Cheering on the Inside
late July miscellany
On sleep
We need to “sleep train” the baby, meaning we need to teach her how to fall back asleep without help from her parents. Babies can sort of do this when they’re born but lose the ability somewhere around four months. The internet calls it the “four-month sleep regression,” which seems wrong. Is it regressive to discover loneliness? If I’m reluctant to sleep train the baby it’s because I can barely admit she’s old enough to need it. The way I pine for her newborn days feels like pining for a sport or an addiction. Something painful that sharpened me to a point.
On “Retrieval”
Last fall, gestating on the couch, I wrote this story about a woman who briefly tries to get her ex-boyfriend to impregnate her before she goes through with freezing her eggs. It was beautifully edited by Aea Varfis-van Warmelo whose debut novel publishes in 2026. “Retrieval” is one of two stories I wrote during a year I wrote zero books. Working with Granta on my short fiction is always a thrill.
On sleep again
I really am so tired. Especially in the late afternoon, when the house is hot and no one inside it is getting any less hungry. There’s a level of sleep deprivation that erodes your defenses until all you have left is your actual personality. Last week an interviewer asked me, “How do you follow up a book like this?” and I said, “I don’t know!” with such naked not-knowing.
On fifteen years of marriage
July 24th was our fifteenth wedding anniversary. July also marks twenty years of being, at minimum, best friends. We took the baby to a bar, drank 1.5 cocktails each, and got home in time to say goodnight to Wes. Dan wrote me a letter, which I read while nursing Ramona. The letter made me cry. When I was 21, people asked me why I got married, and now that I’m 36 they ask me how I’m still married. All I know is you can’t want what you don’t want. You can only want what you want, and what I want is to be alone with Dan so I can tell him everything.
On Seduction Theory
My novel about marriage comes out August 12th. I’m launching at Books Are Magic on August 13th with the acclaimed and extremely charming novelist Megan Nolan. You can buy tickets here. I haven’t actually done one of these since my debut a decade ago. My second book came out in 2018, when I was living in rural Ohio with an infant. The next two came out in 2020 and 2021 when everyone was contagious. The fifth was a memoir that a small press released while I was vomiting in the desert. Please come see me in Brooklyn! I will wear a clean shirt and bring my children.
On Sammy
Sammy is a 98-pound Great Pyrenees rescued from a Texas highway. He is our neglected middle child. Other than twice a day when he barks and one of us yells at him, he is a perfect dog. Every summer Sammy suffers terrible allergies, and this week I took him to the vet for bloodwork and a shot of Cytopoint. It’s rare that Sammy is, even briefly, my sole responsibility. As the vet searched his back leg for a vein, I stroked his big, brave face. What I most wish I could communicate to Sammy is that I will take good care of him for the rest of his life.
On Ramona
I still feel like an evangelist. Have you heard the good news about Ramona?
On Wes
Wes is currently attending horse camp, and on Fridays parents are invited to watch the campers compete in a casual show. Yesterday it was 93 degrees and the show ran long. I had foolishly brought the baby to the barn without thinking it through. In her carrier she got sweaty and overheated. When I took her out, she spat up. By the time Wes received his award, a gold-painted horseshoe for “Thinking Most Like a Horse,” I was in the car holding Ramona up to the air vents. Fake awards are arbitrarily bestowed on children all the time, but Wes really does think like a horse. Later, he observed, “You didn’t cheer for me.” It was 5pm by then, exhaustion turning my thoughts to sawdust. I started to say something about the baby and Wes cut me off. “You were probably cheering on the inside.”
