Well, hello.
I know. I haven’t written a Five Things in a few weeks, some might call it several, I know. I sent my friend Claire this photo of Honey, and she told me to include it in Five Things, which necessitated a newsletter.
Will Five Things continue into 2024? I don’t know. I really cannot say goodbye. I can’t close the book. But I also feel busier and less online, which means less content.
The other thing is that I’m getting married this year and I am obsessed with this. I am constantly thinking about the wedding, thinking about life after the wedding, thinking about things I need to get done before the wedding (rotate the rugs). And that’s not good content either. And the included in me doesn’t like talking about a party that not everyone is invited to.
Keep your inbox open. Unsubscribe as needed. I am hopeful that a new rhythm will find this newsletter soon.
Either way, I hope today is beautiful for you.
Number One: photos of my side part days
Podcast ads for the Aura frame are haunting me, following my every move. So I took my quest for a digital picture frame to a group text and my friend Abby recommended the Google Nest Hub. It was on our registry, but kept going in and out of stock at Target, so I thought, why not I’ll buy. And gang, I love it way more than I thought I would. For a girl who refuses to activate Siri on my phone, I am bossing this thing around to start timers five times a day.
Anyway, it also serves as a digital picture frame. (And here’s the deal, I don’t LOVE digital picture frames, they seem impersonal, but this ad, it haunts me.) It’s connected to my google photos account, which I used to back up my photos to religiously. But ever since I started paying for iCloud and doing my daily photo deleting, it just hasn’t been as necessary.
Until now. And what has happened now is that I am having to come to terms with just how many boys I took pictures with in my teens and 20s. Everyday, I walk into my kitchen and it’s like, “oh yeah that guy from the RUF intern class I had a crush on…” I must have taken 1000 photos in the hours before the 2009 winter formal at my high school the way these photos are featured every hour. It is truly humbling.
The hack here is to limit the pool of photos Google can draw from, maybe I will, maybe I won’t.
Number Two: I like the Twitter For You Page
I deleted Instagram off my phone AND iPad. Probably until the wedding. I am giving myself permission to get back on in February if I want to, but only if I want to. I still have a twitter account, which I used to never check, but Elon and his algo have figured out that I like reading little crowd-sourced call outs like this one, and I spend way too much time refreshing the page.
https://twitter.com/weischoice/status/1737163464336937066
Number Three: Past Lives
On twitter I saw a screen grab from the movie Past Lives, and it intrigued me. So I talked Chris into renting the movie from Amazon and watching it with me that very night. I loved it. It was so beautiful and sweet and sad and it made me want to visit Korea. Sad and good, which is sometimes nice in January.
Number Four: You Could Make this Place Beautiful
Also sad and good: the book You Could Make this Place Beautiful. Spectacularly written. It’s about divorce. And it’s interesting to read in light of “How to Stay Married” which was a top read of mine in 2023.
The author described the pandemic years with her children marked by “unselfconscious joy, tenderness, and togetherness” and that’s my mantra for the new year.
Number Five: Darts
I had never ever played darts until September of last year, and I had a major stroke of beginners luck. We played again last night, and all I have been able to think about today is wanting to play darts again. Something about it. So fun. So satisfying.