Happy Mother’s Day!
I don’t think anyone has ever asked me, “what the plan for Five Things this month?” Even though I always feel the need to answer that question. People do regularly ask, “what’s your newsletter about?” And we are almost 150 weeks into this thing, and I still don’t know.
Anyway, the plan for this Five-Sunday month is that our girl Becca is guest writing next week, the week after that will be a subscribers-only issue with more long-form thoughts. Then the fifth Sunday, we’ll either take a break, or I would love to do a recipe round up of your favorite Summer salads. Backyard hangs are back on the menu this summer, so send me your Summer sides. Be a participator, not just a spectator!
The long term plan is to keep writing this newsletter until it stops being fun. But also to take a little break in July, stay tuned for more details on that.
This sentence now has links to the my instagram, and old issues of the newsletter.
You can still have a bunch of Five Things stickers and magnets, so sign up here and eagerly await some snail mail. Running low on magnets, so if you want one, sign up sooner rather than later.
Number One: Article Round Up
There are weeks when I read zero interesting articles and then there are weeks when I read fifteen. So here are four.
I loved this piece from Sanni McCandless, better known as Alex from Free Solo’s girlfriend.
We fell in love in front of a film crew, knowing that if it didn’t work out, we’d have complicated many people’s lives for nothing. We had to discuss not only the prospect of death, but what we each needed to truly feel alive. The overwhelming sea of press and publicity taught me to let go of what other people think of me and my relationship. Most important, because of Free Solo, when it comes to the dance between closeness and independence, I can finally ask: “Why not both?”
This piece one the one-way friendships of following influencers was fascinating and put words to something that I think most of us on social media, or even you as a newsletter reader, feel. These parasocial relationships affect our behavior, and it’s kinda wild when you think about it.
If you have enough New Yorker articles left this month, this piece on Chinese immigrant smugglers is sad and eye-opening and shocking.
I love Clare Malone and miss her insight on the 538 Politics podcast, but enjoyed this piece from her on news influencers. We’re all consuming news even if we don’t get 18 daily emails on it. And it’s kind of wild to think about what the future of news will look like.
Number Two: The Circle
Circle, message Five Things readers…
Hey y’all exclamation point Last summer my friend Kyra told me I should watch The Circle on Netflix, but I ignored her advice until this last week monkey covering eyes emoji #oopsiedaisy
And now I am low key obsessed with this dumb show cowboy emoji Season one is better than season two #justoveractinginseasontwo #teamShubie in my opinion winky face emoji purple heart emoji
I love the energy and vibes, it is so authentic #friendsforlife It is also chaotic and low stakes. Season one ended with some really great meta-commentary on friendship #Ihopeyouwatch #jftf It’s also the kind of show where you can just fast forward to the interesting parts if you want to #mykindofparty
Number Three: My new favorite way to receive thank you notes
I usually tell my friends that are getting married or having a baby that they do not need to send me a thank you note for my gift. I know they are sending 200 other thank you notes, and I know they are grateful, so they can just thank me in person or whatever. Plus I usually read the, “thank you so much for the dish towels we love using them to dry dishes,” and then feel bad for throwing the card away.
It would appear I forgot to tell Shannon and Tom to not send me a thank you note because they sent one and included a little polaroid of the pillows I sent, and I am obsessed. I don’t know why getting a picture just filled me up, but it did. I am hanging onto this picture forever.
For what it’s worth, I resisted getting an Instax Mini for a long time, but then I did, and I love it. Nostalgia in the moment, just my favorite thing.
Number Four: Are animated dads getting hotter?
A look at the science.
It wasn’t until recently that Pixar came on the scene and cracked the code wide open. “Pixar doesn’t do an ugly dad,” Adewunmi said. But the Pixar dads aren’t hot in the same way that, say, Regé-Jean Page from “Bridgerton” is hot: Instead, they’re humble-hot, often rumpled and lived-in, like you searched for a nice-looking ex on Facebook and found that he’s got a wife, kids and that certain something-something.
In the words of “Mulan,” sign me up for the next revolution!
Number Five: Buying gifts wholesale
Speaking of gifts and thank you notes, it is not too early to start thinking about Christmas. Maybe it is. This is my advice though, if like me you spend the year kinda stinking it up on birthday gifts so you need to come through on Christmas gifts for your friends, buy wholesale.
I’m still exploring the best practices here, but this is what I did last year, and will do again this year:
In early October I e-mailed a small business whose product I love and said something along the lines of, “Hi! I love your product, and am planning to buy a bunch of it as Christmas gifts for friends this year. I am looking to buy 15-20 of the same thing and was wondering if I could get a promo code or access to wholesale pricing. I love love using this product, and know my friends will too!” I was fully prepared to hear “no,” or nothing at all, but instead I got 40% off, and now the owner and I e-mail back and forth sometimes.
This year I may just buy everyone a can of tennis balls so they get the hint that I’m trying to play tennis more. TBD.
Happy Birthday to my mom, Five Things #1 fan, and also maybe the most popular guest writer yet! My mom has taught me a lot about what it means to be a good friend. This week a couple folks from one of my grad school classes met up for drinks, and me and the professor’s wife discovered that she and my mom are friends, and it was a total blast. The prof’s wife also told me I would find love soon, and I was like wow, thank you, would take this class again if I could. After, one my classmates remarked, “so crazy that she and your mom are friends, small world!” And I was like, “Yeah, I mean, throw a rock, hit one of my mom’s good friends, she’s just like that.” She is, and we all love her for it.
Here she is in her element, being a total babe at a National Park.