Bookshelf: More Pandemic Reading

A few more titles from my pandemic reading… I could have sworn I’ve read more since I last posted, like some more nonfiction in particular, but perhaps I am just remembering obsessively reading the news??

Coventry by Rachel Cusk is a collection of essays and they are DELIGHTFUL. She makes such astute observations about people and can convey a sense of place with deceptively simple seeming descriptions.

I was nervous the entire time I read The Pleasing Hour by Lily King because I was once a nanny and this whole situation gets so inappropriate! Her writing is compelling to read though.

I meant to savor Kate Baer’s poems from her collection What Kind of Woman one by one, but I devoured them all in one go while standing at the kitchen table then again later that night in bed! They’re funny and sweet and tender and melancholy. I want to give every mother I know a copy of this book.

I cannot BELIEVE I waited so long to read The Sellout by Paul Beatty! It’s a goddamn work of magic to write something this funny about racism, classism, and slavery.

I often like to pick up books I know nothing about which is how I wound up reading Severance by Ling Ma— a book about an airborne pandemic— during an airborne pandemic. Oops! Can’t say I’d recommend that exact scenario to anyone else, but all in all I would recommend the book!

Milkman by Anna Burns has such a unique voice and I loved it for that. The whole thing is totally bizarre in the best way. If you’re into the first ten pages, you’ll be into the rest of the book.

How To Live Safely In A Sciencefictional Universe by Charles Yu has such a breezy, easy to read voice. Like every book about time-travel, there were inevitably moments where I was like, “But waiiiiit a minute, what…?” . But that comes with the territory of ‘sciencefictional universes’ I think! Definitely recommend.

I haven’t actually finished Likes by Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum yet because I am saaaaavoring it and each story really deserves its own moment. The ones I have read are intense and particular and she’s got such a talent for capturing the inner workings of real a variety of people. Now is when I also confess that Shun-Lien Bynum was my 7th grade English teacher and she was, quite simply, THE BEST. No hyperbole! She was one of those dream teachers from a cheesy teen movie, all smart and funny and cool but still relatable. And she took all of us and our pubescent agonies and ecstasies so seriously which was such a gift. She left my school to get her MFA at Iowa and write books and I feel so lucky that I got to experience her kindness and insight as a student and that I still get to now as a reader.

I read Summer by Ali Smith slowly and reluctantly because it’s the fourth and final book of this quartet that I’ve enjoyed so much. Each of the books touch upon current events and seem to have been published so quickly after being written— this was the first novel I’ve read that addressed this pandemic and honestly it felt a little spooky to read a fictionalized account of it already, but hats off to Smith for being able to process something this intense while still living it!

Unclean Jobs For Women and Girls by Alissa Nutting CRACKED ME UP and grossed me out and completely entertained me. I had no idea what would come next and it was just the best feeling. Her work feels like the weird love child of Ottessa Moshfegh, Karen Russel, and George Saunders while obviously being entirely her own thing. I HIIIIIIIGHLY recommend it! Her novel Made For Love is next on my to-read list.

I read Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill in a single day and adored it. Like Cusk, she’s such an astute observer of people and her writing can seem so simple at first glance but man, it packs a punch. The whole experience made me think about how bogged down with backstory some books can become and how a really good writer like Offill can make you completely believe in a character without knowing that much about their appearance or biography.

The Missing Year of Juan Salvatierra by Pedro Mairal is quick and charming and stuck with me long after I finished reading it. It’s a book I wouldn’t have picked up on my own but was a staff pick at one of my favorite bookstores (what’s up Community Bookstore in Brooklyn?? I love you!). It’s made me think a lot about why we make art and legacy.

Recently

Snow, bundling, beer, sledding, stars, borscht, friends, duck, bears, fires, sunsets, and skiing.

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Snow, snow, and...

…and a little more snow.

The Difference Between Novels and Banana Bread

The winds are howling with sideways sleet and the lights are flickering so today is probably not the day for a trail adventure—

Instead we built a fort and I blew up balloons so I could sneak a few essays in from Zadie Smith’s “Intimations”.

I’m amazed when people can write about an experience they are still in with such clarity, but can’t say I’m surprised that Zadie Smith is one of the people who is able to do that!

Small Business Saturday at the Inn

The Inn may be closed but our ONLINE SHOP IS OPEN!

We’ve got gear plus some Steven Weinberg paintings and prints just like the ones in the rooms so you can hang ‘em up at your place, pour yourself a Room One (bourbon + lemon + maple syrup) and pretend you’re here at the Inn!

Still Closed

We have been closed at the Spruceton Inn for 8 MONTHS now trying to keep our community, our guests, our staff, and our family as safe as possible.

The parts of life I show online here and on Instagram are mostly idyllic— sunrises and rainbows and running around the property with children. And I feel so lucky and grateful every day that ANY part of my life can feel idyllic during this pandemic and election etc.

But it is REALLY HARD in other ways (duh!) and it is SO FRUSTRATING that we know how to stop this virus and yet we as a country are worse off now than ever.

So please, please, pleeeeeeeeease keep doing your part to keep yourself and others as safe as you possibly can! Wear a mask, keep your distance, ask yourself if your family reeeeally has to travel this Thanksgiving. Don’t bend the rules because you’re tired of them, because you miss your friends and family, because you think you can somehow bend them “safely”. Now is the time to think of each other— every last one of us!— and to do everything in our power to keep each other safe.

Changing Seasons

This fall has been beautiful, hard, strange, delightful, discouraging, fun, tedious, and ultimately hopeful. We’ve had a full variety of weather to go with the full variety of feelings, haha.

The gratitude I feel grows every day. So does my sense of responsibility. But again, like so many people, I’m feeling more hopeful this week than I have in a long, long time. After hearing Biden and Harris won we danced like we haven’t danced in months and and I ugly-cried so many tears of joy.

Here’s to hoping you’re feeling some joy right now too wherever you are!

Breathe In, Breathe Out

Just a reminder to un-hunch your shoulders and take a deep breath in and a deep breath out.

Bookshelf: Reading During a Pandemic

When we first closed Inn operations back in March, like most people, all I read was the news. Obsessively, compulsively. I looked for answers and explanations and some kind of a timeline I could peg my business life to. As the #BlackLivesMatter movement exploded I followed along just as hungrily for information and ways to help, for perspectives that would crack my own open. I’ve also been writing. All of which is to say that my book reading has been erratic and impulsive and fitful. I’ve started and set down more books in the past few months that I ever had before. But with me the entire time has been Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann.

I started it approximately 1,000 years ago and am still reading it because it is approximately 1,000 pages long. I’m not joking. About the page count that is. Look at this EFFING TOME:

The actual page count is 988 and honestly, if I’d written it and gotten that close to 1,000 I’d probably be like, “Hold up, I’ve totally got twelve more pages in me. Brb.”

It’s an audacious book. Not just because it’s long, but because the whole thing is basically one sentence. That’s right, no paragraphs, no chapters. And it’s all the interior monologue/ stream of consciousness of a woman in Ohio going about her day with her kids and her catering business.

I vacillate between loving it (the genius! the insight! I feel so seen! I should read more things that challenge me like this!) and despising it (the tedium! how dare she make me read this much nonsense!). On balance, I am enjoying it enough to be fully committed to finishing it.

Stray: a Memoir by Stephanie Danler is brutal and brilliant and I’m not just saying that because I got to know her a little when she was one of our Artist Residents at the Inn back in 2015. It’s a look at her tumultuous relationships with her alcoholic mother, drug addicted and mostly absent father, and a married boyfriend she refers to only as the Monster, but it’s also so much more. It’s poetry for one. I just love her way with language. It’s the kind of book I had to read with a pencil in hand because certain passages could NOT just sit there NOT underlined.

You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington by Alexis is Coe wins Best Title of anything I’ve read recently. Though it could also be called Never Forget George Washington Personally Enslaved People, and that was probably my favorite aspect of the book— Coe’s refusal to gloss over or try to contextualize in any positive way the fact that he did that.

I really enjoyed Creature by Amina Cain, so I was very excited for Indelicacy. It was dreamy and strange, which is just what I was hoping for. The kind of book where halfway through you’re like, wait, what era is this even taking place? It’s about class and friendship and the language is just so precise and delicious.

I’ve come to realize that it’s usually a mistake for me to read a short story collection all in one go. It’s like going to a party and eating loads of finger foods and on your way home you find yourself full but somehow still hungry for one big meal, do you know what I mean? So I’ve been pacing myself through Karen Russel’s Orange World and I’m so glad because the space I’ve made between each story allows them to grow and linger in wonderful ways. I just love how unabashedly STRANGE they are. The Prospectors and The Tornado Auction have been my favorite.

I’ve followed both these gals on Instagram for a while and right when the Pandemic first hit I bought The Upside of Being Down by Jen Gotch and This Will Only Hurt A Little by Busy Philipps and read them back to back and it felt like hanging out with very gossip-y, self-help-y, girlfriends of a kind. At times I felt a little stuck in the muck of their middle school memories, and the chatty tones back to back was too much for me by the end but 100% my fault for reading them together. Just as I finished them, Jen Gotch stepped down from her company for inexcusably racist behavior which was a reminder that even folks who are doing “good work” in one area (ie mental health) can be failing terribly on another front. On the flip side, I have very much admired just how much Busy Philipps has stepped up her political activism and used her celebrity to amplify other voices of the BLM movement in particular.

Less by Andrew Sean Greer is about a middle aged man who travels around the world rather than accept an invitation to his ex-boyfriend’s wedding. It was funny and escapist and smart. The kind of thing that feels deceptively light when you’re reading it— what someone might undersell as a “guilty pleasure” just because it’s pleasurable.

I am on team I Love Anything By Rachel Cusk. I waited to read A Life’s Work because it’s about early motherhood and I was worried it would feel a little too on the nose for me but it was PERFECTION. Gosh she’s brilliant. And insightful. And such a clear writer. Another book I had to read with a pencil. Little Labors by Rivka Galchen has been my favorite book to send parents-to-be, but I’m gonna have to put this one in the mix now too for sure.

I’ve read all of Ottessa Moshfegh’s novels and been disturbed but engrossed by every one of them and Death In Her Hands was no different. I also personally love an unreliable narrator. Don’t really want to tell you more and spoil it.

Little Weirds by Jenny Slate delivered on being weird and was additionally pretty delightful. I found myself wondering if it’s the kind of manuscript that would have seen the light of day were it not written by a celebrity (surreal memoir told in very short chapters), but that ultimately didn’t make me enjoy it any less.

I F*CKING LOVED Wow, No Thank You by Samantha Irby and I think EVERYBODY SHOULD READ IT. Goddamnit she is funny. Like so funny I cried while laughing too many times to count. Just go read it. In fact, go read everything written by her.

I’m only realizing now as I wrap this post up that clearly I felt the need for some ‘familiar faces’ during these completely unfamiliar times. A solid SIX of these books are the second, third, or even fifth books I’ve read by these authors. There are worse ways to cope of course.

Summer

Still strange. Still grateful. Still so damn beautiful out here.

Speaking of gratitude— are you feeling lucky too and financially able to give a little? We’ve recently donated to the LGBTQ Freedom Fund and the Transgender Law Center, maybe you want to too?

Lately

Feeling stupendously grateful to be out here right now.

And while I’m not the voice anyone needs to listen to when it comes to the Black Lives Matter movement, I just wanted to note here (because silence feels complicit) that Steven and I are trying to do our part to fight the horrific systemic racism in this country by listening, learning, unlearning, voting, signing petitions, sending emails, making calls, amplifying black voices, having the tough conversations, and donating again and again again. I encourage you to as well.

I’ve been reposting loads of resources in my Instagram stories. I am really appreciating Rachel Cargle and The Conscious Kid especially these days.

This is going to be a long fight, so don’t lose heart, don’t lose steam. It’s all connected— racism, classism, sexism, homophobia, climate criss, COVID-19, more! It’s time to reimagine what’s possible. That’s the thought I keep coming back to right now. None of us should be rushing back to the old “normal”. That shit was broken. We can all do so much better.

Nope, Not Open Yet

People have been asking us at the Inn: ARE YOU OPEN?

No, we are NOT open. And no, we do NOT think you should visit the area. Yet.

WHY ARE YOU NOT REOPENING RIGHT NOW? LOADS OF OTHER PLACES ARE!

Because scientists and health experts (and Governor Cuomo!) warn that allowing people to travel widely could trigger a second outbreak and we do not want to have a hand in those hospitalizations and deaths. There is still not enough testing, there is still no vaccine.

WHAT IF I PROMISE I'LL BE REEEEEEEALLY GOOD ABOUT SOCIAL DISTANCING?

I'm sure you would be! And I'm sure we could be too! Our Inn is super well situated for social distancing. But it's not about that right now. It's about having tens of thousands of "you" coming up from the hotbed of the infection to an area that's underserved in the best of times. (There is literally no hospital here in Greene County!) It's a numbers game; some of "you" will be infected, some of "you" will be silent carriers, some of "you" will accidentally transmit it. And that could all contribute to a second spike.

THIS IS ALL EASY FOR YOU TO SAY. YOU'RE NOT STUCK IN THIS TINY APARTMENT IN NYC.

I know. And I'm sorry staying at home has sucked so much for so many of you! I fully acknowledge that I am very lucky to have all this space. I wish I could safely share it with all of you!

FINE, I'LL JUST STAY SOMEWHERE ELSE NEARBY INSTEAD. YOU'RE BEING OVERLY CAUTIOUS.

Maybe I am. But if we open the Inn this summer, we could personally bring up almost 2,000 people from NYC in the next few months. Until we can be more confident that bringing tourists to the area will not significantly spread the disease, we don't want to reopen.

YOU SOUND REALLY SAD AND ANGRY.

Because I am. This is scary! It was scary tending bar at our tiny front desk the last weekend before the Pause when no one knew what was going on. It was scary wearing gloves and masks to sanitize the hell out of the rooms and roll up possibly infected laundry. It was scary coming home to my two babies and running off to change before I held them. It's scary watching the bank account balance go down, down, down. I'm sad we had to let go of our staff. I'm sad and angry that our government's response has been such a mixed bag. I'm sad and angry that I've spent years working so hard to get people to come up to the Catskills and now I'm telling them to stay away. And I'm REALLY sad and angry that people are dying from this disease when they don't have to.

BUT YOU WILL REOPEN AGAIN ONE DAY, RIGHT?

Yes! A resounding yes. And we cannot wait to have you back! Once we feel it's safe and responsible for us to do so. It might be a matter of just a few weeks. But it might be a matter of months.

HOW WILL I KNOW WHEN THAT IS?

We'll make an announcement on our website, our mailing list , and our Instagram the moment we've decided something new, so stay in touch!

THIS IS ALL GOOD TO KNOW, BUT YOU STILL HAVEN'T ANSWERED MY SPECIFIC QUESTION.

Email us at info@sprucetoninn.com or call us at 518-989-6404. 

We cannot wait to have you up for some Catskills fun when we're all on the other side of this. Stay healthy out there!

Casey / Head Innkeeper

Strange Times

I feel lucky, tired, anxious, enraged, afraid, grateful, uncertain, overwhelmed, sad, lonely, stunned, helpless, and cautiously optimistic.

I don’t know what reopening looks like, and I don’t know when anything of the sort will happen. There are parts of running a 24/7 business in my own backyard that I don’t miss a bit, and plenty more that I do.

These are weird f*cking times my friends. I hope you all are staying healthy out there. I hope we get through this to other side better than we all were before.

Paused

With the New York Pause officially in effect, we are on pause.

In fact we closed the Inn last week because we decided that would be best for public health at large— for our staff, our guests, the entire neighborhood, and beyond. And while I am in no way to be happy to be closed, I am relieved that the Governor has made this choice for everyone.

It is surreal.

In some ways, Steven’s and my daily rhythms have barely changed. He’s still making books, we still have both kids at home like we always do. We live in a cycle of naps and nursing and reading books and baking bread and taking walks. But today is the first day neither of our other Innkeepers are here and it’s hitting me harder than I expected.

I’ve been posting on Instagram Stories more than here obviously, if you want to follow along. There are lots of soothing nature pics:

And kid stuff, like Amina’s wacky outfits and my one big tip for hanging out with them at home:

It’s also where I’ve explained our thought process that led us to closing before the Pause and where I’ll be adding updates on reopening etc as things continue.

Stay home. Stay healthy out there.

Welcoming 2020 With Sunshine

The holidays were madness at the Inn. Mostly the good kind. But madness nonetheless! So we hightailed it to the Bahamas for a quick three nights which, lets’s get real, was two days of travel and two days of vacation BUT WHATEVER LOOK AT THIS GLORIOUS BEACH WHERE WE LIVED FOR THOSE TWO DAYS:

When we arrived at the little cottage we booked I took off my shoes and literally never put shoes back on again until we had to return to the airport for our flight home. Alllll we did was swim and lounge and read and stroll and nap and swim and snack and swim and stroll some more. And apply sunscreen. There was A LOT of sunscreen.

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We returned home to some single digit weather, but with sunshine in our bones… and one very sandy bear.

Bookshelf: Reading With A Newborn Again

So I just did that girl-in-a-movie thing where I wrote a long blog post, it never autosaved (because that’s apparently no longer a Squarespace thing??), and my computer inexplicably crashed so I lost it all. It’s not exactly a high stakes problem but it still sucks. Especially because moments to write can feel few and far between with two kids, a business, a partner under lots of deadlines etc.

I refuse to surrender completely to the computer crash by giving up on the post entirely but I also just CANNOT dive into it all again so here’s the Cliff’s Notes version:

Reading with a baby around was alternately luxurious (Felix fast asleep in my arms as we lounged on the back patio, devouring hundreds of pages) and tedious (rereading the same page and half every night before bed for a week because sleeping less than three hours in a row for months on end really gets to your brain after a while). Here are some of my favorites from the past 6 months through it all:

The Other’s Gold by Elizabeth Ames. Sent as an Advanced Ready copy to me by a hotel guest in the industry which made me feel extra special and happy, I ate up this book in maybe a day and half right after we brought Felix home. Four girlfriends through college, early careers, starting families. Lots of drama, page turning.

How To Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell is WONDERFUL. So many good thoughts public space, our scattered attention. Timely, smart, and just the right amount of strange. Not TED Talk-y, and I mean that as a compliment.

I read Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino right after it was almost too much the-Internet-will-ruin-us-all back to back but ultimately an enjoyable pairing because the voices are so different. Odell’s is academic, Tolentino’s is more chatty, but this book is by no means a shallow dive. I read with a pencil and underlined entire passages on virtue signaling, the Internet’s insistence on imposing our identity onto everything, the “hustle” and “girl bosses”.. Both these books gave me the vocabulary to talk about otherwise amorphous things that had been bumming me out about modern life.

First I must confess that I paid probably twice as much to get the UK versions of Rachel Cusk’s Transit, Outline, and Kudos BUT THESE COVERS AMIRIGHT?? And the insides are just as beautiful! I didn’t read them all in a row— I think the lack of plot and unique voice would numb you if you did— but I loved them. So odd, so smart. She’s obviously been watching and listening to people closely for years.

Life Among the Savages by Shirley Jackson is a funny, quick memoir published in 1948 about moving her young family from NYC to rural Vermont. (Why would I ever like that, right?) I love that she’s now famous for her psychological horror (did you all read “The Lottery” and “The Yellow Wallpaper” in English class too?) but during her lifetime was known for her more “fluffy”, family-centric magazine writing. She’s got a keen eye for domestic and neighborly interactions and it serves her well in both genres.

Tell Me How It Ends by Valeria Luiselli is absolutely as heartbreaking as I thought it would be given the subject matter (the deportation of kids, essentially) but also more beautifully and delicately rendered than I thought it would be. I think I cried twenty times and read barely ten pages before I donated to a nonprofit working to improve conditions on the border. It’s slim but powerful. Run, don’t walk. Then read her novel Story of My Teeth because that’s also amazing in a completely different way.

Inland by Tea Obrecht is a moody Western with a magical edge and… camels! In the wrong temperament, it can feel slow and overwritten and claustrophobic despite the literal expanse of what she’s describing. But like with her first book, once I surrendered, I found it beautiful and strange and haunting.

I am one of many who decided to reread Little Women by Louisa May Alcott before watching Gretta Gerwig’s latest film version of it and OMG IT IS SO LONG. Honestly, I don’t think I actually read the whole thing before. I probably started it back in 1994 before that movie version came out and jumped ship for more Nancy Drew instead. Sometimes it felt stiff, preachy, and predictable (oh Jo, you free sprit you!), other times it felt cozy and satisfying, and occasionally there’d be a lightning bolt of modernity— say, some astute observation about gender dynamics that still rings true today. Maybe one day I’ll actually watch the Gretta Gerwig film. Because as hard as it can be to find time to write, it’s even harder right now to find time to actually go to the movies.

Backyard Tree Farm

Picked out an xmas tree from the backyard yesterday.

We put a few ornaments on it and some wrapped presents below it and have thoroughly mystified Amina.

Just wait til someone tells her about Santa. Or Jesus Christ. Or the pagan equinox.

Winter Math

In the past 14 days, Steven was on tour for 7 of them, we had visitors for 8, hosted a 13 person Thanksgiving in the middle, did 2 weekend bar shifts, and had 2 snow storms.

Aaaand there’s 10 more inches of snow coming to top the 8” already sitting there!

Winter's On Its Way

It’s still the season of snow one day, rain the next but you can definitely feel that winter’s on its way…

Working With A Baby In Your Lap Is...

… so easy!

Especially when your tasks are tedious and/or require concentration!

I’m kidding of course.

And yet somehow I did manage to get our Spruceton Inn online shop up and running yesterday:

This past week has been a lot of computer chores like that. Including today when I found myself in a clusterf*ck of third party merchant services because my reservation system suddenly stopped supporting the one we’d been using for years without freaking warning us. In simpler terms: all of sudden we couldn’t process anyone’s credit cards. UGH. I fixed it, but seriously, UGH.

The week before was a little more analog in our tasks. We built an entirely new back bar at the Inn with no notice because our 3-part sink was giving us trouble and the new one we ordered was a liiiiittle bigger than the online measurements had said and next thing you know we’re cannibalizing workshop tables from the barn—

Hammock chairs are good for briefly containing toddlers so you can take care of things with both hands (with the baby strapped to you).

…and turning them into back-bar tops with the plumbers—

… because they were there that day to winterize the barn and damn if we weren’t gonna get it all finished before the next guest checked in. All of which required me to take literally EVERYTHING out from behind the bar (that picture on the right isn’t even a quarter of it)—

… which meant a deep clean and paint touch ups and re-organizing it all to put it back but I DID it! Just in time.

Meanwhile Steven has been working away on the third book of his Astronut series, plus the final art for his other middle grade book about being a middle kid, and another book project about which I’m not allowed to say much quite yet but you get the picture; HE’S REALLY FUCKING BUSY TOO.

Not to mention Felix was going through a classic four-month old sleep regression and getting up—no exaggeration—every two hours, so in addition to all this work madness we decided to move her into her own room, trade her basinet for a crib, and swap her swaddle for a sleep sac all while we attempted to teach her to self-soothe (via The Little Ones program we loved so much for Amina).

I know.

Is it any surprise to hear that I’ve left the valley exactly twice in the past month?

It’s nutty. It’s nutty! But there’s still time for tender fun like playing piano with Amina and painting her toes for the first time (she chose two different blues) and getting outside all together even when it’s barely twenty degrees and it takes just as long to get everyone bundled as we spend out there.