Daily Drip

hunkering down w blueberry pancakes and gold chains

Today was supposed to be my last day at the office before going fully remote through maternity leave. I did not make it in because I am sleep-deprived and in pain. So it all starts today, The Great Hunkering Down. *cue mixed feelings*

The structure and socialization of returning to office has been net good for me. I think it’s net good for most people, but what do I know? I’m just someone who needs to exist in the world to keep from spiraling into paranoid realms of my own invention. The modern psyche is pathetic like that.

Lately I’ve been riding suspicious waves of calm. Anxious moments dissolve into this mental goo state that I can only attribute to the funky, natural prenatals I recently switched to. A snippet from yesterday’s journal:

There is a certain zen in embracing fatigue as a welcome bubble of cozy, slowing down to its demands (or lack thereof). It’s foreign until you remember feeling that way as a kid. In many ways, pregnancy makes you a child. Needy, whiny, acne-ridden, pudgy, sleepy, prone to weird eats and temper tantrums. I think this temporary state of regression is important to being an empathetic parent… or even just an adult who knows life is not much more than sleeping and eating well, supporting and being supported.

You can take that last line to the bank. Here’s what I’m up to and into right now:

• The song I have on loop is “Billie Toppy” by Men I Trust. If you do one thing for me today, watch this live recording. It’s nothing you haven’t seen a million times but there is this hypnotic, locked-in energy that I try to absorb each time I run it back. Plus, Emma Proulx makes me wanna bleach my hair. Everything makes me wanna bleach my hair.

• Breakfast is my favorite meal. Is that controversial? Whenever I tell people this they’re like “????” This isn’t necessarily me saying that breakfast food is my favorite food (though, I could eat a bowl of cereal or some kind of egg at any moment of my waking life), but that spiritually, I am more connected to the breakfast ritual than any other meal. Like, if given the option to meet you for dinner Saturday night or breakfast Sunday morning at 6 AM, I would spring from bed at 5 AM Sunday with the pleasant sense that I’ve found my people. Right now, I’m enjoying a piece of sourdough toast topped with cottage cheese and cracked pepper, a hunk of 85% dark chocolate, and a cup of coffee. This is the most optimistic I’ll feel all day.

• While we’re on the topic of food, I’ve officially nailed my main categories for dining out in South Jersey. Pizza, Indian, Vietnamese, a diner, and a bagel shop. That’s all I need. Would I love to nail my sushi and burrito options? Sure. But I try to limit buying food out, and those five are my favorites. Lamb korma… bún thịt nướng… pork roll, egg, and cheese on a toasted egg bagel with a strong iced americano mmmmm… margherita pizza… blueberry pancakes. I’m so set. PS have you ever tried a Vietnamese avocado smoothie (sinh tố bơ)? I remembered some people in my run crew raving about them, so I decided to order one from the spot by my house. For context, my treat of choice is creamy and not overly sweet. My favorite desserts are in the custard family, e.g., panna cotta, flan. The avocado smoothie scratched that itch and unlocked a new obsession. I’ve loosely sworn to have one every week henceforth. Fuck a calorie despite my chafing thighs.

  

  a death row meal for me tbh

• I am on a jewelry journey. I will never buy jewelry anywhere but Etsy, vintage, or local/small ever again. This is equal parts declaration and plea to hold me accountable. I’m three for three on solid 14k yellow gold pieces from Etsy, and it’s just made me realize how far I’d fallen off the wagon with jewelry. When I was an influencer (shut up), I received a ton of pieces from Mejuri. It was kinda seminal how much free shit they were mailing to people with like, 1500 followers?? I still have some today, and they’ve held up nicely, contrary to all the Reddit criticism. However, 1.) they’re gold plated, and 2.) these big DTC brands don’t invoke the same sentimentality and reverence I have for gold. I used to have a nice collection of heirlooms, mostly fragile herringbones that knotted and broke over the years. Now, after lots of stumbling, I’m building my own collection from the ground up, and I want every piece to feel special. I might flesh this out into its own piece with a photographic timeline of my jewelry evolution. Stay tuned if you like shiny things.

• Some marketing that made me want to kill myself:

  

  “Rich Girl Spring” sound kinda broke to me… and we know broke around here!

• “And ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.” - Kahlil Gibran, “The Coming of the Ship” This line has been in my head since watching the documentary ZEF: The Story of Die Antwoord. I first discovered the South African rave-rap group in college, 2011-2012ish. There was this art collective on campus, a group of skaters who published zines and screen printed hoodies and shot weird videos and all that fun stuff skaters do, and they were hugely into Die Antwoord. I remember stalking one of their Instagram profiles. I saw him and his Debbie Harry looking girlfriend raging at a Die Antwoord show and thought, “Where do I meet people like this?” It was abrasive and captivating, this manufactured white trash aesthetic with a global edge, very Where I’m From x The Other Side of the World. Anyway, personal history aside, the documentary is visual candy. I loved every second of it for that alone. But some of the scenes felt awkward and contrived, and after digging a bit, I learned their controversy is not just artistic, but personal. Many dark allegations. Bummed me out to read. How do we discern the truth about celebrities? Where do you guys stand on the “art vs artist” conversation? Many of my favorite writers are disgraced men, so maybe I’m not the one to interrogate this. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

  

  Ninja and Yolandi’s daughter, Sixteen Jones from ZEF: The Story of Die Antwoord

• My fragrance of the day is Mon Guerlain. Loves a lavender note. This classic wears like the sweater you reach for when you’ve got no one to impress, just a breezy spring day and the quiet need to feel exactly like yourself.

• SUBSTACK ROUNDUP! Spamming on Notes isn’t hitting for me lately. I want to get better at wrangling my fav recent reads (recent to me, that is, i.e., I may share something here from like, 2022 that I just read), giving readers a more thoughtfully curated selection, and giving writers more meaningful attention. I didn’t intend for this to have a theme or even any kind of “review” component until I realized a lot of the work I’d been saving centered on the passage of time—the evolution of relationships between family, friends, the self, and God. Kids grow up and friends change and your mother may fade to black with her hand in yours, and as writers, we’re frozen in place until we find the words. I hope you enjoy these pieces as much as I did. Can’t wait to share more going forward!

  • “Baby Jane” by Girl Insides. A tale of female friendship and addiction, feelings of codependency resurfacing in a small LA apartment. I’m not good with anonymity when an artist like Girl Insides exists in my digital orbit. I want to know who she is and everything about her but because I have self-control and respect for privacy, I settle for some of the best writing on Substack.

  • “The Crab” by Sam Kriss. I love when a writer is doing something that feels like it’s never been done before. When an experience is so moving, the reader is gifted a great brush with originality—something people who don’t know death intimately might call “dead.” Kriss’s description of cancer as an innocent thing blew my mind. To carve grief into something beautiful and enduring is the ultimate ode to the force of a mother.

  • “my five year plan” by Valerie Estrina. I’m all ears when someone tells me they quit their job. Not because I’m dying to quit mine necessarily, but because their reasoning and path forward is so personal, you gain this gorgeous insight into their values, dreams, etc. This was so signature Valerie: a silk ribbon of self-awareness unraveling on the page.

  • “god the toddler almighty” by Isabel Cowles Murphy. You don’t need to have or even want children to follow her holy prose into the infinite. The way she frames each stage of babyhood is so perfectly distinct, the Toddler archetype comes to form: a magical, mysterious demigod of leg rolls.

  • “Am I Acting My Age?” by Angelina Hazzouri. I love how vivid the opening scene is here, how it unlocked some elementary school memories of first-time embarrassment and the like. Our responses to how we’re first perceived often shape who we become. I contemplate aging a lot, and when Angelina said “your age will meet your aura,” I felt that shit.

  • “Ode to Night Prayers (and Childhood)” by Noha Beshir. Something about excavating the memory space in the second person gets me. And religion is one of the most powerful bridges between past and present. I read Noha’s recollections and I’m there, digging my heels into the red carpet, looking back on the year, and on my life, in humble prayer.