Hello…summer?!

A new quilt in progress

Hello, friends! 

It’s been almost six months since my last post, and both nothing much and several things are new around here!

Work stuff

First: I have a new job! I started (back) at Vox in January and am overseeing their service journalism, culture, and lifestyle output. Here are a few of the things I’ve edited since I’ve been back: 

• The mysterious Redditor who’s changing the way we do laundry 

• Why “neighborism” is having a moment

• I’m a semi-successful adult with a decent job. Why do financial conversations still make me feel clueless?

• How to make unemployment suck a little less

• The sublime, feral pleasure of Girl Dinner Diaries

• What is an aging face supposed to look like?

Second, The Nice Life is coming out on October 20! This book was a true pleasure to write; I talked to so many thoughtful experts who just really get it, and who offered great practical advice for bringing more curiosity, art, joy, fun, connection, meaning, and purpose into your life. Their insights have actively improved my own life, and I’m really excited to share everything they had to say with the world!

Third, I’ll be in Boston this weekend for the WBUR Festival! On Saturday, I’ll be chatting with Marielle Segarra from NPR’s Life Kit about what it means to have a good life. If you’re in the area, I’d love for you to come! 

Hobby & life stuff

Most of my free time in the past six months has gone to organizing, which has been a lot of work, but also a pleasure. Besides that, I’ve been working on more sewing projects and I’m very proud of the two air conditioner covers I made for the Windmill units in my apartment (to keep out drafts in the winter), which necessitated creating my own pattern.

(The house design here is a single Hurry Home block.)

I’ve also completed two quilts: one for my friend Terri (who just had a baby!) and one for my friend JP. Unfortunately I forgot to take good, full-sized photos of either of these quilts before I gave the away!

Quilting in progress

For Terri’s quilt, I used the Mabel patchwork pattern from Penelope Handmade and I used a spreadsheet to help keep track of the arrangement of fabric, which was very helpful.

For JP’s, I used Joz Makes Quilts’s checkered squares pattern and a great Alexander Henry cowboy fabric for the backing. This also marked my first foray into hand-quilting, which I really enjoyed. (That’s what gives it that “big stitch” look.) 

I’m currently working on my first quilt for myself. It’s a variation on the Joz checkered quilt—basically, the same two-color approach as JP’s, but utilizing smaller, 5” squares (so, closer to the Mabel in that regard). I’m currently just waiting on the backing fabric to arrive; I also need to decide if I want to machine-quilt or hand-quilt it. (Anyone have strong opinions on this??? Please let me know.) 

In other news, Kiyana and I got our garden going last month with Erik’s help! I haven’t been able to get many great photos of it yet, but I’m very excited for this year since I now have more experience and more opinions on what we grow. It’s also been fun to see the things that have come back on their own just from the seeds scattering last year, and to grow several plants from seed. I’ll do a full post with the latest there soon! 

That’s what’s up with me! And I’m excited to get back to posting here more regularly now that I have a little more time! What’s up with you all? 

Just some good subscription and membership gift ideas

I’ve never been super into “experience” gifts (like travel, concerts, fancy dinners) because I generally prefer to spend money on things that will be useful and delightful for a long time. If someone specifically requested something like this, I wouldn’t not get it for them, but it’s not where my brain goes immediately. However, I’m starting to change my mind on this, both personally and when gifting! I’d rather give someone an experience I know they’ll appreciate as opposed to a physical item that they may or may not like or use. Also, so many popular gifts right now just feel like cheap crap that no one really needs or wants! Meanwhile, giving someone the ability to access art, in particular, feels really great. And a lot of subscriptions and memberships will be useful and delightful for a long time (or at least for a year, which is good enough for me since it’s not going to a landfill after it’s used up), so those feel very in line with how I like to gift. 

If you still need some holiday shopping inspo, here are some of the non-physical presents I’m into right now:  

A museum membership

This, to me, is a great present because it’s not always something people think to buy for themselves, but they will absolutely make use of it if they have it. When you go this route, you’re really giving the gift of motivation to go out and connect with art, history, science, or culture on a more regular basis, opening up a whole new world of possibilities. 

The Criterion Channel

After my friends Nathalie and Doug enthusiastically recommended this streaming service, I’ve been making a point to watch more Critieron films, and have been getting so much joy and pleasure from it. You can gift anywhere from 1–12 months, with the yearlong subscription costing $99. 

YouTube Premium

This falls more into the category of practical gifts, but the right person will absolutely love it. I did this for myself earlier this year because I couldn’t bear to keep sitting through commercials as I watched and re-watched crafting tutorials, and it’s been life-changing. Get an annual plan for $139.99. (This also includes access to YouTube Music and YouTube Kids without ads.) Related: If there’s a streaming service (Peacock, Paramount+, etc.) that they watch a lot of, an ad-free version of one of these can be so nice. 

BritBox subscription

If you know someone who loves period dramas, cozy mysteries, and comedies from across the pond, consider BritBox, which has a huge catalog of soothing and chill entertainment. I got into it last year right around the election and I especially love Make It at Market, an extremely mellow series that centers on very nice crafters trying to turn their hobby into a business. Get an annual BritBox subscription is $109.99.

Upgrade their favorite podcast

If your person is obsessed with a particular podcast and doesn’t currently have access to bonus episodes/content, this makes for a fantastic present. It’s also just nice to be able to support creators directly in our crumbling media landscape! Patreon makes it extremely easy to gift subscriptions; for example, it will cost just $43.20 for a year of If Books Could Kill, and you also have the option to do shorter durations. If podcasts aren’t their thing, you could take a similar approach to any newsletters or independent media outlets that have a paid option! 🎁

Related: Some Mother's Day and Father's Day gift ideas

My favorite Christmas videos

In the absence of cable, I’ve started treating some of my favorite YouTube videos like TV shows in syndication—meaning I’m happy to watch them again, like a rerun. Every December, I pull up my playlist of Christmas content and let it (jingle bell) rock. Here’s what’s on it.

The house tours

I love, love, love a Christmas house tour, particularly if it’s coming out of the UK! Amanda Cutter Brooks’s incredible home and store is my all-time fave, but I’ve gotten inspiration, ideas, and joy from all of these.

The cultural deep dives

The DIYs

The Martha Stewart specials

I will never tire of the moment in Martha’s 1995 Christmas special when she’s explaining how to construct a gingerbread house and Miss Piggy hits her with “…how obsessive!” (This phrase gets deployed in my household with some frequency.)

And if you need a little more help getting in the holiday spirit, here are some of my go-to playlists:

• Jazz & Blues Christmas

• French Christmas

• Merry

• Mellow & Merry

Bye! 🎄

How are you coping with....everything?

I have been really heads-down working on my manuscript, which is why I haven’t written anything here in the past month. But friends………..things are not looking good out there. Every day brings a new horrible video of ICE tearing a family apart, or a fresh assault on some foundational aspect of democracy, or new evidence of egregious corruption that no one will be held accountable for. Meanwhile, the mass shooting that happened yesterday was in my hometown, which feels terrible. And this is all going on at the same time as some of the dumbest, most unhelpful shit imaginable.

It’s taking a lot of effort to stay disciplined and not totally spin out, but here’s what’s been working for me lately in terms of coping mechanisms…

• Continuing to organize around affordable housing and street safety. It’s helping me stay optimistic and it’s been especially nice to see some small wins in this realm!

• Participating in an in-person book club through NYC DSA.

• Working on my book! I didn’t realize how much I’d missed the experience of interviewing experts, and this has been an exceptional bunch—they’ve all been particularly inspiring, open-hearted, and just…lovely. It’s also been fascinating to see everyone hit on similar themes, even when I haven’t asked them about those things specifically. (“You are not your job” and “You don’t need to buy a ton of stuff but you do probably need to go look at a flower” are two sentiments that have come up again and again and again.)

• Consuming art! This is one of the core ideas of The Nice Life, so I’ve been extra aware of it lately. We watched a very good ‘90s movie called Daytrippers a couple of weekends ago, and My Fair Lady (which I’d never seen before!) last night. I also saw Death Becomes Her again, and went to Lady Gaga’s Mayhem ball with my entire family. It all helps!

• Being as creative as I can without getting distracted from writing. (Right now, that looks like playing a lot of Animal Crossing, which also conveniently keeps me from doomscrolling.) And I’ve made plans to have a papier maché day with Kiyana and JP after I turn in my manuscript next month, which I’m really excited about.

• Hanging out with people who share my values, and who make me laugh. It really does make a difference!

How are you all doing? How are you getting through this, and how are you actively pushing back? I’d love to know! 💛

Coming soon… The Nice Life

I have some fun news to share today: I’m working on a new book! The Nice Life: How to Elevate the Everyday and Find Joy with What You Have will be hitting shelves next autumn. I’ll be working with Batya Rosenblum, who edited The Art of Showing Up, and who is now at Tarcher, an imprint of Penguin. 

The inspiration for The Nice Life is…the state of things. I think we can all agree that the vibe right now is pretty rotten! Enshittification is everywhere and our biggest institutions are pretty openly and obviously in decline. Generative AI is gobbling up the internet (and the lakes) so it can churn out absolute slop, and even though there’s a widespread obsession with “aesthetics,” things are ugly, in every sense of the word. The world feels extremely coarse—rough, low-quality, mean.

In the midst of all of this, I’m still doing what I can to live a nice life—which I define as one that is creative, joyful, authentic, and connected. For me, that looks like…

• Intentionally seeking out art, music, books, and other forms of culture

• Rejecting the trends and consumerism that leave you feeling insecure and kind of empty inside

• Incorporating elegance, polish, and whimsy into mundane everyday activities

• Creating the things you want to see in the world

• Forming meaningful connections with interesting people who inspire you

• Having memorable experiences and actively participating in your own life 

• Moving through the world with a sense of lightness, humor, purpose, and generosity, even when things are really bleak 

To me, living a nice life has little to do with being rich and everything to do with enrichment. It’s about orienting yourself toward loveliness, pleasure, and fun, and inviting others to be a part of it. 

Speaking of…I’d love to hear about the niceties you’ve been getting into lately! What lovely little things are keeping you going these days? ✨

July library haul

Hi! It’s currently hot and steamy in the city and I’ve got some new reading material to share!

First, updates on June’s books: I ended up quitting Seeds of Murder because I was bored, and I didn’t have time to read Rejection before I had to return it. I’m starting to see a clear pattern with checking out fiction and I think I’m going to stop adding novels (at least non-mysteries) to my wishlist at this point! 

Moving on! Here’s what I got into in July…

No More Tears: The Dark Secrets of Johnson & Johnson. This book is wild. So wild, in fact, that I paused at one point so I could research the author and make sure he’s not some kind of MAHA weirdo—because everything in No More Tears is so appalling, I started to wonder if I was reading straight-up propaganda. The writer appears to be a normal/well-respected journalist who believes in vaccines, but that gives you some insight into what you’re in for with this book. I was shocked and furious basically the entire time I was reading.

The Wishbone Kitchen Cookbook: Seasonal Recipes for Everyday Luxury and Elevated Entertaining. This one was just okay for me, which is a bummer because I really wanted to love it! We made one recipe from it (a tomato pasta) that was good but not really worth making again because it’s a lot of work for what it is. And I felt like maybe I don’t like seafood/alcohol enough to be excited about a lot of the other recipes. On the other hand, I might have gotten more into it if I’d had a bit more time with it and been able to try more things! 

Meanwhile, I read a couple of non-library books this month…

After I finished No More Tears, I wanted to continue down that path, so I bought Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty. (I also discovered it was written by the same person who wrote The Snakehead, which I read in June.) This was a good read—and the books work quite well in conversation with each other—but I think I preferred No More Tears because J&J has a much bigger reach and is considerably more evil (and also played a huge role in the opioid crisis).  

And summer is for Elin Hildebrand novels, so I re-read The Hotel Nantucket a couple weeks ago; it’s silly, fun, and very light. I don’t think it’s as good as The Rumor (one of my all-time faves from Elin), but it has a similar vibe!

Let me know what you’ve been reading recently! 📚

Growing a terrace garden in NYC (part III)

Hello, friends! It’s been a minute! 

I haven’t written much lately because I’ve been out in these streets organizing around housing and traffic safety and out in our garden tending to my crops. But I’m happy to report that across the board, good things are growing! 

Backing up a little: At the end of June, right before the mayoral primary (which: LONGEST YEAH BOY EVER), NYC had a nasty heat wave and our plants suffered a bit. The nasturtium had a pretty rough go of it, and there were some nutrient deficiencies all around. Meanwhile, the hanging petunias, which were already having a hard time, got super dry and scraggly, despite the fact that the soil was definitely moist. Erik has been amazingly helpful in terms of how to solve these problems (a little fish fertilizer here, a little hydrogen peroxide solution there!), but his best general advice was to give everything way more water to get it to start growing like crazy. I had him show me exactly how he’d water everything, and…yeah, it was definitely a lot more water than I had been using! Our plants weren’t dry, but I was definitely being too timid with the hose. The extra water has made a huge difference; everything is looking way more colorful and lush. 

The other big change is that we bid farewell to our cooler-weather veggies (the radishes and lettuce) and are now growing bush beans and “bush” cucumbers. I put the latter in quotes because these guys are still extremely viney. After a couple of weeks of them flopping all over the place and wrapping their little fingies around everything, I put in some small trellises; giving them something to cling to really helped and is also doing a lot for the planters aesthetically! The yellow flowers have attracted tons of big fat fuzzy bees, and lots of little cucumbers have started appearing.

The boxes were feeling a bit empty without all of our leafy lettuce plants, so Kiyana and I picked up a hot pink Volcano phlox and a bunch of reddish-pink petunias at the farmers market, and those are all doing very well. I also planted some seeds at the end of May that have now either started to flower or are very close to it—my Thumbelina (!) zinnias popped open last week, and the first of the marigolds I planted literally opened up a couple hours ago. 

Meanwhile, our tomato plants have basically doubled in height since my last update and are now producing lots of fruit. We’ve been able to harvest a ton of the Super Sweet 100s, which are delicious (and I don’t even like cherry tomatoes that much); I think we’ll try to do two of these plants next year because we’re so into this one.

We’ve also picked a few of the Genovese tomatoes, which look like tiny fairy tale pumpkins and turn the most beautiful shades of yellow, orange, and then red as they ripen.

We’ve also got tons of little jalapeños growing, along with several beautiful Italianelle peppers and a few big fat green bell peppers. 

I gotta say…I’ll definitely never love summer, but this garden is making me wish it away less than I have in the past! I’m already sad thinking about a future where I don’t get to come out and water the plants every morning. 

If you’re currently growing anything, I’d love to know how it’s going! 🌼

June library book haul

Hello! I have a new batch of books to share! 

First, some quick thoughts on last month’s library books…

• The Bean Book. I loved this cookbook so much that I went ahead and bought it; the recipes were practical and unfussy but the end product is delicious and feels special, which is generally what I’m aiming for when cooking! I also checked out Cool Beans (another Rancho Gordo joint) a couple weeks later, but I didn’t care for it quite as much. 
  

• The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal About Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power. This book started off strong, but just turned out to be kind of…thin. I think it probably should have been a very good podcast episode as opposed to a whole book, because there wasn’t enough information directly related to the subject at hand to sustain 300 pages. I actually quit reading after like 150 pages because it just wasn’t holding my attention and life is too short! That said, I liked what I learned about cholera. (Also, there was a Samuel Pepys appearance. There always is!!!)
  

• How to Seal Your Own Fate. I didn’t get to this one before I had to return it, which was fine. I might try again at some point! 
  

• The Berry Pickers. I also didn’t get to this one! Ah well! 

Moving on! Here’s what I checked out in June: 

City Limits: Infrastructure, Inequality, and the Future of America's Highways. This was a reader recommendation (thank you, Faith!) and it was everything I’d hoped it would be. The main focus is racist highways in Texas. Having lived in Houston for four years, I was very heartened to see just how hard people are fighting to stop the development of even more enormous highways. It was genuinely inspiring and I’m glad I read it! 

The Snakehead: An Epic Tale of the Chinatown Underworld and the American Dream. This isn’t technically a library book, but I borrowed it from my neighbor, which is spiritually the same. (I also listened to some of it, as the audiobook is available with Spotify Premium.) I enjoyed it, though it was a tad dry! It felt like reading a really long New Yorker article (complimentary), which is to say that it’s good non-fiction, but not great non-fiction. But it taught me a ton about the history of immigration in the US, which was very timely given what’s happening right now. 

Wrestling With Moses: How Jane Jacobs Took On New York's Master Builder and Transformed the American City. I was excited for this one, but I’m currently 230 pages in and kind of disappointed! Nearly everything in the Robert Moses chapters is lifted directly from The Power Broker (which I guess makes it good for people who are never going to read TPB, but it definitely lacks Robert Caro’s wonderful prose); the book is kind of lacking a POV in places where it feels necessary to have one; and I’ve spotted at least four typos/copy errors. I am planning to finish it, but ultimately it’s reading more like a very interesting Wikipedia page than a great non-fiction book. 

Easy Everyday: 100 Recipes and Meal Prep Ideas for Effortless Eats. This is my friend Jess’s newest cookbook, and it didn’t disappoint. (It never does!! She is extremely good at what she does!) The recipes are truly so easy and fast, making them great for weeknights. We will definitely be buying this one!

Vera Wong's Guide to Snooping (on a Dead Man). This is the second book in a new cozy mystery series and I thiiiink I liked it better than the first installment, but they are pretty similar. I haven’t decided how I feel about this series yet; they require a suspension of disbelief that I find excessive even for the genre, and are kind of stupid but are also kind of funny? But also, I read it in about three hours? Perfect library book! 

The Queen of Poisons. This is the third book in the Marlow Murder Club series (not to be confused with the Thursday Murder Club series, which is leagues better). The first two Marlow books were fine enough, but this one was so fatphobic, it honestly calls the whole project into question for me! Disappointing! 

Rejection. This was recommended by a couple of friends with good taste in books! I tend to prefer fictional short stories to fictional novels, so I’m hoping this one is a winner. 

Seeds of Murder. (I keep hearing Alan Cummings read that title in his Traitors voice.) I started this one a couple days ago and it’s truly neutral at the moment; we’ll see if it picks up. I’m finding that cozy mysteries are a dime a dozen, but really good ones are hard to find. (Please send recs!) 

That’s all I got! What are you reading right now? 📚

Growing a terrace garden in NYC (part II)

So much has been happening in our terrace garden over the past eight weeks! 

First, Erik came back in mid-May for our second round of planting! This time around, we added white hanging petunias, a mini skirt hosta, and a peachy climbing rose; planted peppers, jalapeños, and basil; and transplanted the tomatoes into their forever homes. About a week later, I took a trip to the farmers market and picked up some additional pepper plants, zinnias, and marigolds, along with a lavender stream plant. Kiyana and I also added some easy-to-install decking from IKEA to half of the terrace, along with a box that serves as a flower stand/extra seating, all of which has made a huge difference aesthetically.

Also pictured here: pizza dough focaccia and the best hummus, topped with parsley from our garden. Also, the tomato plant in this photo from May 25 is now as tall as the railing!

We’ve also been able to start harvesting! I picked a ton of chive blossoms and turned them into chive blossom vinegar. We’ve had several nice radishes, which we’ve been pickling. Kiyana used thyme, oregano, and rosemary a couple times when roasting a whole chicken, and I’ve been drying bunches of herbs to save.

The nasturtium has become the goldendoodle of the planter box. It’s very nice but it’s also….too enthusiastic? Borderline badly behaved? It’s growing at an incredibly fast pace and in every direction. (“Leave her alone!!!!” I thought as I pulled a huge branch off the zinnias, which it was fully pawing.) I keep cutting it back and it just keeps going. The last time Erik came by, he suggested leaning one of the plants fully to the left (it was already moving in that direction) to see if we can get it to sort of grow toward the far edge of the planter as opposed to over everything else. Then he brought some of the stems of the other nasturtium around the front so see if it could essentially becoming more of a cascading plant, which is working well. (You can see some of the tendrils creeping over the front in the photo of the snapdragon below. Those tendrils are now reaching the ground.)

Meanwhile, the pink snapdragon emerged as the star of the show. About a week after we first planted everything in April, we had a terribly windy day; everything outside was whipping around like crazy as I watched in horror. Everything came through unharmed, except for the pink snapdragon; the stem broke about four inches from the top. Erik told me to leave it and it would probably be OK, so I did…and, like a gorgeous hydra, it came back so much stronger and more beautiful. It’s actually doing better than the yellow snapdragon, which initially fared well in the wind. Feels like a metaphor! Don’t peak in high school!!

Other good things are happening: There are currently dozens of tiny green tomatoes on the Super Sweet 100 plant, which has gotten so tall, and little baby jalapeños have appeared. The beardtongue got super tall and then finally bloomed lavender flowers, immediately attracting BFFBs (big fat fuzzy/fucking bees). The nemesia is thriving—just really solid/consistent/pretty. The rose has also been quite consistent; we’ve had a lot of beautiful blooms so far. And three mushrooms have popped up, which Erik says is a sign of a healthy ecosystem. 

There have also been some losses. The ranunculus was doing well for a while and then just…decided it had had enough. Some of the radishes bolted (meaning they went to seed too quickly, probably because the soil got too hot), and the carrots, green onions, and cilantro seeds we planted have been a little hit or miss, though I think everything now is ultimately on track now. 

We also had a petunia disaster a few weeks ago. The first time I watered them, I did a half-gallon of water + a half portion of fertilizer. Everything went well, so the next time, I decided I’d do a full gallon so I didn’t have to water them again so soon. (Erik had said I could go either route with the fert.) About 15 minutes later, I heard a loud thud.

All the extra water had made the soil really heavy (duh, in hindsight, but it hadn’t occurred to me); the planter’s bottom fully broke from the extra weight, and the petunia came crashing down. It actually survived the fall so I gently transferred it to a bucket until a replacement planter arrived. It’s currently doing…okay. It’s not exactly mounting a snapdragon-style comeback just yet and looks, well…like it got bashed on one side! Overall, I’d say that the petunias have been the most fussy/hands-on plant so far, at least relative to everything else. 

Now we’re meaningfully thinking about summer plants; Erik dropped by last week and planted beans and cucumbers. I’m very excited to see how things start to change now that it’s getting warmer!

If you’re tending to plants or a garden, I’d love to hear how it’s all growing! Also if you have any suggestions for what to make with copious amounts of parsley…hit me up. 🌿

How I’m thinking about politics and despair right now

I saw someone say on BlueSky the other day that it looks like we’re heading toward another “Summer of _____.” And…yeah: Things are fucking shit in the U.S. right now, and are likely going to be bad for a while. It’s all extremely overwhelming and demoralizing, but the best course of action is, of course, to try and do something about it.

The idea of doing something can also be overwhelming! Like, what can I personally do about the likes of someone as rotten and powerful as RFK Jr.? This is why I always return to the idea of taking action at the local/state level, as that’s where so much of what meaningfully affects our day-to-day lives (not to mention actual state/federal policy, eventually) actually happens. As I wrote back in 2020: “Change isn’t limited to general election years; it happens at city council and school board meetings and late-night legislative sessions. It happens when state supreme courts decide which cases to hear and police budgets are allocated. It happens no matter who the president is, or what party controls Congress. Now is a great time to learn the names of your reps, follow local organizers and reporters, sign up for a few relevant newsletters (and make a habit of reading them), start regularly consuming your local news, and set up a few recurring donations.” 

I stand by this…but I’m very aware that focusing on your county or state can also be overwhelming, or at least just super confusing. Local politics can feel impenetrable to anyone who hasn’t been doing this full-time for the past 20 years, and there’s just so much bad stuff happening right now—everywhere, all the time, and it’s all worthy of our attention.  

So this spring, I took a similar-but-different approach that I’ve been finding quite helpful: I chose a “major” and a “minor” for myself with regard to city politics. The idea is that I’m pushing myself to go really deep on those two issues for the next several years (which is how long it takes to get anything done anyway) so that I can be truly effective. I’m still generally aware of other issues—taking my general ed classes, so to speak, which isn’t hard because everything is so interconnected—but I’m putting the bulk of my time and energy into organizing that’s happening around two core issues. 

My major is housing. If you don’t have a safe, affordable place to live, you don’t have much of anything. Housing is connected to other things I care about (public health, literacy, incarceration, homelessness, art/culture, inequality…the list goes on) so it feels like the obvious choice to me. And because there’s so much going on with housing in NYC—we need 100,000 new units, according to one estimate I read, and building them won’t be fast or cheap—I think this will keep me busy for a very long time. 

My minor is street safety. I’m a huge fan of safety in general (lol but also…it’s true) and I feel quite passionate about making New York City’s streets less deadly for pedestrians and cyclists. (This also has the added bonus of fighting climate change!) Honestly, this might turn out to be my major; I simply love to see protected bike lanes, low speed limits for vehicles, congestion pricing, Open Streets, and accessible sidewalks! And because there are a lot of members of the Seething Dork Community actively trying to shut down anything that even remotely undermines what they see as their fundamental right to mow down an elderly person with their car, there are a lot of opportunities for action here! 

I’ve joined organizing groups for each of these issues, which is helping me stay on top of what’s happening week to week and making me aware of what I can be doing in a given moment. I’m also getting an education in how things happen on a very technical level, along with what’s been going on for the past decade (or more because…everything takes so long). It’s been a very good time for this; because of the upcoming Democratic primary/mayoral election (please, for the love of god, don’t rank Cuomo!!!), lots of people are just casually chatting about, say, the specific, nitty-gritty ways a city council candidate has blocked affordable housing in their district. 

Anyway, I’ve been trudging to my community board meetings, Zooming in to City Council hearings, talking to my neighbors, and doing so much reading. (I recently learned, for example, that Community Board 1—an entirely unelected group of people—bought itself a car using a City Council grant a few years ago??? And nothing was ever really done about it? Honestly, this is one of the wildest stories I’ve heard in a minute!!!) 

I think we all know, intellectually, that getting involved is both an effective way to build the world we want to live in and a potent antidote to despair…but it’s still so easy to freeze when confronted with the sheer amount of reactionary wreckage we’re dealing with. Breaking it down into “major/minor” has been a useful practical approach for me, and is helping me feel a little bit less bad. 🕊️

Related: Where I’m getting my news these days