Stuff I've been into lately
Books and bonfires and baked goods
I’m in the throes of packing and moving. Every day brings new challenges—this morning I realized I’d accidentally boxed up all of my socks—and my brain has taken on the qualities of an anxious squirrel. (To be fair, my squirrel-brain may be at least as much about election angst as sock shortages.) Rather than attempt to corral my thoughts into something resembling a coherent essay, I will instead share a few things that have made me laugh, think, or salivate lately. Enjoy!
The new ritual I hope to make a habit of:
A friend recently hosted a “Grievance Bonfire,” in which a bunch of us sat around a campfire, wrote our complaints on small slips of paper, and threw them into the fire to gleefully watch them burn. It was a delightful change of pace from my usual practice of writing down the things I’m grateful for; I felt lighter and, unexpectedly, more connected to my fellow suffering beings by the end of the night. We’re all united in our hatred for political attack ads, the shoddy U.S. healthcare system, and bad bosses, it turns out.
The podcast I always listen to the day it drops:
Normal Gossip is a Wednesday bright spot - a solid hour in which I can reliably expect to laugh, gasp, and roll my eyes at the insanity (and inanity) of humankind. It sounds dumb when I explain the premise - the host shares a secondhand gossip story with a rotating set of guests - but just trust me: it feels good to get wrapped up in something truly low-stakes for once. Last week’s episode, “Nepo Baby for Trash,” was particularly inspired.
Two (relatively) under-the-radar novels I recently loved:
I, too, loved several of the recent bestsellers seemingly everyone is talking about—seriously, drop everything and pick up Sandwich if you haven’t already—but you don’t need one more voice pitching those Goliaths. Instead I’ll highlight some great books that I haven’t heard praised in all corners. First up, Peggy: I doubt I would’ve borrowed it from the library if I hadn’t already read Leslie Jamison’s New Yorker article about finishing the novel her friend Rebecca Godfrey left unfinished when she died in 2022. I enjoyed trying to figure out where Godfrey’s voice ended and Jamison’s began (alas,I couldn’t tell), but mostly I loved the sort of cynical joie de vivre with which the titular Peggy (modeled after Peggy Guggenheim) processes her world. For a novel with a similar feel, and some overlapping historical settings, check out Women’s Hotel by Daniel Lavery. It’s not exactly light reading, as the old-fashioned style takes some getting used to, but once I acclimated I found the characters delightfully bonkers and the setting (a boardinghouse for single women in 1960s NYC) fascinating.
The survey results I pored over:
This one is for the real gender nerds among us: Pew recently released the findings from a September survey on how Americans view men and masculinity (plus a bunch of other gender-related topics), and it makes for a nice pairing with last week’s post on gender ideology. A few highlights: despite all the Left’s talk about “toxic masculinity,” and despite the Right’s protests about “masculinity under attack,” most people surveyed (74%) feel that Americans view “men who are manly or masculine” positively, or at least neutrally. Hearteningly, most respondents, of all genders and political parties, view behaviors like so-called locker room talk and fistfights as unacceptable. Less hearteningly, most Americans see men and women as “basically different” in the way they express feelings, parent, and pursue hobbies. Even more disheartening, those majorities have grown since the last time these questions were asked in 2017. (However, the essentialists are pretty split on whether they attribute those differences to biology or to socialization, which I’ll count as progress.)
The best thing I baked this month:
Lately my sweet tooth has been nearly insatiable - I blame the fetus - and to keep up I’ve been doing more home baking than usual. If you don’t already have a go-to pumpkin bread recipe, I recommend this one from Sally’s Baking Addiction. I also recommend tweaking the recipe with the addition of a little cinnamon-sugar topping, cribbed from this Deb Perelman recipe: just before baking, mix together a tablespoon of sugar and a teaspoon of cinnamon and sprinkle on top of the batter. It makes a delightfully sweet crust that is the best part of every slice; I will never bake another loaf cake without it. (Up next, once my new kitchen is unpacked: this apple cider donut cake, also from Deb-the-great. I suspect this will make a great pie alternative for the upcoming holidays…)
The productivity guru who is actually closer to a Buddhist philosopher:
I can’t quite say that I loved Oliver Burkeman’s 2021 book Four Thousand Weeks. As an inveterate plan-maker and goal-setter, I bristled at his suggestion that my productivity tactics might be interfering with my ability to enjoy life. But on some level I sensed he was onto something, and I’ve been following his work ever since. His bimonthly newsletter, The Imperfectionist, regularly brightens my inbox, and his new book, Meditations for Mortals, has been helping me tolerate the chaos that is my life these days. It reads like a daily devotional, but secular and geared toward “insecure overachievers” like myself. If you, too, have a love-hate relationship with productivity culture, it’s worth a look. (My one complaint is the cover: it is bright, almost neon, orange, and I am not a fan.)
That’s all for this week! Wish me luck with moving. Lord willing, I’ll be back in seven-ish days with a post for paid subscribers only, likely focused on my nascent new book plans, but possibly on processing the recent (gulp) election…
On that note, please vote!! I won’t stoop to the lightly veiled threats I received in postcard form last week from “Don L.”, whose message could use some tweaks. But I will say that if you care about reproductive rights, and gender equality, and supporting families, this one’s really important.
Hi Allison,
Just wanted to let you know that I've been appreciating all of your newsletters so much and that your weekly emails have inspired me both professionally and personally. On the professional side I'm trying to ditch social media or at least just use it much less (I've been inspired by my two teenagers who decided to remove their social media apps from their cell phones altogether and have done the same - the result is just fantastic. I love feeling this free and not getting pulled into the dopamine vortex). As a practitioner social media has been an important pillar for me, and yet this format of either Substack or newsletters feels like getting a treat in my inbox every week - I'd like to do the same for my community and also consequently rely less on social media to engage with those I want to interact with.
As always I love reading about what research you are digging into - it's always really useful to me as a non-academic. So thanks for sharing.
On the personal side, this last Daminger Dispatch has motivated me to use up some of the pureed butternut squash I made recently and used it up in the pumpkin bread recipe you sent. You rock! Thanks for everything you do!