chilled wine! Hot sidewalk in the rain smell! (Making a list of things I’ll have to remember when the heat stifles any appreciation I have for this season)
Here is an overview of how my month went:
For weeks I rode the high of a pilates instructor asking me if I was a dancer (you never lose a ballet point)
Since when are iced americanos the same price as iced lattes?
Wrote an essay on pen names, but also porn somehow
Hit a total of 3 tennis balls off court due to a Challengers-induced confidence in my abilities (“What abilities,” says my rally partner)
Hacks has really sustained me throughout May…. I mean, that finale?
I’ve been asking myself if we actually like the new Bridgerton or if we just like Nicola Coughlan
The following is a list of some more things I couldn’t get enough of.
What I Read and Loved
Category is: kooky and craft-y!
The thing these books share is a Take. They challenge what novels look and feel like through construction or content.
Headshot by Rita Bullwinkel
A novel set during a barely-attended boxing tournament for teenage girls is not a premise I naturally gravitate towards, which is exactly why I was drawn to it.
Through sport, Bullwinkel examines class, identity, body image, and the elusive topic of so many recent think pieces: girlhood. Each match is a window into the girls, their process, their lives, their futures. It’s dreamlike, but anchored by jabs, uppercuts, gut punches (literal).
This book stood out to me because of its brutality, both physical and psychological. The writing is beautiful without extra flourish, it successfully and dryly exposes the humanity of all its characters in a short time.
Maybe I’m going to become a sports fiction reader after all?
Oreo by Fran Ross
Is somebody gonna match Fran Ross’ freak?
This kooky ass book from 1974 was perfectly weird and delicious. It’s a satire that parodies the many adventures of Theseus via the titular character, Oreo. We follow her through a journey of self-discovery as she searches for her father.
Oreo is half-Black, half-Jewish, and Ross plays in the sandbox of these identities throughout, specifically interesting in the context of its 1970s New York City setting. We stay anchored in this quest, this hero’s journey, even when the magical realism of the book takes unexpected twists and turns.
Oreo also plays with language in a way that is so creatively interesting. Yiddish, pun after pun, just an absolute feast for the brain. It’s a shame this is Fran Ross’ only novel, I loved reading her.
Blackouts by Justin Torres
The line between fiction and nonfiction is so blurry here, and it was fascinating to read.
Blackouts is steeped in queer history, while simultaneously entering itself into it. The majority of the novel exists as a conversation between two queer men from different generations as they share stories from queer days past. There’s also a book within a book with inserts of various cultural artefacts, images, and texts, that colour in the passing of knowledge between the two.
This book is dreamy and floats outside of a traditional structure, which can make it hard to feel grounded in, but I highly recommend it for anyone interested in queer history.
In Universes by Emet North
This is a book that reads like a collection of building and interconnected short stories. It is a wild ride through humanity and possibility.
Raffi is a researcher studying dark matter, and their obsession with the multiverse is all-consuming. The novel brings us along as they navigate a kaleidoscope of alternate realities, each of which is an iteration of their life where they’ve made different choices. Through all of these, we explore grief, trauma, guilt, loneliness, and just plain existence.
In Universes is spectacular and so rich in feeling. The chapter A Solid Body, Fractured with a mother as a horde of bees has affected me in a way I know will stay with me for a long time.
Hit Me Hard and Soft by Billie Eilish
I have never been a Billiehead. I missed the boat on Ocean Eyes. I thought Bad Guy was fun, but it was quickly overexposed in a way that made me run from it. I liked her as a blonde, but never really got around to listening to that album.
Then, she made me sob during Barbie, so I knew I wanted to give her new album a shot.
To say this album blew me away would be an understatement. Maybe it’s because I’m meeting her where she’s at, as a well-rounded pop music veteran at 22? Maybe it’s because I really respond to Gay Ass Shit™️? Maybe it’s because it’s just good? Whatever it is, I’m here and it’s Billie time.
Songs like LUNCH and L’AMOUR DE MA VIE [OVER NOW EXTENDED EDIT] are entries into the summer-2024-songs-that-I-will-strut-to canon. BIRDS OF A FEATHER is giving Fast Car by Tracy Chapman a run for its most sapphic song money. CHIHIRO, THE GREATEST, SKINNY, BLUE… I could name every song here because of how cohesive the album feels front to back, but there’s also lyrical genius that needs to be addressed.
She's the headlights, I'm the deer
LUNCH, Billie Eilish
This first time I heard this line, I paused—I NEVER do this—gasped, guffawed, and restarted the song. The intersection of deep, sad and horny is the most interesting thing about this album to me, and this quote perfectly exemplifies that in a song meant to make you dance. Deer IN the headlights, it says everything and does it brilliantly.
The rest of my thoughts can be summarized by an ass shake and head bob.
The L Words
A few monthly wrap ups ago, I theorized that everything is better with lesbians in it. This was prompted by a viewing of Love Lies Bleeding, the kind of action/organized crime movie I was not built to love, but did.
I wanted to test this theory, so I embarked on a journey through a cultural blindspot of mine: The L Word.
The backstory of my The L Word dismissal up to this point is that I spent my formative years watching sweaty bodies slap into and around each other in Queer as Folk. At the time, it was a beacon of queerness that, in hindsight, was only exposing me to a specific kind of queerness. But it was also chock-full of messy stereotypes, overplayed storylines, and overall mediocre (and that’s not even mentioning the reboot). The L Word was its sapphic counterpart, so I didn’t even think to watch it.
“Are you gonna watch Generation Q?”
asked me. I scoffed, thinking I might not even make it through the original.The L Word is so problematic. Like most television from 2004, it had a complicated relationship with diverse representation and any attempt to course-correct was strained (The reboot is on the total opposite side of that scale in trying to stay unproblematic and I actually really liked Gen Q!). If we can admonish and excuse it for the Sex and the City quartet, why not for the girls on The Chart?
As I watched, I was swept up in pulpy storylines, melodrama, despicable characters, and I started to think maybe good wasn’t the point. It’s not supposed to be watched with a critical eye and considered against the standards of 2024. This show airing 20 years ago was revolutionary and set a precedent for queer women being portrayed on TV, but it isn’t good good and that’s okay. Just like Queer as Folk, The L Word is iconic and a little infamous, and I love that for it.
So do I recommend it? Sure! It’s a great summer watch and was fun to unplug to. Start with the original, but don’t skip on Generation Q!
Reading Goals Update
My non-fiction reads for the month were Moby Dyke by Krista Burton, Dancing on My Own by Simon Wu, The Observable Universe by Heather McCalden and The Red Parts by Maggie Nelson. So much to say on these, but I talk through them on my wrap up here.
My poetry collection read this month was Against Heaven by Kemi Alabi. It’s a gorgeous collection that explores, among other things, blackness and queerness with really beautiful, exact language.
My Year With Baldwin is still underway. I have to read Another Country next, and haven’t found a copy via my local indies yet… But I still plan on reading it this month!
That’s been my month!
Until next time 🤠
okayyyy sports fiction-- try cleat cute, a lesbian romanceeeee
Queer as Folk and The L Word both airing around the same time in the early 2000s.. that was fighting for gay rights!