Gratitude Is A Practice, And You Gotta Show Up If You Want To Make It To The State Finals (Look, Metaphors Are Hard...)
First off, I want to thank each of you who have in recent days reached out and expressed an appreciation for this here Morning Missive newsletter. This whole thing started as a way to channel my anxious energy about the upcoming 2016 election, and 740 (seven hundred and forty!!!!!) Missives later, it’s become a delightful way for me to wake up in the morning and connect with y’all. Thank you.
And while we’re on a gratitude kick, as many of you know music has always been near and dear to me, and I’ve been lucky enough to be playing my guitar again for a full year (I know this because my Ultimate Guitar subscription went through on my credit card yesterday and it made me smile.) Last January, after a decade of shuttling my un-played guitar in its case from apartment to apartment, I finally picked it up again (10 min a day to start,) discovered that playing a song over and over again until I understand it is a great anxiety salve, then invested in a gorgeous Martin Dreadnaught Junior (this lady’s got tiny hands, y’all…,) and now spend hours a week on it, including this past weekend playing and singing Kacey Musgrave’s* Slow Burn on loop (h/t to my Dad who kept texting me every day until I listened to the damned tune because he knew I’d love it.) So as we all look at our New Year’s intentions, I am just so happy to report that this is one I stuck to, and one that paid off exponentially.
Anyway, the internet is out there and probably making you a bit insane, so let’s take a look at it, shall we?
Scott Lucas, BuzzFeed’s deputy tech and business editor, tweeted this article about the matchmaking company that connects Bay Area men with LA women because, as the men in this story report, Bay Area women are neither feminine or externally beautiful or possessing of appropriately embryo-y skin, “Even the women that are working in marketing jobs in tech companies”! Well my word, why else would I have gone into tech PR *faints*?!? And btw, if you can’t get through the piece because OOF I get it, I suggest you read his thread for the highlights. Thank you Scott for doing the hard and infuriating work for us.
The great apostrophe preservation war continues: Gene Weingarten: Pickin’ up where the Apostrophe Protection Society left off. Consider me drafted, see you at punctuation bootcamp at 0600 hours. (h/t Dad)
The Oscars nominations came out yesterday, and Rachel Handler at NY Mag really hit the nail on the head: What Is a White Man Mad About in This Oscar-Nominated Movie?
Questions I really, really wish didn’t need to be asked in 2020: Senators Want to Know How a Guy with White Nationalist Ties Got Hired as a Captain at an ICE Facility.
And finally, as a bit of a pallet cleanser after that last one, thank you to Friend of the Missive Christopher who shared this article reminding us that while the 2019 was insane, there’s so much to be grateful for—and to fight for—as we head into 2020.
I adore you all. Be kind to each other.
xoxo Amy
*PS: Supposedly Kacey wrote this song after dropping acid and you know what, I am HERE FOR IT.