March 14, 2019
Notes from Summer: Happy Mid-March everyone! My mom’s birthday is on Saturday and I would like everyone to watch a Turkish drama in her honor. In other news, I was included in this article on “Recognizing Under-Known Arab Americans this Women’s History Month” and I just feel very validated that yes, fame? She’s on her way.
Notes from Jillian: I’m having a week that can best be described as “brain machine broken.” Turns out even when you feel like you’re doing everything right—getting enough sleep, drinking water, doing yoga, meditating, etc.—you can still feel shitty! Big giant recommendation this week: take a day off from being a person, forgive your brain for being stupid, and resolve to try again tomorrow.
Since they are playing in San Francisco the day before this letter comes out and I won’t be seeing them (yet again, evening commitments keep me from concerts), let me tell you about a band I love! My cousin Eli recommended them to me—47SOUL is an electro-dabke music group made up of members from various parts of the Palestinian diaspora. They sing in English and Arabic, so even if you have no familiarity with the language, you can still bounce around and understand some of the words!
– Summer
If you’ve read this newsletter even like, once, you know that I recently started going to therapy and that meditation is my new hobby. “Mindfulness” is a messy buzzword, but there truly is something so nice about just…taking a few minutes to stop working and actually think about how you’re feeling. Who knew! This journaling app that just launched is my new favorite way to do that.
– Jillian
Kamala Khan’s first appearance in the Marvel universe was in Captain Marvel #13 (in 2013), at the very end of the issue. She puts up a poster of Carol Danvers, and I started weeping immediately. There, I realized, tight, comics are going to make me cry as much as anything else. Carol Danvers is my second favorite hero in the Marvel world; this is partly because she is the hero of my first favorite character, and partly because of the incredible writing by Kelly-Sue Deconnick. The movie was everything I needed it to be; the structure allowed a two-fold origin story—we learn how Carol gets her powers, but we also learn how she will be relevant to the films at hand, no time is wasted. She is strong and goofy, and I finally understood male power fantasies because when she fought I was like, oh I wanna do that too. I cried a lot! It was great!
– Summer
I’m a big supporter of having many pillows on my bed (four at the absolute minimum)—so naturally I just bought a new one. This pillow is huge and soft and fluffy and beyond comforting. It’s probably the next best thing to having a pet to cuddle with every night.
– Jillian