Fun lil stuff + Zoom 🔗 for Write-Along

Good day from these cheap and cheerful ‘peony tulips’ from Trader Joe’s, which — hot tip! — seems to have really upped its flower game lately. My local TJ’s is the new Greenwood location, which also happens to have the most sunny, exuberantly queer staff of any TJ’s in this queer town. Go for the flowers, stay to feel the sunlight of humanity on your face!1

I’m home today with a sick Ames, so I will keep this short:

• We’ve got a Write-Along on the docket for this Sunday, February 22, from 12:00 to 1:00pm PST, and if you’re a paid subscriber, you’re invited to join us. Scroll down, below the paywall, for the Zoom link. ⬇️

• One of my favorite writers on any subject is Sam Anderson of The New York Times Magazine. Recently Angela Garbes, who is a fellow Sam Anderson fan, tipped me off to his ‘Letter of Recommendation’ about having a colonoscopy (gift link). Here’s a taste:

“It was as liberating as a spa day. I had zero responsibilities. All I had to do, all day long, was liquefy my entire insides.”

• … which reminds me that, in the time since I wrote about my own colonoscopy, I’ve had a second colonoscopy, and it was even MORE of a non-event. Believe the hype! This hype, not the colonoscopies-are-hell hype!

• For several months now I’ve been receiving daily emails from Seattle Indivisible, each suggesting a couple of quick, timely actions I can take at the state and local level to save democracy, abolish ICE, make billionaires pay taxes, ensure gender-affirming care for anyone who needs it, and so much more. Opening the email and doing the ‘action’ takes five minutes or less. Usually it’s more like one minute — like, going to the website for my state legislature and clicking a few buttons to register my position (‘pro’ or ‘con’) on a bill. Not only that, but the emails help me better understand my state and local politics and the role I can play as a citizen of this place. That, in turn, makes me feel less hopeless about politics on the national level. Not hopeful — don’t be silly — but less hopeless. If you’re in the Seattle area and want to get the daily action emails, you can sign up here. If you’re somewhere else, there’s almost certainly an Indivisible chapter for you. And if you’re doing daily ‘actions’ like this too, tell me in the comments. I want to hear about it!

• My friend Nadine Kenney Johnstone wrote an essay that includes a piece of insight I can’t stop thinking about: “Marriage is hard right now because life is hard right now.” (This is the same Nadine with whom I’m leading a retreat in Spain this fall, along with Hallie Bateman.)

• Lastly, a devoted Spilled Milk listener2 gave me and Matthew the great(!) gift(?) of combing through the show’s first SIX HUNDRED EPISODES, pulling out clips in which I said I hadn’t eaten or done something very normal that most people have eaten or done, and then pasting them all together into a single two-minute audio sprint called “Molly Nevers.” I would be mortified by this if it weren’t so awesome. I shall now offer it to you, so we can both laugh at me. Please note that the clips date from January of 2010 (episode 1) to June of 2023 (episode 600), and that the following ‘nevers’ are now inaccurate: the Beatles, stew, pepper jack, tater tots, calzone, “Old Town Road,” and linguine, and maybe some others.

Thank you, always, for reading — and don’t forget to hop below the paywall for this Sunday’s Zoom link,

M.