I feel like I’ve been everywhere this week, I also feel like this week lasted forever. On Wednesday the first piece of writing I’ve submitted anyplace got accepted to an online publication I’ve been a fan of for a time now, so I can say I’m making good on one of my 2024 resolutions. It has been a weird week, one for learning and growing.
I hope you’re prepared for the days ahead and are taking good care of yourself.
Onward:
🗞️ Five Not-Headlines
WAR IS OVER 🏳️🏳️🏳️🏳️ Neil Young and Joni Mitchell are back on Spotify, where the Joe Rogan Experience still airs regularly. I guess they had enough of making a point ?
The Atlantic has made a list of 136 great American novels. It’s comprehensive and largely predictable, but still enjoyable to read through. Some highlights: The Great Gatsby opens the list, Native Son makes an appearance, and so does The Haunting of Hill House. Nabokov appears twice, Toni Morrison three times.
An article in Time Magazine explains why we get the ick. Based on the writer’s description of the phenomenon, she does not quite understand what it means to get the ‘ick,’ but it’s still interesting to learn that researchers have theorized it’s a leftover evolutionary impulse.
Hey, Worst Sect of the Republican Party. Maybe in a country where you’ve outlawed abortion in nearly half of its states you shouldn’t be encouraging young women toward faulty contraception methods over the pill. Just a thought.
I think the Royals need Indeed. Kensington Palace posted a job listing for a communications assistant following the events of Friday (and, surely, all that led up to it).
💋 <125 Words: Daylists
Every day of this week felt like its own odyssey, so I’ve condensed their main emotions/pastimes into riddle-y daylist titles.
Sushi brunch windy Manhattan Sunday afternoon.
No inner monologue Monday morning. (Sad </3 Can I even think..?)
Firing up Nintendo Switch and Alex G like Spring 2021 Tuesday morning.
Contemplating life Wednesday afternoon.
Silence and fatigue WFH Thursday evening.
Canelé new me Friday night.
Rainy climbing Saturday morning.
🌸 Overnight in DC
On Saturday afternoon, I left the rainy city for an impromptu overnight visit to DC.
After a late arrival and a later platter of half a dozen oysters, I went to bed. The weather the next morning was gorgeous, just right for walking along the Tidal Basin to admire all the cherry blossoms which, I learnt today, are mostly white this year instead of pink because it has been a particularly cold and windy spring. The stroll continued around various monuments and the day in DC ended waiting on line at Georgetown Cupcakes before heading to catch the Acela from Union Station.
🍴Table Notes
This is less about the table and more about the experience surrounding said table. Late Thursday night I went to the baths. I sweated until I couldn’t imagine another minute of heat. Obviously I had to live up to the phrase on my sauna hat (“..I am the best”), so I outlasted a few people in the cold plunge before warming up, showering and retiring upstairs. The perfect end to my outing was the cup of borsch I had for dinner. I enjoyed that and my own peaceful company and then made my way to Williamsburg feeling refreshed (read: lightly lobotomized). I slept the sleep of the dead that night.
🤸🏻♀️ Weekly W.R.A.P.
Watching: Shogun. Also that reel on the Barstool Instagram of the little dude in the Alice In Chains shirt playing guitar. Obsessed.
Reading: The contents of my favorite Juice Press smoothie LOL. How do they fit that much FOOD in there ?
Admonishing: My hairdresser’s mirror for making me feel like Grendel for two hours on Friday.
Pondering: The whole Princess Kate ordeal- How everyone thought she was getting A BBL or a divorce when she actually is processing a cancer diagnosis. The people have become the tabloids and I hope that video of her on a bench has satiated the sense that we have the right to pry into public figures’ private lives.
