Esmé > Recent Status Updates

the thing about the madeleine anecdote for me is that my japanese grandpa who sometimes speaks french used to buy madeleines a lot. and talk about memory. and i never understood when i was 10 what he was really talking about (and i don't remember if he talked about the madeleines with me in english, japanese, or french). But now I see that maybe he was talking about Proust. I wonder if he would remember if I asked.

felt that

I've been challenged to read all of In Search of Lost Time, let's see how far I can get this month.

Actually so hilarious and fascinating the mix between the autofiction and the continuation of the Dykes to Watch Out For characters’ lives. I love how it is unnecessary to include Mo and [insert partner’s name here] since she was already basically an Alison Bechdel self-insert character anyway and so the dynamic is the same.

The chapter with the horse race was so thrilling, I felt that this must be what other people feel when they watch a FIFA match.

So freaking intense and for teenagers???

Part 2, Chapter 8: after feeling a bit of longing for the time during 2025 that I was listening to the War and Peace audiobook, I’ve been listening to the Anna Karenina audiobook for the last couple of weeks, and it is SO juicy. FYI the title character doesn’t actually enter until like Chapter 19, 3 hours into the audiobook, but the parallel stories are also great. Super engaging characters, I am enjoying.

So fucking awesome. I had to keep myself from bursting out laughing in the library.

I wish I would stop forgetting this at home so that I can keep reading it - super entertaining book for the bus, but unfortunately such a heavy (physically) book!

Ok this is starting to get weird. But here’s a section that I liked.

“A lie is also a truth, it’s just cunning and a little nervous. Lie if you can, and may you lie with a peaceful spirit. Because the truth demands a long staircase to climb as if I were condemned never to stop. I’m tired: that’s also why I speak softly—it’s so I don’t offend myself.”

“I am making a really bad book on purpose in order to drive off the profane who want to “like.” But a small group will see that this “liking” is superficial and will enter inside what I am truly writing, which is neither “bad” nor “good.””

Can’t get hit by the haters if you say this and also if you’re already dead.

Finally worked up the nerve to finish watching the series (best TV show ever), so excited to finally get into the books.

How am i like 10% through this book already and it’s all been like 1. Lil bit of Exposition = They live in a haunted house for real, and 2. Two characters having sex really quickly and most of the book so far is just them thinking about the past while they lie in bed afterward

The way I have to take so many notes with this book to keep up with the name dropping 💀

where is my mind, amirite brother

Not me crying in Irish trains rn

I’m literally 17 pages away from the end…but they’re like dying of thirst and I’m losing the will to continue on :(

The salamanders…he really thought he finally lost it

Just realized this part of the book is set at the same time as the Vancouver 2010 Olympics. Beautiful. What a time to be alive.

Just got out of the pig farm, that was fucking roughhhh

“But you aren’t really looking!” she exclaimed. “You are—” She flipped through her dictionary. “Wool, gathering!”
“That’s true,” I said. “I am woolgathering.”
“You are thinking about your friend,” she said. “That’s why you don’t want to listen to me.”
“But Rózsa. Don’t you ever like to . . . to do woolgathering?”
“No! I am not a dreamer!”

This Rózsa is rlly smth

“TOMORROW WE GO TO THE GREAT PLAIN.”

“‘In Turkey? You wouldn’t have a nervous breakdown. You’d give them a nervous breakdown.’ I forgave him for a lot when he said that. I forgave him for almost everything.”

Man oh man

Read the first page and it’s already so beautiful. Every word is poetry and vulgar and so so real. Thank you Ocean Vuong

Post-carnival, getting good. Sylvia says to not trust people with knuckle tattoos, but I wonder what she would think of the métis body piercer who comes into my work to buy dried mango and has THEY/THEM tattooed across their knuckles.

I don’t know what “page” I’m on, because my pdf has way more pages than this default goodreads edition, but I have about 4.5 hours left. Everything’s coming together.