Hello and happy last day of Q1! When you read this, I will be on a plane to Europe to celebrate my five-year wedding anniversary (!) by biking through the tulip fields of The Netherlands. It will be rainy, but I will be prepared, having just endured the wettest winter Los Angeles has ever known.
For this issue I am moving away from the usual essay format to do my other favorite writing thing: make a really detailed list!
All my favorite newsletters periodically send content recommendations and links in some form, and I truly love an email newsletter that requires me to open 15 new tabs before I finish reading. It fills me with a sense of possibility, even if I never get to 85% of the tabs. In my dreams, I consume enough recommendable content to make this kind of list way more often, but given that I have read one (1) book in 2023 so far, we are going to try a quarterly recap instead. (If lists, links, and open tabs are not your thing, we will be back with an essay in mid-April.)
Here’s the best of what I’ve been consuming in Q1 —
Watch
Superstore! I am obsessed. Like, wrote an entire (bad) essay two weeks ago just about how all I have been doing is slow-burning Superstore - 1 or 2 episodes a night, 4 if I’m feeling really indulgent! - and relishing in the joy of having such a deep well (22 eps/season + 6 seasons!) of really amazing, loud-belly-laugh network comedy to emotionally invest in.
I am sliding into home base on Season 4 now and my crush on Ben Feldman continues to grow exponentially, fully justifying the $1.99/month I spend on Peacock.
Bridesmaids, on basic cable with commercial breaks, in Idaho last month when we couldn’t figure out how to get Netflix on my uncle’s TV (lol). Worth sitting through every single ad for. 10/10 movie. No notes.
Every episode of Alison Roman’s home movies videos with recipes from her newest cookbook, Sweet Enough, including this “simple” (not that simple tbh) fruit tart with vanilla pastry cream, which I actually made for my friends last week, and this mint chip ice cream cake, which I am eagerly awaiting an opportunity to show up and show off at a social event with.
New Joke Night at The Comedy Store, which reminded me how much I enjoy staying up way past my bedtime to laugh in a small dark room, and also introduced me to Leslie Liao & Liza Treyger, who I love now.
Also good: Succession (obviously), The Oscars, Stutz, Abbot Elementary, this one Kat Williams joke, Pat Regan live at Dynasty Typewriter, The Romy Mars TikTok (lol), and of course, the Gwyneth Paltrow trial.
Reading
All of the Alison Roman Sweet Enough press, especially/including this TIME article, and this interview mag piece, because when I have a girl crush I commit to the bit!
All of the Ozempic/Mounjaro coverage. Can’t get enough, not sure what that says about me!
So many email newsletters. I feel like I spent most of Q1 drowning in a sea of email newsletters (“research”) in an effort to procrastinate writing my own. My top 3 reads:
The Succession Power Rankings with Hunter Harris, who writes Hung Up (a paid newsletter that’s worth every penny! I have 3 more free 3-month subscriptions to give away if you want to really enhance your Succession S4 viewing experience).
“Joan Didion’s Aprons” by Stephanie Danler. This essay put words to so many of my own feelings about the Didion hype/estate sale madness after she died, and my own buy-in to Didion worship in my 20s (cringe).
“Of course everyone reveres Joan Didion. She’s peerless. It’s troubling to me that her real legacy - in our increasingly visual age - seems to have been the way she looks. She - not her words, but more her face - has become a commodity, traded, used to signal what kind of woman/reader/writer/Californian you are. And I was as guilty of it as anyone else.”
Haley Nahman’s essay “The biggest celeb in New York right now” about Flaco the Central Park owl. Sweet, fun, excellent.
“Flaco was safe in an artificial environment, never asked to bet on his instincts, or court risk in exchange for the spoils of liberty, and now here he is, shakily navigating the big bad world, outperforming the lowly estimations of his closest caretakers, rewriting the rules of his own potential. It may be easier for a zookeeper to drop a dead rat on the bottom of your cage every day, but not necessarily preferable to hunting one yourself.”
And one book: Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin, which was on every “best books of 2022” list I read last year, and very much lived up to the hype.
Listening
Approximately 100 hours of Andrew Huberman podcasts, aka 3 episodes. I have so many thoughts about Andrew Huberman (coming soon to an essay near you) but for now, I’ll just recommend this episode on accessing your creativity with Rick Rubin.
Part-moody songs about big feelings, part overt rain references, part-bangers I probably heard in a workout class? IDK, but I made it into a playlist:
Personally, my Q1 was a bit tumultuous, with big highs and big lows, but also, lots of fun, and a much more fulfilling, supportive work life that’s resulted from going into the office to give therapy in person again. Aside from Superstore, highlights included cooking for and hosting tons of friends, finishing my 3000 hours for MFT licensure, and going to a hip-hop class at Crunch WeHo that brings me so much joy I literally skip out of the building.
Also, my March Madness bracket came in 2nd place once Miami (“The U”) made it to the Final Four. I have no words! Except maybe… party in the city where the heat is on?
Thanks, as always, for reading. If you consumed anything amazing in Q1, I’m taking recommendations for Q2 and will get to them as soon as I finish Superstore.
Rick Rubin is awesome, i have his new book "The Creative Act" sitting on my desk, unread, but it's next up after i finish my current book. his interview on Ezra Klien's interview podcast was so so good. highly recommend
but i'm off Huberman. way more into Peter Attia (check him out if you haven't already)