A life full of love
never achieves flow state.
Welcome to The Simple Things, a newsletter inspired by one of my favorite Oscar Wilde quotes. Today’s titular quote is from Ann Friedman, the genius behind one of my favorite weekly newsletters. She’s not on Substack, so she’s also a rebel. Highly recommend being a paid subscriber. Your life will improve significantly, I guarantee it. (Terms and conditions apply).
I tend to ramble, so you might have to expand this email to avoid missing anything. If you enjoy reading this newsletter, please let me know by hitting the heart button or subscribing!
Rihanna said makeup wipes are on their way out, so I threw mine out. Kidding!1 But I was getting tired of how ineffective and wasteful makeup wipes were, so I recently switched to using a cleansing balm. It’s so good at removing everything, including my super dark eyeliner, without blinding me or drying my skin out. I use Clinique Take the Day Off because it’s fragrance free, but I’ve also heard great things about e.l.f Holy Hydration! Makeup Melting Cleansing Balm (some reviews were mixed about the fragrance) and CeraVe Cleansing Balm. A little goes a long way — I use about a thumbnail’s worth of product, massage it on my face with god’s gua shua (my hands), rub rub rub, rinse, and remove any remaining residue with my usual Cetaphil face wash. Wait a minute, did I just start double cleansing? [Sephora, Ulta]
Speaking of skincare, I try to keep my routine pretty simple (no more than 5 products in a session) and I’m a creature of habit. HOWEVER! Waves crash and leaves fall and occasionally I’ll switch things up. CM gifted me a bottle of refillable Extreme Cream, an Augustinus Bader dupe, according to the internet. I’ve never used AB so I can’t tell you how it compares, I just know that it makes my face feel baby-bottom smooth. Layered on top of my hyaluronic acid serum (which I also add to my lips before sealing it all with a layer of Aquaphor), it’s everything I need to keep my skin hydrated during these cold temps in Atlanta. [Sephora]
I know you did not come here for my skincare routine, so thanks for reading this far.
Happy White Lotus Season 3 to all who celebrate! Walter Goggins is one of the best actors out there right now and so underrated, so I really shouldn’t have been surprised by his gorgeous home. He and his wife lovingly restored a 128-year old hunting lodge in the Hudson Valley, complete with practical fireplaces, a hidden prohibition room, and ants in his kitchen. Celebrities, they’re just like us!
Read and reading:
I am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes - I can definitely see this as a prestige mini series or a movie franchise. The book is well-written but in dire need of a ruthless editor. Exciting stuff, but could have been 150-200 pages shorter.
One-Star Romance by Laura Hankin - I was not expecting to be emotionally pummeled by this romantic comedy, but I was. It was a delightful meet cute turned sworn enemies turned sworn lovers story. Found myself rooting for all the characters.
The Only One Left by Riley Sager - Just started this suspense thriller about a caregiver tasked with caring for an elderly woman who all the townspeople believe killed her family Lizzie Borden-style. But did she? Guess I’m going to find out!
Writers are some of the most generous and angriest people I know. Generous with their words and thought, angry at the state of the world and OH MY GOD THAT DESCRIPTION OF LOVE IS SO PERFECT I WANT TO RIP MY HAIR OUT. That’s how I felt when I read Ann Friedman’s V-day newsletter. At the risk of being a newsletter that just reposts other newsletters and calls it content (which by my math, makes it a Tumblr)2 I just have to copy and paste her entire intro (including the links) because it’s just so spot-on to me:
Love is interruption.
In bed with the flu last month, I escaped into Rachel Khong's multi-generational epic Real Americans. Near the end of the book, an elderly woman observes her flatmate: “Whenever Betty needed something, her granddaughter seemed inconvenienced, acting as though Betty were interrupting her very important life. Of course she was interrupting. As people we interrupted one another’s lives—that was what we did. If you sought to live your life without interruption you wound up like me: living life without interruption, totally alone.”
This interrupted me, you might say. Or rather, interrupted my understanding of this moment over overlapping private and public crises. It had occurred to me that a streamlined, optimized life is one of loneliness. But it hadn't occurred to me that I should be welcoming, rather than enduring, the insistent interruptions—the errands, the runny noses, the "do you have a sec?" questions, the making and canceling and remaking plans—as the price and privilege of connection. A life full of love never achieves flow state.
Love is ignorant.
My friend who lives in a Zen monastery, who I think I've known for 30 years, told me this koan: “Not knowing is most intimate.”
Love is quick to anger.
To think that "my child feels threatened, and feels like their life doesn't matter, feels like their life can be compromised, is more than just infuriating. It's offensive to me," parent Juan Carlos Pérez told the crowd protesting LA Children's Hospital's cruel and cowardly suspension of gender-affirming treatment for minors. A friend "turned into a dragonmother and reduced a room full of admins into tearful allies" after a transphobic teacher bullied her kid. Fury as protective spell.
Love is proud.
"To order this cake with the continent of Africa blazoned across the front from a place that doesn’t want you is a special kind of pride. I love her for it," writes Kaitlyn Greenidge of her grandma. She goes on to describe the love that created Black History Month, which "began not as a business move or a way to build monetary wealth or a desire for white American understanding or a marketing push. It was an effort of Black librarians and researchers to preserve memory and build self."
Love is maybe, just a little bit, envious.
"Standing in the kitchen with Luke and Jonas as they finish cooking a giant pot of gurgling tortilla soup, I am warm inside and out. ... It's the kind of chemistry and affection that eradicates any anxiety, personal bitterness, and existential dread from the crevices of my body. It's like, if they have this connection and love for each other, than anything is possible. Goodness and sweetness can still thrive in this world." (Vera, I'm not saying you're envious but also: Who wouldn't be?!)
Love is the stupidest song ever.
And it's stuck in your head. "I expected us all to feel embarrassed playing it. But everyone was singing along to the chorus the second time it came around. We looked at each other and thought: 'This is it. It’s staying.'"
- AF
Also from AF:
And a necessary reminder that love is not efficient. It’s messy and inconvenient, but its necessary because the moment we turn away from each other is the moment we turn off being human (tap through):
Privilege says I can help but I don’t need to. Courage says I can help because you need me. Love says I must help because we need each other.
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PTO time is upon us and thankfully some angel of a human made this tool to help us 9-to-5ers make the most of our time off. [via
]I appreciated this measured and impassioned take from economics professor Jayati Ghosh on what’s at stake and what we can do about it. Ghosh is a prolific scholar of inequality, debt, international trade finance, women’s labor, just to name a few. You think she’d be open to having dinner with me? Imagine the hahas we’d share over apps! [The Drift Mag]
“Before I started meditating, I believed the churn. I used to think that if my mind was stuck on a particular irritation, then it must be important. Learning to observe these thoughts as they arose enabled me to see that they were just… thoughts. They were usually repetitive and not particularly interesting. The trick was not to eliminate them, but to simply let them run their course.”
-
, “Sweating the small stuff when the world’s on fire”
This is the kind of gift that’ll make any Asian boomer reluctantly hug you for. Just don’t tell them how much you spent, they might swat you for not setting that aside for your savings. [via
]
My algo is algo-ing and she’s serving me up links to more charming analog toothbrushes. [Blanche and Mimi]
You can never have too many life hacks on hand. [via
]Some cool thrifting and vintage shopping tools from
: Catawiki for bidding on anything from vintage clothing to furniture and Encore, which is like ChatGPT for shopping.
Each Wish Card comes equipped with a match, a strike-pad and a candlewick to allow the recipient to make a wish, pausing for a brief moment of reflection.
“Recognizing ‘enoughness’ is a radical act in an economy always urging us to consume more. - Robin Wall Kimmerer via
Take what you need,
G
Anybody want a pack for emergencies?
High five to you for getting this reference! Sigh, remember those good ol’ days?
Did you wind up liking The Only One Left by Riley Sage? Sounds interesting!
Thank you for mentioning me. What a wonderful tool, right?