My last newsletter was kind of a bummer, so I decided to keep it light this week and spread some positivity. Or, at least, tell you all about the things that made me feel better, since it’s becoming increasingly clear that the end of our collective despair is not yet, in fact, near. New strains of the coronavirus have the government here requiring FFP2 (basically N95) masks in public, and vaccine rollout has been pretty abysmal, all the more disappointing/astonishing to me considering this is a country of eight million people. Yes, as in, the same size as New York City. It blows the mind, truly.
Without further ado, here are seven things that made me smile this week.
Here’s a freebie, since I just saw it again this morning and it’s never not funny:
1. Clementines
You knew I had to start with some sort of food, didn’t you? But yes, the humble clementine makes the list, because why not? I’ve always thought it a sort of wonderful error in the planning of the universe that, in the dreariest months of the year in the northern hemisphere, the sunniest fruits are at their peak. It’s the kind of mistake you obviously won’t point out to anyone, lest the universe realize its error and reverse course. Or maybe, if we’re trying to think optimistically for a change, it’s the universe throwing us a bone.
2. Yoga with Adriene
Anyone who has talked to me about yoga has probably heard me talk about Adriene. That is, Adriene Mishler, the sweet-talking Texan behind Yoga with Adriene, the YouTube channel with a well-deserved cult following. I’ve known about her channel since the Long Before Times, but despite loving her videos—which feature classes for anything and everything, of every level and length—never gave up in-person classes. But now, I wonder if I will ever pay for a yoga class ever again. I probably will, but for now I’m satisfied. I’m on Day 25 of this year’s 30-day “yoga journey” (she releases one every January), and this year’s theme is “Breath.”
(In an extremely prescient/borderline psychic move, last January’s journey was called “Home.” I completed it in May and am thinking I might do it again when I finish this one? Maybe I’ll just keep doing 30-day yoga journeys until this thing is over….)
3. This stock market stuff
I don’t know about you, but I find this whole GameStop business hilarious. Redditors making a fool of ~expert investors~ was the biggest news story of this week (there was practically nothing else on my Twitter feed), and honestly I’m relieved. For the ten days since we’ve been freed from Trump and his domination of the news cycle, we’ve been able to focus on more important things—like exposing the hypocrisy of the stock market.
4. Videos from my sister’s online accounting class
Wait! Don’t leave! Here’s the deal: For a course based on pre-recorded lectures, the instructor created a crew of virtual students who ask him sassy questions and make jokes, to which he responds as if they were really students sitting in front of him in real time. As an ~educator~ myself now (sort of), I have to appreciate the way he has dedicated himself to making the online format engaging. Hats off to you, sir. (Becca informs me the course actually came out in 2015; very prescient!) I thought I could post a video here but I guess I can’t, so you’ll just have to use your imagination (or I’ll send you the video, if you ask very nicely).
5. These peanut butter cookies
I can’t share a picture of the cookies because a) they were ugly (much less photogenic than Deb’s; definitely follow her instructions to freeze the dough before and after scooping if you have any hope of them turning out pretty) and b) I already ate all of them. But appearance aside, I was very happy to have these cookies Thursday evening because they ended up constituting my dinner, along with a sheet pan’s worth of roasted broccoli that I didn’t even bother moving to a plate. What I intended to eat for dinner, this fried tagliatelle (!) with chickpeas and smoky tomato oil (!!) number from Yotam Ottolenghi, didn’t work out, not by any fault of the recipe’s but because I couldn’t get any of the stoves to work! The stoves have since been fixed, which is good because I was just about to solicit recipes that I could make with just a toaster oven.
6. One student’s excitement about airports and planes
In one of my classes yesterday the topic was traveling, particularly flying and airports. This one student was SO into it, offering an answer to every question I asked. And it was a student who usually says nothing during online class! It’s always fun when that happens.
7. Other newsletters!
Since I first heard about this platform, it seems everyone and their mother is starting a newsletter of their own. Nowadays, my inbox is not just a place for political campaign fundraising emails and promotions from websites I ordered one thing from in 2016 (though it’s still mostly that). A few days a week (or sometimes daily!) I have something of substance to look forward to. Sifted is a fun one for food inspiration. Letters from an American—thanks, Grandma Sue and Aunt Liane for sending this article about the author!—is a good one for daily, but not frantic, news updates. (I also appreciate that Heather Cox Richardson, a college professor, apparently has the same routine as me when on a deadline: don’t work on it until at least 9 p.m., then crank it out and hope it still turns out pretty good. While this means it gets to your (American) inboxes at about 2-3 a.m., it arrives at the perfect time for my morning news consumption!) Two friends/colleagues from my college newspaper started a sports/politics newsletter that I think is on par with those of older and more seasoned reporters (no, they didn’t ask me to plug it; an honest endorsement!)
A special plug for The Daily Poster, a totally independent, “grassroots-funded investigative journalism project” that has become (so far) the only newsletter for which I’ve actually upgraded to a paid subscription. I found their freely available stories compelling, unlike anything I was reading elsewhere. Glancing at the headlines, it may seem like one of those lefty publications that criticizes anything and everything to come out of Washington, even under Democratic control, and you may be tired of that. But, in the spirit of optimism, maybe you can see it as I do: a group of journalists committed to holding powerful people accountable for their promises to Americans, not because they believe those in power will always do the wrong thing, but because they hold out hope that they won’t. Crazier things have happened!
It goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway, that you, dear friend/family member/reader, are another reason to smile this week and every week! Now I’m off to watch Kiki’s Delivery Service, a childhood favorite of mine that I recently learned is on Netflix! Indeed, there are many reasons to be happy.