Living in my own algorithm-crafted echo chamber, I find it hard to believe we can receive signs from the universe from the internet. But occasionally I’ll get an email that is so timely it convinces me maybe cosmic energy exists online too. Friday I got a call from my doctor who, upon reviewing my recent bloodwork, told me to go to the ER immediately. 10 minutes later the vet called to follow up on my cat Penny’s bloodwork and told me the results were much worse than expected. I spent the day in the hospital worrying about both my own health and that of my cat’s.
Perhaps funnily, perhaps tragically, or perhaps just ironically, we seem to be experiencing similar symptoms related to our weight and anxious appetites. I guess that old saying that, over time, pets mirror the behaviors and personalities of their owners, is true.
After a day at the hospital, I was discharged and grateful to be back home cuddling with Penny. As we lay on the floor, I was suddenly aware of the fleeting nature of both our existence, and struck with this fear that it is one of our time’s. Despite her being by my side for half of my lifetime, I am still young and she is the one who is old. So naturally, she should be next. But I don’t want that, nor the alternative outcome, for either of us.
I received the below comic by Karl Stevens from The New Yorker—about a cat with the same name as mine—as I lay with Penny after the day at the hospital. The illustrated Penny’s fluctuating states of anxiety, nihilism and immense gratitude could not be more apropo of how I’ve been feeling lately. Receiving this email when I did felt like a sign. Of what I’m not sure yet, but a sign nonetheless.
Best,
Anna
Published 📝
My personal essay on Angela Trimbur’s anti-ballet dance class was featured on The Drew Barrymore Show, and even inspired Drew to get dancing! I’ll admit I’m a fan of this show (talk shows are my weakness, which reminds me—I need to go to one IRL now that I’m in NYC!), so this unexpected news made my week.
Reading 📖
After posting all the books I picked up this week on IG, I had multiple requests for my full reading list. So here it is:
Forthcoming this year:
👩💻 Clickbait by Holly Baxter - A Dolly Alderton-esque, whip-smart dark comedy about a newly disgraced and divorced journalist who gets demoted to a “clickbait” job at a Manhattan tabloid.
🌍 The New Tourist by Paige McClanahan - a page-turning examination of the current state of tourism and how to travel better, essential reading for my fellow travel journalists or anyone who travels a lot.
🕵️♀️ Woman Of Interest by Tracy O’Neill - a biography written like a detective mystery on O’Neill’s search for her missing birth mother in South Korea.
🌊 See: Loss. See: Also Love by Yukiko Tominaga - after her husband’s death, Kyoko raises their son in San Francisco rather than return to Japan, under the overbearing presence of her Jewish mother-in-law. What sold me was the description: “there are times where Kyoko is lonely but never alone and others in which she is alone but never lonely.”
New this year:
🌵 Death Valley by Melissa Border - I devoured Broder’s Milk Fed so I was excited to pick up her latest work of surrealist fiction, especially when I heard the premise: a self-absorbed L.A. writer seeks refuge and creative inspiration in the desert while her father is in a coma, and finds herself on an unexpected journey upon entering a mysterious door in a mystical cactus.
😂 Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sitterfeld - a witty rom-com about an SNL-inspired weekly live comedy show writer who has sworn off love until a pop star has her rethinking her self-sabotaging ways.
🍽 Dead Weight: Essays on Hunger and Harm by Emmeline Clein - this nonfiction examination of our disordered eating culture was put on my radar by this great New Yorker piece on whether the decision to forgo food can be separated from the gendered realm of weight-loss culture.
🐅 Rebel Girl by Kathleen Hanna - memoir by the front woman of Le Tigre and Bikini Kill on pioneering the riot grrrl movement and being a feminist in the underground punk scene of the 90s.
🪨 A Living Remedy by Nicole Chung - I loved her first memoir All You Can Ever Know about growing up as a Korean American transracial adoptee in a predominately white small town so I had to pick up her second. This one explores themes of family, class and grief as Chung searches to understand the lives of her adoptive parents following their deaths.
Less New, Still Good:
💊 The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness and Healing In A Toxic Culture by Dr. Gabor Mate - Mate examines how Western medicine fails to treat the whole body holistically and recognize the impact of environmental factors, and offers a compassionate guide for health and healing.
🧘♀️ Trusting The Gold by Tara Brach - a collection of short meditations and ancient parables that reaffirm the innate goodness in all of us. The perfect bedtime read.
Articles:
✊ The student protests aren’t perfect, that doesn’t mean they’re not right.
👩 Are white women better now?
“Where another generation of white women worked to hate their bodies, my generation hates its whiteness. People are always demanding that women apologize for something and women seem to love doing it.” - Nellie Bowles.
💸 The unkillable appeal of multilevel marketing.
❗️A theory of the modern exclamation point.
💻 “Am I too online?”
🥖 How to host a dinner party with a pre-trash haul from Too Good To Go (just discovered the app is in Canada too!).
Watching 📺
If you know me you know I’ve had an enormous crush on Jake Gyllenhaal since I was 13 so I can’t wait for his first big TV role in the forthcoming Apple TV+ legal thriller Presumed Innocent (coming June 14). Based on Scott Turow’s 1990 courtroom novel, the series tells the story of a horrific murder that wreaks havoc in the Chicago Prosecuting Attorneys’ office when one of its own (played by Gyllenhaal) is suspected of the crime.
It’s giving Zodiac, which I loved, so I have high hopes. I still haven’t seen his most recent thriller Roadhouse, the remake of the 1989 film of the same name. I’m not a UFC fan but I can always get down with jacked Jake (if anyone’s seen this, is it worth watching?).
Another forthcoming remake I’m excited for is Twisters (coming July 19), based on the 1996 disaster blockbuster that still gets my heart-pounding to this day. Sadly, Helen Hunt is swapped for Normal People breakout Daisy Edgar-Jones but I’m intrigued by the director Lee Isaac Chung making his big-budget movie debut after his semi-autobiographical, Oscar-nominated film Minari.
Hacks also returned this week to mixed reviews but I’m so in love with this show it can do no wrong, I already watched the first episode and approve.
Listening 🎧
One aspect of algorithm-fuelled streaming I resent is that I can listen to an artist all the time and not even know their name. When my friend Ryan Davis told me he was performing with Icelandic singer-songwriter Laufey this week at Massey Hall, I thought I’d never heard of her. But upon looking her up, I realized I listen to her all the time. If you’ve never listened to her, I recommend starting with her new album (and check out Ryan’s music too!). Its a dreamy, witchy balm that I’ve been listening to in the evening to calm me down.