The line about feeling like you should have more capacity than you do hit me HARD. It is probably my greatest struggle as a person and a writer. I have talks with myself about it every day! Just before I read this I sat down to write my to do list and had to say “there is a lot I want to do; how can I pare this down to what absolutely MUST be done today?” I still think I put too much on the list.
Re: lying, I’ll always remember one time in college when I could not find my apartment keys so I couldn’t leave because my roommates were gone and I wouldn’t have been able to get inside. I frantically emailed my professor telling him that and was like “I promise I want to go to class. I am not making this up! I just am trapped in my home!” And he said it was fine and he believed me because frankly that would be a bonkers lie.
The to do list thing is so real! I often think about something Sophie has said in the past- about how a to do list for a day should only have 3 things on it, anything else is too much!
From when I worked with 3rd graders, I noticed that Elsa was targeted towards younger kids, because she gets cool magical powers (and the trauma is overlooked), while Anna is targeted towards older kids because she gets a romantic interest. But it's a 2 princesses for 1 movie deal, so double the marketing + toys, etc.
Lunch! I love hot lunch. When I was a kid at school we had hot lunch plastic tokens, and milk plastic tokens, and the hot lunch ones were red, which I liked, and said HOT on them. :-) Cold lunch feels like less love, even though it is just me making my lunch every day. I try to make soup on Sundays and then I freeze it in containers and then I have hot lunch every day! But if it is going to be cold lunch, it's Siggi's yogurt (pretentiously called skyr) and half a pbj (cherry preserves) and an orange, peeled with a knife and cut into circles because I think the slices are pretty.
thank you for this BEAUTIFUL piece. here are some things i love about it, and some thoughts of my own:
THIS SENTENCE: "I think people lie more often than they tell the truth about (there’s a sentence for you)."
thank you for this sentence! i believe that it is true!
THIS ANALOGY: "Have you ever eaten a packing peanut made out of potato starch, just because such a thing is possible? Reading a paper written by AI feels a lot like that."
thank you for that glorious analogy created by you, a human!
THIS LOVING TRUTHFUL PASSAGE: "In All About Love, bell hooks writes, 'To be loving we willingly hear each other’s truth and, most important, we affirm the value of truth-telling. Lies may make people feel better, but they do not help them to know love.' Of course, of course, of course there are reasons to lie — especially in a police state where vulnerable populations are made infinitely more vulnerable with every true detail that surfaces about them. I’m only trying to tell you that you deserve love now. Whatever your truth is. Whatever your truth is."
i love this, and it reminds me of this concept in standup comedy... standup comedians need (i believe) places where they feel comfortable experimenting and "failing." open mics or what my friend liz glazer calls "sweatpants shows" or rooms where we just truly can say anything and be ourselves and try new things and take big swings or do whatever we want and the outcome doesn't matter and doesn't impact whether we get rebooked or hired for something else... this is the place where we can tell our truth, and prepare for other shows where the stakes seem higher. and this bell hooks passage and your assessment of it reminds me of this because of course there are places out in public where certain people (all people? many people) will not feel safe or comfortable telling their whole truth, but i hope that everyone has SOMEWHERE that they do. a home, a friendship, a therapeutic relationship, a chosen family, a substack newsletter comment section... because it's important to have at least somewhere that that is possible.
THIS POSSIBILITY: "Wake up tomorrow, and consider the possibility that the people who are meant to love you will love your truth. But that doesn’t mean you owe it to anyone, either."
beautifully put! thank you for sharing YOUR truth with all of us here.
love
myq
PS ALSO TO THIS: "So, I did watch Severance. I know I’m a little late in talking to you about this. Should we talk about what we thought about Season Two? My students are torn, and I am too."
i just wanted to say that Severance is the PERFECT show to feel torn about.
i personally am of two minds about it. and both of my minds love it.
This is me, pretty much verbatim: "I just recently started tucking my shirt into my pants, and I think I look incredible, like a real Adult Woman. But no one is ever like, “Wow, I love your tucked-in shirt.” Do you know what I mean?" Also, it means the harness I wear to play contrabass flute won't rub holes into all of my t-shirts.
Re: Princesses. I highly recommend the "Princess in Black" series, because it's a fantastic send-up of all the princess stories and empowering and very fun. Also: illustrations by LeUyen Pham, who is rad.
Actually, my stripey jerko kitty is and always has been a little mad at me. Who knows why he has held a small but mighty 18-year grudge, but he still gets a million tiny head kisses daily.
I love this!! I have been a lifelong liar since I was a kid and hid in the locker rooms to avoid swim team (to this day I don't know how I got away with it. Did no one notice that my brother attended but i was missing?) I hatedhow the chlorine made my skin feel and smell, and the coach was mean during conditioning drills. As an adult, I've had to recalibrate especially bc it turns out, romantic partners do NOT like lying, even about small "innocuous" things. I've felt so much shame over defaulting to lying but this frame is so clear and kind. Thank you for sharing 💖
PS. As a current PNW resident, I think I'll also incorporate SpringO! Right now forsythia, red-flowering currant, trillium, and fruit trees are in various stages of bloom 🌸
2. I hope the meeting with your boss went well 😳yesterday I asked my boss for a meeting, because I need to ask him for some advice and also ask for some stuff for me (time off) and I STILL feel like I’m about to be in trouble. Wow what a hard feeling.
3. I love eating leftovers from the night before for lunch! I also love a really good sandwich if I don’t have leftovers, but I don’t often make them anymore.
Lunch: I often make a salad and it comes together very quickly if you have the right stuff on hand. I use a pre-washed salad mix, always add a protein (usually open a can of beans or cut up tofu), something to give it a little pizzazz - olives or sauerkraut or maybe artichokes from a jar, and then perhaps any other cut up veggies (or cooked/roasted) that might be lying around. And dressing. You could add any number of toppers - seeds, nuts, goldfish crackers....
Then a piece of fruit and a small granola bar for a little carb.
Or leftovers! If I have leftovers I try to pack them right into lunch sized containers right when we are done with dinner so that it's all done already in the morning.
I can’t believe the synchronicity of us both writing about a version of SPRINGO this week. I swear we didn’t steal it, we have just found our people who love wordplay 💛
hi sophie, i moved! will there be a chance for me to give you my new address for mail tier?
(also, i moved from downtown to a neighbourhood near an urban green space, which means SO MANY MORE BACKYARD BIRDS!)
I've moved too! (In December but I am unsure if that was before the last mail tier..) Either way - how can I get you my new address? :)
"Laziness isn't real" is something I am trying to figure out at the moment!
The line about feeling like you should have more capacity than you do hit me HARD. It is probably my greatest struggle as a person and a writer. I have talks with myself about it every day! Just before I read this I sat down to write my to do list and had to say “there is a lot I want to do; how can I pare this down to what absolutely MUST be done today?” I still think I put too much on the list.
Re: lying, I’ll always remember one time in college when I could not find my apartment keys so I couldn’t leave because my roommates were gone and I wouldn’t have been able to get inside. I frantically emailed my professor telling him that and was like “I promise I want to go to class. I am not making this up! I just am trapped in my home!” And he said it was fine and he believed me because frankly that would be a bonkers lie.
The to do list thing is so real! I often think about something Sophie has said in the past- about how a to do list for a day should only have 3 things on it, anything else is too much!
From when I worked with 3rd graders, I noticed that Elsa was targeted towards younger kids, because she gets cool magical powers (and the trauma is overlooked), while Anna is targeted towards older kids because she gets a romantic interest. But it's a 2 princesses for 1 movie deal, so double the marketing + toys, etc.
Lunch! I love hot lunch. When I was a kid at school we had hot lunch plastic tokens, and milk plastic tokens, and the hot lunch ones were red, which I liked, and said HOT on them. :-) Cold lunch feels like less love, even though it is just me making my lunch every day. I try to make soup on Sundays and then I freeze it in containers and then I have hot lunch every day! But if it is going to be cold lunch, it's Siggi's yogurt (pretentiously called skyr) and half a pbj (cherry preserves) and an orange, peeled with a knife and cut into circles because I think the slices are pretty.
dear sophie,
thank you for this BEAUTIFUL piece. here are some things i love about it, and some thoughts of my own:
THIS SENTENCE: "I think people lie more often than they tell the truth about (there’s a sentence for you)."
thank you for this sentence! i believe that it is true!
THIS ANALOGY: "Have you ever eaten a packing peanut made out of potato starch, just because such a thing is possible? Reading a paper written by AI feels a lot like that."
thank you for that glorious analogy created by you, a human!
THIS LOVING TRUTHFUL PASSAGE: "In All About Love, bell hooks writes, 'To be loving we willingly hear each other’s truth and, most important, we affirm the value of truth-telling. Lies may make people feel better, but they do not help them to know love.' Of course, of course, of course there are reasons to lie — especially in a police state where vulnerable populations are made infinitely more vulnerable with every true detail that surfaces about them. I’m only trying to tell you that you deserve love now. Whatever your truth is. Whatever your truth is."
i love this, and it reminds me of this concept in standup comedy... standup comedians need (i believe) places where they feel comfortable experimenting and "failing." open mics or what my friend liz glazer calls "sweatpants shows" or rooms where we just truly can say anything and be ourselves and try new things and take big swings or do whatever we want and the outcome doesn't matter and doesn't impact whether we get rebooked or hired for something else... this is the place where we can tell our truth, and prepare for other shows where the stakes seem higher. and this bell hooks passage and your assessment of it reminds me of this because of course there are places out in public where certain people (all people? many people) will not feel safe or comfortable telling their whole truth, but i hope that everyone has SOMEWHERE that they do. a home, a friendship, a therapeutic relationship, a chosen family, a substack newsletter comment section... because it's important to have at least somewhere that that is possible.
THIS POSSIBILITY: "Wake up tomorrow, and consider the possibility that the people who are meant to love you will love your truth. But that doesn’t mean you owe it to anyone, either."
beautifully put! thank you for sharing YOUR truth with all of us here.
love
myq
PS ALSO TO THIS: "So, I did watch Severance. I know I’m a little late in talking to you about this. Should we talk about what we thought about Season Two? My students are torn, and I am too."
i just wanted to say that Severance is the PERFECT show to feel torn about.
i personally am of two minds about it. and both of my minds love it.
This is me, pretty much verbatim: "I just recently started tucking my shirt into my pants, and I think I look incredible, like a real Adult Woman. But no one is ever like, “Wow, I love your tucked-in shirt.” Do you know what I mean?" Also, it means the harness I wear to play contrabass flute won't rub holes into all of my t-shirts.
Re: Princesses. I highly recommend the "Princess in Black" series, because it's a fantastic send-up of all the princess stories and empowering and very fun. Also: illustrations by LeUyen Pham, who is rad.
Actually, my stripey jerko kitty is and always has been a little mad at me. Who knows why he has held a small but mighty 18-year grudge, but he still gets a million tiny head kisses daily.
I love this!! I have been a lifelong liar since I was a kid and hid in the locker rooms to avoid swim team (to this day I don't know how I got away with it. Did no one notice that my brother attended but i was missing?) I hatedhow the chlorine made my skin feel and smell, and the coach was mean during conditioning drills. As an adult, I've had to recalibrate especially bc it turns out, romantic partners do NOT like lying, even about small "innocuous" things. I've felt so much shame over defaulting to lying but this frame is so clear and kind. Thank you for sharing 💖
PS. As a current PNW resident, I think I'll also incorporate SpringO! Right now forsythia, red-flowering currant, trillium, and fruit trees are in various stages of bloom 🌸
Sophie, thank you for this!
1. I could hear your cat purring, it was so nice!
2. I hope the meeting with your boss went well 😳yesterday I asked my boss for a meeting, because I need to ask him for some advice and also ask for some stuff for me (time off) and I STILL feel like I’m about to be in trouble. Wow what a hard feeling.
3. I love eating leftovers from the night before for lunch! I also love a really good sandwich if I don’t have leftovers, but I don’t often make them anymore.
Such lovely reminders, Sophie. Another fabulous piece <3 and....CHICKPEA SALAD SANDWICH!!!! I may have had this every day for the past three weeks...
Yes, let's talk about severance.
Lunch: I often make a salad and it comes together very quickly if you have the right stuff on hand. I use a pre-washed salad mix, always add a protein (usually open a can of beans or cut up tofu), something to give it a little pizzazz - olives or sauerkraut or maybe artichokes from a jar, and then perhaps any other cut up veggies (or cooked/roasted) that might be lying around. And dressing. You could add any number of toppers - seeds, nuts, goldfish crackers....
Then a piece of fruit and a small granola bar for a little carb.
Or leftovers! If I have leftovers I try to pack them right into lunch sized containers right when we are done with dinner so that it's all done already in the morning.
I can’t believe the synchronicity of us both writing about a version of SPRINGO this week. I swear we didn’t steal it, we have just found our people who love wordplay 💛
re lunch: Anne Helen Petersen's Culture Study newsletter just had a massive thread of low/no effort lunches!! paywalled for subscribers but maybe useful if you subscribe? https://open.substack.com/pub/annehelen/p/tuesday-thread-work-lunches-that?r=5ah35&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
1. In my head Succession and Severance are the same show. Can you tell I've seen neither?
2. Please give me your source for smelly stickers. My kid wants to buy a whole roll but as we're avoiding Amazon, we haven't had much luck.
We have crocuses in our front yard if T wants to come see them :)
I was just having this "I'm 53 and I can't figure out lunch" convo with my husband at dinner.
Also, a college student's mom called you about one of his assignments? Is this common?!
Oh! I can see why that was confusing. I used to teach high school! Tell me if you figure out lunch!