Welcome back to Good Things! Missed you guys last week. I’ve decided to listen to your requests and start writing with proper punctuation and capitalization. New year, new me!
SIKE! sorry, it’s just not who i am. january is the pits and i’m desperate for stuff to drive away the darkness. here are a couple things that made me happy this week!
1. this pic my niece ciara drew 2 years ago that i found in my camera roll via the apple memories feature
usually this feature ruins my day and shows me a nightmarish picture of myself from college, but last week it was this beautiful little vignette. what a wonderful world!
2. jersey mike’s
i am so disappointed in myself for forgetting to include jersey mike’s sandwiches in my best things 2023 round up. snub of the century. my order is the #7 turkey and provolone on rosemary parmesan bread (trust me), add mayo and honey mustard. magnificent, delicious, hits so hard every single time. jersey mike’s is the #1 sandwich shop in america and it’s not close.
3. couple’s therapy (showtime)
if you’re thinking to yourself: ‘great, another trashy reality recommendation’ — THINK AGAIN. this show is cinema vérité babe. it’s about the perils of intimacy. a sociological study of relationship dynamics. the concept of marriage on trial. ken burns is shaking! i need to discuss mau with someone who has watched season 1. orna guralnik is an excellent therapist and i could really benefit from her skills.
4. it’s been a minute: ross gay on inciting joy while dancing with sorrow
if you are also feeling the aforementioned january blues, take 20 mins and listen to this lovely episode of it’s been a minute. brittany luse interviews poet ross gay on what he calls ‘incitements to joy’ — taking the hard stuff that happens and finding gratitude. i was really struck by a point brittany made about how often in dystopian literature, people are looking back from the future to a time akin to now and thinking ‘man, they didn’t know how good they had it.’ as bad as things seem, they could always get worse, so you might as well soak in the good things around you!
5. clementines
it’s winter citrus season bitch!!!! things like navel oranges and clementines reach their peak deliciousness around december/january. this is something that i just learned about last week. makes a lot of sense though, now that i think about how good clementines have been tasting lately. maybe i will finally finish a bag without letting half of them rot in the bottom of my fridge!
6. the holdovers (amazon prime)
finally watched this movie last week and can confirm that it’s just as good as everyone says! i’ve hated paul giamatti ever since big fat liar, and i now understand the error of my ways. i despised him precisely because he is so good at playing the villain. loved him by the end of the holdovers. someone on twitter pointed out that the lead character, dominic sessa, looks like joan cusack and now i cannot unsee it.
7. the sunk cost fallacy
back again with another fallacy for you guys. the sunk cost fallacy is defined as: “our tendency to continue with an endeavor we've invested money, effort, or time into—even if the current costs outweigh the benefits.” (source) in 2024, the sunk cost mindset is OUT!!! we are ABANDONING THINGS that have become soul suckers! we are LETTING GO of stuff if it’s making us feel terrible! we are TURNING OFF movies and CLOSING books if we hate them! life is too short!
8. prophet song by paul lynch
first read of 2024 and it knocked me out. lynch won the booker prize for this stunning novel about a woman slowly losing her family and life as she knows it when a fascist power takes over ireland in the not-so-distant future. it’s about the creep of war, how fickle the balance of power is, and what happens when you’re forced to survive. it’s haunting and terribly plausible. if you’ve ever wondered why people in war zones don’t just leave, you should read this and ask yourself what you would do.
thanks for reading! i’m planning some new stuff for the newsletter this year and i hope you’ll stick around to see it.
ROTW: what are you doing to stave off the january dread???
I need to give Jersey Mikes another chance!
I need to give Jersey Mikes another chance!