Letter 8

February 28, 2019

Notes from Summer: Hello friends! I turned in the first chunk of my thesis last week so I am feeling exhausted and hopeful. Rami Malek has an Oscar, so I’m happy about that! I have a poem in the newest issue of Mizna, which is literally a dream come true. Please check it out!

Notes from Jillian: We’re a couple of months into the year—how are you doing? I feel calmer and more comfortable than I ever have in my life and yet I’m still taking on way too many projects and trying to work on 726482 things at once! I’m a mess. It’s fine.

We recommend…

📺 Sex Education

I always feel silly recommending things that lots of people already know are good, but you know what? Sometimes people just have good taste! Asa Butterfield is so good! He’s been in so many notable roles before this but honestly, he will always be a tiny, mostly silent druid boy. BBC’s Merlin will haunt me forever. He’s almost good enough in Sex Education that I forget about that, though. Gillian Anderson is also just so beautiful and fun to watch. Every side character is delightful. You can watch it on Netflix!

Summer

📱 Calm

This is actually a secondhand recommendation—I tweeted a few weeks ago asking what meditation apps people use and like, and Kara was the only person who told me to use Calm. I’ve been using it ever since! My new hobby is getting away from my desk every day at 5 p.m. for 10 minutes of meditation.

Jillian

📽️ What If

This is a romantic comedy starring Daniel Radcliffe and Zoe Kazan from 2013 that I used to absolutely love. I watched it for the first time in probably four years and it holds up! My nostalgia spirals have been so excellent (painful) that I’ve returned to Tumblr—I was going through my Daniel Radcliffe tag and seeing so many quotes from the press tour and, reader, they were cringe-y as hell. Every conversation was about the friendzone and (thankfully) how it doesn’t exist, etc., but it’s like, okay we get it! We get what the movie is about! But the movie itself isn’t as heavy-handed. It’s fun and everyone has that copy-cat witty voice that makes you laugh no matter whose mouth the dialogue is coming out of. Daniel Radcliffe is ridiculously charming even though he looks like shit the whole film (he is capable of better!!!!!!!!!!!!!). Zoe Kazan is an angel lead. I love that 16 year-old-me wasn’t just blinded by Harry Potter in her love for this movie. You can watch it on Amazon Prime! You’re welcome, Bezos!

Summer

🍽️ No-knead bread

Three facts about me: I am notoriously lazy, I am bad in the kitchen, and I love bread. No-knead bread is the perfect recipe for someone like me, because it requires almost no effort for the truly incredible payoff of having fresh, warm, homemade bread. I’ve used this recipe a few times and it has never let me down.

Jillian