New Year New Links

The dogs came home from boarding with kennel cough (they’re fine), we’ve been snowed in for days because the Pacific Northwest doesn’t know what to do with more than an inch of snow, an old pipe did something weird and now we have a huge hole in our wall (it’s fine, everything’s fine), Covid and snow cancelled a trip to a much-anticipated New Year’s Eve black tie wedding, my new dental crown hurts and cost too much money because we teeth are luxury bones, but you know what? I haven’t written anything in two weeks. I haven’t been on Twitter. My head feels clear. I didn’t read any books — my brain, for whatever reasons, said no — but I did do a really good puzzle, and made the best chicken and dumplings of my life.

I hope you find some clarity today, too, whatever that might look like. And if you want to be distracted from this day, here’s a few things that delighted or engaged me in some form over the last two weeks.

• I have a houseplant habit and usually buy from my very good local nursery, but this site has RARE BUDDIES, reasonably priced, and most importantly, they all arrived well-wrapped and healthy

• Oh are you still looking for a beautiful new wall calendar???

• A clear-eyed look at three people who found themselves at the January 6th insurrection

• The airlines can go fuck themselves

• Incredible privilege to be able to drop out of life to hike for months on end but also I am a sucker for trail stories

• FIGS, MAN!!!!!

• One of the best pieces I’ve read on the various secessionist movements here in the Pacific Northwest and the purpose they actually serve

• Just thinking about luxury bones and this piece on why good dental hygiene isn’t enough for some people

• One of my favorite New Year’s Day traditions = browsing seed catalogs and thinking about the plantings of the year to come. Here’s my favorite. (I really do recommend requested the actual physical catalog, it’s a delight)

• The Minnesota student teacher who created Oregon Trail

• “For the First Time, Every Single Costume Was Designed by a Black Woman.”

• I haven’t stopped thinking about this piece — ostensibly about the end of “owning” gadgets, but also pretty much everything else — since I read it last week

• My latest cookbook obsession

• If you’re a subscriber, you know about what Mutual Aid has done within this community. Being a part of Mutual Aid has helped transform my thinking about giving. Here’s Tressie McMillan Cottom articulating the how and the why.

• This week’s just trust me

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