bonus issue: stress relief edition

might heck around and go to weekly emails instead of biweekly emails, idk

This week has been bonkers. I thought the last election was a doozy but OH BOY this one is testing us all in ways we didn’t know were possible. Who knew it was so hard to concede an election? Who knew this pandemic could actually get worse?? Autocracy, imitation or not, is a plague upon us all. Most of this is not actually that surprising, and that makes it that much more emotional to deal with. Maybe you need a little pick me up? I know I do. Here’s some stuff that’s been keeping my spirits up and the heart palpitations at bay:

1. Sorry not sorry, this BTS video featuring two of the members shitting on mint chocolate flavored things gives me life. It’s hella (yikes, am I dating myself here?) relatable content if you’re a mint chocolate skeptic such as myself. You can pry my Hagen Daz coffee ice cream from my cold, dead hands.

2. Chill. Lofi. Playlists.

3. Have you noticed that as you get older your brain functions differently (sometimes radically so)? Maybe? No? Just me? So I tried reading this chonky book back in college for the funzies and honestly, I didn’t get anywhere with it. It’s been through four moves with me, and I finally started to read it again. There’s no time like the present for reading the books you’ve saved year after year, so thanks, Kristen Lavransdatter, for following me around for all these years. It’s like I’m reading it for the first time; I’m shocked at how little I comprehended it in the first place. A word to the wise: it is still rather dense, and it is, at its heart, about a woman and her faith and her sexuality, so probably not for everyone. But also I’ve like cried three or four times while reading so maybe consider reading it? (NB: If you do really want to read this, make sure to get the Tiina Nunally translation. It’s the most faithful to Undset’s original tone. Most others use archaic English and really, that’s not how she wrote it.)

4. Are you low key obsessed with the depiction of food in anime? Me too. Fortunately we’re not alone! Might I suggest you subscribe to Notes from an Anime Noob? This is precisely my shit. Elyse is straight up killing it.

5. Matty Matheson loosing his mind while making pizza is the chaotic content we didn’t deserve but he blessed us with anyway. Not recommended watching while eating lunch, and I suppose this needs a slight content warning as well, but also like, if you’ve made it this far in your reading journey with me you can probably step it up a notch with a more chaotic Matty.

6. HOME COOKING PODCAST. If you click on any link in this email, it should be this one. In delicate and strange times like this, wherein my own state of mind is delicate and strange as well, I often find myself laughing and then crying while listening to this. It’s so moving that something as simple as listening to two friends talk about cooking can be so effortlessly funny. Damn I’m tearing up just thinking about it.

I’ll admit that this list a bit on the short side, mostly because the bulk of my own stress relief has consisted of playing hours of Tetris 99 while waiting for news updates. I’ll see you next week, likely for a takedown of Thanksgiving. Or maybe not! We’ll see where my predilection for hating on popular things takes me, but you’ll still get an essay about something in your inbox. Happy y’all are here. Stay strong.

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Questions, comments, cries of pain? Are you enjoying what you’re reading? Do you hate it? Is there something that you’re just dying to tell me or just dying to hear a hot take on? Are you passionate about a particular ice cream flavor, either negative or positive? Please tell me about it! I’m flying totally blind and while yeah, I’m writing what I want to write and doing it on my terms, I get stuck sometimes. I’d love to hear from you, just reply to this email or leave comment below to talk to me about whatever! Stay safe <3