Sunday Sharies
First of all, thank you to everyone for the happy birthday wishes. For two years in a row now, I did not cry on or about my birthday. It’s a streak I would love to see continued in the coming years. Truly, I felt so loved and celebrated. I wouldn’t want to have any life but mine.
My sister graciously offered to throw me a birthday party, and we agreed that Makenzie should host because she has a great house. Maybe ten days ago I dreamt that I told Laura I wanted the brunch to be “crewneck sweatshirt and yoga pants” themed. We then made it a dream come true, and everyone kept saying it was a great theme. Try it at your next wedding or baby shower!
Basic enough to admit I’m still a sucker for a Fujifilm polaroid even though these babies get printed and then just sit on my dress until I put them in the back of my journal because I don’t know what else to do!
This newsletter is a little late because I thought I had a lot of homework, turns out I have a ton of homework. These things happen.
This sentence now has links to the my instagram, and old issues of the newsletter. I hope today is beautiful for you.
Number One: Wordle // Nerdle
I love Wordle. It might be this moment’s Flappy Bird, but I am so much better at it than I ever was at Flappy Bird. I’ve never lost, my starting word is “liner,” or “roast.”
Don’t think you’re too cool for Wordle, just embrace it. Pick your five letter starter and just enjoy.
My engineer friend, Rachel told me about Nerdle which is Wordle, but with math. I like it too, I’m just not as quick.
Number Two: Winter Squash and Kale Pasta
This year I’m trying this thing where Monday night is recipe night. This comes as a response to a few facts: I want to try new recipes, I usually grocery shop on Sundays, Mondays are currently my most-free evening, Mondays are also when I have the most try-something-new energy. And so, Monday night is recipe night.
A few weeks ago, I made this Winter Squash and Kale Pasta from Bon App. I ended up halving the recipe, but using the full recommended amount of butter. I absolutely would make it again. It was hearty, it was crunchy, it was involved to make, but not to a silly degree. I don’t think you need the Parmesan, which I am surprising myself in saying, but if you have it on hand, great.
Number Three: First Annual Boss Baby Symposium
One of the most beautiful thing to come out of last year’s powerpoint party craze is the Boss Baby Symposium. This might be a long shot, but I think if we as a culture want to be better at reading academic journals so that we can use time-tested methods to educate ourselves, it starts with taking seriously silly things.
Anyway, you can read more here.
The actual day dug into all things Boss Baby through seven 15-minute talks accompanied by ten-minute Q&As, which can be relived on YouTube. (There was no charge to attend, and all proceeds from the event’s merch store went toward the children’s legal-advocacy charity CASA.) The range of approaches was inspired, and the PowerPoint visuals were breathtaking. Catherine Clement of Northeastern University proposed that the Boss Baby actually has a lot in common with child leaders in ancient mythology, as proven by a slide juxtaposing the “attempted infanticides” of the Boss Baby and Astyanax.
Number Four: Coolors // Just the recipe dot com // MSCI
Coolors is a cool website if you’re trying to create a color pallet for something. I used it when I was picking out paint colors for my house and was reminded this week how fun it is to just click through.
Justtherecipe.com is great for when you want to skip through the SEO/for trademark purposes blog post and just get the recipe.
I spent an evening looking up companies in my stock portfolio on MSCI’s ESG rating. I’ll tell anyone who wants to know that Adidas is surprisingly responsible.
Number Five: “If everything is trauma, is anything?”
This Op-Ed in the NYTimes tries to answer that question. It talks about the “semantic creep” of the word “trauma” - how it has slowly taken hold of our collective vocabulary, and the associated “trauma creep” of the broadening definition of the word.
But as words gain useful new meanings, over time, they can also lose precision.
I don’t know that I fully agree with the author, or even disagree, but I’ve been thinking all week about how I use therapy jargon in everyday life for better or for worse.
Currently Reading: The Anglican Way // Ending Overcriminalization and Mass Incarceration // Psalms // Isaiah - I think I’m becoming increasingly fun to talk to at parties.