Sunday Salon

I've done a fair amount of reading this week, but, most exciting, I finished the first draft of my book yesterday!

Reading This Week

• Finished Your Perfect Year by Charlotte Lucas. I got the ebook for free from Amazon on World Book Day. I got started on #WIT (Women in Translation) month a little early this year. This book is translated from German and takes place in Hamburg, and I really enjoyed it. The story centers around a pre-filled planner for a perfect year, discovered by a man named Jonathan, who finds himself drawn to following the events written out in the planner. Meanwhile, we also see the story of Hannah, whose place in the story gradually becomes clear. I love this idea of a pre-planned year and it's definitely a fun and thoughtful read. 
• This week, I also finally got a couple of new-to-me magazines that I subscribed to recently, Real Simple and Better Homes & Gardens. Although I probably wouldn't have had time for them in the pre-pandemic era, I really enjoyed essentially getting to scroll Pinterest or read Apartment Therapy without having to be online. 

Watching This Week

• This week, I watched a few Netflix original movies like The Lovebirds and Desperados. The Lovebirds was pretty good--a floundering couple finds themselves in the middle of a murder mystery--maybe not quite the thing these days, but the chemistry between Issa Rae and Kumail Nanjiani is pretty good and it's a pretty hilarious ride. 
• Even though I love New Girl, Nasim Pedrad and Lamorne Morris, who play Aly and Winston, have surprisingly bad chemistry in Desperados? I just wasn't feeling it at all. Nasim is a compelling lead, and I would definitely watch her in the lead again, but the plot and mainly that main romance chemistry just fell flat. Maybe it's because Lamorne was playing kind of a straight man character and that just didn't work for him. I don't know.
• I also finally watched the rest of Say I Do, which is basically a wedding version of Queer Eye and equally heart-rending. Why can't we just make everybody's dreams come true, y'all? Just all of the queer feels...in the last episode, they feature a gay couple whose families are not really supportive and it gets so real in a way that I've never seen on TV before. Maybe because it's a reality show and it's real life stories and because one of the "gay fairy godmothers", Thai Nguyen, who is the incredible artist behind the wedding dresses and outfits in the show shares his story, but it's about how parents and families' and cultural attitudes toward gay people feels and affects people when they're told they don't exist, should tone it down, can't kiss in public, are going to be "the gay guy" etc. It HURTS. So many people erase themselves or parts of themselves because of their parents or how they're raised. I hope we can get rid of the idea of keeping tradition for tradition's sake and really examine the ideas and messages we are passing along to our children, even unconsciously. 

Writing This Week

• I finished the first draft of the manuscript I started in November! 60, 886 words, currently, only about 4k of which I wrote this month. Now, on to revisions...I at least have some ideas to start with :-?