Comin’ in hot on this Wednesday night with a…
New Video Alert!
Our dear friend Matt has a passion for Fig Newtons, so we decided to put them to the test against some store brand competitors to see how they stack up in a blind tasting! You’ll never believe what came in first place…
Hello World! This is my digital postcard to you. I hope it was delivered by a beautiful mail person and that you have found in them the truest love. You may name your firstborn after me but only if it is ensured that they grow up to be very cool.
I’ve had some incredible life moments since my last update, the first being a physical with my delightful *new* physician who floated into my exam room wearing a floral neon maxi dress and a sense of adventure. She pressed the stethoscope drum against my back, immediately triggered a lingering complex from childhood which causes me to feel a pressing need to slow the beating of my heart to prevent doctors from thinking that I have a crush on them when they listen to it. The stress of this only makes my heart beat faster, prompting the doctor to say “relax” which then makes me more anxious because they now of course think that I am in love with them and I can never be seen in this establishment again.
I quickly get past this, because everyone has crushes on everyone anyways, and make it out of my appointment feeling at-ease in regards to my health with a mental list of food and beverage recommendations from my lab technician, #1 being the Limeade from Sonic which I am definitely going to try soon. When I do I will be sure to share my reviews here. If anyone out there has flavor favorites please let me know.
The distant screams of the Brood X cicadas became too tempting and I once again found myself at my parents’ house this past week. As is the magical way of Mother Nature. By chance this trip coincided with the 19th birthday of my littlest sister, a baby of the summer solstice and a terrifying speed solitaire opponent. We went to bingo night at the local brewery which is a pointless affair for me personally because even if I did have a winning card the shame of calling out ‘bingo’ to a room of strangers is too much to bear. This sentiment is not shared by my mother who, after completing a diagonal, shouted “BINGO” and went to collect her prize only to find out that she did not, in fact, have bingo after all. She had marked her numbers incorrectly and as a result had to suffer a fate worse than death, but remains an unstoppable force because she is here to have fun.
Spending time at home always feels like an immediate detachment from the identity I have cultivated as I’ve progressed through early adulthood, and I spend the entire time wearing my sweatpants and following my mom around. As the only one of my siblings that isn’t currently living with my parents, I get major FOMO whenever I have to come back to reality and resume the responsibility of feeding myself and watering my blackberry bush, but I always arrive rejuvenated by my time away and inspired by the law of assumption that things are happening regardless of my participation. The world does not revolve around me and thank FUCKING god for that.
A Few Recommendations
✫ Reubens! I had my first one at a Jewish restaurant in town and I can’t believe that I’ve lived my whole life not knowing the pleasures of corned beef!!
✫ Sophie and I just finished watched the new HBO show Hacks and it was a really funny and heartwarming time! It follows a collaboration between comedians from two different generations and the episodes are only 30 minutes so extremely low commitment. A few cringe moments about “millennial humor” but easy to forgive.
✫ In that same vein, an I Love Lucy clip:
✫ And a farewell song:
Til next time,
jess
Hi it’s me Sophie
Do chameleons make good pets? I googled “chameleons” on a long car trip home the other day, and was immediately given the option to see the answer to that very question.
Turns out that they’re “specific” and “easily stressed”—not great beginner pets. I’m guessing someone reading this…might be a chameleon too. I’m not sure exactly why I was thinking about chameleons on the road trip home, but it was sparked in part by the existential feelings that never fail to arise while looking out the window of a car on a road trip. And I welcomed it! In a transitory state after my last job ended and still waiting for a new one to start, I have been chilling. So I’ve been a chameleon! I showed up at home with my family and blended back in to my former self, assisting on grocery trips and errands. I showed up in Tennessee to visit my extended family, and saw an even younger version of myself that hadn’t visited in so long. I fully embraced western wear, as one does when they’re merely born in the south but really grew up in the suburbs of Virginia. Lol!
Last week I listened to a podcast interview in which a writer explained how she got to be where she was in her career, and how, looking back, each event that led to another in her life felt somewhat miraculous, like divine intervention. When I hear things like this I long to be the person being interviewed on the other end about their “journey”. I seem to abhor my own freedom and availability of options in my life, and say I’d rather just be given a direction so I don’t have to decide. While I realize it sounds ridiculous, I do this to be cautious, to play it safe so I don’t have to take responsibility if my choices don’t lead to 100% perfection. And thank you, I know that I’m on my own “path”, good and bad choices both included.
When making a choice is viewed as a multitude of “right” options, it’s sometimes overwhelming. But on the other side, for a second I challenged myself to think of it in a positive perspective, just for funsies. Me and you could really turn out to do or be a number of things in our lifetime. (just like how my therapist graciously reminded me last week that I am compatible with, yes, a number of people in this world rather than just one person. Imagine that!!!) And I cannot help but hold back the continuation of that thought, which is that I’ve only got one life right now, so I guess not making a choice is truly a choice within itself.
I saw a Tik Tok about other people having an existential crisis on family vacations. Maybe it has something to do with it being a break from your life, being surrounded by people who have known you from a young age that causes you to reevaluate your entire life from a distance? I realized recently after I have the random continued need to tell people around me that I’m on my “personal journey”…that I do tend to speak in platitudes sometimes, wanting to assuage my own anxieties for no reason, but also to connect to others who might be feeling the same way as me.
Randomly, I also recently started digging for some cowgirl content on the internet. I found out about an exhibit that was at the National Cowboy Museum in Oklahoma called “Doubleday’s Cowgirls—Women in the Rodeo”.
It is basically a collection of photographs and accompanying information outlining women who excelled in the rodeo, taken by a rodeo photographer, Ralph Doubleday. Highly recommend checking out more of the exhibition information itself on the website if you’re interested!
So anyways, I found out about this cool rodeo cowgirl named Lorena “Trickey” Peterson. (pictured below) She’s really cool and there’s not a TON of info about her on the internet, but I did find out that people started to know her because of a technique she made up while riding in rodeo relays called the “let ’er fly” technique— “leaping from one horse to another instead of dismounting and remounting”. Also, she came to be well known because she was taken to trial for stabbing her boyfriend…
Notoriety followed in 1927 when she stabbed her boyfriend, J.P. “Smiling Slim” Harris to death with her pocket knife. She claimed self-defense, a witness said he’d seen Harris attack her with a wrench. The jury took just 75 minutes to acquit her.
Now she’s in the rodeo hall of fame! She seems like a pretty awesome person to me. Anyone wanna attend the National Cowboy Museum in Oklahoma City with me sometime soon?
Cowgirl digression aside, those rodeo cowgirls did inspire me. When my options are open, I feel like an instant chameleon. It seems a little too easy for me to imagine myself in any number of places. When I go too far down this road, it’s a way to escape my own reality, in imagining the possibilities of things. For example, when I spend time around my dad, all the sudden I have immediate plans to become an airline pilot, not kidding, and then the next day, I’ve already mentally put myself in a completely different person’s shoes just to see what it would feel like. I want to be my gynecologist every time I see her because she’s inspiring and an incredible power woman.
All these diverging paths are legitimate options, but I think that it is WITHIN the longing to find an identity through the *title* of being something that I tend to lose sight of who I actually am, right now. It’s easy to find one “path” or career option, decide on it, and call it a day… and it’s easy to try and hang my proverbial hat on something and believe that my “path” is figured out. But I am trying to loosen a grip on the comfort of feeling completely beholden to the various identities life presents to us to use as a pseudo-shield…(mother/sister/lawyer/doctor/boyfriend/partner/#GIRLBOSS etc.)
Visiting my family in Tennessee this past week I felt a slight pause on these thoughts, unaware of my every passing feeling, also divorced from the feeling of actively being perceived, which I do tend to feel at home in Richmond. I turned off my phone, tried to be present, read a lot, and most importantly, got a unique anecdotal personal tour of my parent’s hometown. It was refreshing. My dad went to his 40th high school reunion, which sounded like an interesting experience, in seeing where all the people you went to high school with ended up! As we were talking about it, I told my uncle I don’t think I ever want to go to my high school reunions, for obvious reasons….namely because I don’t want to subject to the JUDGEMENT?! Is this a valid reason to abstain? My uncle told me not to worry, because by the time your 40th high school reunion comes around, you “don’t give a shit” about being judged. And, well, I think that’s really beautiful(:
Well, that’s what I’ve been thinking about lately. And in all of this talk, I am reminded of a quote I read in an interview with Michaela Coel, writer and creator of the show I may Destroy You, when asked about her thoughts on the end of the show. I love the very last couple of lines here in particular…
“What does closure look like?” Coel muses. “It’s not that it ends. For me, I look at the last four years and I feel this overwhelming sense of euphoria and pain.”
She wanted viewers to come away from the series the way she does when she completes a draft. How to describe it? There are no words. It’s not singular; it is ineffable. But she will try. When she finished writing the show back in London, she went outside and bought a pastry and a coffee and sat on a bench.
“It’s a very small feeling,” she says. “I finished, and the sadness of finishing and the enjoyment of having done it sit side by side. My version of this is life. I feel as though I am so sad to die and leave, because I had such a great time living. I’m like, ‘Oh, it was so fun!’ ” She gasps, her eyes bright and brimming with tears. “Look at all the things that I learned! Oh my God! And those painful bits! Wow! Fun! Now I’m at the end and” — she gasps again, breathless — “it’s sad to go. Because it’s amazing.”
Love always,
Sophie
As usual, a list of things I’d recommend this week:
This video by Joshua Weissman on how to make hot chicken, my mom showed me it. Really made me want to try and make this at home. That MSG, though!
BREATHING IN THE SUMMER AIR OUTSIDE WHEN IT SMELLS SWEET!!!!!!!!
listening to Lucinda Williams all day long…
“Mickey Guyton Takes On The Overwhelming Whiteness of Country Music” : An interesting article about the future of the country music industry, told in context of musician Mickey Guyton. I’ve been lamenting my overly trusting…instincts when I wrote a full newsletter about country music and heavily included Morgan Wallen in there (he has gotten some pretty bad press since I wrote about him... very disappointing but not surprising at all) But here!! was an article that acknowledged transgressions within the country music industry and places where progress was needed, and it did give me hope. Also, have you listened to Valerie June? Another awesome woman country artist to highlight!
Have you seen this music video? Jess showed me and it really…enlightened me. So inspired by it. Y’allternative lol.