1. back to basics: reading and writing
I had been (slightly) off the grid for a month or so at the beginning of the year, and it's been well over that since I've sent a newsletter. My BFF/soul sister/fellow blogger sent out her newsletter recently (subscribe here, hi Alex!) and it inspired me to raid your inboxes once again.
Back to being off the grid, I recently went through an overhaul of my emotional and digital wellbeing. Long story short, after a chaotic depressive episode, I cleared house of everything online that drained me, (i.e. Instagram) and boy, it's been pretty freaking great. (Although, I still use Tiktok, but that's a story for another time.)
Since I've said sayonara to an app that only was adding insecurity to my life, I have been able to do so. much. more. To fill my time with something other than mindless scrolling, I've started reading… a lot. I read more books in January than I did the entirety of last year. I had forgotten how much I love to read, and how much I wish I could be a journalist.
There's something about reading a well-written piece, whether it's a book or an essay or an article, that just fills the soul up and over. So, I've decided to share some amazing things I've read lately:
Thanksgiving in Mongolia by Ariel Levy, The New Yorker. {TW: miscarriage} You may (or may not) have seen Levy's memoir titled “The Rules Do Not Apply” in a bookstore or people posting photos of it a couple years back. It's on my to-read list, but I did get the chance to read this essay, which won her the 2014 National Magazine Award for essays and criticism. Picture me hunched over an iPad at work (sorry to my boss, it was slow!) reading this piece so intensely. It details the event that catapulted her life into the ebbs and flows of grief and loss.
The Most Gullible Man in Cambridge by Kera Bolonik, The Cut. I'm sure I've already shared this article somewhere on the interwebs, but I'm doing it again because it's that. freaking. good. A Harvard Law professor who teaches a class on judgment and decision-making gets conned, scammed, blackmailed, by a mysterious woman. Yes, this is a true story. No, you can't make this up. Also, here's the follow-up article on the whole thing. What a freaking saga. (Follow-up: apparently, there are some accusations about the professor being harassed by the journalist who wrote the article, so read everything with a grain of salt.)
I Was Caroline Calloway by Natalie Beach, The Cut. Honestly, I only know about this drama from seeing acquaintances, who are authentically cooler than I'll ever be, post about this essay on their Instagram stories. Basically, an Instagram influencer used one of her close friends to ghost-write the captions she'd later become famous for. After a book deal Caroline couldn't follow through with, ripping off Matisse artworks as her own, and charging almost $200 for “creativity workshops”, her former friend Natalie had enough and was ready to tell her side of the story.
I hope at least one of these articles, or even just this newsletter, provided you with a semblance of entertainment or inspiration for the weekend.
Thank you for reading.
Much love,
Sar