Biggest/best news this week: There is A SECOND MALLORY ORTBERG BOOK on the way!!!! GET. EXCITED.
Kayla Whaley on losing the ability to eat, and what that means for her holiday celebrations with her family:
If I invited in the not-hunger in small doses, then maybe it wouldn’t be so bad later. Maybe I could build up an immunity, or at least a tolerance. If I couldn’t control the hurt, maybe I could work with it, let it nestle in me rather than surprise me. Of course, as I’m writing this I realize this might have been what my therapist meant when she said I needed to grieve, when she encouraged me to let myself feel however I felt. But staring at those turkeys—in the grocery store and later at the one bathing in our sink as it thawed—didn’t feel like grieving. It felt how I imagine training for an athletic competition must feel: painful but productive. Intentional repetition to build strength and stamina.
A Christmas Album in Which More Than a Few Aims of Feminism Have Been Achieved
I enjoyed this immensely, and spending at least one Christmas in Australia is now on my list of life goals:
Miss Christmas in some rented or borrowed beach house, and the troop down to the sea first thing in the morning, dragging along presents if you’re still attached, hoping the sand doesn’t get too engritted in the pages of a new book or the wheels of a new remote-control car. Miss waking up on Christmas Day and launching yourself into the sea, shrieking with your sisters and brother, the sun hot on your shoulders, the water a cool slap in your face. Miss taking your body board down with you and skimming along the foamy surface of the waves, delivered tumbling and laughing to where your parents sit on the sand, their legs outstretched and their faces grinning. Miss someone’s tinsel-strewn beach towel.
December Dad Mag: THE HOBBIES ISSUE!
Have a wonderful holiday if you’re observing one this week, and no matter what I hope you get some time off and/or with loved ones to do whatever it is you want to do. If you are celebrating, tell me what you are most looking forward to! I seem to have come down with a cold just in time for Christmas, but am still eagerly anticipating the festivities — we’re going to visit my husband’s family and also see one of my dearest friends in the world (thank you, in-laws, for so courteously retiring to the very same town where said friend happens to reside), and I plan to eat my weight in Ina Garten’s Company Pot Roast and assorted Christmas cookies and finally see Star Wars. (My friend, today: “I don’t want to spoil the movie for you, but there’s an Asian lady.”)
Love to all, especially those for whom the holidays can be tough. We’ll have an open thread up for you tomorrow, so come say hello.
