Better Living Through Literature
Words + Projects + Stuff I Like
This is well worth 10 minutes of your time: A charming little video finding out where all Bob Ross’ original paintings are. Bonus: You’ll learn his business partner Annette Kowalski sewed all of the shirts Bob wore on TV (!).
The research and video are by the NY Times and there’s a little more info on their site.
Shown on the patio, here’s my new favorite pair of patio pants:
They’re the True Bias Emerson Pants again (this is my…seventh time making that pattern?) and they’re all I want to wear. I originally wanted to copy some Madewell lounge pants to wear around the house, but I love these so much I’ve been wearing them out to coffee and therapy and other hot spots around town.
Details:
Bluebell meadows, mysterious woods, magical stream banks–it was a good hike yesterday. (Also it was 20 degrees cooler than the valley. I don’t know how people without mountains do it.)
1. Learn all about synthesizers at Learning Synths! (super fun)
2. I had no idea Ludwig Bemelmann (of the Madeleine books) wrote a book about decorator Elsie de Wolfe. From that book, she announces:
3. Same:
I unironically love pull quotes in essays. that sentence I just enjoyed? here it is again, but HUGE. hell yeah fuck me up
— JuanPa (@jpbrammer) June 18, 2019
I’ve been tweaking my neck and shoulder muscles at the gym doing exercises I’ve done before, at the same weight, with no issues. I finally figured out it’s because I’m sleeping at a weird angle and that throws things out of alignment. Time for a new pillow!
I’m a side sleeper and the struggle is real–I’d been using the Wamsutta pillow recommended by The Strategist but it flattens out after a few months. So I got the Xtreme Comforts Shredded Memory Foam (!) recommended by The Wirecutter and used it for the first time last night and let me tell you: It is AMAZING.
I woke up with this quote in my head from Little House on the Prairie (the Fever ‘N Ague* chapter):
Ma leaned back in the softness. Her thin cheeks flushed and her eyes sparkled with tears but her smile was beautiful. …She said, “Oh, Charles! I haven’t been so comfortable in I don’t know when.”
*Thirty years of reading these books and I still have no idea how to pronounce “ague”.
Today you should read a short piece in the New Yorker: The Secret Rebellion of Amelia Bedelia, the Bartleby of Domestic Work
Come for the memories of a beloved childhood series, stay for the discussion of invisible labor and Bartleby the Scrivener–and enjoy possibly the best correction of all time:
A previous version of this post misidentified the type of clothing worn by the chicken in the drawing.
After a year of going to the gym, I’ve realized that the only thing that’s really comfortable for heavy activity is something form-fitting. (Now I understand why the ancient Greeks worked out naked.) I’ve also realized that if I’m going to be wearing a backpack while hiking, I need a really high waist on my shorts (or pants) or else I spend the entire time yanking them up as the pack pushes them down.
Enter: High Rise Booty Shorts.
The pattern is from a company called Patterns for Pirates and they’re the “Loggers“–i.e. the fit of a legging with the pockets and bands of a jogger pant. (Worn here with the DIY Smartwool Nikko top I made last year.)
I made the low rise/tall waistband combo in the shorts and added a few inches to the inseam (from 2″ to 5″; it’s fine to be proud of what lifting does for your legs but you have to be able to actually sit). The fabric is a really gorgeous thick “Dry-Flex Poly” from The Fabric Fairy.
These are tighter and shorter than I would ever dream of wearing a year ago but guess what? They were SO. COMFORTABLE. on the long Uintas hike. I’ve had varicose veins since high school; I nearly never wear shorts. But as I approach 40 and have learned to take up space, mentally and physically, my attitude has become: “Fuck it, I’ll wear what I want. If people don’t want to see my veins/butt/crotch/underwear lines, then they don’t have to look.”
It is a great feeling. As great as smol stretchy shorts for hiking.
We drove an hour and went on our annual July high mountain hike last Friday–the Lofty Lakes Loop trail in the Uinta Mountains.
Compared to the last two years, there was a lot of snow on the ground (we brought our microspikes and were really glad we did). In some spots the grass wasn’t even green yet and instead of summer wildflowers, there were tiny spring blooms instead.
It was still a great day hike–I love these mountains particularly and the drive up into them is just heartbreakingly beautiful at times. Maybe this is the year we finally go back with a pool float to the largest lake next month…
The New Colossus
By Emma Lazarus
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
***
Everything We Know About the Inhumane Conditions at Migrant Detention Camps.
Children Shouldn’t Be Dying at the Border.Here’s How You Can Help.
Maybe it’s nine months of weekly therapy, maybe it’s projects I’m excited about*–but I feel like I’ve been doing some really good work at work in the last little while. I’m more willing to take risks and more open about what I need and it turns out that’s a combo for creative ideas.
I saw this article Monday and it falls in line with what I’ve been doing differently in my career: embracing who I am, being open, and managing my anxiety. From A Misfit’s Guide to Navigating the Office, by Jennifer Romolini:
Your best work will come when you can be open, accountable, curious and fully who you are—not by performing some outsize version of who you think you should be. Not sure where to begin? Try the following:
*It’s the therapy