What’s a five things essay? I’ll let Summer Brennan tell you here. She’s an exceptional writer and I love how often she writes a Five Things essay on her own Substack. It makes me feel like less of an imposter when I can’t wrangle one thought into one coherent post. So let’s gooooo!
one
Today’s hot mushrooms was meant to be an entire Reading Journal post about Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway. Except I haven’t finished the book yet. Which is ironic because I wanted to discuss how she writes and how I didn’t think the internet ruined my brain until I tried reading Mrs. Dalloway. As the title of this post suggests, her stuff would be absolutely obliterated by SEO algorithms. If Virginia Woolf had a Stubstack she’d have even fewer readers than I do.
I had the bright idea to write this first thing of my Five Things in her style; which is to say a style that has a lot of repetition, a lot of repetition; a style that has one giant paragraph per page and one giant sentence per paragraph. I actually had to start the book twice before I could get into the rhythm of the writing! Despite this being the first of my Five Things I would still like to discuss the actual story in a proper post later, you know, when I’ve finally wrangled my SEO poisoned brain into finishing the book.
two
I taught my cat how to sit and high-five for treats. It was ridiculously easy because he’s a smart guy. We don’t do it that often, because it feels slightly patronising, but he still remembers what to do when I hold up my palm and say “high-five!”
We’re both creatures of habit and have established specific treat areas in every flat we’ve shared. So it should not have been a surprise when he sat in his treat area, waiting for me to look at him, and raised his paw for a high-five. I literally taught him high five = treat and he was applying that knowledge! Like I said, he’s a smart guy. Obviously I gave him a high-five and about seven little bits of freeze-dried fish (his favourite).
three
When I taught English in Prague I spent my days travelling from one end of the city to the other, to companies like Siemens, Raiffeisen Bank, and even UPS. My favourite group of students was at Prague Airport, and that is really saying something because it takes a long time to get out the the airport and getting back home in evening rush hour included a 45-minute smooshed bodies packed bus ride. I liked that the group was diverse in terms of their jobs, from high level finance guys to a couple technical ground crew.
On my airport days I would spend afternoons, before schlepping out, at the school headquarters where I got my mail. And actually it was probably, exactly, this time of year because I’d received a box from my mom that had a bunch of delicious American candy. I was so excited about it I decided to share my large bag of bite sized Reece’s Pieces with my students. They were all happy to try them, despite not being overly familiar with the combination of peanut butter and chocolate. We all popped them in our mouths and I was eagerly awaiting their reactions when one of the finance guys laughed and pulled the bit of paper wrapping out of his mouth. “I ate the paper,” is all he said and everyone had a good chuckle.
I still think about how I just assumed everyone knew how to eat that candy.
four
I could tell you even more stories about one of my other students, a private lesson. I suppose he was my second favourite, although for different reasons. Also, he was a member of parliament and I’ve not quite figured out how I want to tell those stories.
five
Did you know that hot mushrooms is now two years old! My very first post was on 6 December, 2021. The post is called I Want You To Want, except that the title is all lowercase and I’m not sure when or why I stopped doing that. In the post I try to describe my frustration with what I perceive as a fear of desire that is purely for desire’s sake. I was trying to tie together a few thoughts, but reading it back I’m not thrilled with how I did. I can see that my true desire in writing that post was to fan-girl about my favourite essay I’ve ever read: Everyone is Beautiful and No One is Horny, by RS Benedict. If you’ve made it this far in my little unedited, unfiltered, post I’d really encourage you to read that essay now. It’s long but it’s so good and I think about it at least three times per week.
Thanks for reading this edition of hot mushrooms. Next week I’m hoping to try something completely new and I hope you’ll join me!