Coffee Letter #022: Icarus
Ah, to be an overachiever in this day and age…
It was 4th of March, and already two-thirds of my calendar were booked. That’s when I knew I had flown too close to the sun.
But! But I can’t give up anything because 1) I want to go to all of them and 2) most tickets are already bought and 3) some are medical appointments that I just can’t avoid anymore. And it’s Spring and it’s warm and there are so many cool events happening! The only logical solution? Quit my day job, no?
You know, and most importantly I know, that this is not sustainable… for me. Knowing is simply not enough. I’m stubborn. Just because I recognize my plate is overflowing doesn’t mean I won’t still attempt to balance it all. When will I learn that I never learn?
On top of that, (because why not make myself suffer more?) I’m on a self-imposed book-buying ban in an attempt to read more from the books I hoard as a tsundoku. Exempt from this are the books from book launches and book events, naturally — because those are on the calendar too.
It has dawned on me that a solution to this could be a possible career change from the corporate world to something closer and more in line to these cultural events that bring me so much joy. But I’ve already Icarus-ed that one when I got my art degree, only to stop drawing.
There’s more to that, of course. My therapist thinks my refusal to draw is a form of self-punishment — guilt over missing my grandfather’s funeral and unresolved grief, buried under the pressure of finishing my degree. Could be. What I know for sure is been there, done that.
So I’d much rather keep my work-work separate to the joyful things in life. I’d rather not risk it. I like that my work doesn’t bleed into my personal life. I leave the office and I can completely disconnect. There are pluses and minuses, whether you do something you love or just something you enjoy — I like my job, it just doesn’t define my life. I admire my friends who do what they love daily, but that could never be me.
Besides, the dream is not to work in an art/cultural field but to not work at all. To be an heiress or a princess, to glide from event to event, keeping up with my fun calendar, while I spend the rest of the time reading. I was not born for labour.
~ read
This week we have a very strange mix of things. A little bit of everything, all of the time:
Iron Flame (The Empyrean #2) by Rebecca Yarros. Reread. Aaaaaand it was so much better the second time around! Maybe it helped that I read it instead of listening to the audiobook. I know I call these books dragon porn (even though nobody is having sex with dragons) but I need to address this and make it clear that in the first book the smutty scenes are under 10%, and in Iron Flame the smut gets up to 15% of the story (since this is a letter about work, I should tell you I work with data and numbers, hence the focus).
I felt the need to showcase this in case you want a romantasy but you’ve been put off by me calling them “porn”. ‘Cause they are not. There’s more plot and world-building and a lot of delicious tension when it comes to our enemies-to-lovers, but there’s also found family and friendships and actual family relationship — and all these elements together make The Empyrean a pretty fun series. PLUS THE DRAGONS!
Now I can move on to the third book — but I needed a break because the ending of Iron Flame broke me a bit (for the second time) and even though the obvious next step would be to start the next book asap, I needed a breather. One that came in the form a very fun, very spicy book:
Lights Out (Into Darkness #1) by Navessa Allen. My friend Bianca started this audiobook recently and talked so much about it that I had to read it too. I was skeptical at first because I’m not a dark romance reader, but fear not, in spite of the super long content warning list, Lights Out is more like a fluffy rom-com — apart from the spicy scenes which are a bit darker.
The story follows a trauma nurse obsessed with a masked man who does thirst traps on TikTok so when she messages a screenshot to her friend with benefits, his roommate gets interested because — surprise, surprise — he is the masked man in the thirst traps!
The FMC is smart and strong and awesome, the MMC is adorable and hilarious and so bloody cute, and I had a blast reading this book. At one point the plot becomes very silly and I did not care for it, but for me romances are about the relationship and the banter. It’s been so long since I had so much fun with a romance that I adored it in spite of its flaws. Although I agree with my friend that I wanted a bit more tension — they got together a bit too fast.
As for the spicy scenes, aka the cliterature — the kinks were not for me, unfortunately. But this doesn’t affect my rating of a book because the spice is just a part of it and I don’t want to yuck on anyone’s yum.
Sînt alta and Restul by Svetlana Cârstean. Two poetry books I read over the weekend and adored. This week I went to the book launch for Restul and the Svetlana Cârstean read from it and I simply fell in love with how she handles words, the repetition, the rhythm. I read the rest of her poems in the same cadence and I loved it — I think from now on I will first learn how the author reads their poems and then read their work.
I loved both books — and I must thank Bogdana for gifting me Sînt alta (best mărțișor ever). I don’t know how to talk about poetry — because both writing and reading poetry feel like such intimate acts and as an art form it feels even more subjective than anything else. Both volumes are incredibly beautiful, raw and visual. They touched me.
~ watch
Force Majeure/Turist (2014), d. Ruben Östlund. The second film from the film club. The only other film from Ruben Östlund that I’ve seen (and loved) is Triangle of Sadness (2022). And Force Majeure only strengthened my belief that the way we relate and talk about his films tells a lot more about us as humans than about his characters — it’s even more fun to witness this in a bigger group at the film club.
An easy avalanche rocks the world of a family — everyone is safe, but their relationships are crumbling. It was… something. Well I enjoyed it, but as I said above, I liked it a lot because of the context and the discussion. I take great pleasure in dissecting relationships. At one point, the anxiety of the film reminded me of Michael Haneke’s The Seventh Continent — a film that broke me (and made me never want to watch a Haneke film ever again), but Force Majeure only shares a little bit of its anxiety or claustrophobia of sorts.
While its main theme is the toxic masculinity or even the idea of gender roles, the character I personally spent the most time thinking about was Ebba, the wife, the mum. Which probably says something about me…
Anyway, fun film.
~ and other things I did last week
Music: This week we listened only to female artists at work and I introduced my colleagues to Marina, a singer I adore. I recommend all her albums, but this week we listened to Electra Heart, Ancient Dreams in a Modern Land and Love + Fear.
Food: For March 8th I had a brunch with my friends from our little book club and I hope everyone has such great women in their life, who make excellent foods too — Delia made a delicious quiche (my favourite quiche ever), Cristina came up with the best deviled eggs, filled with a mushroom paste, and Bogdana’s boyfriend made us the fluffiest focaccia (also the best focaccia I ever had).
Do: Have coffee outside — it’s finally warm enough to go out for coffee and ask your friends “should we sit outside?”
Other things consumed last week:
The Odyssey by Homer: A Preview and Reading Schedule (APS Together - Substack). If you want to read The Odyssey together with others. They are already on day 33 — but the notes will be available no matter when you start.
‘Quite literally ruined my whole weekend’: the row over the new White Lotus theme tune (The Guardian). Me too.
These Books Are Absolutely Unreadable. That’s the Point. (The New York Times). Exploring why we like to design things that look like other things.
The Flirt Behind “Chicken Shop Date” (The New Yorker). Everyone and their mothers’ favourite celebrity interview show.
Looking forward to a new week full of fun events… ignoring that I will probably not be able to do everything I want to do and read everything I want to read, but at least I’m going to see a new ballet show and spend an entire weekend watching Japanese animations at the cinema.
Thank you for reading!
🤍