Nichole Perkins, SOMETIMES I TRIP ON HOW HAPPY WE COULD BE
[0:01]Hi, I'm Sivi Owens, and you're listening to the award-winning podcast,
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[0:38]Enjoy the show.
[0:40]Nicole Perkins is the author of Sometimes I Trip On How Happy We Could Be.
[0:44]She's a writer from Nashville, Tennessee, who examines the intersections of pop culture, race, sex, gender, and relationships.
[0:51]The call is a 2017 Audra Lorde Fellow at the inaugural Jack Jones Literary Arts Retreat
[0:56]and a 2017 Buzzfeed Emerging Writers Fellow.
[1:00]She's also a 2016 Calaloo Creative Writing Fellow for Poetry.
[1:04]She hosts, this is good for you, a podcast that highlights the pleasures of life.
[1:08]She formerly co-hosted the Thirst Aid Kit, a podcast about pop culture and desire
[1:13]with BIM Ada One Me, a producer at This American Life, and was also a co-host of The Waves podcast at Slate,
[1:21]which looked at news and culture through feminist lens.
[1:24]Her first collection of poetry, Lilith, but dark, was published by Publishing Genius in July 2018.
[1:30]Welcome, Nicole.
[1:31]Thank you so much for coming on Momstone.
[1:33]Have Time to Read Books to discuss.
[1:35]Sometimes I trip on How Happy We Could Be.
[1:37]Says.
[1:37]Thank you for having me.
[1:39]I'm really excited to talk to you.
[1:41]Oh, yay.
[1:42]All right, so tell listeners about this collection.
[1:44]What inspired you to write all of these essays and give us like the roundup of it?
[1:50]Okay, so it is a collection of essays, kind of, you know, as a memoir or memoir in essays, I guess you could say.
[1:58]And it focuses on pop culture, me being raised as a black girl in the South and how all of that affected the way I see life,
[2:12]especially relationships and sex.
[2:15]So that's I guess that's the quick and dirty version of it.
[2:19]And in the book, I talk about looking at Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy and like, you know, being a child and watching them and then looking at them as an adult and how that changes the way you see their relationship, looking at Niles Crane from Frasier and his, you know, mild obsession with Daphne and how I kind of, I admired that and I was looking for that and then also I applied it to like my professional life,
[2:49]the way that he, you know, treated Daphne or his, his thoughts about Daphne in their relationship.
[2:54]Music is such an important part of my life as well.
[2:57]So I talk about the music that I grew up with and especially Prince is very, very important to me.
[3:04]He is one of the people I dedicated the book to.
[3:07]The title of the book comes from one of his songs.
[3:10]It's my favorite song, my official favorite song.
[3:14]And yeah, that's, I guess that's kind of it.
[3:17]Awesome.
[3:18]So I started this publishing company a couple months ago and one of our, you know, top marketing execs is Jenny Sealy, whose pen name is Jane Allen.
[3:26]You know, Jane Allen or Denise.
[3:28]Anyway, she used to be her book.
[3:30]It's called Black Girls Must Die Exhausted and she used to be Prince's assistant.
[3:34]Oh my gosh.
[3:35]I have seen that book, Black Girls Must Die Exhausted.
[3:39]Yeah.
[3:39]I'm going to have to, I, after this, I want to put you two in touch because she has all these stories about her and Prince and as a big huge Prince fan.
[3:47]I think you'll get a huge kick out of it.
[3:48]So I would love that.
[3:49]Thank you.
[3:50]Okay.
[3:51]No problem.
[3:52]Yeah.
[3:53]She's awesome as well.
[3:54]Well, anyway, I thought you were so candid and open in this book, which I loved, right?
[3:58]Because immediately from like the first moment, we're in it with you, we're growing up with you.
[4:03]We're under the porch, we're just pushing off boys at like rest time or whatever that was and, you know, the way you examine the movies.
[4:12]I mean, I'm 45.
[4:13]I feel like I grew up with a lot of the same pop culture.
[4:16]And, you know, even as you point out, like what was the role of Black teenagers?
[4:21]Where were they in all these John Hughes movies and all the movies and sweets, 16 can't hand, that's 16 candles.
[4:29]16 candles is the first in your group place.
[4:30]I go to all the time.
[4:31]Anyway, and, and what effects that has on, on you to like not see yourself in the films or that the depiction of Black teenage girls was not particularly savory.
[4:42]So talk a little bit about that.
[4:44]Sure.
[4:45]So I didn't really see that many Black teenage girls allowed to fall in love.
[4:50]We were always warned away from love on screen and it seemed like in real life.
[4:56]And so it would have been nice to have those moments where, you know, you lean over your birthday cake and get to kiss a boy or to see that and see that.
[5:05]Black girls are worthy of falling in love with her, you know, being loved and being treated, you know, with care.
[5:11]Or just, you know, being willing to sacrifice something as we see in, you know, pretty in pink and all these other stories where the girl may not be the right kind of girl or the boy might not be the right kind of boy necessarily like on a class level.
[5:27]But they overcome those things in the, you know, in the way that you do in movies.
[5:31]And it would have been nice to see that to see a Black girl, you know, get that kind of treatment.
[5:36]But too often we were just kind of pushed in the background and, you know, we were there.
[5:41]But not really seen or we were there to be the kind of person that encouraged the, you know, the main character to fall in love or, you know, pushed the main character to, you know, take a risk of me while we're just kind of just there.
[5:56]You know, no one's really like loving on us necessarily.
[6:00]You know, you have something like clueless, of course, that was a little different where Dion and, you know, she had a relationship.
[6:07]But she was still very much the best friend side character, you know, the one encouraging a share to be bold and that kind of thing.
[6:17]But it was disheartening and especially since I had started reading romance novels very early.
[6:23]And again, I was seeing all these, you know, white characters fall in love.
[6:28]And there were black romances, as I started to get older, but they just didn't, for a long time, those black romances just seemed to be white characters who were chocolate dipped basically.
[6:39]They just, you know, they didn't necessarily have black experiences or they didn't really reference their blackness too much, at least in the ones that I was seeing.
[6:48]And obviously that has changed and that was changing as I was growing up, but it was just really difficult to find something that showed, you know, that it's possible for black girls to fall in a safe and easy, comfortable kind of love.
[7:01]And that as someone who has always been very sensitive to romance and sex and intimacy, even as a child.
[7:10]And it was just like I took a while for me to figure out how to approach those things in my real life.
[7:16]Like once I became a teenager and was starting to navigate those things, I didn't really have very good strong examples of that, because it wasn't necessarily something we talked about in our family, beyond don't get pregnant, you know, that kind of thing.
[7:31]It would have been nice to have something to fall back on, not necessarily a script, but just, you know, just something like, oh, this is possible for me and I don't have to, I don't have to suffer.
[7:42]Not to keep referencing other books, but have you read or watched the movie a journal for Jordan about Dana Kennedy and her husband who actually died during military service, but it's their love story and his love of their child.
[7:55]So I feel like that's like a beautiful example of a black love story now.
[7:59]Like, do you, what do you think are good examples?
[8:01]Like, have we come far enough and, you know, what have you seen that you're like, oh, few thank God.
[8:06]Oh, so I like the story, the movie, Sylvia's love that came out.
[8:12]I think it was 2020 time has ceased to exist.
[8:15]I know.
[8:16]I think it came out in 2020 and it's on Amazon.
[8:20]And it's kind of a historical piece. I think it takes place in like the 60s, but I thought it was a really beautiful story of black love because it showed them just trying to overcome their own obstacles with each other without necessarily it being a protest love story or something mired in really heavy trauma or, you know, it's not, it's not necessarily about police brutality.
[8:47]It's not about, you know, trying to escape slavery. It's not trying to like get out of, you know, a dire poverty situation.
[8:55]And there are clear references to the fact that they are black and they're living in this particular world at this particular time.
[9:02]But that is not the end. I'll be all of their story. It's just very much like they're just trying to like get to each other.
[9:10]So I thought that was very well done.
[9:12]Okay, I like the show Queen Sugar a lot that comes on own their different types of love stories, you know, romances involved in that.
[9:21]And, you know, while the family, the board alone family is like, they're trying to like regain their family heritage on this farm is sugar cane farm.
[9:31]So, but they have a lot of different intricate stories.
[9:34]And I like seeing that seeing the love stories played out there.
[9:37]I'm trying to think of what else.
[9:39]Well, if you can get one writing a very beautiful, well written amazing black love story.
[9:46]I would love to publish something like that with Zibi books, you know, that would be amazing putting that in.
[9:51]You know, because all of our, I mean, everybody's feeling it doesn't matter who, what you look like, where you come from.
[9:57]Like love is love, love, romantic love, love for our.
[10:00]children, like, these are things that transcend everything.
[10:03]I know that sounds hokey, but it's true.
[10:05]We all connect over the feelings more than anything else, right?
[10:08]Your lived experience may be different, but deep down, like we all know those butterflies
[10:13]and we all know the heartbreak and, you know, if we can connect on that, I think it
[10:18]can bridge some gaps in society.
[10:20]I would have to say.
[10:21]Absolutely.
[10:22]Absolutely.
[10:23]I mean, we all, like you said, we all get those butterflies.
[10:25]We all think, you know, we're always, you know, is that phone call?
[10:29]is that text from, you know, that special person, that kind of thing.
[10:32]We all have that.
[10:33]And I would love to see more of that.
[10:35]And there are definitely a lot of black love stories, of black romances that are out there
[10:40]right now.
[10:41]I recently read how to marry Keanu Reeves in 90 days.
[10:44]Yeah.
[10:45]That was a really fun book.
[10:48]And then there's like the boyfriend projects that those are by K.A. Wright's, and I think
[10:53]that's her name.
[10:54]I might be confusing her social media handle.
[10:55]That's right.
[10:56]That's right.
[10:57]Yeah.
[10:58]I'm sorry.
[10:59]I've gone off on this huge tangent.
[11:00]But now it's a lot of recommendations.
[11:02]No, but I think it is important to talk about the landscape and the changing landscape
[11:06]because you focus so much on that and, you know, what we can do to represent and do
[11:12]a better job and all that.
[11:13]I was really interested too in your own sort of sexual evolution, not to get too
[11:17]personal.
[11:18]Wait.
[11:19]It's in the book.
[11:20]I wrote it.
[11:21]It's one thing to like anonymously read it.
[11:23]And it's another to be like, let me just talk to you about your perspective.
[11:27]This whole notion of avoiding being fast and then, you know, those words, the, you
[11:33]know, derogatory words, just like increase escalators, you age of what you're trying
[11:37]to avoid being.
[11:38]And you grew up in a community where many of your middle school friends were getting pregnant.
[11:43]And I literally like, you know, I read that section.
[11:45]I was like, no, she doesn't mean middle school.
[11:47]She means high school, right?
[11:48]And then I was like, no, she used middle school.
[11:50]Like, what was that like?
[11:52]Like, I was like embarrassed to be wearing a bra in middle school.
[11:55]You know, like compared to my girlfriends, but pregnancy was not in, you know, tell me
[11:59]about that.
[12:00]Yeah.
[12:01]So that, you know, around six and seven grade, my friends started to come up pregnant.
[12:08]And it was scary.
[12:09]It was very scary because again, because the sex education that I grew up with in, you
[12:14]know, my family was just strictly don't get pregnant.
[12:17]And that was because there was a, you know, a history of teenage pregnancy in my family.
[12:22]And so, you know, my mom wanted me and my sister to avoid the, you know, those same
[12:28]fates.
[12:29]And so to see these girls and to see how close it was, and not to say that it was contagious
[12:36]or anything like that, but I was worried because it did seem like there was a lot of pressure
[12:40]to show your maturity or to show that, you know, you were cute enough to have a boyfriend
[12:48]or, you know, like something like that.
[12:50]And I have always been a late bloomer.
[12:53]And so these, my friends were, they were very mature looking for their age, you know, but
[13:00]they were clearly girls.
[13:01]Like you could look at them and still tell that they were girls that they just happened
[13:04]to like have, you know, curves, you know, of a different sort than the chubby cheeks of childhood,
[13:11]right?
[13:12]So, but it was, it was frightening.
[13:14]And it led me to make this decision where I wanted to go to a different type of school.
[13:19]Maybe be around a different type of, you know, people or different group of friends in
[13:23]order to avoid following that same trajectory.
[13:27]And I remember there, one friend, she was having a baby shower and my mother wouldn't
[13:32]let me go.
[13:33]I mentioned this in the book.
[13:35]She wouldn't let me go because she felt like it would have been condoning the situation
[13:38]that I was approving, you know, of it and that she was approving of it.
[13:43]And I remember being very upset with my mom and just being like, you know, because it
[13:47]was presented like a party, right?
[13:49]And of course, at this point, you know, in those 20 years, you're kind of like practicing.
[13:53]You want to practice for being a teenager and all that kind of stuff.
[13:57]And so I was like, you're making me miss out on this really great party.
[14:00]But my mom was very firm and I understand, you know, once I got older, I understood why
[14:04]she, why she did that.
[14:06]But yeah, so if anyone is unfamiliar, being fast is what we would call young girls who
[14:13]are accused of being already very sexually advanced or sexually active even or even
[14:20]just, you know, a little precocious in a, you know, in a very sexual way.
[14:27]And it was like the worst thing that you could be because you were this temptress, you
[14:33]know, you were trouble.
[14:36]And I didn't want to be that, but I also knew that there was something inside of me that
[14:41]was very fascinated by sex and intimacy and romance.
[14:45]And I was, I feel like I have been trying to balance that fascination against public
[14:50]opinion, all of my life, all of my life, even even now, as I am, I'm 44, I'll be 45 later
[14:59]this year.
[15:00]And I still feel compelled to kind of like draw back so I don't frighten someone away,
[15:08]and have them thinking that I have just like had sex with everybody, you know, and therefore
[15:15]I am a terrible person or that I am just run through or I don't know, just all kinds
[15:21]of terrible, terrible things.
[15:23]So I still feel compelled to kind of hide myself a little bit.
[15:28]And it's funny because I wrote the book and it came out and so many people were just like,
[15:33]oh my gosh, this is so explicit.
[15:36]And I had purposely toned down a lot of stuff.
[15:39]There were sex scenes that I cut out and, you know, some of some people were just like,
[15:44]it's too much sex.
[15:46]And I was just like, oh, well, you definitely didn't want to read that first draft.
[15:53]And that just made me feel like, wow, like, what can I say to make people be okay with
[16:03]how I am?
[16:04]And I just, you know, I had to get to a point where I have to push through that and just
[16:10]own my truth about who I am and what I like.
[16:13]And one of the reasons that I wrote the book and why I write the other pop culture and
[16:18]personal essays that I write about sex and relationships in, you know, in movies and TV shows
[16:23]is because I want women, especially black women, to be okay with expressing their desires
[16:29]and their sexuality across the spectrum, you know, whether they are, it's okay to be conservative
[16:35]and want to wait and all that kind of stuff.
[16:37]There's nothing wrong with that at all.
[16:39]And if that is your truth and that is your truth and sometimes people get, you know, teased
[16:43]about that.
[16:44]And that's okay.
[16:45]Sometimes people get teased about being, I don't want to say promiscuous because that's
[16:48]a moral judgment to call someone promiscuous.
[16:51]But people get teased about being, you know, more open and more free with their love.
[16:58]So there's like, there's no place you can fall on the spectrum that someone won't complain
[17:05]about you.
[17:06]There's some, there's no place you can fall on that spectrum of sexuality and desire
[17:10]and openness that someone won't have something to say.
[17:13]And I think you just kind of got to be like, F it.
[17:15]I am who I am and this is me and I'm proud of this.
[17:19]And this is what I want.
[17:20]I want someone who's going to wait until I'm ready.
[17:22]I want someone who's going to come home with me on the first date, you know, like whatever
[17:27]that may be, just I just want all women to be comfortable with expressing that and,
[17:34]and, you know, being themselves fully and whatever it is that they desire.
[17:39]I love that.
[17:40]That's so inspiring.
[17:41]I mean, nobody says we all have to be the same and how boring would that be, right?
[17:45]Right.
[17:46]Because I mean, our partners are going to be all different too.
[17:49]Right.
[17:50]Everybody wants a different thing.
[17:51]Like you have to, it would be so much harder to find the right person if we were all
[17:54]identical in our wants and desires and preferences.
[17:57]And I don't know.
[17:58]I think that's important.
[17:59]Did you know that I also host a podcast called Sex Talk with Zibi and Tracy?
[18:03]Yes.
[18:04]So I have gotten much more bold in talking about all sexual stuff because Tracy is like
[18:11]so out there.
[18:12]And we talk every time about like three anonymous questions, which really go there, you know.
[18:17]And so I'm trying to help in my own tiny little way of like people are afraid to even
[18:22]ask the questions.
[18:23]You know, people are afraid and there's so much shame.
[18:25]I feel like this whole thing is shame filled, like a blanket that sort of covers this whole
[18:30]thing.
[18:31]And I feel like you're peeling it, you know, you're pulling it back and like letting,
[18:35]you know, like a nice hotel, like people are ready to jump in, you know, that all like
[18:38]turned back all professionalers.
[18:40]Yes.
[18:41]And you know, I'm not a mom, but I know that there's still a lot of shame for women who
[18:46]are parents in their sexuality and like, oh, you're a mom now, you shouldn't want this
[18:51]so I, you know, you should be ready to go after some, you know, whatever.
[18:55]And it's like, no, sometimes we're tired or no, sometimes I want it all the time.
[18:59]Like, you know, there's still this wide range and women should be able to just express
[19:04]that and mothers should be able to express their desires and what they want as well with
[19:08]that someone being like, no, you've got to turn all that off now.
[19:12]Your whole life is for your kids and the only time you're supposed to get in the bed
[19:17]now is when you're trying to make another kid.
[19:19]It's like, excuse you, I like things that feel good too, you know, so I want everybody
[19:25]to be able to just like have what they want and what they need.
[19:29]I love that.
[19:30]I feel like you need to write a romance novel.
[19:33]It might be in progress, I, yes, yes, that is a perfect next step if I do say so myself.
[19:40]I feel like you're going to be so good at that and, well, what else do you have coming
[19:45]up except for, and wait, tell me about your podcast too.
[19:48]As you're a slate podcaster.
[19:50]Yes, well, so I used to be at Slate.
[19:53]I had a podcast there called Thirst 8 Kit with my co-host, BIM, Adam and me, who is now
[19:59]a producer.
[20:00]at this American life. And at Thursday kit, we looked at the way pop culture shaped desire.
[20:06]So we each episode we talked about what we like to call a thirst object. So that was a celebrity
[20:13]who, you know, most of us know very well and we talk about what makes him so hot and why are we
[20:21]attracted to him. And it's not just about the physical stuff. I mean, we do talk about those things,
[20:26]but we tried to talk about the things that anyone could have. So it wasn't necessarily about
[20:31]abs and muscles and brought backs. It was about thick eyebrows and hairy forearms and the
[20:38]women wear watches sometimes, you know, are watching him take off a tie of that kind of thing.
[20:45]And then the characters that they played on screen and why we fell in love with those characters
[20:50]and then kind of transferred that love from the characters onto the people. So that's what we would
[20:55]look at. And we had interviews with Chris Evans, Jason Manzukis, Jake Johnson, Daniel Dakeham, Blair
[21:04]Underwood. We talked to a lot of different people and that's currently retired or on a little
[21:11]indefinite hiatus right now. I was also at the waves for a little bit, which was kind of a
[21:17]roundtable discussion of news and culture through a feminist lens. And right now, I am currently
[21:24]hosting this is good for you, which is a podcast through multi-do productions. And with this podcast,
[21:32]I talk to people about their hobbies and the things that they do for pleasure. And because I
[21:38]realized at the top of the lockdown in cash, I guess I was 2020, it's all over. But I realized that
[21:50]all the things that I would normally do for pleasure to kind of relax and escape from this world
[21:54]were also things that I had monetized and were now my career. And so every time I was watching
[21:59]television, every time I was reading a book, I was thinking, oh, how can I turn this into an essay?
[22:05]How can I pitch this? Can this be a story, you know, whatever? And I was just like, no, I don't want
[22:10]to be productive in that way. You know, I just want to do something just for me, just for the
[22:15]thrill of it. So I started cross stitching again. And I realized that maybe there were other people
[22:21]out there who were having the same experience where they needed to like get away from this,
[22:26]you know, productivity hustle feeling like every moment had to be, you know, producing something that
[22:34]could be sold or monetized in some way. So I talked to people about the things that they do for
[22:40]just for the love of it. So that includes, again, needle crafts, learning how to skateboard for the
[22:46]first time, learning how to play guitar. Gosh, pole dancing. I just talked to someone who collects
[22:53]VHS tapes, you know, those kinds of things. And we've got an episode coming out about honky talk
[22:59]and it's kind of different and they like to go to honky talks and, you know, do all sorts of things.
[23:04]So I just really love it. I love talking to people about the things that they enjoy and the things
[23:09]that bring them pleasure because I feel like it's, it is a very contagious feeling. And it really
[23:16]does make your day to hear someone talk about something that they love and something that they can do
[23:20]well. I just love it. So those are, yeah, those are the podcasts. I love it. Amazing. Hello, woman
[23:28]podcaster. I love it. I love podcasting. I have like the best of you. I do too. I really enjoy it.
[23:35]I'm kind of an introverted person. So I like being behind the scenes and being able to
[23:41]create so might be comfortable background to talk to people without the pressure of performing
[23:47]so much, like in front of a crowd. So podcasting is perfect for me. Yeah. Me too. Amazing. Okay.
[23:56]What advice would you have for aspiring authors? Oh, so for aspiring authors, I would tell them
[24:01]one to read a lot, read across genres and read poetry, especially. I think poetry really helps
[24:14]writers learn how to be concise, learn how to paint a picture with as few words as possible. I mean,
[24:23]I think, you know, people think of poetry is just like, oh, it has to be short and you just, you know,
[24:28]just get in and get out. It doesn't necessarily have to be short. But because you have this,
[24:33]you know, this structure of what a poem should be, you realize you have less of a framework,
[24:39]obviously, than a novel or a short story. So poetry just kind of helps you become a bit more
[24:47]illustrative with your words. So read across genres, but especially read poetry. I think that's
[24:54]the most important. And then also just write, don't be afraid to write and don't be afraid of having
[25:02]an ugly draft or that the hope that everything on the page may not work and you have to start over.
[25:08]I do not believe in writing every day. You need a break. You need to take, you know, the time out,
[25:12]refresh yourself. But I do think that writing is a muscle, you know, and you do have to work,
[25:20]work at it, you know, fairly regularly. Otherwise, you'll have to kind of do a lot more stretches
[25:25]and make sure that you get the flow back so that you are creating something that you feel good about
[25:34]and not to worry about your audience. For me, that was a problem when I was writing the book,
[25:40]because I kept thinking, you know, I don't want anyone to misunderstand me. So I would,
[25:46]I would try to like throw in all these different caveats and, you know, all these different scenarios,
[25:51]so people understood what I was saying and my editors had to be like, why are you over explaining
[25:57]trust your audience, trust your audience? So I think that's important to not think about your audience,
[26:04]but also trust your audience and trust that they're going to go with you if you lead them properly,
[26:10]if you lead them properly. So yeah, that's a lot of tip. That makes sense. It totally made
[26:16]sense. That's awesome. Great. Well, thanks so much for coming on Nicole and I'm looking forward to
[26:22]seeing what happens with this novel and everything else. And I'm going to connect you with
[26:28]Janee after this. So that'll be awesome. I really appreciate being on. Thank you.
[26:32]No problem. All right. Have a great day. Thank you. You too. Bye.
[26:35]Bye. Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Don't
[26:41]forget to follow me on Instagram at zebi Owens and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[26:46]Also sign up for my newsletter at zebiowens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots
[26:51]of authors on Zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan in fact, texture sound
[26:55]for the sound editing. And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro
[27:00]and now trim music.