i never know what to write here which is why it always ends up being about the weather. maybe i should stop writing stuff here? but that seems wrong too. idk. big week for people who like articles! here are the things:
1. the guy who stands outside my apartment building and yells random stuff at the top of his lungs every day at about 8 am
probably feels so good to let it all out! going to join him one of these days.
2. “on self respect” by joan didion
i read this every spring in hopes that i will one day fully absorb its message. i also am totally certain that if didion were still alive, she would spend all her time railing against cancel culture and wokeness. but that’s neither here nor there!
“There is a common superstition that "self-respect" is a kind of charm against snakes, something that keeps those who have it locked in some unblighted Eden, out of strange beds, ambivalent conversations, and trouble in general. It does not at all. It has nothing to do with the face of things, but concerns instead a separate peace, a private reconciliation.”
3. k18 leave-in molecular repair hair mask
i’m not a products person. the extent of my skincare is cerave body lotion. but believe me when i say YOU NEED THIS! my cousin meggie got it for me for christmas and it has resurrected my color-treated, blow-dry-brush-damaged hair. it’s pricey because it is miraculous! but it’s on sale at target right now. i just re-upped and the little bottle lasted me surprisingly long.
4. four good articles
sorry, this is a terrible way to format and i realize that but i don’t feel like making separate things for each of these so it’ll have to do.
rachel handler’s dispatch from the oscars (vulture)
exactly the kind of behind the scenes scoop i want to read about these events, including anecdotes like florence pugh shoving olives into her mouth at a commercial break. such a satisfying piece.
antique medical slides: specimens of my past and future self (leslie jamison for the yale review)
short and very sweet, about medical slides and a crown heights apartment and trying to square the past, present, and future. very pertinent to my interests!
“This time mattered. It existed. It was not just a purgatory between the end of our prior lives and the beginning of our next lives.”
when i met the pope (patricia lockwood for the london review of books)
reading lockwood is like listening to someone unpick a strangely fascinating dream. this piece was recommended in my fav newsletter maybe baby. it’s got everything: italy, an irish bishop, the pope, wax body parts, wondering what it all is for.
“What I might have asked the pope is, are you false? Do you ever feel yourself to be false? Does your name ever feel untrue, Francis? As you became larger and larger, did you feel yourself becoming smaller and smaller? Are the words ever strange in your mouth? Do you ever shake in this place? Can a blessing fly through you to someone else’s belly? Who gets to be different, who gets to be bigger, who is allowed in? Who do you say that I am?”
normcore - on the boardwalk with norman finkelstein (julia rock for the drift)
been wondering what this guy’s deal was ever since he started popping up on my tik tok feed doing the alt-right podcast circuit. it’s a great read on the polarizing figure.
5. colorful gel pens from muji
picked these up when i was grabbing new notebooks at muji last week and they have brought me so much unexpected joy. best $14 i’ve spent in a while!
6. buying the same jeans in every color they sell
jeans are a very personal purchase and when you finally find a pair that doesn’t make you want to jump out the window, you have won a hard fought battle. this is why i tend to buy them then in every color. i just picked up another pair of these in white (the infamous plane jeans).
7. this lovely spam message
at first i was like aw! who is this?! and then i opened it and it included a racy picture so i deleted.
8. bays english muffins
i buy these occasionally at the grocery store as a very special treat. never once in my 27 years of life have they missed.
♡good thing from a good person♡
claire hogan has our good thing this week! claire is hilarious and smart and cool and i love listening to her takes on things. she works in film and tv on stuff like the marvelous mrs. maisel. ever heard of it?? i think she will hate me saying this but i do believe she is the next greta gerwig. mark my words! ok, here is claire’s thing:
My Good Thing: The Pursuit of Mediocrity
In January this year, I pre-paid for a semester’s worth of weekly Adult Beginner ballet classes. I have never done ballet in my life. Every other girl (and solitary man) in the class has the distinct blend of meanness and coolness that manifests in many small tattoos and infrequent smiling. They are the beauty queens to my Little Miss Sunshine. I fear them. In this class, I have put my hip flexors through unspeakable acts. I am bad, quite bad, but bad in the way that I so deeply want to be good, yet somehow good enough that I am not so defensive as to turn the entire thing into a joke. I am swimming in a delirious, delightful state of mediocrity. Mostly, I do not enjoy this hour of my week, and it does not bring me a distinct amount of pleasure. But every Tuesday night, I leave feeling extraordinarily human.
I, like many in my bubble, have spent most of my life trying to be The Best™, and often feeling like The Worst™. But damn, that robber Goldilocks knew what she was talking about. This may be a cheeky amalgamation of low expectations and poor taste, but none of my favorite meals have ever required logging into Resy. I’m content with Josh wine. I can only knit squares, only jog at a snail’s pace. In the padded jail cell of adult responsibility we so rarely get an opportunity to fall safely. All failure feels big- for personal things, like taxes and career choices, but bigger too, like our consumption habits and voting patterns. There is a thrill to low stakes, where being somewhere in the middle is also being right in the center.
Of course, I don’t recommend mediocrity always, not for underwear fit or for love. I don’t think our relationships or community care or many jobs deserve anything less than our everything. In fact, if you are my pilot or hairdresser, please disregard everything above. But hobbies don’t need to be side hustles and workouts don’t need to be supercharged. When life feels built around optimization and efficiency and productivity, fight back by being a lil’ shitty. You think this part of Lucie’s gorgeous newsletter sucked? Baby, I’m just being meta.
Go out and be painfully mediocre at something. We’re all just okay. Ain’t that great?
the end! i’m listening to the sentimental garbage sex and the city series, as recommended by several people last week, and loving it.
next week will be a special edition i’m going to start doing every now and again called BAD THINGS… watch this space!
xoxo thanks for being here.
Hahahahaha the guy yelling outside your apartment at 8am ❤️
Love this clurrrrr
Bad things!!!! I can’t wait ✨