get a room!
now is not the time to be well behaved + two delicious and easy Thanksgiving recipes ++ a great book
hey-ho,
A quick note up top. Next week I’ll be sending my annual read.write.eat. eclectic and unusually delightful gift guide… I don’t want you to miss. Upgrade to paid and check your inbox on Wednesday!
In Jr. High (otherwise known as middle school) whenever my bff and I spied a pair of kids making out — also known as a public display of affection/PDA — in the science lab, on the field, by the lockers, we’d grumble or screech, “Get a room!” There was something delicious about being twelve and yelling “Get a room!” It was suggestive… recognizing that if only this couple had a little privacy, they would do the deed. Thoughts of the mysterious “deed” stoked fear, mild disgust, and yearning within us. “Get a room,” was also tinged with haughty indignation that the smoochers were out of control and we were civilized. Take your attraction and affection elsewhere you beasts!
…
Since the election I’ve been seeing a lot of PDRs, that is, public displays of rage:
I’ve witnessed more honking, more flipping off. A woman on a corner in athleisure pants, toting her yoga mat, yelled with vigor into her phone, “fuck, fuck, fuck!” Sounds about right. A man practically assaulted a trash bin with his supersized and now empty coffee cup. Someone noted that the next four years will be like passing a kidney stone. In that case we’d better hydrate!
…
I’ve also seen public displays of sorrow:
Teary eyed citizens in the grocery store, a neighbor weeping while being dragged down the block by her Newfoundland, the man who owns the wine store in my neighborhood came outside when he saw me, “I’m sitting at the bottom right now,” he said. My hair doctor (that’s what I call my stylist) told me she went to a small card shop and the woman behind the counter was near tears. It seems she’d decided that doing creative work might make her feel better. She dug out her yarn basket only to discover it had been ravaged by moths. It was more than she could bear. She’d tried to do one small thing and found it wrecked.
…
We are all a little bit out of control post-election. And that is okay. Maybe now is not the time to be well behaved. Maybe we should give ourselves permission to emote, so long as we don’t hurt anyone. It can only help to get those feelings out of our bodies, right?
Hear-Hear to public displays of emotions! All of the feels…even, perhaps especially, affection…
PS. After my hair doctor told me about the moths, the next day, I dug up a bag of yarn I’ve had in my closet for a long time (believe me I checked for moths first), and I took it to the woman in the card shop. I tell you this not because I’m wonderful, I tell you this because we are going to need to respond to one another with kindness whenever we can. It was an easy thing for me to do, and it gave the woman a little bump of happiness in her day. We can all do things like this. There are opportunities everywhere.
Let’s link arms! Here are two opportunities for action:
INDIVISIBLE: A quick call to press your senators to fill every judicial vacancy before Inauguration Day.
ACTION NETWORK: Don’t allow the incoming president to make recess appointments, they require no senate confirmation. It’s a power grab.
And now a brief pause to hit the ❤️ button at the top left or bottom left of this newsletter. It means more to me than you know. xoNatalie
read:
I just finished, THE MIGHTY RED, by Louise Erdrich. A perfect novel of love and tragedy to fall into just now. Erdrich has assembled a large cast of loving and hurting humans whom she manages with grace, humor, and agility. The book centers around three teenagers and their families. The three form a love triangle, they screw up, make bad decisions, stuff their feelings, and suffer the consequences. But the thing is, these mistakes—snow mobile accidents, bank robberies, dangerous jobs— definitely calamities that cannot be undone, also provide opportunity for forgiveness and resilience. Erdrich understands, certainly better than me, the balm of time. What feels disastrous in the moment eventually smoothes out. We come through.
When asked about writing teenage characters, Erdrich said:
“Where would we be without the hope and voracious energy of teenagers? Without their sharp observation, irony, and melodrama? Their sudden collapses into love and childhood?”
Erdrich also does not turn away from the land, from climate horrors, from the bad stewardship of Monsanto and factory farms. The novel is as much about love as it is about our “tattered bond with earth.” And, in Erdrich style, because she still believes in us humans, the novel is not bereft of hope.
In case you need additional reading suggestions to fall into just now, and really who doesn’t? Check my latest RANDOM SELECTION!
And, a Louise Erdrich story right here for you to read!
What books are you leaning on?
Our zoom r.w.e. book group will discuss BARBARIAN DAYS, by William Finnegan, on 12 January, 2025 at 9:30a PT.
The book group is a perk for paid subscribers and let me tell you we are a lively bunch!
Go ahead, upgrade to paid and claim your spot. I hope to get to know you better!
Check my read.write.eat. Bookshop Store, where you will find many of the books I've recommended in the newsletter. Buying books from my shop is a way you can be a friend to the newsletter.
write :
For you: a jolt of energy, marching orders, and a bit of whimsy…
For a jolt of energy, check out this op-ed by Roger Rosenblatt, How To Be a Writer in the Second Age of Trump. (The paywall is down.)
In my experience, good writing requires four things: precision of language, the freedom to say anything, respect and — perhaps most important — love. The responsibilities of the writer today are no different from those of any writer in any age. But the presence, character and now considerable power of President-elect Trump make the work of fulfilling those responsibilities all the more difficult and urgent.
For your marching orders: Write Till You Drop, from ANNIE DILLARD, in the archives at the NYTs. (Again, paywall is down.)
The sensation of writing a book is the sensation of spinning, blinded by love and daring. It is the sensation of a stunt pilot's turning barrel rolls, or an inchworm's blind rearing from a stem in search of a route. At its worst, it feels like alligator wrestling, at the level of the sentence.
And now to remind you of the power of novels, of falling in love with a world between the covers, and for the whimsy: This delightful essay from Dave Kim, about a young boy’s surprising love for HEIDI (yes, that Heidi, with its healing power of goat milk!) and a subsequent trip to the Swiss Alps…
Like many parents, I have tried to pass on the highlights of my early reading life to my children (R and his little sister). And, like many parents, I have been crushed when the box sets of serial mysteries and Beverly Cleary paperbacks I buy with aching affection remain untouched. Children are not miniature versions of yourself. They do not like what you like, or what you think they will like. No matter how many times this has been demonstrated to me over the years, I’m always pancaked when the reminder comes.
Whatever you do writing-wise just now, I invite you to go easy and go hard.
eat:
The fact that these two recipes are making an encore appearance should alert you to the pressing need to make them. And why not do it for Thanksgiving? We may be burning extra calories, doing heavy lifting with our emotions… so make these indulgent, easy, delicious, and comforting dishes.
First, from one of my favorite cookbooks, BISTRO COOKING, by Patricia Wells. As you flip through the pages it’s easy to get lost in the fantasy of moving to France. (Check this handy dandy questionnaire from my ex-pat friend,
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