American despair, but make it funny 🤡

Hello my darlings!

How are you??? I’m… doing! It’s… going! Can you believe it’s July? My June was rather strange. I was out of town for a bunch of it, and sick for the rest of it. Did you know I had two different colds last month? Miserable. No one should be cooking that much soup in the middle of the summer. (Although I do have some great soup recs for you later on, if you’re interested.)

Our new place is still great so far! One thing that makes me happy about it is that the drawers in the kitchen glide open and closed. In all my previous apartments, we had wooden drawers that scraped open. We also have a very powerful A/C unit in our living room/kitchen area, so I have actually been able to use my oven to cook things, even though it is the summer! Imagine that!

Unfortunately, our old place is playing around with our security deposit in ways I could never even have imagined, but probably should have. They’re basically renovating the apartment on our dime and claiming we damaged everything they want to replace. For example, they charged us to replace both shower heads–I wouldn’t even know how to damage a shower head even if I wanted to! But that’s okay, they are but simple children who don’t know who they’re messing with. Three of my closest friends happen to work in tenants’ rights professionally: two are public defense attorneys, and the third is a PhD who has been working in this area in L.A. specifically for over a decade. My old landlords are about to get smacked upside the head with a big ol’ brick called THE LAW, honey!!! I may not have rich friends with a boat, but I sure do have smart ones who can serve justice!! Awww.

Speaking of justice and whatnot… I did not watch the Presidential debate last week. I knew it would just make me angry and anxious, and if I was with people who were drinking while watching it, I would probably drink too much and yell at the screen and ruin it for everyone (although, what I’d be ruining, I’m not entirely sure). I’m not a big fan of either of those dudes, but you all know it will be a cold day in Hell before I vote Republican. I’ll be a grown-up and vote for the lesser of two evils, but Biden is just too conservative for me to get excited about voting for him. I voted “Uncommitted” in the primary. Like a cool surfer guy from the ‘80s, I’m pretty radical, brah.

I am feeling pretty hopeless in general about the direction of my country, lolol! Every day there is a new headline like, “New Oklahoma law says fetuses have the same rights as corporations,” and I’m like, Jesus Christ, holy shit, this is so bad!! Then the next day it’s “New Florida law says girls can’t be taught to read anymore,” and I’m like oh my God, that’s awful, fuck!! And then the day after that it’s even, “New California law says you can get real loosey-goosey with your gun,” and I’m all, fuuuuuuuuuuuck!!!

And then, somehow, I go about my day??? How? How are any of us even doing this?

I know that part of this feeling of despair is because I’ve been sick and stuck inside for several days, not wanting to spread my plague to anyone else. As we all know from the early pandemic, it is not good for one’s mental health to never leave the house! This week I will endeavor to get some sunshine on my skin and breeze in my hair, and maybe then I’ll be able to come up with one good reason why we shouldn’t all just start romance scamming Australians into sponsoring our green cards, or whatever they call them down there. (Green cards, not Australians. I know they call themselves blokes and Sheilas. See? I’m ready to assimilate!!)

Now that I’m thinking about it, I think another part of my low mood is because I recently made the decision with my doctor to lower my daily dose of Celexa (I know–during an election year?!), and my brain is still adjusting. On my previous dose, I constantly had this feeling like I was floating through entire days without my feet touching the ground. That might sound kind of fun, but I actually don’t like being that detached from reality 24/7. On top of that, waking up every morning was so difficult. Pulling myself out of sleep was like swimming up to the surface of the water from a very deep dive. 

Hmm, how can I transition out of this very dark tone into something more light-hearted? I know! I’ll talk about my cat.

Our cat Zadie does a lot of cute things, want to hear about a few of them? One cute thing she does is that whenever one of us takes a shower, she comes and sits just outside the bathroom and waits for us to make sure we don’t drown. Another cute thing is that she is somehow able to tell if I’m awake even before I get out of bed, even before she’s in the same room as me! I will be lying there quietly, doing my early morning phone scroll and she’ll come into the room screaming at the top of her lungs MEOW MEOW I KNOW YOU’RE UP BITCH! Sometimes she will jump into bed with me and meow right in my face! And one last cute thing is that she will follow me around in the morning while I get my coffee and such, meowing and chirping at me, because she wants to sit in my lap. And then she does! The best.

Let’s get into some other, slightly less cute, things:

- The Trashley series on Lauren Reeves’ Substack (start with Part One here). I’ve long wished for a modern return to serialized literature. When I wrote my young adult novel, Vanity High, I originally intended for it to be released serially like its inspiration, Vanity Fair, was back in its time–and perhaps it still will be one day (YA reps, call me!). Until then, we have TV writer and producer Lauren Reeves’ epic Substack series Trashley, a true story about dating her ex-girlfriend Ashley, a pathological liar/catfish/pretend physicist, which is up to 42 parts as of this week. I don’t know if that length intimidates you, but it should really excite you. In a way, I envy those of you who have yet to dive in. What a ride you have ahead of you!

Trashley has become my #1 obsession over the past week or so. If you like stories about scammers and catfish and just generally bad people who lie about things you would never expect someone to lie about, you will love it. It is a story so juicy and layered with untruths and scandals and cliffhangers, you won’t be able to stop reading it. And then, if you’re like me, you will insist your friends read it, too, and then you’ll be texting each other back and forth with theories and deep textual analysis. All I can say is: enjoy. And: text me about it.

- Cooking. As I said earlier, I have been making a lot of soup lately in an effort to heal my poor sick body. First, I made a recipe that cooking blog Ambitious Kitchen titled “The Best Chicken Soup You’ll Ever Eat”—ambitious indeed! I have to say, it was pretty damn close to my platonic ideal of chicken soup. I subbed egg noodles for the couscous, at least doubled the garlic and ginger, and finished it off with a big squeeze of lemon, but otherwise, I was pretty faithful to the recipe. I never would have thought to put turmeric in chicken soup, but it was delicious–and antioxident, too.

Then, I made broccoli and cheddar soup after I had a meeting with my dietician where she recommended broccoli as a food that was high in vitamin C. I served it with some chicken sausages and toasted brown bread from the Cheesecake Factory. It was a true delight the day that I discovered that I could buy Cheesecake Factory-brand brown bread at my local Ralphs. And say what you will about the nutrition in a soup that has a full eight-ounce block of cheddar cheese in it, but I woke up feeling significantly better the next day.

Finally, I made the turkey meatloaf for skeptics with crushed ranch-y potatoes from Smitten Kitchen Keepers (page 193) which, lucky for you, Deb put online in March of this year. I have to say, I have historically been a meatloaf skeptic, but this recipe showed me the light, that meatloaf could be juicy and flavorful and not even all that heavy. The potatoes are incredibly delicious, too, and would make a great side for any grilling you might be doing this weekend.

- Amaury Guichon on Instagram (@amauryguichon). Now for something whimsical! If you’ve been on Instagram, I bet the algorithm has fed you a post from Amaury Guichon at some point. He is the French pastry chef who makes absolutely insane things out of chocolate. I once described him to my husband as, “that French guy who will make, like, a fully functional bicycle out of chocolate and ride it around,” and Ross said, “I know who you’re talking about, and that’s honestly not even that much of an exaggeration.” In these fraught times, shouldn’t you treat yourself to watching this modern day Willy Wonka construct enormous things out of chocolate for no good reason? I think so.

Welp, that’s all I’ve got for now! Let’s keep it short and sweet this week.

If you have a second, I’d love it if you’d like or comment on this post–just click this link to go to the post page. This post is public, so feel free to share it on social media, or forward it to a friend.

Until next time—let’s go for a walk and get some sun, and maybe we’ll feel better. 💛

Love,

Liz

XOXO