I’m grateful for.. (💻 the almost internet-free edition)

Some thoughts & recommendations to start your weekend

😻 essential cuddles!

I’m grateful to have arrived at my work location for the day, where the view is stunningly beautiful and where I have all my supplies for a cozy, productive day.

I’m grateful that I felt like I was going camping when I left the house this morning, with my flask of hot tea, many layers of cozy clothing and several different kinds of moisturising products. I am grateful to know who I am enough to know what I need for a need for a comfortable, productive day. I’m grateful to not have internet as I write, which is frustrating and also pleasing. I’m grateful to know that when I say I “don’t have internet” what I mean is that the laptop I’m typing these words on isn’t connected to the world wide web, but the phone next to me is. I’m grateful that there is also publicly available wifi in this space and that all I need to do is ask for it. Actually, I’m not grateful for that!

I’m grateful to be young enough to remember a world before we lived on the internet. I’m grateful for my memory of the infuriating dial-up noise, and how my time online was strictly limited. I’m grateful for how teenage me copy/pasted the things she wanted to read into word document, a practice I continue (albeit in a more techie way) with Instapaper.

I’m grateful to have listened to this conversation with Zadie Smith who wondered what it must have been like to go through life with no sense of what you looked like. If you were poor, you might look in a river to see your reflection. If you were rich, you may have had a mirror but the world was not primarily orientated around appearances. I’m grateful to know that human beings have always wanted to adorn themselves, to present themselves in ways that are pleasing and attractive. I’m grateful to have discovered

Jessica DeFino

’s work and for how it is shifting my thinking on the beauty industry. (Good additional resources on the topic include:

Tressie McMillan Cottom

& her book Thick which blew my mind, and

Arabelle Sicardi

whose forthcoming book is about the connection between beauty and terror.)

I’m grateful from the writing I do¹ that isn’t connected to the internet, where I can’t simply embed a link but have to use language to convey my ideas. I’m grateful for my archival minds which naturally compiles reading lists. I’m grateful for the energy I find in strange juxtapositions, and how my work allows me to burrow deeper into weird little idiosyncrasies.

I’m grateful for this simple, weekly ritual of writing a few paragraphs for you, before getting into my ‘real’ work for the day. I’m grateful to be getting online soon to format and send this piece, and to click around my favourite internet places to see if anything has happened in the 18 minutes I’ve been away.²

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Recommendations

🧴 As mentionned above, I’m learning a lot from

Jessica DeFino

’s newsletter. Start with this piece on how beauty brands are funding anti-abortion legistlators:

The Beauty Brands Backing Abortion Bans

🎧 We need a better conversation about gender.

📚 After I published my reading list about whether or not to become a parent, a book publicist reach out to share Gina Rushton’s wonderful book, ‘The Parenthood Dilemma’. I’ve read a lot about this decision and written both the reading list and a personal essay I’ve yet to publish, but I still got a lot from this book. Rushton’s style is both warm and methodical as she thinks throguh one of the most consequential decisions we’ll ever make. I really recommend it. (Thanks to

Claire Maxwell

for sending it on too!)

📺 Enjoyed Nyad. I always want to see more older women on screen, especially when the dyke energy is strong!

🍌 🍪 In my house, there’s always an abundance of bananas that don’t get eaten in time. I do make banana bread from time to time, but these cookies are so much quicker and easier. Like the fruit crumble recipe I cited a few weeks back, they are very riffable and you really can’t mess it up. This time I added cinnamon, walnuts and chocolate chips.

1. Novels, short stories, essays etc.

2. In the end, I worked much longer than I anticipated and haven’t been online for hours! This is late arriving in your inboxes. It was worth it/sorry!