“The best piety is to enjoy – when you can.”
~ George Eliot
Like many Americans who grew up in the ‘90s, I’m mostly television. The set that nannied me was a 27” Zenith encased in an enormous oak console that dug its hideous bulk deep into the carpet. It had polished brass handles mounted on three faux drawers, as if it were real furniture – the perfect thing to sit in front of on the floor for five hours after school, ten on weekends. Only decades later did I realize I was a little ark being loaded up with commercials, sitcoms, news stories, sketch shows, cartoons – a rich and useless menagerie I’d never find a place to unburden.
It’s thanks to this that every month I think about a Nickelodeon spot from the mid-‘90s. On “Rabbit Rabbit Day” – the first of every month – all you had to do was make sure “rabbit rabbit” were the first two words out of your mouth and you’d have a month of good luck. As a child, I never remembered to say it, and felt like I cursed myself month after month. I think of it now because, funnily enough, I did remember in July of this year, and on the same day my agent called to say that my second novel had received an offer for publication (more on that soon!). Later that month, Magers and Quinn offered to host my first in-person hybrid event for Image Control. October 4th will be the first time I’ll have read from the book in front of an audience instead of a screen, and I’m overwhelmingly excited to be in conversation with Will McGrath. So if you can, please check it out and register – it’d be wonderful to see you.
I guess I was overdue, after all these years, because in August the rabbit’s luck continued. One of my favorite local stores, SubText Books, asked me to be their new Event Coordinator. I look forward to reaching out and hearing from authors and their publicists soon! It’s been a long, long time since I’ve had a job to go to, and the possibility of seeing other human beings on a regular basis sounds almost too good to be true. If you’re local, come say hi. If you’re not, I’ll be working on bringing hybrid events to the store soon, so hang in there. (Since this is a part-time gig, I’m still looking for contract work – preferably copy and developmental editing – so if you know anyone, please don’t hesitate to put them in touch!)
One imagines it must be common for superstitious people to walk around saying things like, “I’m not superstitious.” Certainly I’ve never thought of myself that way, even if I still avoid cracks in the sidewalk (I swear I can feel them). Maybe it’s lingered with me so long because the last time I kept thinking “I wish you were dead” about someone I knew, they died. A reliable way to be haunted, if you want to know the truth.
Maybe our realm really does have vibes. The vibes, of course, you can’t change, but you can change the way you plug into them. This is why something like tarot seems of value to me. The cards aren’t visions but mirrors; they show me where I perceive myself to be at in the world and how I could react to it differently. I get sentimental about metaphors and feel blandly inspired when instructed to view myself as mutable as water, as light or air. Sometimes I cry after yoga like a well-wrung dishrag. When people tell me to meditate I think, Yes, that’s what’s missing, and really believe in it for a day or two. So maybe it’s fine to be ridiculous. Maybe it’s fine to wish for a little luck.
I said it again this morning. Fingers crossed.
So much of being a human is magical thinking. Even amongst the most reasoned and rational, there's still the thought that perhaps x will equal y, when you also know that it cannot possibly. We will do absolutely anything to get around the work of being a human being.