The Only Things I Care About Are Food: A Memoir

5 things I loved this week:

1. S'mores
   

   

   
   


2. This website that ranks La Croix flavors in tiers. (My current favorite flavor is watermelon.)


3. These animal cookies.
   
   
   


4. The simple, undeniable beauty of boiled potatoes.


5. Jarritos are super good!
   
   
   

"It’s like I don’t know how to describe my feelings properly anymore. "

5 things I loved this week:

1.  One of the best things that's happened to me recently is when Alice sends me articles from the newspaper that I can't read because there's a paywall. This one's from when Ted was interviewed about sourdough. I hope I don't get sued for this.
   
   
   
   
   
2.  Adore You - Harry Styles ~ I love the story in the video.  I've been emotional about everything lately and this for sure made me teary. The superstition, the outcast, the big fish, the teamwork. 


3. James and the Giant Peach read by Taika Waititi and friends.


4. This beautifully written post by WITH's horn player.


5. I'm so happy for all of Canadian Bakin's success. They had a dope reddit thread recently. I miss baking bread.

Writing to a friend

I listened to a Tim Ferriss video recently (I'm currently obsessed with all things Tim Ferriss) where he talked about how much easier, and better, it was to write his book The 4 Hour Work Week, like he was emailing 2 of his close friends. He communicated through writing more effectively when he wrote directly to his friends.

That's the thing that I have used to write this blog for all these years. I say it all the time to her, maybe to the point of exasperation haha, but Rosh is the person I'm talking to when I'm typing here. At least that's who I try to keep in mind. Sometimes I forget and I'm just talking to myself, but those are still things I would probably say to Roshni anyway. I always like re-reading my writing more when I've written this way. I've usually edited them in a way that's conversational. And I'm nosey as fuck so conversations interest me.

Just a second ago, I finished writing an email to Caleb. I was sending him something from an Austin Kleon newsletter that I thought he'd enjoy. While I was searching through my email to see if I was using his correct email address, I re-discovered some emails from Selina. It's funny to me that this happened because in that thing that I sent Caleb, Kleon links to one of his previous posts called "more search, less feed" and from there he links to a post where he talks about his love of the search box, which I also have a lot of love for. And anyway, that all relates somehow.

I only have a fraction of the email conversations between Selina and I. It's also only the emails I sent. I have a few guesses as to why I only have a few and why they're only the ones I sent, but I don't actually have a true answer. My best guess is that at some point I was on a deletion spree and that was paired with having some feelings about our friendship and rather than dealing with the feelings, I made the emails disappear instead. I don't feel that way now, but time softens everything. I'm thankful to have the emails that I still have. They have a similar feeling to these blog posts. I was writing them to one person, a friend. 

*Notice that this was 13 years ago

*Turns out that everyone owns their firstname lastname email both with and without the '.'

*Reading about my crushes is always so cringe to me. I'm trying to be kind to myself, but god I sound like an idiot.

Because I love comparing and contrasting, here's what I've noticed.

• I used to type differently. For example, "ok" instead of "okay" like I do now(I found this out in the IMs from the email with IMs.). I also used to make a smile like "(:" instead of ":)" and I rarely capitalized my sentences or the letter 'I'. 
• I don't know where I picked it up, but I still love being creative with email sign offs.
• I'm still so weird.

bear with

I just found out yesterday that Tim Ferriss also produces a weekly list o' five called "5 Bullet Friday." So I'm def channeling Tim Ferriss right now.

5 things I loved this week:

1. Dolly Parton's America


2. Dippin' dots - I got them from a cupcake shop in Jville early this week.


3. Johnson's deli - I've pretty much decided to let them feed me for the rest of my days.


4. This shoe rack -
   


5. This shelf -
   
   

and other stuff

5 things I loved this week:

1.  This sunrise companion app that I downloaded has an alarm feature that  I've been using where it sets an alarm for an hour before the sun rises. I like it because I found myself floundering (more than normal) without a routine and I really felt guilty about waking up around 4pm and going to bed at 9am-ish. I've noticed that I rebel against waking up at the exact same time everyday because I pretty much think time is meaningless anyway so that kind of routine doesn't work for me very well. I like that the sunrise changes by just a little everyday. I have a window directly to the right of my bed and I'm on the second story of the house so when the alarm goes off I like to see what the sky is doing. I usually lay there for like 30 minutes, opening and closing my eyes to notice the shifts out the window. If some interesting color is happening, I've been physically getting out of bed to drive to the bypass to get a wider view of the sunrise. It's made me feel like a human again. (Instead of feeling like a swamp creature.)


2.  I listened to Abbi Jacobson's I Might Regret This and it was like I was hearing my own thoughts being read to me. I especially related to the chapter on Adult Concerns, which is conveniently in the google books review. I feel like that gives me permission to share here.
   
   


3.  Meg Lewis's comedy meditation podcast - Sit There and Do Nothing


4.  I am the biggest sucker for wildflowers. There's something about the beautiful chaos of them. These from a day when I went to watch the sunrise.
   


5. Sunday Best by Surfaces - My favorite part of the song is "Every day can be a better day despite the challenge/All you gotta do is leave it better than you found it."

*Honorable mention: Lost in the Supermarket - I really like grocery shopping and it's really heartbreaking to me what's happened and the negativity surrounding grocery stores right now. This is an honorable mention because I think the host is unnecessary. It would be a great show if it was just a person silently walking around a grocery store picking up random things, but I still really like watching what they've done and seeing what's inside grocery stores.

It's been a dull week

3 things I loved this week:

1. I live for comparing/contrasting. This is a good article: the best sriracha


2. The Mythical Kitchen has really been putting out some gems lately. I read recently that you shouldn't take advice from the experts because they can transform things that you wouldn't be able to do yourself because they're experts, but you should take advice from regular people because then you know what common mistakes are and how to avoid them. That's exactly what the crew from Mythical Kitchen have going for them. They're very relatable. I made 'eggs in purgatory' from this video. It's so good. It combines so many flavors that I love.
    


3. I watched Frank and Ollie because B/C have disney+ on the downstairs tv. I don't have access to it otherwise, and I don't really have any desire to because then it's like a little treat when I sit down to check out what's on there. I wanted to watch something while I was eating and I had never heard of Frank or Ollie and the little blurb was interesting. I discovered such a beautiful backstory on most of my most beloved animated movies. Frank Thomas reminds me of a California version of my Papaw.