I’m writing to you from a very grey rainy day in Rome. It’s a little grim outside so I’m just sat here with a massive cup of tea and cosy socks on.
The last weeks I’ve been fairly consistent with doing the ‘Couch to 5k’ runs, and I have been trying my very best to keep going through weird times. I got a bit doom-y feeling about everything, and this week was listening to The Atlantic podcast about the executive orders that a certain you-know-who is signing and the impact of this.
So - this week I want to know what you’re doing to keep yourself semi-sane in this mad world.
I’m finding the chat function super cute - it feels more intimate and more like old-school blog comments or something (I miss early 2010s era internet).
Instagram / Blog
I used to write a blog. I did this from around 2011 until 2020 or so, with varying levels of consistency (I am thinking about starting it again, but it will need some updating). Anyway, there were a small number of other blogs I followed: mostly small, thoughtful, slow.
Hjartesmil is a Norwegian blog I followed very very closely back in, I don’t know, maybe 2012? 2013? Something like that. I would regularly check her blog to see her gorgeous photography, get inspiration. I saw her life go from her and her partner living in Paris, to moving back to Norway, to having their first kid (I see now they have 3?). I would paste her words into google translate [Norwegian-English], and loved her little online shop with curated vintage-y things. I don’t know what prompted me to look her up again, but I see the blog is now a Patreon subscriber thing, but her Instagram is very much like the blog I used to follow.
I feel like, in a world where it feels like a mad competition for attention online, everyone at it trying to make their ‘content’ go viral, I find myself increasingly drawn towards sort of ‘micro influencers’. Those with a smaller following, quieter, more real.
YouTube
Weird recommendation this one. I don’t know how, but my algorithm just knew. It’s called ‘Study and work with SATC’ - as in, Sex and the City. And it’s just a compilation of the chill jazz music used in the TV series, with clips of the characters at work, but mostly you can’t hear them apart from maybe a bit of typing sounds over the jazz, or the occasional bit of dialogue faded in and out. I know, it’s sounds random. It’s basically just comforting jazz (which I’m a fan of anyway), with a bit of the 90s New York work fantasy nostalgia. Anyway, this will be my laptop background music for the foreseeable.
Are We Still Capable of Deep Reading?
Another thing, related to the next section, is a video about concentration and reading in the digital age by Cinzia DuBois.
Do you also feel that your reading and writing is getting worse?
Genuinely interested to know whether or not I’m alone on this. (Please do feel free to get involved in the chat on this)
Books
I’m reading Penguin classics cloth bound poetry books at the moment, they are giving me joy and I think the way a book feels is a big part of the *reading experience*.
Product/Food Stuff
I might have mentioned this before, but I am still really into Grind compostable coffee pods (importantly, they are pink). I tried them for the first time in 2023, visited one of their shops in London in 2024, and I’m fully sold. I especially like their Pumpkin Spice, Hazelnut and Vanilla flavours because I am quite basic at the end of the day.
This and my new Emma Bridgewater mugs. I can’t find my ones on their site right now, but I really like this dog one, this flower one, this one of the pottery factory, and this garden one, so maybe one of these might be my next ‘treat’ to myself. Running out of shelf space for mugs though if I’m being very honest with myself.
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