our pleasure in February
finding moments of love in a rough month
Y’all, it has been a fucked up month. But we’re still here and still finding pleasure. We hope you are, too, and we would love to hear where pleasure has been showing up for you this month! Lord knows, we could all use more reminders that the world full of good stuff and not just horrors. What are you reading/listening/doing/eating to keep life pleasurable these days? Drop us a note!
Emory
I’m still (very slowly) working through Braiding Sweetgrass.
Jozef
Most of my reading time has been spent trying to figure out what the actual fuck is going on in the US right now, and I’m incredibly grateful for and her team’s thoughtful reporting on queer and trans issues.
’s writing is always powerful, and I want to draw your attention to this piece in particular. It’s clear and honest about the cost of living in alignment with your values—including the tangible material cost of that choice—and makes a compelling case for doing it anyway.
Emory
I’m a simple man, easily entertained by reality television—desperate, even, for the distraction it offers. So, thank God the newest season of Love Is Blind started airing this month. It’s perfect for getting stoned on a Friday night and doing something easy with your hands, like quilting or folding laundry. As of this writing (2/27), the next batch of episodes for the season drops tomorrow; I can’t wait to see what’s next for these Minnesotan weirdos.
Every time Jo and I watch a season of Love Is Blind, we have the same conversations about the series’ overall premise and mechanics: no, it isn’t actually an “experiment,” though the participants cling to that language (seemingly to justify their decision to participate); yes, it seems to simultaneously attract both a smallish number of individuals who just want to get famous and a large number of individuals who deeply and sincerely believe in its potential to connect them to their true love. It’s cultish for sure, but kind of… endearing?
What we like best about Love Is Blind, I think, is the way queers the straight dating experience. (Sorry, Jo, I know you don’t like queer-as-verb). What queer person hasn’t had the dizzying experience of getting to know someone deeply, intensely, and quickly, then realizing that maybe you want to be in a relationship with them? Queer people often have limited dating pools and the experience of dating a friend’s ex, or an ex’s ex, the way the pods force Love Is Blind participants to do. The couples on the show often discuss—in the pods and on the vacations—how they’ll tell their families about their new relationships, reminiscent of coming out. I find it interesting to watch straight people navigate these sorts of dynamics.
I also just watched Apple Cider Vinegar after reading ’s excellent essay about it:
This was another one I found easy to watch while folding laundry. That Belle Gibson… really a piece of work. Apple Cider Vinegar dramatizes the events of her scandalous life—the nauseating combination of narcissism and Munchausen syndrome that drove her to fake terminal brain cancer, pretend she was “curing” herself through diet alone, create an app and a cookbook by fooling Apple and Penguin, respectively, and eventually lose it all.
What I personally found most interesting when watching: the limited series explores how the medical industry, with an emphasis on profits and a lack of decent bedside manner, drives vulnerable people (in this particular case, women with cancer) to scammers in the wellness industry who are looking to make a buck by being all decent bedside manner, no actual science. The series didn’t present the doctors as bad people, but they were brusque, dismissive, and arrogant. They didn’t take the time to listen to their patients, to make them feel seen and heard. So it didn’t matter what the science said—those people in need turned to places where they could get their emotional needs fulfilled, almost always at the expense of their physical health. The medical industry created the conditions by which Belle Gibson was able to prey on people.
Jozef
We needed a full calendar year to recover from the punch-to-the-gut delivered by Mescal and Andrew Scott in All of Us Strangers, but, late to the party as usual, we finally watched Aftersun this month. Paul Mescal being sad on screen is something that takes a lot of emotional preparation to witness, okay?! Truly though, what a gorgeous, tender film.
Emory
On our drive to and from Boston for my work trip, Jo and I listened to The Memory Police by Yōko Ogawa. I read the novel for the first time in one of my 300-level college classes, Feminist Dystopias, and I wanted Jo to read it, too. Though the novel was published in 1994, it’s a timely read. I would say more about it, but I really want Jo to write about it! I found his insights during our post-listening discussion to be very compelling.
Jozef
I listened to 1984 and The Memory Police this month and have too many thoughts for this newsletter—more on this in another letter maybe.
Emory
My current project is a crib-sized quilt that I’m making for one of my coworkers, who is about to have a baby. In the past two weeks, I planned the quilt, cut and pieced the top, basted it, and have started quilting it—all with Jo’s help, of course. I’m hoping to wrap it up soon and get it sent out. Then, I’ll return to knitting a sweater and sewing a different quilt.
I’ve also been playing a lot of Stardew Valley, one of my go-to comfort games. It’s easy to let myself fall into that world: a small community of neighbors and friends, a life lived by the ever-changing seasons, a resistance to the domineering presence of capitalism.
And I’ve found myself writing more regularly—some pseudo-memoir, pseudo-fiction scribblings in one of my Moleskine notebooks. I’m not sure what’ll come of it, but I write anyway.
Note from Jozef: If Emory won’t brag on himself, I will!! We attended the opening for “Nourishment from the Underground” at Hinterland Art House at the very end of January. It’s Emory’s first time having art featured in a gallery and I’m so proud of him <3 Here’s a pic of him with his piece, Whale Fall:
Jozef
Spending time with loved ones, in person or on the phone, has been a lifeline through the midwinter and I’ve been trying to make it feel extra special when I can. Our secondhand dishware set came with adorable matching candlesticks and I’ve been lighting them at meals as often as I can remember. It makes any meal feel luxurious. When our friend B stayed over, I made chocolate strawberry scones while everyone was still asleep, lit the candles, and chatted with our housemate Z while we had coffee and waited for Emory and B to wake up.
I’ve been doing lots of cooking and baking this month (and quite frankly, never doing enough dishes). My favorite new recipe is a low-effort version of Teighan Gerard’s peanut noodles with sesame sweet potatoes. For my version, I use store-bought Thai peanut sauce, convection bake the kale until it’s crispy, and fry tofu tossed with soy sauce, sesame oil, and ginger powder for extra protein and texture variation. It’s so fucking good. I’ve also recently gotten over my fear of baking with yeast (pro tip: working with an unexpired jar of yeast goes a long way) and making a no-knead loaf of bread every couple of weeks has been a fun way to contribute to our effort to save on groceries.
Emory
My go-to treat when we swing by the store to pick up something small between grocery runs: those iced sugar cookies that are, like, all sugar. I love the almost-overwhelming sweetness as they melt on my tongue.
Jozef
As the person who does most of the cooking in our household and the resident foodie, it’s a special treat for me to eat something prepared by someone else. This month, our trip to Boston meant we had an excuse to eat out, and I took it as a reason to eat an ungodly amount of salmon. Seriously, I was out there giving the fat bears at Katmai National Park a run for their money. My favorite of the dishes was a maple-glazed salmon with roasted asparagus and butternut risotto—if Emory didn’t hate fish, I’d try to recreate it at home! The cute lil’ sammie pictured below with herby mayo and pickled red onions was a close second, though (and look at my sweet lunch date😍).
