On and On and On

You’d think that with a global pandemic shutting most things down, one would have more time to slow down and go after other pursuits.

And yet.

My brain continues to be a window with a million tabs open and no time to read them, but here are a few things that I’ve been able to make time for:

I’ve been trying to get into the habit if asking people “What’s bringing you joy lately?” instead of the usual “how are you?” I thought it would be met with a lot of eye rolling, but everyone I’ve asked seemed delighted by the question. Seeing their faces brighten and want to answer the question has made me happy.

My black lab, Scotty, has allergies affecting his nails and paws so he’s been wearing a cone a lot. Watching him wear it and carrying on like normal while bashing into walls, furniture, and people has been so entertaining.

This kernel of truth which leads me to believe that the meaning of life is finding enough time to read all the books you want. And sandwiches. Sandwiches have to work their way in there somehow.

@pieladybooks gets it 📚 But we're thankful that audiobooks let you read while on the go 🎧 ⁠ ⁠ ⁠ ⁠ ⁠ ⁠ ⁠ ⁠ ⁠ #booklover #bookish #readersofinstagram #bookworm⁠ ⁠ ⁠ ⁠ ⁠

Interview’s Ask a Sane Person with Jia Tolentino is one of my favorite things that’s come out of (waves hand wildly in the air) everything:

INTERVIEW: What has this pandemic confirmed or reinforced about your view of society?

TOLENTINO: That capitalist individualism has turned into a death cult; that the internet is a weak substitute of physical presence; that this country criminally undervalues its most important people and its most important forms of labor; that we’re incentivized through online mechanisms to value the representation of something (like justice) over the thing itself; that most of us hold more unknown potential, more negative capability, than we’re accustomed to accessing; that the material conditions of life in America are constructed and maintained by those best set up to exploit them; and that the way we live is not inevitable at all.

I find short stories eerily satisfying and genius. It’s designed to capture a fleeting moment and yet it gets its hooks in you and you can’t shake it. Leyna Krow’s “Sinkhole” is deceptively simple and left me thinking about it for days and it’s not just because Issa Rae and Jordan Peel acquired the film rights for more than $630/word. Ok, maybe a little.

Ever since I was a kid, I always found the messaging in Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree problematic. I’m glad someone’s given it a healthy update.

I was 100% ready to cancel my Apple+ subscription after my trial ends, but with shows like Ted Lasso and Trying (two of the most heartwarming and funny shows I’ve seen this year) and Sofia Coppola’s upcoming film On the Rocks, I might have to stick with it. As one tweet put it perfectly, “Eat the rich, but spare Sofia Coppola.”

This made me laugh.

I would love to be in one of Peter Hessler’s nonfiction writing classes. The way he wrote about post-pandemic China was intimate and deftly captured local life while acknowledging realities the CCP may not want their citizens to know.

This meth-house-turned-modernist-home in Salt Lake City.

Take care,
G

On Retail Therapy

Life can be measured by the objects we own. But what about the things you needlessly buy to distract yourself that things are weird right now? My most recent purchases:

• Alex Mill sweaters, button up, and jumpsuit - They never go on sale

• New sneakers and leggings from Nike

• 5 face reusable face masks from Etsy - Didn’t realize they were shipping from Lithuania until after I submitted my order, so it’s possible I may never see them

• Contact-free thermometer

• 2 reusable face masks from Hedley & Bennett

• Mr. Holmes Bread Starter Kit

• Lots and lots of groceries, especially fresh produce

• Rebecca Atwood duvet cover and coverlet - I washed them as soon as they arrived and I’m in love.

• 2 types of loose leaf teas

• Books and puzzles for my niece’s birthday

• Outdoor LED lamps for the deck

• Treat pouch for Scotty’s walks

• Cire Trudon Abd el Kader candle - also never on sale and supporting one of my favorite local shops

• Steam mop

• Dog hammock

• Coffee beans

• Trivet made from Chestnut

• Japanese chopsticks made from mandarin wood

On Things I Won't Forget

What I Already Miss

• Lazy Saturdays at coffee shops

• Dining in at restaurants

• Window shopping

• Hugs. Won’t it be wild when we can touch each other again?

• Dropping by… anything

• Concerts and live shows

• Dinner parties

• Strong federal leadership

What I Don’t Miss

• Traffic

• Long lines

• Indecision

• Arrogance

What I Won’t Miss

• Panic buying

• Hoarding

• Uncertainty

• Hysteria

• Misinformation

• Over-scheduling

• The worst of humanity

• Greed

• The jarring sensation of seeing a tightly packed group of people in pre-C19 photos, movies, and shows

What I Won’t Forget

• Always having a little extra on hand: toilet paper, home cooked meals, a kind word, patience

• How quickly people stepped up in the absence of leadership

• Medical professionals becoming soldiers in wartime

• Small kindnesses — a small wave from a neighbor, a socially distant smile in the grocery store aisle

• Washing hands for 20 seconds, paying extra attention to fingertips, nooks and crannies, and the backs of hands.

• The simple power of soap

• Cuddling with my dog isn’t just a luxury — it’s downright essential

• Gratitude. Today, it’s perfectly-cooked-can-see-every-grain rice; new orders from customers; hot water dispensers; bananas; Snoh Aalegra’s “I want you around”

• Lulls and downtime

• The joy of reading

• Humility

Inspired by MR: “What I won’t forget: That New York is New Yorkers and nothing else.”

We’re always in need of a little perspective. Pause to have a little cry.

“How are you doing?” “Maintaining” Running out of ways to respond to “How are you”? I’ve got you.

Lazy dinner ideas. Just because you’re doing a lot of home cooking doesn’t mean every meal has to be James Beard-worthy. Some of my go-tos: kimchi fried rice; tamago scrambled eggs; ANY KIND OF TOAST; cheese and crackers a la Lunchables; cacio e pepe pasta, tinned sardines with a little mayo and diced pickles; omelets

Just learned that Dalgona coffee is a thing.

You can color the NYTimes now.

Reminder that Netflix Party is a Chrome extension that lets you watch Netflix and chat with your friends.

“Human life has always been lived on the edge of a precipice. Human culture has always had to exist under the shadow of something infinitely more important than itself. If men had postponed the search for knowledge and beauty until they were secure, the search would have never begun. We are mistaken when we compare war with “normal life.” Life has never been normal.” - C.S. Lewis, in a speech to Oxford students in 1939.

Nothing to see here.

Jenny Rosentrach’s Project, Pantry, Purpose series is wonderful.

Despite there being so many cancelled events, there’s still a lot to do. The world continues to be our oyster.

Don’t forget to complete the US Census. Everyone deserves to be counted.

On Grief

That discomfort you’re feeling is grief. David Kessler is the world’s foremost expert on grief and I found his thoughts on discomfort comforting: “Anticipatory grief is that feeling we get about what the future holds when we’re uncertain […] To calm yourself, you want to come into the present.” An easy way to do that, he suggests, is noticing 5 different things in your environment and focusing on their attributes. When asked what to say to someone who’s read all this and is still feeling overwhelmed with grief:

“One unfortunate byproduct of the self-help movement is we’re the first generation to have feelings about our feelings. We tell ourselves things like, “I feel sad, but I shouldn’t feel that; other people have it worse.” We can — we should — stop at the first feeling. “I feel sad. Let me go for five minutes to feel sad.” Your work is to feel your sadness and fear and anger whether or not someone else is feeling something. Fighting it doesn’t help because your body is producing the feeling. If we allow the feelings to happen, they’ll happen in an orderly way, and it empowers us. Then we’re not victims.

And this part resonated with me the most: “This is a temporary state. It helps to say it. This is survivable. We will survive.”

Pro tips on how to live in confined spaces by a NASA astronaut and a formerly imprisoned journalist.

The folks at “Death, Sex & Money” podcast put together a pandemic tool kit with resources to distract you, calm you, and galvanize you.

Monterey Bay Aquarium Live Cams. Watching sea otters frolic is always a good idea.

Some of these links are from Laura Olin’s excellent weekly newsletter. If you haven’t already, you MUST subscribe.

I always like signing off on my emails and letters. Lately they’ve been C19-related:

• Social distantly yours

• Yours from afar

• Waving to you from 6ft and beyond

• Best (but things could be better)

• Take care (no, seriously)

And speaking of valedictions, Louis Armstrong did it best.

After all these years, we finally find out where the name Triscuit comes from (PLOT TWIST: “Tri” does not mean 3"). Confirmed by Triscuit IRL.

This footage of NBC reporter Deion Broxton backing away from a herd of bison walking his direction made me laugh so hard, I spit up some coffee.

“Hi! What is the white cat’s name?”

I loved Manrepeller Leandra Medine’s reply to a reader’s comment: “One time I told my dad that I was bored at the onset of a two-week break from school and he said what I was feeling wasn’t boredom — it was the lull that occurs in order to make an adjustment. Last night, when I expressed my anxiety much the same way I did my boredom all those years ago, he told me that when you’re a kid, it’s a lull that makes way for an adjustment but that as an adult, it’s usually more intense. Sometimes so much so that it’s crippling. Which it has been! I took a lot of solace in this sentiment, starting to believe in [the] fact that maybe I’m not anxious — just adjusting?”

I have been doing a lot of retail therapy lately but maybe I should get one of these house robes before putting a moratorium on my AMEX. UPDATE: Everything in my size is sold out, so whew.

If you’re local in Atlanta and able to, volunteer as a driver to deliver meals to housebound individuals. One of my friends did it today and said it was incredibly easy. Staff members load up while you remain in your car and you just drop off, knock, and leave. She said the whole thing took about 2 hrs of her day.

A reminder that physical distance (and even time!) doesn’t diminish the bond you have with people in your life. IT MAKES ME CRY EVERY TIME.

“Just something to look at and leave.”

If you’ve made it this far, wow! Thank you. I’ll leave you with Japanese artist Yoshihiro Suda’s hyper-realistic sculptures of plants and flowers in the tradition of Japanese woodcarving and National Geographic photographer Eliza Scidmore’s photos of everyday life in Japan from over 100 years ago.

This is a temporary state. This is survivable. We will survive.

On Denial

Is it still considered denial or ignorance if you have accepted the reality of the situation but choose to opt out of it for your own self-preservation? I have always prided myself on being a practical person, and staying on top of E V E R Y update doesn’t seem very productive. So I give myself 30 minutes on Twitter, NPR, and the NY Times in the morning to get the latest and then try to move on with my day.

It’s not a perfect system — my brain will continue to weave in and out of anxiety throughout the day — but it works for me. I hope that wherever you are, you’re hanging in there and if any of my silly thoughts or copied and pasted links can help you escape a little, then I’ve done my job.

I received pasta attachments for my Kitchenaid stand mixer as a birthday present, so I plan on using this dough recipe to make agnolotti filled with with butternut squash and ricotta. Wish me luck!

I’ll start with that and then maybe one day I’ll work up the nerve to make my own ramen noodles from scratch.

Honest to god, I thought it was common knowledge that graham crackers were invented by a guy to deter people from having sex. I am sorry to all my friends in the group chat for scandalizing them.

Stay far away from Twitter if you can, but if you must be on it, I recommend spending all of your time with @BootstrapCook, whose #JackMonroesLockdownLarder is filled with ingenious ingredient substitutes and recipes.

“Thanks, but not for me right now.” You don’t have to join every Zoom meeting or take every phone call. (Though obviously if it’s for work, you should!)

Danusha Laméris, poetess divine, your timeless poem is never not relevant:

Small Kindnesses by Danusha Laméris

I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk
down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs to let you by.
Or how strangers still say “bless you”
when someone sneezes, a leftover
from the Bubonic plague. “Don’t die,” we are saying.
And sometimes, when you spill lemons
from your grocery bag, someone else will help you
pick them up. Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other.
We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot,
and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smile
at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress
to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder,
and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.
We have so little of each other, now. So far
from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange.
What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these
fleeting temples we make together when we say, “Here,
have my seat,” “Go ahead — you first,” “I like your hat.”

Speaking of kindness to each other, don’t forget about being kind to yourself. It may feel like your worries pale in comparison to what others are having to deal with, but they are still valid. Give yourself time to sit with those feelings. Let them wash over you and then carry on when you are ready.

Also you’re welcome:

“Can’t spell quarantine without u r a q t.” - M’s entry to the Dad Jokes Hall of Fame for your consideration.

On What a Time To Be Alive

Today I turn 31 during one of the most surreal events I’ve ever experienced, despite having lived through 9/11 and a deep recession. But life goes on.

Here’s a list of things I’m grateful for, in no particular order:

• Languid dinners with my mom

• Crying tears of laughter and sadness with my friends

• The way Scotty sighs contentedly when he rests his head on my chest

• Dad jokes from M: “What do Korean kids say instead of ‘yes dad’? K Pop”

• House that smells like butter

• Butter

• London Philharmonic plays Rodgers & Hamerstein

• Turkey Hill lemonade tea

• People who are pretending as if they have the virus and staying inside and away from others. Disasters and crises have a way of bringing out the best in people.

• Medical professionals who live up to their hippocratic oath despite dwindling PPE gear and resources. Here are some ways you can help.

• Grocery store and pharmacy staff members

• Delivery and mail people

• Books

• Libraries

• Freshly baked bread

• Bar Keeper’s Friend (if you know, you know)

• John Mulaney

• Handwritten letters

• Dresses and skirts with pockets

• That feeling when you wake up and realize it’s a Saturday

• The pleasure of doing nothing

I read about a method to help you get back to the present moment:

Sit quietly and look around you for 5 things you can see and identify
Now identify 4 things you can hear
3 things you can feel
2 things you can smell
And 1 thing you can taste

Did it work?

On Distractions

“This week is for believing that the world can still be made new — a feeling that isn’t exactly optimism, but something close. You don’t have to believe that everything will ‘work out,’ that things will ‘be okay,’ that it’ll be possible to return to a state of peaceful equilibrium. you don’t even have to believe that the world you want can be achieved within your own lifetime. Right now, it’ll be enough just to have a burning conviction that a long-needed change is coming, and that you have a role in it.” - My horoscope this week.

There are a lot of dark and despairing places on the internet, but I have decided this is not one of them. Maybe COVID-19 will single-handedly revive the lost art of blogging? Only time will tell. In the meantime, here are some links of levity to temper the roiling ocean of uncertainty:

The Great Pottery Throw Down. Like GBBO, but for potters. See also The Great British Sewing Bee.

Harry Styles Tiny Desk Concert. Better yet, why not binge the whole series on YouTube?

Here’s a thinker to occupy your brain for the rest of the day: apparently not everyone has an internal monologue.

Panda cam.

What makes you swoon? I have a long list, but one of them is the word “cookie.” Whether it’s a kid or a grown-ass adult, there’s no way you can go hearing a person say “Can I have a cookie?” and not give them the whole damn box.

The miracle of moving a piano in NYC. Is it particularly useful information? No. Is it interesting in an esoteric way? Yes.

I read Kevin Wilson’s Nothing to See Here purely because of Taffy Brodessor-Akner’s review. It was a droll, quick read. The ending isn’t particularly inspired, but I don’t know how I could’ve written it better.

I wish I had a chance to meet Richard Geary.

Agnes & Muriel’s and All the Places I Have Loved You by Jessica Tilley Hodgman. “One time, I was described by a man I loved, who didn’t love me, as ‘oceanic.’ As in, ‘a little too much.’ I hung onto you, hoping we were just ‘a little too much’ enough for each other.”

This is as good a time as ever to freshen up your mending (or learn for the first time!) — how to sew a button.

STFU.

Why You Should Rescue a Dog by Eric Kim. “What a huge victory a little life is.” Eric’s writing made me choke up when I was copy editor of our high school literary magazine, and continues to make me F E E L. He’s a MONSTER.

Tiny victories. Sure things can and will go wrong, but what if they go spectacularly right? Call the friend you’ve been meaning to catch up with. Try that recipe you’ve bookmarked for weeks. Reach out to your neighbor to see what you can do to help. Tip extra to the food delivery guy. We don’t have to “make the most” of a pandemic, but we can certainly find ways to make it better.

Even if it’s just a little.

On the End of the World

On 5 Things

People Say Gullah Geechee Culture is Disappearing. BJ Dennis Says They’re Wrong both moved me and made my mouth water. I wanted to write a thoughtful response about how food is more than just sustenance (I’m glaring at you, Soylent drinkers) and how each bite is filled with history. But language fails me here. Words just pale in comparison to the explosion of flavors — lovingly coaxed out of freshly caught seafood and locally farmed produce — developed by a culture that withstood centuries of pain to pass their history down generations.*

The San Francisco Chronicle published a multimedia essay on 24 hours inside the city’s homelessness crisis as part of the SF Homeless Project and included a detailed Q&A section (covering questions like SF numbers are particularly high, where does all the funding go, etc). It’s easy to complain that the city isn’t doing enough to solve the problem (I’ve definitely been guilty of this when I was living there), but there are bigger issues at play and the city is working on it.

This poem by Wendell Berry called “Questionaire” (C/O Kottke):

1. How much poison are you willing
to eat for the success of the free
market and global trade? Please
name your preferred poisons.

2. For the sake of goodness, how much
evil are you willing to do?
Fill in the following blanks
with the names of your favorite evils
and acts of hatred.

3. What sacrifices are you prepared
to make for the culture and civilization?
Please list the monuments, shrines,
and works of art you would
most willingly destroy.

4. In the name of patriotism and
the flag, how much of our beloved
land are you willing to desecrate?
List in the following spaces
the mountains, rivers, towns, farms
you could most readily do without.

5. State briefly the ideas, ideals, or hopes,
the energy sources, the kinds of security,
for which you would kill a child.
Name, please, the children whom
you would be willing to kill.

And this one that Stacy-Marie Ishmael included in her latest newsletter (definitely recommend subscribing!):

“Demeter’s Prayer to Hades” by Rita Dove

This alone is what I wish for you: knowledge.
To understand each desire has an edge,
to know we are responsible for the lives
we change. No faith comes without cost,
no one believes without dying.
Now for the first time
I see clearly the trail you planted,
what ground opened to waste,
though you dreamed a wealth
of flowers.

There are no curses — only mirrors
held up to the souls of gods and mortals.
And so I give up this fate, too.
Believe in yourself,
go ahead — see where it gets you.

This truly delightful interview Rob Sheffield did on Harry Styles. Eternal sunshine indeed.

*If you’re in Atlanta and craving Gullah Geechee, I recommend Virgil’s Gullah Kitchen in College Park. Get the Shawk Bites, Shrimp & Crab Gravy Rice, and Chucktown Chewie Sundae.

P.S. Pour yourself a glass of wine and read CJ Hauser’s “The Crane Wife”. It’ll break your heart and put it all back together again.

On Opposites

The Opposites Game for Patricia Maisch

By Brendan Constantine

This day my students and I play the Opposites Game
with a line from Emily Dickinson. My life had stood
a loaded gun, it goes and I write it on the board,
pausing so they can call out the antonyms —

My Your
Life Death
Had stood? Will sit
A Many
Loaded Empty
Gun?

Gun.

For a moment, very much like the one between
lightning and its sound, the children just stare at me,
and then it comes, a flurry, a hail storm of answers —

Flower, says one. No, Book, says another. That’s stupid,
cries a third, the opposite of a gun is a pillow. Or maybe
a hug, but not a book, no way is it a book. With this,
the others gather their thoughts

and suddenly it’s a shouting match. No one can agree,
for every student there’s a final answer. It’s a song,
a prayer, I mean a promise, like a wedding ring, and
later a baby. Or what’s that person who delivers babies?

A midwife? Yes a midwife. No that’s wrong. You’re so
wrong you’ll never be right again. It’s a whisper, a star,
it’s saying I love you into your hand and then touching
someone’s ear. Are you crazy? Are you the president

of Stupid-land? You should be, When’s the election?
It’s a teddy bear, a sword, a perfect, perfect peach.
Go back to the first one, it’s a flower, a white rose.
When the bell rings, I reach for an eraser but a girl

snatches it from my hand. Nothing’s decided, she says,
We’re not done here. I leave all the answers
on the board. The next day some of them have
stopped talking to each other, they’ve taken sides.

There’s a Flower club. And a Kitten club. And two boys
calling themselves The Snowballs. The rest have stuck
with the original game, which was to try to write
something like poetry.

It’s a diamond, it’s a dance,
the opposite of a gun is a museum in France.
It’s the moon, it’s a mirror,
it’s the sound of a bell and the hearer.

The arguing starts again, more shouting, and finally
a new club. For the first time I dare to push them.
Maybe all of you are right, I say.

Well, maybe. Maybe it’s everything we said. Maybe it’s
everything we didn’t say. It’s words and the spaces for words.
They’re looking at each other now. It’s everything in this room
and outside this room and down the street and in the sky.

It’s everyone on campus and at the mall, and all the people
waiting at the hospital. And the post office. And, yeah,
it’s a flower, too. All the flowers. The whole garden.
The opposite of a gun is wherever you point it.

Don’t write that on the board, they say. Just say poem.
Your death will sit through many empty poems.

On Loving Yourself

Document the moments you feel most in love with yourself — what you’re wearing, who you’re around, what you’re doing. Recreate and repeat.

- Warsan Shire

On Real Vices

From the exhibit at the Great Apes House, Bronx Zoo, circa 1963-67

9:27 pm ET, Delta flight from Atlanta to Shanghai

One of the best things about long-haul flights is catching up on films I don’t have time to watch because, you know, life. It only took a 14.5 hr flight, but I finally got around seeing Adam Mckay’s Vice and I am fucking amped up.

My brain is exploding with all the emotions and thoughts, so this may be the most incomprehensible dribble I’ve ever typed on screen.

(Thanks for joining.)

Originally I started writing an entirely different diatribe because I found myself in such anger and disbelief towards what we allowed the Bush-Cheney administration to get away with. But of course this is a McKay production and it wasn’t going to be one-note like that. No, they’re going to add some clever twists and turns and hold a mirror up to us, the viewer, and ask “don’t you think you’re complicit, too?” Thus, I had to trash draft 1.

First, some praise: Like The Big Short, it’s clever. It’s smart. And it had an unbelievably elegant and cheeky way of addressing some pretty fucking dense and boring content, like politics, international policies, and world relations. It was entertaining and moved at a quick pace. Would you expect anything less from Adam McKay, his creative team, and actors like Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Steve Carell, et al?

Now before I was hurtling through the air in a tin can across the Pacific Ocean, I had a bumpy check-in. The seat upgrades I tried purchasing from the Delta app didn’t go through, causing my charge to dance in some weird AMEX limbo and no seat change. Which was exacerbated by an unwelcome lecture from my mom for how her idea of handling the situation would be better. I bite down on every smart ass retort bubbling up to the surface and try to recall every piece of advice on patience from my therapist. We get through security and Nancy gets held up because of her belt. Then her watch. Then nail clippers in her pocket (what?). We’re walking out of the security area when she suddenly realizes that she doesn’t have her phone.

All this to say I was not in the mindset to consume anything that would make think. I very much wanted to tune in and tune the fuck out.

(In case you were wondering, the family friend who drove us to the airport was able to drive back and drop Nancy’s phone off. And AMEX is taking care of the weird charge. Thank you for your concern.)

So.

Tuning out did not happen. McKay shined a bright light on all of Cheney’s shady dealings, but what was the real vice here? Was it his desire for power? Or was it something else entirely? Perhaps it was our own apathy, the quietest and most insidious of all the vices. On the surface, it seems harmless. It wields no weapons and draws no blood. But it’s no less dangerous. Because it feeds on our desire to avoid life’s unpleasant realities. Our desire for greed. Our desire to want a comfortable life, even if it means sacrificing our civil liberties and compassion.

There’s bound to be a few casualties when it comes to the common good. This is the story we tell ourselves. We tell ourselves stories every day — I had a long day at work today, so I deserve a night in instead of going to the gym. A woman stops responding to a man’s texts anymore, so the man thinks “She must be a lesbian”.

Apathy is truly a vice. Choosing to stay with the status quo or denying a reality because the truth is too much to bear or fix. There are some people who insist on separating their lives from dirty things like politics. But politics is personal. Every decision you make is a choice of how you see yourself in the world and the kind of reality you want to live in. And honestly it’s fucking overwhelming and exhausting to consider this. I don’t want to think about how global warming will result in climate refugees. Or that the bees are dying and we won’t have avocados anymore. Or how wars may be waged over clean water.

This is a constant struggle for me and one of the many subjects that compelled me to start this little blog. I don’t know what the answer is. All I can think of is the story of the guy walking on the beach that’s scattered with starfish that have been washed ashore. He sees a kid throwing them back into the ocean, one by one. “Hey kid,” he says, “There’s too many starfish on the beach. There’s no way you can save them all.” And he said “I know, but I can make a difference in the ones I can save.”

Like the kid, I feel like I’m on a beach surrounded by starfish gasping for air, living, breathing things that need care and attention. I can’t care or attend to them all, no matter how much I want to. But I can make a difference in this one. And that one. And this other one. And that will have to be enough.

So maybe the antidote to apathy is to remain open and care. And to question. To always question “why?”

Originally posted on May 1, 2019 at Alwaysatodds.com.

On Simple Pleasures

• Fresh sheets

• Walking through a grove of tea olive trees.

• $5 dollar peony bouquets from Trader Joe’s

• Strawberries at the peak of summer

• Tomato sandwiches

• A deep belly laugh — the kind that reverberates through your body and makes you feel simultaneously alive and close to death.

• Freshly baked biscuits

• Quiet evenings at home

• A roaring fire and steaming cup of tea

• A cherished pet sleeping soundly on your chest

• Tomato and mayo sandwich

• Air conditioning

• Crossing an item off a to-do list

• Perfect timing

• The golden sheen of freshly baked rolls

• My cousin’s kid telling me I’m the best cook she’s ever met

• Accelerating onto an open road

• Voices in harmony

• The kindness of strangers

• Crisp winter air

• A space to call your own

Originally published on January 16, 2019 at Alwaysatodds.com.

On 5 Things

5 things I’m currently digging right now:

1. Season 2 of Friends From College on Netflix. It’s dark, it’s cringe-inducing, it’s funny, and I really love the costume design and styling. I watched episode 2 with Nancy and we were so obsessed with this white ribbed tank Cobie Smulders wore with a printed Proenza Schouler midi skirt — so much so that I tracked down the stylist for the show and DMed her (and she graciously responded!). In case you were wondering, the top is by The Row and it’s sold out now :( But truly, these people are horrible to each other and I’m here for it.

2. My Oxford Year by Julia Whelan. If some AI algorithm downloaded everything I liked and turned it into a book, it would be this. I’m barely a chapter into it and I’m already in love.

3. Single Parents on NBC. Co-created by Liz Meriwhether, who also created “New Girl”. It’s adorable. It’s hilarious. It’s a heartwarming show about families, only unlike This Is Us, you’re not emotionally cutting every week. Just watch it.

4. Engraved calling cards from Terrapin Stationers. Instead of printing a bunch of cheap cards with information that may change or get outdated, I splurge on some nice cardstock that show just my name and I handwrite my contact details. People seem to really get a kick out of it, so I just ordered some new ones for work.

5. Cashmere beanie by Meg Cohen. Because it’s fucking cold.

Originally published on January 15, 2019 at Alwaysatodds.com.

On "It's not personal. It's business."

Alt: Not another goddamn Hedi Slimane/political/OMG what a time to be alive think piece.

One of my favorite movies of all time is You’ve Got Mail. There’s a scene where Tom Hanks (Joe Fox, the owner of a Barnes and Noble mega bookstore at a time when Amazon was just a twinkle in Jeff Bezo’s eye) apologizes to Meg Ryan (Kathleen Kelly, a small children’s bookstore owner) for putting her out of business:

Joe Fox: It wasn’t… personal.

Kathleen Kelly: What is that supposed to mean? I am so sick of that. All that means is that it wasn’t personal to you. But it was personal to me. It’s PERSONAL to a lot of people. And what’s so wrong with being personal, anyway?

Joe Fox: Uh, nothing.

Kathleen Kelly: Whatever else anything is, it ought to begin by being personal.

I’ve been thinking about this scene a lot recently. There are so many people saying, “it’s not personal, it’s politics” and as a form of self-preservation in this dumpster fire of a time we’re living in, I try to tell myself to stop taking things so personal as well.

But try as we might, it’s nearly impossible to separate your feelings from what’s going on in the world — even fashion.

Last week, Hedi Slimane’s first collection for Celine was unveiled to a cacophony of outrage. Critics were lambasting his designs for being out of touch, even anti-woman. Many fans considered his pieces to be antithetical to Phoebe Philo’s Céline, which was beloved for its feminine tailoring and sophistication. On the surface, the intensity of the reaction was extreme, but given that the show happened in the middle of all the Kavanaugh circus, was it truly surprising?

Maybe if there were different circumstances, the sound and fury for Slimane’s Celine would have been at a 5, but it was at an 11. Bluster is the accessory du jour and outrage is the new black. Slimane is a more than capable designer with a strong point of view and LVMH trusted him with an idiosyncratic brand. He is not deserving of the level of outrage that occurred, but dismissing his critics without considering the context or lens they viewed his work with is short sighted (and it’s a little disappointing that Slimane himself is not sympathetic to that). CONTEXT IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT. What we wear and how we style ourselves is woven into the fabric of our lives (ALL THE PUNS 100% INTENDED AND I APPROVE THIS MESSAGE), and perspectives and politics will inevitably be woven in as well, making it all exceedingly personal.

I don’t believe Slimane was attacking women — he just designs for a different woman — and I think comparing him to Trump is a far-reaching claim. But I do think LVMH is sending a confusing message to customers of Céline. I think Slimane revealed a collection that was so drastically different and lacking of past Céline, it was jarring for many people (honestly, give the guy his own label, for fuck’s sake). I strongly believe that the timing of his show was noteworthy, albeit completely unintentional. I think many American women, upset at the hearings in DC and realizing that they didn’t recognize their own country any more, looked to Paris Fashion Week as an escape. And when they realized they didn’t recognize one of their favorite fashion houses any more either, it got too much. And the flood gates opened.

It’s easy to look back on the good ol’ days and wax nostalgic about how there was more civility and people worked together for the common good. Those days were also slower. People had more time to process their thoughts and how they felt. But now, gut reactions has replaced reason and I find it pretty devastating. Is sympathy or consideration for another person’s environment/circumstances dead? There’s still a part of me that holds onto the believe that no, it’s not. That civility and consideration happens more than the news feeds and chyrons let on.

This is the Age of Outrage. And like fire, outrage can be stoked to burn, but it can also be captured to warm and transform. Of course it’s easier said than done. Even as I write this, I struggle with my containing my anger. The ego in me wants the last word in every debate, to crush anyone who voices an opposing view. But isn’t it just as powerful to slow down? Maybe we can take the first step of acknowledging the context a person is operating in before deciding to engage or walk away.

Again, easier said than done.

P.S.

This fascinating article on the shipping company of the fashion world. (NYT)

If you’re filled with despair, a reminder of the things you can do for your community or to get people out to vote.

This tweet is hysterical.

Originally published on October 5, 2018 at Alwaysatodds.com.

On Moving

Months of planning and prep and getting all your ducks in a row won’t prepare you for the colossal loss of your old life.

Sure, you’re heading towards the unknown. Hell, these aren’t even uncharted waters — you’ve been here before! In a way, you’re going back to a life you’ve known before.

But it’s different. Because you’re a different person now.

Like your vocabulary has expanded — you know how to identify your feelings a little better. You’ve learned how to draw your boundaries a little stronger, and when people try to cross them, you know how to push back a little harder. You’ve learned that speaking up for yourself isn’t self-indulgent; it’s a goddamn right.

And you’re still learning. Like how to be kinder to yourself and allowing yourself to feel all the emotions. You don’t have to apologize to other people for crying. It’s ok. It’s also okay to have your own political convictions. And it’s incredibly ok to say “NO I WILL NOT DEBATE YOU” because as Laurie Penny writes, thinking that you can change someone’s mind by debating them is a lot like teaching a goat to dance — the goat will not dance and you’ll end up pissing him/her off.

So that means realizing that certain relationships have limits. You are incredibly lucky to have relationships with people where you can be unapologetically you and they will love you no matter what. For the sake of some relationships, you will have to bite your tongue repeatedly because 1) you don’t have to debate them (see above) and 2) going into the same argument and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity.

Even though you’re returning to a place you called home for most of your life, these are big changes. You want this and you’ve been looking forward to this. But you’re also saying good bye to a path you thought was going to be a forever direction. And you’re closing a door on a career you’ve been thinking about since undergrad, when you’d occasionally skip classes to watch The West Wing on Bravo (before you bought the DVD box set and eons before Netflix did everyone a favor and streamed them). Ghost ships. This is a loss and you’re allowed to grieve. Not giving yourself a chance to sit and feel everything is just delaying the inevitable.

In a few months, the dust will settle and you will get your bearings. You will look back on the initial months and wonder why you fought it. Things are not perfect, but everything is okay and that will do for now.

Originally published on September 28, 2018 at Alwaysatodds.com.

On the Little Things

Quote of the day:

Activism is my rent for living on the planet.

— Alice Walker

Someone made a $5 ACLU-donation Dash button you can press every time Trump makes you angry. Brilliant.

As if you needed more evidence on how diversity is better for the world, here's a letter from director Martin Scorsese on how "diversity guarantees our cultural survival" and the Scientific American on how diversity makes us smarter. 

This Instagram account of 100 postcards for the first 100 days of the administration. As the bio says, they're "Always respectful, mostly disagreeable." And entertaining, too. 

When you start to feel like everything is out of control, here's a reminder of what you do have control over:

I'm in love with these pins by Adam J. Kurtz and Emily McDowell.

Indecisive spinner pin by Adam J. Kurtz

Everyday bravery pins by Emily McDowell

My friend Shannon and I started a cooking club where we go to each other's houses once a month and cook. Last month we made Nigella Lawson's lemon polenta cake and short rib burgers. It's my turn to pick the recipes for this month, but there's so many to choose from: 

Savory miso oatmeal

Roasted strawberries with Pimms, balsamic, and ginger — sounds like summer!

Crispy and sweet broccoli

"Hot Ones" is an entertaining series where celebrities get interviewed while they eat hot wings. Padma's bed picnic sounds like an amazing idea: 

The episode with Key and Peele remains one of my favorites. 

Originally published on February 8, 2017 on Alwaysatodds.com.

On Optimism

I remember the first time I saw violence. I was 3 years old and I watched my babysitter's husband slam her head against the wall — once, twice, four times — and wrap his hand around her neck. Their three children were hiding in the oldest child's room, sobbing, while I peeked around the corner to see if the silence that hung in the apartment was a sign of safety. Clearly, it was not. 

The first time I saw racism, I was 8. I was at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center in Atlanta on a school field trip and we were viewing an exhibit on the history of lynchings in the south. There were rows and rows of black and white photos — photos of someone's husband, brother, wife, sister, child — dangling lifelessly from the trees. And throughout the exhibit, Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit" played. I didn't sleep a wink that night. And to this day, I can't hear "Strange Fruit" or Billie's voice without feeling a shiver down my spine. 

I was reminded of these memories when I watched Raoul Peck's documentary on James Baldwin, I Am Not Your Negro. It was a sobering and much-needed watch because it reminded me that while I may feel that things are especially bad now, it's not new. The only difference is that I've gotten better at recognizing it. I also left the film feeling a deep connection to Baldwin. Here was a man who is weary of the world. He was the son of a country that often refused to legitimize him, so he left Harlem for Paris. But as much as he tried, he could not separate himself from his people, so he returned. In the process, he lost friends and lovers. The FBI even tried to label him as a threat to national security. But he persisted. And he wrote.

"I can't be a pessimist because I am alive," he once said during an interview. "To be a pessimist means that you have agreed that human life is an academic matter, so I'm forced to be an optimist. I'm forced to believe that we can survive whatever we must survive. But the future of the Negro in this country is precisely as bright or as dark as the future of the country. It is entirely up to the American people and our representatives -- it is entirely up to the American people whether or not they are going to face, and deal with, and embrace this stranger whom they maligned so long."

"I can't be a pessimist because I am alive." That is now my motto for 2017. And yes, it is entirely up to us to deal with the blemishes that the American experiment comes with. It is already beginning to make a world of difference: 

1. Thanks to efforts of the #GrabYourWallet campaign, Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus are dropping Ivanka Trump's fashion line.

2. HR621 has been pulled, so the land grab of 3.3 million national land acres has been dropped.

3. The ACLU has received over $24 million in donations in one weekend — that's 7x the amount raised in the 2015 alone.

4. The city of Seattle will divest $3 billion from Wells Fargo for NoDAPL.

5. GOP Senator Lisa Murkowski says constituent calls to her office against DeVos were a major reason why she is voting against her nomination.

   [S/O to my friend Monica for pointing these silver linings out to me.]

And that's only the beginning.

I do not accept the premise that this recent surge of activism and fight is too little, too late. It is only late when we are all dead. To find something worth fighting for is life itself. It provides sustenance for the soul. I may be fatigued and worried about the state of the world, but I have never felt more alive or been filled with more purpose. There may come a day where someone somewhere will prove my optimism to be foolish, but until that day comes, I will let my existence be my battle cry.

Further reading:

"There is nothing great about the America that Trump thinks he is going to make; but in the end, it is the greatness of America that will stop him." – Former Department of State counselor from the Bush Administration, Eliot A. Cohen, on Trump underestimating the resilience of Americans and their institutions. 

James Baldwin was not only a novelist, but an essayist and part-time film critic. His piece, "The Devil Finds Work" is a sharp analysis of race and America and cinema. I'll never look at The Exorcist the same way again. 

On a lighter note, The New Yorker essay "I Work from Home" hits way too close to home. 

Beautifully and thoughtfully designed by its owner, James F. Carter, this house has bookshelves by the stairs, in nooks, and crannies. It's the stuff of my dreams. 

Originally posted on February 4, 2017 at Alwaysatodds.com.

On Elephants

Even if it swayed with grass instead of being covered in concrete and dog shit, the city would be far, far too small for you. You’d feel the ring roads like a corset. You’d smell succulent fields outside, and be wistful. But you’d make the most of what you had. You’d follow a labyrinth of old roads, relying on the wisdom of long-dead elephants, now passed down to your matriarch. You’d have the happiest kind of political system, run by wise old women, appointed for their knowledge of the world and their judgment, uninterested in hierarchy for hierarchy’s sake, and seeking the greatest good for the greatest number.

I wish I could be an elephant. Beautifully written.

Originally published on January 26, 2017 at Alwaysatodds.com.

On Holding Steady

ANONYMOUS: What is the fucking point anymore? Protests ended. People are becoming numb. No one cares to speak up anymore? Are we not going to fight?
COQUETTE: The point is to live. The point is to keep going. It's okay to let the vigilance mellow into something less acute. It's not about intensity anymore; it's about stamina. Dig in, hold fast, and keep a calm and constant pressure as the pendulum swings.

Sooo things are not great right now. We have a figurehead who blatantly ignores facts and lies to the public, prioritizes popularity over policy, nominated woefully unqualified candidates to staff his cabinet, is actually directing federal tax money to move forward on his plans to build a massive wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, and A LOT OF PEOPLE ARE ANGRY. 

GOOD.

Because as one (fictional) American President once said, "America isn't easy". And for some time now, we've forgotten about that. We've forgotten that the path to progress isn't a straight, paved road — it's rough, filled with valleys and peaks, quagmires, and bumps. We've forgotten that we cannot rest on our laurels — that keeping the rights and privileges we get to enjoy is a constant battle. And while I don't normally like taking on an alarmist tone, liberty is always under threat.

But that doesn't mean life as we know it is over. [If life was a Disney movie, this is probably the point where I'd break into song. But alas, it is not.]

I refuse to be apathetic. I'm gonna live. And goddammit, I'm gonna be kind. I will choose to be delighted, every. Day. When things get hard, art will be my god. I will find sanctuary in the works of writers and artists to make sense of complicated emotions. I will do my best to be intentional. I will avoid matching vitriol with venom. The anger and despair I feel after reading the latest news headlines? I won't allow them to wash over me. I will absorb it. I will tap into its reserves to contact my senators and representatives. I will go to more rallies. I will read more books and essays on conservative ideology. I will tell my mom I love her, even when she breaks my heart by parroting chyrons from Fox News.

Don't mistake my optimism for acceptance or delusion. I'm choosing to fight for tiny victories. Some fights aren't won by being the most intense or powerful person in the ring. Some fights are won simply by digging your heels in and holding steady. 

Hemingway knows what’s up. (via Kottke)

---

Further reading:

Hemingway's Cocktail for bad times is not only the alcoholic balm we need, it contains some of the most poetic prose I've ever seen in a recipe: 

Take a tall thin water tumbler and fill it with finely cracked ice.

Lace this broken debris with 4 good purple splashes of Angostura, add the juice and crushed peel of 1 green lime, and fill glass almost full with Holland gin...

No sugar, no fancying. It's strong, it's bitter — but so is English ale
strong and bitter in many cases. 

We don't add sugar to ale, and we don't need sugar in a "Death in the Gulf Stream" — or at least not more than 1 tsp. Its tartness and its bitterness are its chief charm. 

Proposed anthem of the resistance: when you're so angry and you gotta dance it out, I recommend Ariana Grande's "Be Alright". You laugh, but I dare you not to move during the chorus

"Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut is one of my favorite short stories by one of my favorite writers. It's never seemed more appropriate or poignant than ever.

CNN's Van Jones might be onto something here — there may be virtue in trying to understand how Trump operates. 

Good Magazine has put together a guide to coping and acting in a Donald Trump presidency. 

List of books to change a conservative or liberal's mind. I have The Righteous Mind by John Haidt as my next read. 

Originally published on January 26, 2017 at Alwaysatodds.com.