Just Good Shit: 05.03.20

Image: Kiyana Salkeld / Just Good Shit

Image: Kiyana Salkeld / Just Good Shit

Hi! Here’s what I had going on this week…

Writing

And I edited the always wonderful Captain Awkward on How to Get Through Isolation With Your Family When They Are a Bit Much.

Reading

Seattle’s Leaders Let Scientists Take the Lead. New York’s Did Not, New Yorker.

Friends Are Breaking Up Over Social Distancing, The Atlantic.

Nannies Tell the Truth About Working During the Coronavirus, The Cut.

Two Errors Our Minds Make When Trying to Grasp the Pandemic, The Atlantic.

The Clean Queen Talks Quarantine, The New York Times.
Got a nice shoutout in this article about Home Comforts!

Eve Ewing on the deal with Bookshop.

Negroni Season, The Awl.

My Husband Won’t Pick Up His Toenail Clippings, so I Put Them in His Coffee, Slate.

Cooking

We’ve been roasting potatoes, using a combination of this NYT Cooking recipe and this one from Smitten Kitchen; they are great with eggs, bacon, and veggies, or with roasted vegetables and Aidells sausages. I’m also loving pickled onions on everything (see also: Sauce Theory).

Have a good Sunday night. 🌱

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Just Good Shit: 04.26.20

Image: Kiyana Salkeld / Just Good Shit

Image: Kiyana Salkeld / Just Good Shit

Hello again! Here’s what I was up to this week…

On the blog

Writing

Reading

I’m currently reading Legendary Children: The First Decade of Rupaul's Drag Race and the Last Century of Queer Life.

Also:

The Real Reason to Wear a Mask, The Atlantic.

Please Stop Writing 'Why I Left New York' Pandemic Essays, HuffPost.

You’re Not Going Back to Normal Office Life for a Long, Long Time, VICE.

Don't Let Them Come Back From This, Seth Simons.
A good read on the shutdown of Upright Citizens Brigade.

#1265: Lockdown Co-Parenting: Can I Please Get Some Alone Time?, Captain Awkward.

How to cook a simple, flavorful pot of beans and use it throughout the week, Washington Post.

Tracy Clayton’s Twitter thread of good advice from therapists.

Psst by Helen Tseng.
This is a very cool PDF you can download/print/fill out as a way of journaling (or just making shit) right now.

Stay Sane, Stay Safe.
Cool PSAs from artists around the world that you can download or just browse.

A Beginner’s Guide to Bravo.
God bless Terri for making this for me!!!

Watching

This week, I watched Circus of Books on Netflix, which I highly, highly recommend; it’s about a nice Jewish couple who opened a hardcore gay sex shop in the 70s and ran it for 30 years. Every single minute of it is entertaining. I’ve also been watching Mrs. America and Unorthodox, plus the first episode of We’re Here on HBO. And on Saturday night, I built a blanket fort for my girlfriend, where we watched Moonrise Kingdom (because a twee movie felt appropriate from that vantage point). I highly recommend the combo of a very cozy nook and a movie where the visuals make your brain light up.

Have a good Sunday night! šŸŒ™

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ā€˜The Art of Showing Up’ arrives in 16 days!

the art of showing up.JPG

We’re rounding the corner on May (!!), which means my new book,The Art of Showing Up, will be available soon. The original publication date was May 26, but back in February, my publisher informed me that the production schedule was changing due to coronavirus; it’s now coming out on May 12, 2020. (If you pre-ordered it, you might have gotten an email that said something to this effect over the weekend.)

You can pre-order The Art of Showing Up via the following retailers:


Amazon

Barnes & Noble
Bookshop

Books-a-Million

Indigo

IndieBound

Powell’s

Workman
Books Are Magic
McNally Jackson

(If you’re a bookseller, librarian, or reviewer, you can request an e-galley on NetGalley. And if you have other questions about getting an advance or want to set up an interview, you can email Jennifer Hergenroeder.)

If you want a sense of what the book is going to be like, here are some things that I think sum up the vibe pretty well (a handful of which actually appear in the book):

As far as I know, the UK edition is coming out on June 25 as originally planned. There’s also an audiobook, which I was scheduled to read at the end of March; I wasn’t comfortable traveling to or recording in studio at that point, so they went with a different narrator, which was totally fine. (The production company assured me that most professional narrators have their own at-home recording set-up, meaning they would be able to record remotely in a way that I simply couldn’t.)


Events are sort of up in the air at this point; I was originally supposed to do some in NYC and Chicago and maybe D.C., but that’s not happening now, and I’m waiting to hear whether they’ll be moved online. I’d also love to figure out a way to join in any book clubs that read The Art of Showing Up/meet virtually in June or July. Right now, I’d say that, schedule permitting, I’m totally down to call in for the last 20 or so minutes of any gathering of four people or more, and I’ll just kind of handle this on a first-come, first-serve basis for as long as I can manage it. (Email me if you’re interested!)

Promoting a new book right now is uhhhhh….pretty weird, and I don’t know exactly what the market is going to be like in May and beyond. I really appreciate pre-orders (a great way to support authors you like!), reviews on Goodreads (or wherever you bought it), and, if you enjoy the book, just sharing that information with your social network, friends, etc. The main thing I want is for this book to reach the people who would enjoy it/connect with it. ✨

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If you can’t handle me at my Crocs, you don’t deserve me at my literally any other shoe

crocs.jpg

I am a proud member of Team Take Off Your Shoes at the Door, which means I’m extremely pro house shoes. And the time has come for me to admit that my current house shoes of choice are the highly controversial Crocs. 

I was introduced to Crocs at the age of 19 by my friend Beth. I was visiting her in Chicago and she was wearing a kelly green pair around the city. Her explanation: ā€œFlip-flops are disgusting, especially in a city, but Crocs are great.ā€ This is actually 100% true and correct, but it didn’t take long for me to fall out of love with the hot pink pair I bought. After that, I didn’t really think much about Crocs again.  

But then last fall, I came across some pale blue faux shearling–lined Crocs on Zappos and….……..did not hate them. They looked really cozy and weren’t very expensive, so I decided to go for it. After wearing them indoors for just a few weeks, I knew I had made the right decision, so I asked for a second pair (to wear outside) for Christmas, which my mom ended up giving me.

Feeling quite secure in my Crocs-related life choices, I also recently got two non-lined pairs: the chambray blue classics (I fully intended to buy the mint green and then just like….didn’t??? IDK?) which are for outside, and a pair of pink ā€œfreesailā€ Crocs that are way lower profile/lighter weight for inside.

I did not mean to make a pair of Crocs that looked like my blog; it just sort of happened.

I did not mean to make a pair of Crocs that looked like my blog; it just sort of happened.

Are Crocs ugly? I mean…I don’t think of Crocs as ugly as much as I think of them as being for children. I can’t say that I think Crocs are particularly defensible from an aesthetic POV. Though a lot of cool people and celebrities wear Crocs, and the brand manages to make them look pretty cute on Instagram, I’m not going to sit here and pretend that it looks hip or stylish when I wear them. I don’t think they look awful on me — choosing the right color goes a long way in this regard — but they also don’t look good either, you know? The vibe, on me anyway, is, I think, fairly neutral — i.e., a vaguely shoe-shaped swath of color, similar to what a cartoon or video game character might wear. 

But also….IDGAF if they are cute or cool!!! You know what’s not cute? Getting a sore back from a couple hours of meal prep because you’re in your thirties now!!! My friend Augusta (who recently bought a very cute lavender pair of Crocs) wrote an ode to wearing comfortable shoes that I think about a lot, and that is very relevant here. 

If it’s not already obvious, Crocs are kind of the ideal pandemic footwear. They are great for long periods of cooking, doing lots of water chores, etc. They can be cleaned and disinfected easily. They can be worn with or without socks and look correct with soft clothes. They slip on and off easily, which is great when you’ve just come inside after taking your dog out and need to wash your hands before you do anything else. They are also very clearly made for carers; when I think of Crocs, I think of healthcare workers and chefs, two tasks that are fundamentally about nurturing. So wearing Crocs right now feels appropriate and correct.

pink freesail crocs.JPG

By the way, when I told my mom I was writing this blog post, she told me I had to interview her for it. This is fair; my mother is basically a sneakerhead…but for Crocs. She was into Crocs before Post Malone or Madewell were. She has 20 pairs and counting (!!), and and her collection includes some limited editions. 

ā€œThe reason I only like to wear Crocs is because every other shoe I have tried is not as comfortable,ā€ she told me. ā€œI have advanced osteoarthritis in both knees and these are the only shoes that provide the comfort I need for being on my feet all day as an art teacher. The kids at school love them.ā€ 

Some of my mom’s favorite pairs, in her own words: turquoise with SpongeBob jibbetz (the little decorative charms); donut print; black with PacMan jibbetz; pink floral; green with working Christmas light trim; tie-dye; and Star Wars. She also has ā€œdressā€ Crocs that have leather uppers.

My mom also sent me a screenshot of a message from a parent, who said her daughter (so, my mom’s student) wanted ā€œCrocs with paint splotches on themā€ for her birthday because she said ā€œher favorite teacher (you) would love them.ā€ The parent went on: ā€œShe specifically requested these because she loves that you wear Crocs all the time and she couldn’t wait to show you!ā€ 

In other family clog news, my girlfriend bought a pair of white Dansko clogs a couple of months ago that look great on her. Danskos are a whole other ugly cool shoe story, but I like my gfs so much (way more than I expected to). I might get a pair eventually, but I do think Danskos make more sense as real world shoes vs. house shoes. 

white danskos.jpg

A few odds and ends:

Just Good Shit: 04.19.20

Image: Kiyana Salkeld / Just Good Shit

Image: Kiyana Salkeld / Just Good Shit

Hi, friends! Here’s what I had going on this week…

On the blog

Writing

Also, the one and only Captain Awkward gave that post a great ā€œYes andā€ over on her blog that’s also worth your time!

Reading

A Failure, But Not Of Prediction, Slate Star Codex.

After Social Distancing, a Strange Purgatory Awaits, The Atlantic.

Our Pandemic Summer, The Atlantic.

Why millions of college students and young adults won’t get a stimulus check, Vox.

Sorry, We Did Not All Get and Recover From COVID-19 This Winter, Lifehacker.

30 Non-Boring Things to Do With a Crush or Partner While Stuck at Home, VICE.
LOVED this list. (And you could do a lot of these things with anyone.)

Leftover AIDS Memorial Quilt Fabric Is Being Sewn Into Face Masks, them.

Love to Hate Women, Kate Harding.

How Readers Around the World Mapped Life Under Lockdown, CityLab.

Sitting on the Couch Is My New Favorite Hobby, The Cut.

Eating

On Friday — inspired by the ā€œ30 Non-Boring Things to Do With a Crush or Partnerā€ list I linked to above — my girlfriend got a ton of Saraghina baked goods delivered as a surprise/treat for me. And I got a ton of ground beef delivered as a surprise/treat for her, so we were able to make taco soup. It fucking rocked.

Have a good Sunday night! šŸ„–

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Duvet o'clock

duvet o clock.JPG

For the past month or so, my girlfriend and I have been throwing an old quilt over the duvet to turn the ā€œofficeā€ back into an apartment when we’re done working. The quilt is not particularly stylish, but it’s really cozy, with a distinct pink and yellow pattern that looks extra warm in the lamplight. I have a phone alarm set to go off every weekday at 6 p.m. so we don’t put off duvet o’clock (or work too late). After we put on the duvet and reset all the pillows, we change from day soft clothes into evening soft clothes. Then we move her computer monitor from the desk to a TV tray we set up at the end corner of the bed so we can watch anything we’re streaming on a bigger screen.

Between the quilt and the ā€œtelevision,ā€ the apartment feels really different in our off hours — it has a ā€œmy mom made my bedroom extra cozy for me while I’m home sickā€ meets a ā€œwe’re rearranging the living room for a sleepoverā€ vibe.

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Just Good Shit: 04.12.20

Just Good Shit: 04.05.20

Image: Kiyana Salkeld / Just Good Shit

Image: Kiyana Salkeld / Just Good Shit

Hi, all. Here’s what I was up to this week when I wasn’t FaceTiming with friends, playing Animal Crossing, or eating (incredibly delicious!!!) PB&Js on white Wonder Bread…

On the blog

Writing

Also, VICE Life launched How to Stay In, to make it a little easier to find all of the coronavirus-related service journalism that teams across editorial have been putting out for the past month.

And I was on this week’s episode of Gee Thanks, Just Bought It.

Reading

This Is Not the Apocalypse You Were Looking For, Wired.
This essay is really good; I loved the last few lines.

#1260: ā€œHow to maintain boundaries within stressful family relationships during COVID-19 lockdown?ā€, Captain Awkward.

What to Do if You're Isolated With an Abuser During the Coronavirus Crisis, Teen Vogue.

Please Stop Telling People They’re Overreacting, SELF.

13 Essential Workers Describe What Their Lives Are Like Right Now, VICE.

Is That Nostalgia You’re Feeling?, The Atlantic.

Self-Quarantine Is No Time for an Instagram-Ready Kitchen, The New York Times.

You’re single. You live alone. Are you allowed to have a coronavirus buddy?, Vox.

You Don’t Have to Be on a Diet Right Now, Eater.

Being Single Really, Really Sucks Right Now, ”Hola Papi!.

No One Should Worry About Working Out Right Now, VICE.

The Healing Power of ā€˜Steven Universe’, The New York Times.

ā€œLove Letterā€ (a short story by George Saunders), The New Yorker.

The devastating detail hiding in the French grammar of Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Vox.

Paul McCallion’s Drag Race recaps on Vulture.

Maris Kreizman’s list of good books that don’t require your whole brain.

17 Canned Tuna Recipes for a Winner-Winner Pantry Dinner, Food52.

How Long Can You Wear Sweatpants Without Washing Them?, Bustle.

ā€œOh My God, I Miss Meeting Someone I Hateā€, Delirium.

Watching

My gf and I have been watching any and every permutation of Trixie Mattel and Katya’s show. Some highlights: Drag Queens Trixie Mattel and Katya React to The Circle; TM & Katya React to Sex, Explained; and TM & Katya React to Glow Up. Also loved Trixie doing Kombucha Girl’s makeup.

We’ve also become obsessed with Cooking tree, the gentlest, coziest YouTube channel. And Feel Good on Netflix is really great and def worth a watch.

NYC

Last week, Kiyana made a Google sheet of ~50 businesses in Brooklyn (mostly bars, restaurants, and coffee shops) that breaks down all the things relevant to supporting them during the pandemic: links to relief funds if they exist, if they are doing delivery or takeout right now (with lots of details about how to order), and if they are selling merch or gift cards. This stuff is changing really rapidly, but she’s trying to keep it fairly up to date. Also, if there’s a local spot you love/that you think should be on this list, feel free to email it to me and I’ll pass it along!

Whew, that was a long one! Thanks for reading, and have a good Sunday evening. šŸ’›


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Just Good Bops: April

Image: Kiyana Salkeld / Just Good Shit

Image: Kiyana Salkeld / Just Good Shit

I’ve made a monthly playlist of what I’m currently listening to every single month, without fail, since March 2013. A couple of days ago, I went to add a song to my March 2020 playlist and realized there wasn’t one. And then I realized that it was April 3rd, so I’d missed the window to create one.

I know it’s a small, inconsequential thing, especially right now, but it made me feel incredibly sad. My playlists have served as a snapshot in time, something akin to a journal. I can travel back in time and experience anew how I was feeling based on what I was listening to. That won’t be the case for this period of time.

On the other hand, I suppose it’s fitting that March 2020 is just a big, gaping hole disrupting my seven year streak. It feels hard to maintain even the most ingrained habits right now, and I’m doing my best to be extra kind and patient with myself in this moment. Productivity is an unreasonable bar to set when you’re trying to understand the enormity of living through a pandemic and also missing your life prior to quarantine.

That’s all to say, 1) I recommend making monthly playlists if you’re not the journaling type, and 2) I took extra care crafting this month’s playlist for y’all and also made sure to get my personal monthly playlist up and going as well. It made feel something close to normal, which I was grateful for during this very not-normal time.

This playlist very well could have just been multiples of ā€œPeople, I’ve been sadā€ by Christine and the Queens. It’s not, which feels like a personal victory, but I still recommend watching them perform it live for COLORS. Look at all that personal space! A social distancing queen. šŸŽ§

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How to start and keep a journal during a pandemic (or any time of major upheaval)

journal.JPG

Since the coronavirus started spreading through the U.S., I’ve seen a lot of people telling others that now is a good time to start and keep a journal. Which… sure, yes, if you want to!

When I was working on Dot Journaling, I read a ton of academic writing about diaries throughout history, and one of the things I learned is that people are drawn to keeping diaries during times of major change. (Also, fun [???] fact: when I went to Bookshop to search for Dot Journaling earlier today, I noticed a section called ā€œPerspective on Pandemicsā€ on the home page, and the first book listed was the diary of my arch nemesis, Samuel Pepys.) Journaling is also a good coping mechanism and way to process feelings. And when things are changing super quickly, formerly solid concepts like ā€œdays of the weekā€ seem utterly preposterous, and your brain feels overloaded and foggy, it’s safe to say that you’re probably not going to remember things as well as you might want to.  

That said, it’s hard to do much of anything right now, and journaling shouldn’t be another chore or source of stress during a highly stressful, chore-filled time. So with that in mind, I thought I’d share some low-key ideas for keeping a journal during a pandemic (or any bad time), if you’re so inclined.

Use whatever journal you have and will actually use.

Now is not the time to search for the perfect notebook; it’s the time to make do with what you have and will actually use—a notebook you bought but never used, a legal pad, a spiral notebook, Google Docs, an app, whatever. Make things as easy on yourself as possible right now. 

Simply save all of your to-do lists. 

A to-do list is usually a very good snapshot of what matters to you at a given time, and that’s definitely been true for me during our current situation. If you keep a separate work notebook and home notebook, it might not be a bad idea to combine them and just keep one (as so many of our work lives and home lives collapse into each other). And if you keep a single undated running task list, you might want to think about making new lists each day or week so you can add a date for context. 

Also think about adding things like Zoom calls with friends or nice things you’re planning to do at home to your to-do list; even if these don’t feel like tasks, they are still things you did and very much paint a picture of what your life is like right now. 

If a to-do list doesn’t seem like it ā€œcountsā€ as a journal/diary, consider that this is actually very much what diaries looked like until the late nineteenth century. It was only fairly recently that the more ā€œIā€ centric, ā€œhere are all my thoughts and feelingsā€ diaries became the predominant way we conceptualize diaries. Historical diaries actually looked a lot like dot journals, format-wise. (Also consider the fact that ā€œdiaryā€ is the word Brits use for what most of us in the U.S. would call an agenda or planner.) 

Save all of your receipts in one place or write down your purchases. 

Your to-do lists cover how you’re spending your time; it’s also a good idea to note how you’re spending your money. You could either add purchases as they happen to your to-do list each day, or keep a running list for the month on a separate page. 

Keep a recipe diary.

I got this idea from my friend Emily, an NYT Cooking editor; she said she got it from Jenny Rosenstrach, who has been keeping a recipe journal for 20+ years. By the way, it’s not too late to do this — Emily’s starts on 3/12, but she told me she put it together a few days ago ā€œbased on photos in my camera roll basically.ā€ (BTW, here’s how to search your camera roll by date.)

Just write down what a day in your life looks like right now. 

You can either do this in real time or do it later, writing out what an average day’s routine looks like right now. Make note of what time you’re getting up; what you do first, second, third, etc. each morning; and all the new chores that are a part of your daily life. You could also do this once a week or every few weeks to track how things are changing.

Remember that journaling doesn’t need to involve writing a lot of feelings in full sentences.

When I’m recapping my day in my journal, I use dashes to jot down quick notes instead of writing in full sentences. (I also keep the dash format if I want to do full sentences.) Doing it this way is way lower lift and basically removes the mental hurdle of ā€œUgh, I have to sit down and write.ā€  

If you just want to brain dump/cope, consider doing morning pages.

Here’s a guide I wrote about morning pages few years ago

If you want a lower-lift/less frequent option, you could email yourself or add to a Google Doc once a week. 

You could use a format similar to my weekly newsletter — what you read, cooked/ate, listened to, bought, watched, etc. And if you want to flesh out your email with more personal thoughts or notable moments from the week, you could do that too. 

Just put together one big March recap.

If you’re feeling like it’s too late to start keeping a journal, you could do one big entry for all of March. I actually did this the other night, using my Google calendar, planner/to-do lists, texts, and camera roll. I was able to date all the events that felt significant (for example, February 27 is the day my girlfriend listened to an episode of ā€œThe Dailyā€ that really scared her and so we started sanitizing our hands a ton when we were out in public) and a put together a pretty accurate record of how we (and our friends, and our workplaces) were thinking about the coronavirus and changing our behavior day-to-day throughout March.   

Be a teeny tiny bit less vague than you might naturally be. 

As someone who has kept diaries for 20 years, I can tell you that you won’t remember important context as well as you might think you will in a couple decades, even for things that feel super significant as they are happening. This isn’t a huge thing to worry about, but if you’re journaling with Future You or Future Historians in mind, I recommend it. You don’t necessarily have to write ā€œToday I read an article in the New York Times, a newspaper, which I accessed through the app (application) on my iPhoneā€... but you might want to do small things — like, say, add, ā€œ(neighbor)ā€ or ā€œ(restaurant)ā€ next to a person’s or business’s name.

Or don’t, if doing this is too much work and would stress you out!!! 

Remember that a journal or diary can look like anything.

Photos, texts, receipts, calendar invites, memes, tweets, articles, playlists, emails…these are all excellent records of what is happening in your life right now. You don’t have to start tagging stuff or make a huge effort to collect everything in a single place right now, but it’s not a bad idea to be a little more mindful of retention right now. Things that are dated and searchable, like your personal email or calendar, will be there in a few years, but think about what won’t be super easy to pull up later (like work emails or texts) and find a low-key way to save/find them. 

Know that nothing is too mundane or small to be recorded.

It’s easy to operate from the mindset that journaling is a Serious Endeavor, especially during a pandemic. I think that belief is mostly rooted in the parts of history — and the lives — that we’ve been taught to believe matter. 

But the things we do every day — the people we talk to, the things we eat and buy, the clothes we wear, the art and entertainment we consume, the traditions and rituals and routines and trends we create and take part in — aren’t background noise. They are, in large part, what life in a given culture at a specific time is. And no one can know, in the moment, what is going to be ā€œinterestingā€ in 10 or 20 or 30 years, or even what we’ll personally wish, a week from now, that we had recorded when we had the chance.

So if you think that the way you’re spending your days right now — FaceTiming, creating or acquiring masks, getting creative with beans, watching TikToks — doesn’t ā€œcountā€ or matter enough to be remembered, I would encourage you to let go of some of the biases that might be influencing your thinking. ā€œNormalā€ people’s experiences are extremely relevant to our understanding of history. But also, you don’t have to keep a diary for big picture reasons. You can just…do it for yourself, because you feel like it.

I’ll leave you with something Charlotte Forten GrimkĆ©, a black teacher and anti-slavery activist, wrote in her diary in May of 1854: 

ā€œA wish to record the passing events of my life, which, even if quite unimportant to others, naturally possess a great interest to myself, and of which it will be pleasant to have some remembrance, has induced me to commence this journal. I feel that keeping a diary will be pleasant and profitable employment of my leisure hours, and will afford me much pleasure in after years, by recalling to my mind the memories of other days, thoughts of much-loved friends from whom I may be separated, with whom I now pass many happy hours, in taking delightful walks, and holding ā€˜sweet converse’; the interesting books that I read; and the different people, places and things that I am permitted to see.ā€ āœØ

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