Hi, loves. 🌿

Slowly proceeding

Is anyone else’s face twitching almost constantly? I think this is an after-effect of the two weeks of preposterously high screentime numbers, the long, anxiety-riddled days of toggling near constantly between the Watch Duty App, texts, What’s App chains (so many, so active), Instagram and the New York Times app. My face is over it. Eyes, cheeks, jaw — all the muscles, exhausted, begging to take in something far off on the horizon. I want my acupuncturist to stick, like, 400 needles into my cheekbones and leave me in the dark for hours.

The kid went back to school on Tuesday; she has been there for two and a half days since school closed for Christmas, then again for the fires. Her mood was instantly brighter, having escaped her parents. I hate my life! she intoned in the midst of all this insanity. I just wake up and see the same two people again and again!

Amen, sister. Amen.

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Like so many people, my response to this last week — “last week” was, especially if you live in LA, like a month, but perhaps the whole country feels it after Jan 20 — was to take social media off my phone. No one needs to know the dull and obvious justifications; it’s been written about brilliantly all over the place, but especially here by Anne Helen Petersen, and here by Kate Lindsay. The long and short of it is that, like I wrote after the election, I was not giving that despicable man my attention this time around. When I found, like many people, that I had instantly been made to follow him on Instagram, I blocked him and reported it as abusive spam.

It has felt so good to be on the outside of it. I have more time, it’s an obvious miracle! More time to make pumpkin bread and butterscotch brownies for people who’ve lost homes; more time to deliver uniforms to classmates who suddenly need them, to friends of friends who are in search of the bare necessities. More time to stare off into space. More time to read. More time to cook dinner. More time to be inside my own damn life. It is decidedly quieter. I know I am missing things, but I am not sure that what I am missing I actually need to know about anyway. Let’s hope it sticks. Who really knows. This stuff isn’t easy to escape.

That said, I find my fingers and mind wandering for other things to do on the stupid device and I end up on the Substack app (should probably also remove that), but instead of feeling like I’m wasting my time (there is some of that, let’s not lie), I have found myself reading gorgeous essays, getting actual glimpses into people’s beautiful, difficult lives: this one by Edan Lepucki about her abortion, this one by Stephanie Danler about grief, and this one by Cate Stern on (sort of) going tradwife.

I was also really taken with Luisa Weiss’ recent missive, and it inspired me to think more concretely about how to get through this next chunk of the winter (“winter,” here in LA, or “fire times,” which feel far from over, even as I write this, more are popping up).

So much of my time over the last few years has been swept away by hours on my phone, and specifically on social media, and I want to think very practically about how, given the state of this city and the country, I will allot my energy and money and, most of all, where I will focus my attention over the next few months: that most precious resource all those rich men want to take from us while we are too zombied out by watching reel after reel on how to get 100g of protein a day.

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These are the questions I want to ask: What am I looking forward to? (Joy!) How will I contribute to my community, as LA moves slowly pieces itself back together? (This is not an event to watch unfold online. I want to be a part of it.) How will I take care of myself (and not just my family)?

Will it help to frame my weeks this way — with hope and possibility and community at its core — and feel the trickle-down effect? Remember how my therapist said last week we are all looking for containers for all this? This might be part of what she meant. I think it’s a worthy experiment.

Per Luisa’s piece — and this desire for containment — here are a few ways I am aiming to find some order to all the madness:

Three books: The other day, I took my daughter and her best friend to The Grove. It was truly bizarre to walk around with both tourists and people who seemed to be replenishing their entire lost wardrobes. We agreed on a meeting time and place, then I proceeded to hide out in Barnes & Noble for 90 minutes while they did…I’m not sure what. It was the most relaxing hour and a half of my month.

I walked out with two books: Curtis Sittenfeld’s Eligible, which I have already read but only on my kindle and I felt was the perfect reread for my completely dis-regulated nervous system. (To be perfect, it needs to be made of paper, hence the purchase.) I also got Adam Ross’ Playworld, which felt like the kind of novel that would suck me in so deeply I could not see outside of it, which is just what I want in a book right now. (So far, so good.) I am also still inching my way through Oliver Burkeman’s Meditations for Mortals, which, in my view, is The Book we all need to get through 2025. Could not recommend more highly.

This chair is where I plan to spend most of this winter.

Three+ things to take care of myself: I’ve started weight training and I love it, which has shocked the hell out of me. But when you do things with Alissa, you end up feeling really good about yourself. She reminds us that we can feel safe in our own bodies, even while the world becomes increasingly chaotic and scary. This isn’t a feeling I’ve always had, and I’m grateful that I’m getting a bit of it back now.

I’ve continued to schedule at least one (hopefully more than one) girlfriend group hang IRL a week.

More day-of “I made a lot of dinner, come over” texts (see below).

I’m now getting most of my news from Jessica Yellin/News Not Noise (pay for the subscription; 100 000% worth it).

And, of course, the aforementioned social media from phone removal. (In full disclosure, I do peek on my laptop, but it somehow doesn’t fill my every free moment that way.)

“Come over, I made turkey BLTs and foccacia for dinner” I think was the actual text.

Three things to take care of my community: Sorting books to bring to the Hang Out Do Good Book Drive; donating to Baby2Baby through a fundraiser at the kid’s dance studio; making meals for the displaced and firefighters at Our Big Kitchen LA, which the kid and I absolutely love doing; and volunteering at the kid’s school, which I know is no big deal but I have not been able to do it all year so HERE I GO MAKING FRIENDS IN NEW PLACES AND PUTTING DOWN ROOTS WHERE I LIVE. The only answer in 2025!

One new class: I’m going to be offering a new gathering called “Close Read.” On three Sundays this winter/spring — one in February, one in April and one in May — we will read a short story or an essay in depth and meet for 90 minutes on Zoom to discuss, flanked by tea or wine, of course. Doable, cozy, deep. Really fun. More details to come! You can reply to this email if you’re interested.

And! Since I am really trying to keep IG out of my pocket, I had nowhere to share this sad/funny/sick thing that made me love LA more today:

Please share your lists, our small pathways to sanity. Tell me about your books, your donations, your meals, how you will spend your time and energy and attention over the next few months. I really want to know.

Sending love,

Abs xo