Worthwhiles: Issue One

A figure-eight, on its side.  

Back when the leaves were just coming in I was dealing with some anxiety that I couldn't shake from my body. A friend sent me a video of somatic movements to try. They mostly made me feel silly but one had me extend my arms out straight like a mummy and then move them as if I were tracing a figure-eight symbol on its side*.  And for some reason this worked. The anxiety fell out of my body for a while and my brain felt clear. This same friend sent me this lovely 15-minute yoga routine which has you move your body in a figure-eight motion early on, and wow does it feel incredible.  

Crosswords, with friends. 

Crosswords took up the end of my summer. After years of not really understanding how they work, doing enough of them with other people helped something click. I've been held in their thrall ever since. In early September I was invited to hang out at the lake and I brought the most recent issue of New York Magazine with me. Over the course of the afternoon eight different people tried to help me finish the crossword that was inside**. It was such a delightful way to talk to new people, and was a surprisingly good group activity. I would recommend taking a crossword puzzle to a public place (coffee shop, the library, an outside hang with your friends); if someone is being friendly, ask them for help with a clue or two.

The Lowdown.

Like all well-regarded shows produced by FX, The Lowdown creates a deeply lived-in, fully realized world, with a main character who is incredibly fun to watch on TV and would be incredibly tiring to know in real life. Every person on the street has a story, and every side character fits into the world in a believable way. The show takes you to a deeply charming but rough version of Tulsa, Oklahoma, then immerses you in a noir-esque mystery that feels pretty straightforward until the end of episode one, when the dead start talking. Also Killer Mike and Dale Cooper are there!  

Obituary Adjacent

Annie Dillard passed away in September. I wasn't that familiar with her work but I have been reading (very slowly) and very much enjoying her book An American Childhood. She has an incredible knack for telling you about parts of her life that feel both captivating and familiar. Very early on she recounts a time when she was a young child and was visited by a monster each night while trying to fall asleep. There would be a terribly loud noise and then the monster would glide across her room, pause, and then disappear. She reveals at the end of that section that it was light from cars' headlights moving across her ceiling through a gap in her curtains. My retelling doesn't do her writing justice but I read this passage two years ago and still think about it often. She so deftly capture they way a child's mind interprets things and how something simple becomes terrifying when it is unknown.  Anyway, you should read this short essay she wrote about a weasel. 

DIY Coldstone Creamery

I didn't grow up close to a Coldstone Creamery or anything like a Coldstone Creamery. So, unfortunately, it took me 31 years to realize that I can buy whatever I want and put it into ice cream. My current favorite additives are chex cereal, marshmallow fluff, and peanut butter or pb cups into whatever ice cream I have on hand.  

What are the things you're finding worthwhile in your life lately? 

*What one might call the infinity symbol. 

**This is because the New York Magazine+ crosswords are bad. I thought for a while they were very difficult and I was just a novice but NO if eight people can't solve the puzzle it's because it's bad. 

+New York Magazine is different than the New York Times and different from the New Yorker, both of which have pretty good crossword puzzles.