I’m in New York this week and even though there’s been no real lasting snow all winter we got a nice dusting this morning, a little white on the trees up here that absolutely gave me as much winter as I need. I’m dreaming of April already. Or May. Or just whenever the ground thaws and I can plant stuff and see little green sprouts that remind me the best part of winter is when the earth tells you it’s over. Also: It’s not that I don’t like winter. It’s just that I’ve been Wintering (proper noun) for a few years now and I’m finally ready for my spring.
It’s been a few weeks since I shared links and there are a lot. So today let’s enjoy some brevity up front and an internet party in the back, a mullet of newsletters.
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Twenty Things Right Now
Populations are shrinking, Ireland is on the cutting edge, DMT is a quick fix for depression, alcohol hurts sperm, loneliness as art, addiction intersects with sustainability, psychedelics intersect with sustainability-consciousness, $2 million dollars a year to look younger (with pictures!), books I’m reading, shows I’m watching, podcasts I’m hearing, Eckhart Tolle explains alcohol and enlightenment, way too much but never enough Roxane Gay/Debbie Millman content
Last week I shared a podcast talking about the new Canadian drinking guidelines and what it implies about who and what we protect (and if you need more evidence, here’s Italy freaking out about Ireland’s move to put “alarmist wine labels” on all alcohol). I made a mistake and didn’t put the interview in a podcast format so you could listen to it on your podcast player; I’ve fixed that and sorry to my mom who was one of the ones who read a thirty minute transcript.
In other “whoops” news, last week I used an outdated estimate of alcohol-related deaths per year in the US—it’s 140,000 deaths per year, not 100,000; these are pre-pandemic numbers (2015-2019), Bloomberg recently reported a ~14% increase in US alcohol sales from the period 12/2019 to 11/ 2022, so it’s not a wild assumption to think that number will keep growing, but yeah putting warning labels on alcohol is alarmist
I got 4 out of 9 on this “how much is too much alcohol” quiz which is humiliating; the NYT really doubling down on it’s ethanol coverage; Alcohol hurts your sperm
12% of my happiness comes from reading about Roxane Gay and Debbie Millman’s relationship
The “deaths of despair” study as a framework for what’s gone wrong here in America (and suggests corrective capitalism can save us) gets rightfully skewered because (no surprise) the authors of the study stripped out Native American data: “This core idea of the uniqueness of White people being at greater risk to these causes of death, was only made possible by the erasure of data describing Native American mortality.”
Recently someone said something shitty to me on the internet and I got upset and called Emily and she told me sometimes other people’s pain will wear a mask that looks like your face. Then two other friends who are on the internet had the same thing happen to them which reminded me of that time a lady who was a happiness coach or something sent me a DM that said I was “absolutely insufferable” and how it ruined my day but then I used The Work and that made it better. A lot of last year was spent writing about reckoning with how fucking awful people can be to you on the internet, how it can tank your mental health and make you lose your confidence and hurt your heart and question all your life choices, and here’s another piece I wrote on the same subject that I like (there are many of these in the archive).
A 45-year-old guy spends $2 million dollars a year to look 18 and I’m not going to throw stones in my glass house but reading his regimen was a lot and made me think things
I saw this Joan Didion exhibit and because I’m pretty literal and unsophisticated my review was “I don’t get it?”. This lady did a much better job
Drug stuff: DMT as a quick fix for depression, what is Delta-8 THC, women vaping in secret, an old article I found on the impact of last year’s Dry January, psychedelics may promote climate consciousness, rehabs are getting bought up by Private Equity and somehow managing to get even worse
Watching: Episode 3 of The Last of Us which starred Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett and claimed its place as one of my favorite gay love stories ever; The Fugitive because someone suggested it somewhere online and it was really good because I’d forgotten most of it and because it looked like what movies used to look like; really liked Banshees of Inisherin but I’m a little dark
Reading: Dopesick (I hadn’t and I’m working up to Raising Lazarus), Circe (can’t put it down), and Age of Vice (because Roxane Gay said to)
Listening: This podcast on sustainability and addiction which I loved because of all the innocent hard question the interviewer asks Dr. Fisher; this song and this song on long runs
Eckhart Tolle on whether alcohol gets in the way of your enlightenment
Maybe the most astonishing use of loneliness I’ve seen
I promise this isn’t just a Debbie Millman Roxane Gay fansite; that said, I deeply appreciated Debbie Millman talking about the paradox of branding humans, which reminds me of the conversation Emily and I had on Quitted (“Emily McDowell quits being a human brand”)
For futurists: China’s population is shrinking, and it’s a big deal, and it reminds me of a great book I read last year but didn’t share, The Great Demographic Reversal, which made me dig up one of my favorite articles of 2022, How To Future
That we don’t know about menopause and menopause drugs because of sexism reminds me of how we also have a limited understanding of addiction and recovery as it pertains to women’s/those who cycle’s biological makeup because of sexism—a podcast discussing this via the Mayo clinic w Dr. Kristen Schmidt and myself is forthcoming (this March) and I’m so excited for it
Interviews I’ve done recently: On The Rocks (“A journey through sobriety and compassion with Holly Whitaker”), Hello Someday (“Quit Like a Woman with Holly Whitaker”) (as a reminder I never listen back to myself so it’s possible I was a monster in them)
It’s embarrassing how much fucking Roxane Gay is in this newsletter but whatever she had a good few weeks. This article on her struggle to say no was lovely. I’ve gotten a lot better at it (the saying no), I have that same post-it about learning to disappoint people, but it never hurts to remember the universal (often non-male) struggle to say nuh-uh
Lastly: I have bunnies in my garden and I’m wondering if anyone has experience using fake owls
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Thank you for putting the term “mullet of newsletters” into the world because it absolutely made my day ❤️
Wait, I’m behind…did you move to CA? or are you back to New York. I loved The Last of Us and agree on that episode. It was AMAZING for any kind of love story, and I’m glad it didn’t end with someone’s face being. If you haven’t seen Bad Sisters, do it. Though there is a lot of drinking in it, just fair warning. I get a little triggered by wine drinking but I loved the show. Thanks for the other recommendations. I was in Ireland in September and I was thrilled about the amount and normalcy of na beverages including GUINESS O.O ON TAP. Which for me wasn’t that great but I was glad I got to try it as that’s the big deal when you are there. They have way more alc free Prosecco that was better than what we have here. No one cared that I wasn’t drinking alcohol. Same in Canada.