Below is your moment, several moments, of intentional Internet diversion. It’s been crafted with love and care on a couch in New Orleans while watching season 9 of Grey’s Anatomy and eating the above Drake on Cake. It’s all very serious business over here.
I’ve been prepping today for some travels to Philadelphia, New York, and London. You sure can follow along with the good times on Instagram where there will be plenty of photos and stories and you can be as nosy as you’d like.
Enjoy this day! We’re in it. We can pump our fists above our heads in victory. Action makes the feeling, let’s go!
The Internet (some, not all):
• This is New York in the not-so-distant future. From one sinking city to another, I feel you, yo. (That last sentence really is no way to address climate change. Sorry.)
• Rodrigo Duterte, explained sorta. Lordy.
• Our parents discovered leisure. We killed it. Last week I wrote about taking up embroidery as my new hobby… my new hobby that has nothing to do with the kitchen or the Internet. Away from work but still creative and productive. We’ve replaced leisure hobbies with entrepreneurship and productivity, but what are the consequences of monetizing your bliss?
• Let’s never be done adventuring big and small: 36 Hours in Cambridge, Mass.
• This is one of the best things I’ve read this week. From Stacy London: How I Moved On from my What Not To Wear Style. I appreciate the words of a wise woman living an unconventional lady life.
• What did we even do before we Draked things? I don’t know. Probably nothing. Namasdrake
• The Bachelorette Happened To Me = Really scared / want to go home.
• How to pick the fastest line at the grocery store. Here’s how: Ignore your instincts, close your eyes, keep them closed if possible, turn off your brain… just turn it right off. Breathe deeply. Carry on realizing you’re important, but not important enough to be able to do anything substantive in altering the speed of the line. Realize everything is going to be fucking fine, ok? Ok.
• I’m not the biggest sports fan, mostly because I don’t come from a very sporty family… BUT I do love stories and the sports world is full of beautiful, heart-wrenching and inspiring stories of people trying their best agains roadblocks and all. This show on Netflix was just SO SO good: Last Chance U.
• Headed to London, eating at Ffiona’s.
• Seeing Amos Lee live in Philly today! If he hits your town you gotta go see this dude and his band.
• Buying hyacinth bulbs because suddenly I’m a person that reads the farmer’s almanac. I dunno. Last week I bought cashmere soap. It’s all uphill from him. Uphill = classy AF.
• Things that I made and took one picture of: Deb’s Salty Peanut Butter Cookies
Have a very fine day. I’m glad we’re here together.
xo Joy
Katie Truelove
I always look forward to your Sunday posts- even if I’m a few weeks behind:) Thanks for digging this stuff up for us!
A
I pay attention to my grocery checkers so I learn who is worth waiting in line for and who is best avoided at all costs. Knowing I will be handled by a competent person makes waiting in line not so painful.
Sarah Martin
I’m feeling a lot like Stacy London. That post resonates with me. I too made Deb’s salty peanut butter cookies. They are ridiculous in all the right ways.
joythebaker
We’re together in both of these things.
Nathalie
Checkout lanes and how to survive them always make me think of David Foster Wallace’s “This is Water”:
The point is that petty, frustrating crap like this is exactly where the work
of choosing comes in. Because the traffic jams and crowded aisles and long
checkout lines give me time to think, and if I don’t make a conscious
decision about how to think and what to pay attention to, I’m going to be
pissed and miserable every time I have to food-shop, because my natural
default-setting is the certainty that situations like this are really all about
me, about my hungriness and my fatigue and my desire to just get home,
and it’s going to seem, for all the world, like everybody else is just in my way,
and who are all these people in my way?
Poignant and clever, and somehow this little essay manages to contain a word of wisdom for every single life situation.
Happy Monday to you!
Nathalie x
joythebaker
This is water. This is water. I appreciate his words very much.
Savannah
That article on leisure Joy! I feel it on so many levels. I think it pairs with creative work and social media (audience) as well. There’s a quote from an Annie Clark (St. Vincent) interview that equal parts freaks me out and fascinates me:
“We’re very obsessed with documenting our lives these days. And anything that is being watched and knows that it’s being watched changes its behaviour, so I just was curious about how we are changing our behaviour with the knowledge that we’re being watched. I mean we’re being watched by the NSA here in the States and then also documenting ourselves – the mundane has been put on a pedestal. So I’m just curious about how that’s affecting us in the long term. But I don’t look at it as a wholly bad thing at all, I’m just exploring the idea of what it is and trying to unpack it for myself because I find myself using technology compulsively and sometimes looking for things in technology, looking for a connection in technology that actually is something that I should be looking inwards for.” – from https://totallydublin.ie/music/music-features/st-vincents-day/
I’m not someone who monetized any creative pursuits, but I still feel like when I’m drawing/writing/etc. that I automatically have this engrained Internet audience (censoring or editing or pandering to that demographic). Is it strange to wonder what a watercolor doodle is good for when you don’t show it off on social media (praise) or have it as part of your business (monetary gain)? The answer is leisure/enjoyment (coming back full circle) and I wouldn’t call myself one of those tin hat-clad individuals who thinks that the rise of Twitter is the downfall of humanity, but I’ve noticed that while “hobbying” I’m taking photos throughout and drafting concise captions in Instagram post preparation (the funny thing is that I only have people from class and my mother-in-law following me so it’s not like I have significant presence).
The grandmother in the article just catalogued things for herself, but the idea of so much accumulation makes my skin feel weird (especially with seemingly permanent objects like artwork, journal entries, rock collections, etc – AKA “Hoarders” situation).
Before you began food blogging/authorship – what did you do with all your baked goods? Make small batches, share with friends/family, just straight up enjoy them yourself (or all of the above)? My parents are empty nesters now and my mom loved baking when we were all at home, but now our kitchen acts more as a purse/mail/dog biscuit catch all location. She says she stopped because she has no one to bake for, so do audiences (or recipients) really play that significant of a role in hobbies after all?
I realize I just word vomited in your comments section, but I just moved to a foreign country where English is not the primary language so I have too many thoughts that go unexpressed (I don’t think Germans care at all about the finale of “Mad Men”, regardless that it aired a year ago). I think this just illustrates how great your weekly round up posts are.
Hope the concert was stellar! :)
Hannah
Well I for one enjoyed reading your “word vomit” just as much as I enjoyed Let It Be Sunday, and that’s saying a lot! Thanks to both you and Joy for sharing! (And good luck with life in Germany! It can definitely be stressful and frustrating to be surrounded by a culture lacking in the familiar, but I hope all the exciting new things you will be exposed to will make up for it! And who knows, maybe you can convert some of your new German friends into Mad Men addicts? ;) )
Lizzie
Amen to seeing Amos Lee live! I love his albums but he’s even better in concert. Great banter with the crowd, fun covers, plenty of props to the musicians playing with him. At the outdoor show I went to last summer someone in the audience even brought beers to the stage for Amos and the band. Someone else gave him a T-shirt they made. It was a blast.
sara
Love your posts, Joy, love your attitude and links and joy and apprehensions.
Lizzie
So exciting you are going to London. You must eat breakfast/brunch at Granger and Co in Notting Hill. Still the best eggs I have ever had. Have fun!
Rae
In London, you must go to NightJar. It’s a bar. The drinks are incredible. And eat the food – get double of the ceviche.
Sharon
A ray of sunshine, your Sunday posts. Thank you!
Nancy K
Love those Sunday posts..thanks for sharing your thoughts, writing and musings. I clicked on the NY Times article about Cambridge, MA. I worked in Cambridge for many years…did lots of moving around the City most days. The article made me realize, anew, how amazing, unique, and fun the City is. Sadly, one of Harvard Square’s famous spots, The Curious George Bookstore,is closing but as long as Bartley’s Burgers survives, all is well in the Square.
Travel safe, Joy!
Rena
Salty peanut butter cookies are sounding delicious to me!
xx from Bavaria/Germany, Rena
http://www.dressedwithsoul.com
peppermintdolly
Great list! That Bachelor post!?! :-)
Rxx
http://www.peppermintdolly.com
heather (delicious not gorgeous)
might have started singing “hold up” by bey instead (which was stuck in my head allll last weekend already, oh dear). plus, it’s one of those songs where i know about 4 lines of the song, and it repeats over and over and over again.