Give It Up
na na na na na na na na na na noooww
We missed a week last week! We knew this would happen eventually. We’re a Type-capital-A crew and I was worried this would weigh on us. Each day we pushed the newsletter back a day, one of us needing “just a little more time!” or “promis[ing] I’ll write something tonight!” and then it was Saturday, and we all had batteries to recharge, and we silently looked at each other (at least that’s what we would have done if we weren’t all just texting) and nodded and decided to give ourselves a little grace.
None of you emailed or screamed or @’d us about how we GRAVELY DISAPPOINTED YOU by not serving up a soup recipe or a haircare product endorsement or an irreverent gif last week, and the world kept on spinning, and we all hopefully caught up on our shows and slept in a little later instead. And readers, it was worth it. Don’t let your fun stuff become work, or you’ll die.
So we’re back and refreshed and clearly have a LOT to spew out of our well-rested brains this week (today’s word count: holy shitballs).
Buckle up!
Where We’re At
Cat
Most of my life I’ve been pretty quick to answer the “If you could have one superpower…” question. My answer was, “I’d have the ability to fly.” Easy. Anyone who says “super strength” or “invisibility” is a chump. Only recently (since our little roommate showed up) have I discovered that I too have been a chump. The correct, if slightly less glamorous, answer is “the power to instantly be showered without having to take a shower.”
Real talk — babies wreck your personal hygiene. It’s a slippery slope when the person to whom you are most accountable is neither old enough to judge you based on social standards nor capable of remonstration should they find your greasiness displeasing. It’s not that I don’t want to shower, that I don’t enjoy blow drying my hair or wearing make up. It’s just that the tiny tyrant we made is demanding and sometimes other priorities butt in ahead of a good scrub.
There are moments that necessitate immediate bath time (for baby and adult alike) such as unfortunately aimed spit up or an excessively messy diaper, but lately I’ve been realizing I’m developing a bit of an over dependance on dry shampoo and face wipes. Saturday morning I had a come-to-Jesus moment. Jordan had thrown up his pain medication the previous night and was sleeping until his morning meds kicked in, and though the baby didn’t seem to mind my general haggardness I needed a shower. For sanity. And…sanitation.
After texting Lizzie for sage advice re: bathing with bebe I am proud to announce I had my first multigenerational bath. After I had drawn the bath (with Baby’s tub also full but inside adult bath to maximize spatial awkwardness) I pulled up Spotify and quickly typed “music for babies.” I didn’t listen long enough to get a solid feel for the station before climbing into the tub which is how I found myself staring into the face of an amused but confused six-month-old while listening to a baby-fied instrumental version of Angie by The Rolling Stones.
Parenting is weird and funny (and amazing and exhausting yada yada yada) and as I looked at my daughter in the tub I thought, “This is where we are.” Our living room isn’t always tidy and my legs aren’t always shaved but we’re figuring it out one day, one shower (or crowded baby bath) at a time.
What We’re Reading
Lydia
The past several years my house has felt like The Island of Misfit Books: unloved, unfinished. While I identify as a reader, I’ve struggled to finish books lately, let alone in a timely manner. But let’s focus on the victories: here are a couple of books that I’ve finished recently plus a recent addition to my nightstand stack.
Go Ahead in the Rain - Hanif Abdurraqib
The Columbus, Ohio-raised author released this in Spring 2019. The book is a self-proclaimed love letter to A Tribe Called Quest, with Fife as its main subject. Abdurraqib writes about how Tribe’s music and each of the member’s experiences influenced the grand scheme of the hip-hop world, while simultaneously weaving in and out of stories of his own intimate experiences with the music — shaping how others viewed him or serving as soundtracks to the highs and lows of his life. I follow Abdurraqib on Insta. He’s in his early 30’s (like most of us), and his writing walks this line of guarded and raw in his social media and his musings. He’s obsessed with music of all types, he’s hip yet nerdy AF, and he’s been an instrumental influence on how I’ve experienced this year in Columbus.
Sula - Toni Morrison
I lost my planned travel book as I deplaned in Portland, so I perused my friends’ bookshelves and grabbed this. I’ve never read any of Morrison’s work before and this 1973 novel was a fantastic introduction. The short novel is centered around a small community in Ohio from the 1920s-1960s, centered on the women in two families, particularly Sula and Nel. The story is visceral in its beauty and its brutalities, all the while detailing how these women grow and fall apart together. It was a fast read with a slow, detailed cadence that keeps you plugged in through the last word.
Too Much and Not the Mood - Durga Chew-Bose
I’m currently in the midst of devouring this one. The title draws from a line in a Virginia Woolf diary entry expressing the frustrations of editing and writing for others. This book of essays is filled with meandering prose that pieces together Chew-Bose’s parents’ and grandparents’ histories, intermingling them with her day-to-day love of sports, movies, writing and an introverted life in big cities. She’s witty, she’s verbose, she’s nostalgic and shows such love for everything around her. Her enthusiasm has soaked into my soul.
On Balance
Ruth
I used to say that my true friends would understand if I don’t text or call them regularly. That they will totally understand me and know how exhausting my job could be and that with the little downtime I have, I usually just want to sleep or veg out on the couch before working another 24 hrs straight. I hate that it took me this long, into my mid-30s, to realize that that is NO WAY to sustain a friendship. I’ve never been one to have 20-30 friends, always having a group to go hang out with on the weekends. I always stuck with the 2-3 friends that I felt very close with, and that was enough for me.
My best friend and I were talking one day about what friendship means to us: what kind of friend are we to each other, and to others? We both concluded that maybe the reason why we have a few, close friends is because we put so much weight on the word ‘friend’.
To me, it comes with high expectations and standards, a ride-or-die, bad-boys-for-life kind of loyalty, which in my opinion is rare. If I can’t offer the kind of loyalty Martin Lawrence gives to Will Smith, then it’s difficult to put in that effort. It’s all or nothing.
But then I noticed that with some people I’ve felt close with, I have lost touch within a year. Then, an occasional ‘happy birthday’ message revives a short-lived banter via text or FB message for the next 2 days post-birthday message, then slowly fades away again. It started to bother me, and to be honest with you, it started to get kind of lonely. But then I would go back to my belief of ‘well if they were my true friends, they should always be there’ which I think is TOTALLY WRONG.
I’ve come to learn that there has got to be a balance. A balance between still being that loyal and supportive friend and not thinking that requires me to drop everything else in my life in order to do so. A lot of the times I do blame my job — but to give myself some grace here, it is mentally, emotionally and physically draining. I have to remind myself that other people don’t know what goes on in my head, so they don’t know how important they are to me unless I express it. To some, this may sound silly, that I’m making it so hard, but I think it does take a lot, especially if they’re important and meaningful relationships.
The friends I have in my life currently are all amazing and supportive, just wonderful people. I only wish I could have been a better friend to them and others I’ve lost touch with earlier in my life, now that I feel like I’m equipped to be a better friend.
That all being said, there is also the other extreme, of giving too much and not getting anything back in return. As Queen Latifah boisterously sang in ‘Chicago,’ this little thing called reciprocity. Have you ever been in a one-sided relationship or friendship? I definitely have and it took me, again, way too long to learn to let go of those friends and move on.
There’s this 80/20 business principle that often pops up in books explaining this whole concept. Imagine you own a small business or boutique. If 80% of your profit comes from your regular customers which make up about 20% of your whole clientele, you shouldn’t spread yourself so thin to try and satisfy 100% of your customers. Instead, invest more of your efforts into that 20%, and really nurture that, because in the end, it will be more profitable.
People have since recognized that same principle manifesting in their personal relationships. I think it makes so much sense and is consistent with my philosophy on friendships.
My friends deserve a good friend in me. Sorry it took a few decades to figure it out.... Actually, I’m still trying to figure it all out, if you couldn’t tell.
Sustenance
Priya
Remember a few weeks ago when I wrote about meal-prepping? Well, sometimes I don’t feel like it. Instead, I do one of three things. 1) Order food. Helloooo, GrubHub / Caviar / Uber Eats / Postmates / Doordash / Go Puff! 2) Heat up a frozen Cauliflower pizza (brand of choice: CauliPower). Add copious hot sauce, the spicier the better. 3) Make a big ol’ soup.
Here’s a big ol’ soup I made last week, and it was soooo good:
Ingredients:
Spicy Italian sausage, 1 lb, casings removed, crumbled
Wild mushroom variety pack, 4 oz
One small head of cauliflower, chopped into florets
Kale, 12 oz, chopped
Medium sized carrots, four, chopped into half-moons
Chicken bone broth, 48 oz
Red onion, chopped
Garlic, 4 cloves, chopped
Italian seasoning, chili flakes (to taste, but a fuck-ton)
Salt, pepper (to taste, some)
Directions:
Heat dutch oven, medium-high heat. When hot, add sausage, stirring occasionally, until browned. Add onion, stirring occasionally, until translucent. Add garlic and cook for another minute or so. Next, add mushrooms, cauliflower, carrots, bone broth, and spices. Let boil, then reduce to a simmer. Stir and cover. Let that be for a while. Later, when you get out of the shower, add the kale, stirring occasionally, and cover. Add more spices, because you’re a spicy gal. Respond to some emails, stir a few more times, and reduce heat. Let it sit for a bit. Find some fuzzy socks and crack open a La Croix. Pour yourself some soup. Serve with multi-grain crackers. Brush your teeth, do your face routine, and go to bed.
Endorsements
Lizzie
I was all set to endorse the game “fuck-marry-kill” this week after an illuminating exchange on our text thread about the love interests on “Gilmore Girls” (Jess-Dean-Logan, FIGHT ME) until I read Ruth’s lovely and deeply relatable rumination on friendship maintenance above. Instead, I want to endorse something I’ve really relied on this past year of career- and baby-craziness in my life: the marathon, deep-download catchup call.
I think Ruth and I have similar baseline friendship philosophies. We’re all busy, and ambitious, and maintain a mutually understood balance of understanding and acceptance and absence-makes-the-heart-grow-fonder vibes when we fall in and out of touch. But in the last two weeks (which have been especially hectic for me) two of my friends from college have reached out with the simplest, kindest friendship-resurrection olive branch: “catch-up call this week?”
Chelsea lives in New York and works in D.C. We were roommates in college, and I visited her cute Brooklyn apartment two summers ago for a perfect girls weekend of bar-hopping and movies in parks and eating pizza standing up in the street. A lot of our texts are hype checks where we psyche each other up about negotiating raises, dealing with OWM (old white men) & their bullshit in the workplace, etc. I call her my expert “badass business bitch” (<— accurate).
Me & Chelsea (far left) with our third roommate Emily (center) circa 2010.
Jenny and I both work in media, her in Boston now, and we lived together during a hilariously impoverished time in my life when we were both interning at magazines in New York. (We had to pass through her bedroom to get to the bathroom and the kitchen. I shared a room with one queen mattress and a twin on the floor, and every 2 weeks we rotated who got the “good bed.”) I haven’t seen Jenny since her wedding party in Cape Cod last fall (she eloped, then threw a rager! She’s so cool).
Me tackling Jenny at the Women’s March in D.C., also circa 2010. bbs!
Our catch-up calls this week were so, so good. They filled up and then overflowed my female friendship gas tank. We talked about our family lives and the state of our industries and where our classmates are now and our cats (and their Instagram accounts). It was exactly that hanging-out-half-watching-reality-TV vibe time that is so precious and so effortless when you’re living with roommates.
So my endorsement for you, Ruth, and for everyone juggling those long-term, ride-or-die “Bad Boys” friendships is the “hey it’s been a minute, catch-up call?” It’s something so simple that I cherish so, so much.
Something Positive
Lydia
An Ode to Disco in 2020
My coworker often plays KC & the Sunshine Band’s “Give It Up” late on Saturday nights. These nights are always busy, and late into the evening our brains are succumbing to the repetitive bursts of activity as guests relentlessly demand something better, something faster, something more. Meanwhile, KC&tSB’s funky beats are breaking through, allowing autopilot to kick in and adding a pep to my step with each “na na na na na na na na na na noooww.” I continue to hustle around the dining room lip-syncing and head bobbing between resetting and checking on my tables. As guests order more drinks, the bartender and I shimmy shoulders together while he shakes and stirs cocktails, trading smiles over our little secret. Our coworkers are consumed by their frustrations with each other and guests while the bartender and I are transported into sun-filled daydreams of cars with the windows down and singing songs at the top of our lungs.
Crack a La Croix and slurp some soup this week,
