Are we having fun yet?

On bad wine, prioritizing rest, and fighting SAD

Ten minutes ago, I took some scissors to a bag-in-box wine in the fridge and dumped it all in the sink.

It was 90-percent full, but it was so cooked, so unpleasant tasting, dumping it was for the best. What was I gonna do, stomach shitty wine just cuz I paid for it?

This has been my life lately: Excising that which doesn’t inspire joy or utility.

Another anecdote: A couple of weekends back, Ian and I shut out the world for a day. We’ve both been go-go-go in our day-to-day, and barely spoke when we got home — we only had energy for dinner, 30 minutes of TV, bed time.

The weekend we hermitted wasn’t particularly special — we arbitrarily decided to stay home and spend time together. Ian made James Beard’s incredible meatloaf from his 1972 cookbook American Cookery, I chilled down some perfectly ripe cherries and mangos. We took some shrooms (more on that another day), lit candles, put on some vinyl and… time slipped away.

The whole day felt like floating on a lazy river as the sun sets: full of ease and not a care in the world. We giggled, we danced, I languished in bed, Ian did crafts. We came back together to snack, and chat about everything small and big: Our finances, the state of art, Bingley’s goofiness. Our little pocket universe was suffused with light and color and gratitude. How privileged we were to just… be, in a space built with our effort and love.

That day was a balm for my lemming brain, which never ceases to worry or invent problems, and a reminder that making time for rest and prioritizing pleasure is not only necessary, but imperative. Add me to the chorus of people advocating for ending hustle culture.

In a roundabout way, this is why I dumped that wine: It was bitter and tasted like spoiled raisins, taking up space in my fridge which could be better used for something truly delicious.

What’s a piece of rubbish you can toss away, today, right now?

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Laziness does not exist, so let’s call my last few weeks a “fallow period.” My old nemesis, summer seasonal affective disorder, has reared its ugly head, so I haven’t been as active as usual — which perpetuates the “I feel like crap” cycle but here we are. Good news: I’ve been working through it and turned a corner this week. (It’s why you’re getting this newsletter!) In the meantime, here’s a list of stuff bringing me small joys:

• I’m functionally off Twitter*, but I still allow myself an occasional scroll. My pal Karen K. Ho recently tweeted about dealing with the comparison trap, and I simply had to respond with a succinct reminder from my last therapist: “Other people’s success is not my failure.” Hope it helps you as much as it helps me.

• Speaking of success, I guess I should note that my team at The Philadelphia Inquirer won Second Place for Best Consumer/Service Features by the Society for Features Journalism in their annual Awards! I am trying harder not to minimize my wins, so… Go team!

• *I sunset my Twitter account — going private and deleting all of my tweets (yes, all of them) — and it has been the absolute best thing I could do for my mental health. You should too! Yes, I could fully just delete it, but I don’t want some troll to take my account name and impersonate me. (Very unlikely but you never know.) I’m on BlueSky and Threads, but mostly just so no one steals my username, @joeybear85, which I’ve had for 14 years now.

• Related: This post from writer Rachel Cargle hit me deep, and when I re-shared on my IG, a lot of my fellow 30-somethings felt similarly. Lots of us are feeling angsty this summer, and I appreciate the company!

Rachel Elizabeth Cargle

Rachel Elizabeth Cargle on Instagram: “In my book A Renaissance of Our Own I talk about the ways I, early on in life, decided to hop off what I call the “life escalator”. This ongoing progression through life with predetermined benchmarks and socially agreed upon measures of success.
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Divorcing from a “good man”, the decision to be a woman who is child free, cultivating a values based career avoiding industry standards, founding an organization centered solely on the wellness and goodness of Black women and girls…….
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Being in my 30’s has given me pause to consider my own next steps in a way that requires a self study, a self knowing, and most importantly honesty with myself when I whisper “Is this what you actually want?”
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Sending love to all of us in our 30’s and anyone else read this and felt that it might have been written just for them.
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Drop a comment or emoji to let me know you’re here. I like to know that we’re here together in the midst of it all”

July 14, 2023

• On a less serious note, I absolutely love my high-pressure hose attachment. It is magic!!

• Back in May, I got to see Sasha Velour’s show at Kimmel Center and bought her new book, The Big Reveal, a tour-de-force of multimedia, blending essays and memoir, celebrating drag’s past and ushering in its future. Highly recommend if you’re interested in drag’s evolution, queer history and commentary; Sasha is an incredible stage presence, and on the page, she’s erudite and provocative.

• This simply lovely poem:

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  @poetryisnotaluxury on Instagram: “Brenda Shaughnessy @brendashaughnes The Dessert I Didn’t Have Grilled peaches on shortbread with raspberries and black pepper ice cream.
  We’re all out, said the communicative waiter.
  That was twelve years ago. From The Octopus Museum
  @aaknopf 2019. #brendashaughnessy
  #poetryisnotaluxury”

  June 23, 2023

• I hate how hot and humid it is, because 1) I hate sweating and 2) I have traded my beloved walking routine for indoor A/C. I’m basic, sue me. I miss peeking into other people’s gardens and patios, admiring their flowers and shrubbery. Bed-Stuy really has its gardening game down — I really should just suck it up and go outside. On the plus side, my own garden is thriving:

  

• Recent comfort rewatches: Sense8; Her; Girl Next Door; Avatar: The Last Airbender; Smiley.

• Recent books I’d recommend: Yellowface by R.F. Kuang; Wow, no thank you by Samantha Irby; Women and Other Monsters by Jess Zimmerman; Less by Andrew Sean Greer.

• Internet comment culture is wild. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t see someone complaining that an artist’s work is “overpriced” or something equally inane. One version of this I see in the interior design space is someone commenting “what about the next buyer?” when the creator does something individual or original in their home… What about them?! Are you living for some hypothetical stranger you don’t know, who may or may not buy your home years from now, or are you enjoying your space, your way, right now? What an inane question. This piece from WaPo gets into this a bit further, exploring how HGTV and the like have given us boring aesthetics, and how people “[fall] into the same trap of prioritizing other people’s opinions over their own.” How boring and sad.

• Lastly: “Likability is a prison.” - John Mulaney in his latest special, Baby J.