#48: long time reader, second time writer

I’m sooooo sorry that I couldn’t come up with a new title for this week but it is what it is

hi hi hi sisters ♡ It’s me again! I introduced myself in last week’s newsletter, so if you didn’t see that and are wondering who the heck I am, pop back over there because I’m too lazy to do introductions again lmao but short story short, I’m Kaitlynn’s friend filling in for her while she’s OOO and my name’s Alyssa. I’m so glad you’re here :)

Also, my deepest apologies for these late post!! I had everything ready to go yesterday and then forgot to publish….. We will be very grateful for Kaitlynn to be back next week now won’t we!!

This week’s first substack recommendation goes out to Letters from an American by Heather Cox Richardson. Heather is an American history professor and provides daily updates on current events with the relevant historical background and government-processes information that you need to understand it. She publishes each day both a regular text newsletter and a podcast-style audio recording. I’ve been liking listening to the audio version in the afternoon when I need a little break from work each day. If you’re wanting an easy way to stay slightly more plugged-in to current events, this is for you!!

For a totally different type of newsletter, I’m also recommending PIGPEN by Heather Hurst. I discovered Heather through tiktok probably a year ago and am lowkey obsessed with her. She writes mostly about personal style and she’s made me get a lot more thoughtful about the clothing items I buy, whether thrifted or new. I love hearing about her mental process when it comes to exploring her own style, and I think you might love it too! As an added bonus, she has the cutest little pup named Pig, who we LOVE.

movies: I have a little game that I like to play when trying to pick out a movie by myself that I call “letterboxd shuffle,” which is where I go to my watchlist on letterboxd, sort by shuffle, and then watch the first movie that comes up. I like this because 1) it takes the decision-making out of my hands and 2) it gets me to watch movies that likely would have stayed on the metaphorical shelf gathering metaphorical dust for years to come, always being passed up for a newer, flashier option. Highly recommend. This week’s letterboxd shuffle had me watch John Ford’s Stagecoach (1939). I pretty much always like movies based around a random group of strangers getting to know each other over a short period of time in some kind of dramatic setting, and this did that very very well. Apparently this movie is also considered John Wayne’s breakout role, so that’s kind of fun too. Side note, I absolutely looove John Ford’s The Grapes of Wrath (1940) so if you’re wanting a black and white Ford movie with beautiful visuals, loveable characters, and a moving storyline that is not centered on racist stereotypes of Indigenous people, I’d recommend that over Stagecoach. The next movie I watched was Hit Man (2024) and was extremely pleasantly surprised by how much I liked it. It was cooky and fun and once again affirmed to me how much I love Glen Powell. It was one of those movies where the main character makes such risky decisions that you can’t help but be kind of freaking out for them, even knowing that it’s a SILLY MOVIE and is definitely going to end up fine in the end. My roommate, Miranda, and I were stressing big time lol. I also watched Like Stars on Earth (2007), a Bollywood film about a misunderstood and gifted kid that had me in tears for the entire thing, While We’re Young (2014), a coming-of-age film for 40 year olds featuring Adam Driver as a documentary-making hipster, and THE High School Musical 3 (2008), obviously a masterpiece.

music: this week I discovered The Weepies’s 2005 folk-pop album Say I Am You, and it was perfect background music for work. The vibes are kind of like Hearts Content by Brandi Carlile and The Long Run by The Staves had a bunch of sweet little babies. And how could I not mention Hozier’s newest single, That You Are?? My Irish angel never misses. ALSO THE LADY GAGA AND BRUNO MARS COLLAB?????? HELLOOOOOO?????? THANK YOU POP GODS

books: happy to report that the book I mentioned starting last week, Memento Mori, was actually perfect and you should all read it. My coolest friend Faith and I went to the release event for it on Wednesday so we got to meet the author, Eunice Hong, and it was SO CUTE AND FUN. It was really special to hear her talk more about the book and it made me somehow love it even more. The other book I read this week was Cannery Row by John Steinbeck. This book made me laugh out loud on the subway and also quietly weep in my room. My guy Steinbeck has RANGE. If you haven’t read anything of his yet, this is an excellent place to start!! He has such a wonderful way of writing about simple everyday things in a way that makes them feel just as extraordinary as they actually are, if we’d only pay better attention. And then after you finish Cannery Row please for the love of everything pick up The Grapes of Wrath!! (oops didn’t mean to mention TGOW twice in one newsletter but I am what I am!)

in my mind: the father I passed on the sidewalk the other day who was holding his tiny baby up to a tree so that they could touch it. He was going, “Wow! How cool is that!” while moving the baby’s chubby little fingers along the bark. It was one of the cutest things I’ve ever seen a stranger do and I immediately wrote about it in my journal. Very Braiding Sweetgrass coded!!

in my stomach: last week I wrote about being back on my same-old grilled sandwich shit, and now I’m reporting being back on my overnight oats shit. The recipe I’ve been following lately, originally created by chatgpt and then altered to my own preferences, is as follows:

• 1/4 cup oats

• 1 tbsp chia seeds

• 1 tbsp maple syrup

• 1 tbsp peanut butter (or more! get crazy with it! no one’s stopping you!)

• generous drizzle of honey

• somewhere between 1/2 and 3/4 cup milk depending on how liquidy you like it

• 1 banana (added in the morning)

I like this warm so I microwave it for 1 minute in the morning, but you could also leave it cold. And then I mix in my banana in very thin slices so that I can pretty much have banana in every bite. It’s sooooo yummy you guys.

This opinion piece in the Washington Post on family-level friendships by Allison Raskin caught my eye this week because it touches on a few things I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. (Hopefully that gift link works, but if not, here’s a tiktok briefly summarizing part of the article. And another relevant tiktok, which is also referenced in the article). I’m a strong believer that we honor our friends by allowing them to be there for us when we need them, not by constantly worrying about overburdening them. I think that part of why adult friendships seem so hard sometimes is because we feel like we’re supposed to have all our shit together and that we shouldn’t be asking for help from our friends, which is inevitably going to lead to more surface-level friendships. Because society tells us that grownups and are supposed to be independent!! I think people are afraid that if they accidentally ask for too much from their friends, they might be cut off for the sake of those friends “protecting their peace”, but real friendship and community means that we have to be willing to give and take. Deep friendship is going to require something of us and that’s okay! It’s going to require that we give when we are able, and that we let others give to us as well. We have to allow ourselves to be helped, knowing that what goes around comes around and if we open up the doors of reciprocity, we’ll always get the chance to return the favor. And our lives are just BETTER when we get to feel the joy of doing things for the people we love!!!! I guess what I’m saying is, let people love you in tangible ways because then they’ll feel safe letting you love them back. And we neeeeeeeed that.

So that’s what I’m thinking about in adulting this week—how I can better foster that spirit of reciprocity and family-level friendships in my current life. I don’t have a plan of how exactly to accomplish it yet, but I’m going to be keeping my eyes open for opportunities to practice what I preached here.

Here are some text posts that get at the exact same idea more eloquently than me to round it out:

And a quote I loved from this essay by Rayne Fisher-Quann.

It’s hard to be hurt, and perhaps even harder to hurt the people you love — why not cut the risk, lock the doors, and live a life of robotic, impersonal, action-oriented optimization?

The answer, of course, is that none of us are any good alone.

It is a cruel and fundamentally inhuman tragedy that the culture has convinced so many of us that we must be healed in isolation, because being surrounded by people — people who love us, or care for us, or are willing to sit in the same room with us while we clean up our messes — is about the only way that I, for one, have ever been able to get better.

tiktok: this moment is literally SO important to me!!!; to treat our olympics withdrawals; sending love to all my fellow public transportation girlies <33

pinterest: perfect little angels; Mary Oliver ALWAYS gets it; and an affirmation for your week

youtube links again since I don’t really do instagram! i’m so excited for this movie and the trailer made me tear up; protect this man at all costs; more of my favs obviously

Alrighty that’s a wrap on my guest-post RECAPs! I hope you’ve enjoyed them because I know I have. But WOW has this given me a greater appreciation for what Kaitlynn does each week!! KAITLYNN, WE MISS YOU AND AGAIN CAN’T WAIT FOR YOU TO COME BACK!!!!!!!!