Michael Z's Newsletter for Early June

Books, picnics, "how to chill out?" and the latest Rabbit Update

Oh hello, almost summer

I cannot believe it’s June. This year is flying by like none past. I think that might be a good thing, right? Nothing particularly significant is happening month over month, or something (in my personal life; many things are happening externally).

I think part of why time “goes faster as you age” is maybe routine? We’re used to life more and more every year, not much data to save. Maybe that’s it, maybe not. I’d love to hear your opinions or knowledge (comment! email me!)

Here’s some of what’s been going on while not much has been going on. They are all generally pleasant—I’ll probably share the heavier things on my mind some other time.

Books

I’ve read eleven books this year so far, which is a record by a lot in the last decade! I’m very proud of myself and so relieved for reading to be pleasant again! This year has been incredible for reading. It turns out that when I don’t exclusively try to read “glad I read it but it was rough” books, I can read almost every day. Also, I learned that I do enjoy reading books on my phone.

E-Book Epiphany

In January, there was a night I was awake way too late, dazed, watching TikToks, and from one of them, somehow I ended up on a Spotify playlist of 80s romantic pop hits. I was very sleepy, and I love 80s nostalgia, and I suddenly needed to read an 80s romance novel immediately. It sounded fun to be in the 80s for awhile, even the straight (white?) 80s.

I looked up a list of popular 80s romance authors, found one that sounded interesting, and looked them up on the library app. Previously, I hadn’t used the app much, because reading on my little screen never felt like the “book experience” I wanted. But the only books on-demand are on my phone, so I picked one and started.

I did not know that romance thriller meant 80% stressful, 10% romance, but I still enjoyed it and read it in a few days. I hadn’t read something meant to pull me from page to page like that in a very long time. At the end, I decided to read another by the same author.

It also pulled me from page to page and over a few days, I finished it. At that point it was a starting to be a routine, and I kept checking out books and reading almost every day for the last several months! It’s been very exciting to have this hobby again; especially as someone who does write fiction, it’s been really inspiring, among the other joys of reading.

I learned that I don’t avoid books because books are too hard, I avoid them because I am either over-committing to books I’m not enjoying, or slightly overthinking the logistics of it. I often think if I open it I need to settle all the way in, fully immerse myself in the story for a long time. I need to sit somewhere comfortable enough to hold the book up, etc. I worry I’ll “lose my place” emotionally, so have to be ready to read for a long time.

When it was on my phone, my brain was already in “pick up and put things down chaotically” mode, and the pages are short, and there’s nothing heavy to hold; I learned that I can still slip in and out of a story very easily, actually. Especially when what I’m absorbing is a plot, and not every word, or the texture of the paper chosen, or whatever else. It was something to do before bed that didn’t thrust me into 400 random emotions in a row like scrolling does, without leaving the comfort of the habit of my phone.

When I’ve tried using the library app on my phone in the past, I was trying to get the book experience on my phone, which felt limiting and frustrating. But after reading the first couple books, I realized I could think of it as filling the scrolling slot rather than the Book Experience slot.

I used to read a lot as a kid, and then I went to college for English and read too many exhausting books and forgot what it was like to want to read all the time. I kept thinking of my lack of reading as a weird failure, but I think enough time has passed that I don’t actually care anymore, so getting in the habit has made it easy again for the first time in many years.

What I’m Reading

So now, excitingly, I can tell you what I’m reading! And it’s opened up more conversations with friends who also have reading books as a hobby. My partner has also been reading a lot, and sometimes we just tell each other the plot of the books we’re reading as we go, which is fun. These have some…vibe? spoilers, but not specific plot spoilers.

I recently finished Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan, which I loved. It was published in 2013, but spoke to a lot of the thoughts I’ve had recently about the Internet and society. It was also just a fun and gentle ride, to me.

I also read The Midnight Library by Matt Haig, which explores a lot of emotionally rough topics, but does flow in a way that was gentle enough for that aspect to not be too tiring. I thought it was a very interesting idea, and it read like mostly a thought experiment, with characters and plots being turned over in the author’s and readers’ hands, which I enjoyed more than I would have expected.

I read a queer romance called Wild Things by Laura Kay, which I enjoyed, but the romance was a little exhausting, because queer pining is too familiar. But, the setting and characters were lovely and felt very real to me, and I do recommend it. It’s about what if you did leave the city and go live with your queer friends on a farm? (And also, of course, you’re secretly super infatuated with one of them.)

Most recently, I finished A Tale For the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki, which oh my gosh, I feel like I will be thinking about for a long time. There was so much richness but the writing felt like such a light touch. Exploring these characters felt to me like examining a drawing in a fine-point pen with rich ink—many details, very gentle. Gentleness has been something I’m enjoying a lot in my recent reads. This novel also had pretty intense content, but for the most part I felt less immersed in the intensity because of the structure. It made moments of tension or grief feel more impactful, I think. I really recommend it, but I’d also look up content warnings if you are someone who values having those. If you or your parents are immigrants (especially to/from the US, Japan, or Canada), it may be particularly impactful. Coincidentally (perhaps), this was also published in 2013 and speaks to a lot of what I have been thinking about the internet lately, entwined with many other questions.

Cozy

I have also been reflecting and wondering a lot about what it means when people describe stories as “cozy.” I’ve often been pretty shocked by what content falls under that recommendation. I’ve been trying to articulate it and clarify it with others, so that I understand what is going on in my language.

To me, cozy would be a fairly upbeat plot where the stakes are incredibly low, but the characters feel very real. I think I’d consider Wild Things cozy, for that reason. The characters’ pasts had hardships but not horrors, and the present day of the plot was very low stakes in the scheme of things.

That was my impression of what the romance genre is, but apparently the only requirement is that the romance turns out okay. There were sure a lot of casualties and trauma in some of the romances that I read.

(We could also have a discussion about genre, but I don’t feel fully informed about that yet, so if you would like to share your buzzing thoughts on genre, please do!)

To a lot of people, though, cozy can include devastating stakes or background events. I think what I’ve concluded/guessed so far is that what makes something cozy is 1) the expectation that the immediate circumstances will work out okay 2) there is a comfort in the rhythm of the storytelling 3) the worst parts take place before the present day of the story or fully “off stage” 4) the reader feels secure that they will themself not be devastated by the story. These are all questions! What do you mean when you call stories cozy? What do you think other people mean when they call stories cozy?

(or email me! michaelzzakiwriter@gmail.com)

Picnics

I went on several picnics in May! Both by myself and with friends. There is a small park near my home, kind of nestled between a lot of houses and apartments, so it is not very busy, except at dog-walk-o’clock. Then all my neighbors who are dogs are there.

It was very lovely to take a book (or a friend!) and a snack and my Pusheen picnic blanket and lie outside in the sun on some of the warm days we’ve had. I am really excited about how I’ve become more heat tolerant in the last few years, and being outside has become really pleasant and energizing. I’m looking forward to more picnics, art fairs, and maybe inviting friends into my air-conditioned office/bunny room.

This is the first year in a few that I’ve had space to share with friends. I lived in a studio for awhile, and that is a real “only best friends” company situation for me, because the whole apartment was my bedroom (and my kitchen), plus a bathroom.

Now that the the sun is out later, the weather is nicer for busing, and my home is more settled into, I’m looking forward to having more people time, in my home and outside of it. Especially picnics—I love an opportunity to both walk and lay down!

“how to chill out?”

Several weeks ago, I had this moment where I was suddenly zooming out on my life and my health, and kind of offended by how much of my current physical health problems are stemming from old traumas and the patterns my body developed because of them. It’s not ridiculous to still carry them, but it does feel ridiculous to have spent so much time both in therapy and in my general time in life working so hard on recovering and orienting myself to the life I would like to have, and to still be constantly at least half as tense as I was when the bad things were actually happening.

I started wondering if at this point, relaxing is just a skill I don’t have. For a very long time, I was working on the skill of recognition—I wanted to understand what others who were doing okay felt, what I could let go of, how I could function. Now, I feel emotionally pretty alright, and my tangible problems feel less significant than the tension and pain in my body would suggest.

So, if it’s a skill, how do I practice?

In my tiredness and outrage, I literally googled “how to chill out?”

I honestly skipped past real articles and went to a Reddit post, because the question was posed in exactly the way I meant. I didn’t mean how to deep breathe, I meant how to be calmer as a whole person. How to stop hanging onto some invisible object with both of my fists all the time.

I found some helpful responses, including one with a long list of suggestions, some of which I noted as a really great place to start. Most of them I already know, some I didn’t expect to feel related, but seemed like good things to be doing as a person, so I might try them too and see what happens.

Right now, I’m practicing doing things that cannot get interrupted by executive dysfunction or motivation, because they are brief and can’t be over-done. I am drinking a lot of water. Every time I am near a sink, or any time I remember it and can easily get up, I will drink water. I will not criticize myself for not remembering. The goal is “as much as possible.” Which in reality, has been about the right amount.

I spent about a month on just that, and honestly it improved my experience of my body significantly. Just water is great, of course, but it also likely improved my sleep, and it got my brain used to ingesting something frequently, so I have been remembering to eat a lot more consistently. One honestly mindless task has improved my feeling of health so much.

This week I started on adding a second task that I didn’t need to sustain or track: “relax my jaw and shoulders.” It was originally going to be just my jaw, but I found that doing them together was not more difficult. Whenever I remember (like right now), I’ve been just opening my mouth and dropping my shoulders. If it’s not exactly relaxed, whatever, it’s something. This has also made a big difference! Now that I have any frame of reference for not feeling tense and in active pain, I am noticing much more quickly and often when I am suddenly freezing and tensing up my upper body. Then I can give myself a second to slightly reset. Practicing.

I’m excited to add more things, and to eventually move on to more complex ones. But these two things are affecting me positively without being draining.

For a few years now, I have gotten a lot of advice that comes down to “don’t try so hard.” I think as a culture, at least from my experience, we are taught to earn everything, work some vague “enough” for them. For me, because being stressed has been so constant, I assumed sourceless stress is one of those barriers I have to hurdle over with some sort of intense narrative arc.

I think I have already done it, though, honestly? If that’s possible. Which is why I’m tired of the narrative arc, and am just going to practice (and maybe I am also turning that into a narrative arc, but I’m a writer and I can’t help it).

I used to not understand how practice helped—if I couldn’t see the tiny increments of getting better at something, I thought it wasn’t going well. I am hoping that maybe practicing relaxing can be like that—at some point I’ll just notice I’m alright.

Rabbit Update

Very important news!!

I bought this office chair, and it has been great. It has room to sit criss-cross, but I’ve also found that with a longer space for my thighs, I am sitting at a less weird angle when my feet are on the floor, and that is helping with pain a lot.

But MOST importantly, it is Tilly’s new favorite location. Speaking of stress—his went down by about 2/3rds after I put this chair here, and I do not understand that, but I will take it! This rabbit is about as tense as me, so it’s quite a relief to see him so chilled out. Something, something, metaphor, we don’t have to earn it?

Tilly having an incredible time.

Tiramisu and Tilly are getting along well still. I feel less guilty these days about how much of a jerk Tilly was to Tiramisu for so long, because Tiramisu turns out to be more of a jerk as a person, so it works out. He tries to throw people out of his way (which is any location), often tries to trick Tilly out of some of their shared salad, bothers Tilly out of where he’s sitting, and Tilly’s really gotta stand strong to get Tiramisu to groom his face back.

They also enjoy each other, and run around bouncing, doing mischief, and often doing the exact same motions at the same time as if they are just video game characters doing the same animation, which is honestly very eerie.

(Also: credit to my partner for that metaphor; it is exactly what they look like.)

In exchange for being a bit of a jerk, Tiramisu is also very cuddly and laid back (if you’re not in his way), enjoys coming along on Tilly’s missions, and he definitely adds spice to Tilly’s life (by following him around and behaving inexplicably).

They have both been enjoying the weather evening out. They’re both lounging comfortably more consistently now.

I’m very relieved that they enjoy each other’s company. I really wanted to give Tilly a life where he had more constant company and a creature who fully understood him. It was so sad to feel like I’d made his and Tiramisu’s lives worse instead of better for awhile. Now it is what I hoped, though. I can tell they communicate in a different way than they do with me. They are also pretty different individuals, and I think sometimes they miscommunicate in the way people do, which is mostly entertaining (oops).

More bunny updates to come.

Thank you!

Thanks for reading my thoughts! I will have more essay-type posts coming up. Please feel free to comment (public), email me back (michaelzzakiwriter@gmail.com) or contact me on Substack below if you have any thoughts or opinions to share! I’d love to discuss these books, or others if I’ve read them too (I am very sensitive to spoilers, though!)

If you’d like to see more photos of the bunnies, or to see my sporadic art, I’m on Instagram as @softseabunny. I have a website too: michaelzzak.com!

P.S. HAPPY PRIDE!

Photo by Alexander Grey: https://www.pexels.com/photo/assorted-color-sequins-1191710/