What I'm grateful for right now
Bonfires, hot lead singers, friends becoming friends with each other
It’s been over a month since I published my first newsletter! I had hoped to write to you sooner and more frequently, but we can’t schedule our mini mental breakdowns for when they’re most convenient. Glad to be back.
I don’t have anything new or inspiring to say about the elephant in the room — last week’s election. I’m still really disappointed, especially after having spent a 16-hour day as an election judge. I don’t regret it for a second, though. It was grueling, rewarding work, and I have a new respect for how safely and fairly elections are conducted, no matter the outcome. Most voters were really nice and excited to participate — some for the first time — in what’s left of our democracy.
Right now, I’m seeking comfort in my friends and doing what I can to be offline, though it’s not easy! I don’t know what my political engagement looks like in the coming years, but I’m starting to come out of hibernation journalistically. More to come later.
As destabilizing as the past month has been, I am grateful for connection, for growth, for embracing new things and leaving behind old things that aren’t serving me. This newsletter isn’t a journal or a group chat, but this is the closest I’ll get.
Here are the parts I loved and embraced in October and November:
A friend texting me to say he’s “here” at the diner when I, too, was “here” at the diner, before realizing he mistakenly biked to Golden Nugget instead of Golden House
Debriefing over diner pancakes and extra bacon
Birdwatching, again, and feeling grateful for what is fleeting and easily missed
Getting my millionth COVID-19 vaccine (I lost count)
Seeing a new-to-me band in concert and thinking it would be country when it was actually Motown
Hot lead singers
Bars open past 11 pm
Talking over the phone with someone I was hung up on a few years ago, and realizing time can do so much (it was fine!)
Watching Hannah Montana, not being a child star
Impromptu dinner parties
Hosting my own Halloween party after wanting for years to go to a party where all my friends are (as it turns out, no other person has all my friends 🙂)
Making new single women friends
Watching your friends become friends with each other
Cutting my hair short after years of the same hairstyle, embracing the closest I can get to Brigitte Lin in Chungking Express without going blonde
Watching the ducks at Humboldt Park
Squirrels, in general, and finding joy in the boring animals that are basically everywhere (what a gift)
Ada Limón’s poetry (Against Nostalgia, What I Didn’t Know Before, Sometimes I Think My Body Leaves a Shape in the Air)
Attachment theory (cringe, I know, I’m sorry too!!)
Friends who will listen to you rant but know how and when to deliver the necessary tough love
Knowing when to stop
Open House Chicago, and the city’s beautiful ethnic and cultural diversity
Thai chili wings at Chicago Diner
Buffalo chicken dip as classic party appetizer
Hot Pockets (literally so bad for you, I never promised to have good taste)
Free pizza
The simple pleasure of a roast chicken and the promise of a rich stock for the freezer
Julio Torres and his beautiful mind
Making extremely detailed lists
Daily journaling
Injustice Watch’s judicial election guide — always a lifesaver
Vintage sweaters
This essay about raising a person in a culture full of types
EBT cards and Medicaid
Statement earrings
Stained glass windows
Ladybugs
Those 12-foot Halloween skeletons and how no one has taken down their Halloween decorations yet
Gay Halloween costumes (I loved the two dumb bitches telling each other exactlyyyy, the South Korean shooter from the Olympics, Alex Turner in Cornerstone)
Galleys (excited for Jeremy Gordon’s SEE FRIENDSHIP)
Free operas for the community
Bonfires
Pretending a banana is a phone — classic timeless gag
FOIA strategies
Long voice memos
Leather sneakers (no matter what the haters say)