I have been trying to get my shit together a bit (I identified a lot with Ali Wong’s “I’ve got to turn this ship around” bit re: self-help books in your thirties) and it’s going really pretty well! I am confident it will stop going well once the low-hanging fruit is taken care of, but for now I am really digging the sensation of a fresh start.

I’m winnowing my closet and donating/giving away to friends a bunch of stuff I never really needed, and I’m trying to eat better instead of accidentally following Emily Blunt’s The Devil Wears Prada diet (eat basically nothing at all, and then when you think you’re about to faint, a piece of cheese), and I am attempting to read more Scripture and also have gotten even more obsessive about my skin routine (I’m using this batshit expensive cream from Barcelona and I want to give it a solid month.) I made a grooming appointment for the dog, and for my own twice-yearly haircut! (I have been doing what Sharon Stone does in the interim, which is gathering your hair into a high pony and then cutting it off, which creates layers.)

That’s the easy stuff, the hard stuff is everything else, like making a genuine moral inventory and trying to do good in secret and not bc you like being thanked and so on. I’m so shitty at that, I always want the credit. I’m on my phone around my kids too much. I eat handfuls of gummy Vitamin Ds a few times a week because I never remember to take them on a schedule. My soul needs work. Also, all of my physical mail that requires action is still sitting in an unzipped backpack next to my bedside table (well, I did zip it today, which is something?)

HOWEVER, I made a fantastic “goodbye to eating meat three full times a day” dinner this weekend (steaks and asparagus cooked in the blood/butter of the steak juices) and am obtaining lots of vegetables as we speak. You have sent me dazzling recipes, I’m extremely excited to share the fruits (lol, sorry) of your collective labours.

In good news, my friend Nikki Chung’s beautiful beautiful memoir drops today, and I would truly appreciate you buying it and reviewing it and sharing it with your friends and family. I’m biased, bc she’s so dear to me, but also whenever I pick up my copy to move it from point A to point B I invariably wind up sitting down and reading three chapters of it. Which is a pretty solid recommendation, I think!!

I love Nikki so much that my secret secret bad desire is that everyone will love it except for like ONE outlet that will run a really bad review by an adoptive parent who is personally outraged by the idea they might not be the greatest savior of humanity who has ever lived, and then I can devote myself to their destruction. I don’t WANT that for her, but if it happens, I am ready.

I would now like to share some Reddit posts with you, if you’re amenable?

YOU HAVE TO NAME THE FAMOUS PERSON:

I would shut this camera shit down IMMEDIATELY:

This is so bad, and also why “will our parents live with us when they are old” is a very important conversation to have TODAY (don’t marry him unless this gets resolved):

This isn’t funny, I just feel really bad for both of them and I hope she gets some relief from her depression soon:

NOPE. Shut it down:

Hang tough, kids. It’s gonna be okay.