9 of My Favorite Things This Week
3/23/23 edition
I thought the 3/23/23 was the perfect date to launch this round-up of things I like, so welcome.
Not only is it my birthday, it’s also the curliest day of the year: 3/23/23. If this date had a name, it would be Olivia, but written in cursive. Before you ask if I’m on some new designer drug, read this Scientific American article about the Bouba-Kiki Effect. Science explains everything.
I plan to do these every other week or so in some form. We’ll see what you all end up liking in the end.
I’ll continue to do my heavy-hitters once a week, too.
I hope you find at least one thing on this list that makes your week better. I did it in reverse order for no real reason, so don’t fight me on what should be #1. They’re all #1 to somebody.
This week’s important things
9. Kind Bars Ice Cream: not just for vegans
If you’ve tried dairy-free ice cream, you’re probably either lactose intolerant, a vegan or have high cholesterol. Either way, you’re likely suffering and deserve a treat.
These things taste exactly like a frozen Snickers. I know you don’t believe me, but I had a frozen Snickers two weeks ago and one of these ten minutes ago. They are the same.
The peanut butter ones are even better. I get them at Target, where I now get almost all my groceries (thanks, inflation),so you don’t even have to go to a weird place to get them.
8. This 90s Seventeen Mag cover & associated blog post
I remember this Seventeen cover better than almost anything else from my teen years. From the bikini to the wrap to the way this gorgeous young woman absolutely glowed (I will resist talking about all the other things I thought about her at the time…), I knew every square inch of that cover.
I also remember that it was special because she wasn’t skinny. Yes, you read that right, in 1993 this gal was considered curvy.
Anne Helen Petersen wrote about this beauty and the cultural impact of this Seventeen cover in
this week, and it's worth a read. She also shares an insight about why GenX and elder millennials hate when the trends of our youth come cycling back.When millennial women shudder at the prospect of the return of the low-slung jean, we are not being old, or boring, or basic. It’s not about the fucking jeans AS JEANS, and I wish people could actually understand that. It was about the jeans on our bodies. We are attempting to reject a cultural moment that made so many of us feel undesirable, incomplete, and alienated from whatever fragile confidence we’d managed to accumulate. We are trying to avoid reinflicting that on ourselves, but more importantly, on the next generation.
The jeans will come back. They already have. I know this. Whatever the style of fashion that made you feel inadequate and unfixable, it will likely come back too. You might have the strength to refuse to allow it — and the ideal body it imagines, — to have power over you.
It’s not about the jeans. It’s about the way we felt when we didn’t look “right” in them or even the ways in which we felt we should want to be part of them, but the process of conforming felt inauthentic.
This is yet another reason to celebrate being over 40. We can wear what we like, what makes us feel good, and say “f*ck you” to the rest. I know I do.
7. Esther Perel says unpopular things about marriage
We all know I have complicated feelings about marriage, but who am I, really?
This article on YourTango is packed with things I’ve been waiting at least 20 years to hear someone with authority say, but my favorite myth she explores is this one:
Problems with the relationship are always the cause of sexual problems
… [W]e believe that if a couple has sexual problems, they must result from relationship problems. We see sexuality as a metaphor for the relationship. Thus, we say, "fix the relationship, and the sex will follow."
However, this is a convenient assumption; it's not always the case, and fixing the relationship does not always fix the sex… Rather, sexuality is a parallel narrative that tells its own story.
It’s a truth that’s hard to absorb if you grew up in purity culture. We were told that good sex was a gift God gave married people and that it would be easy and all make sense.
But you can’t peel decades of shame off your body like a wet swimsuit.
It stains your skin and your bones and creeps up when you least expect it. It lives in your marrow. Too many Evangelical and Mormon women realize this too late, only to be re-traumatized when they hear “serve your husband’s needs” as the only response to their struggles.
6. This ‘Digital Detox Workbook’
If you’re like me, social media is not just a habit, it’s a practice, and in order to take a real break, you’ll need to replace it with something else. People will tell you that exercising or meditation are good replacements, but those people are boring and also liars.
In real life, you’ll need something else. I suggest something trashy, like Outer Banks which is a fun teen show about treasure-hunting or Sex/Life, about a bored housewife whose husband is a wealthy dud. Sex/Life is a much worse show, but has a lot of nudity and is oddly compelling.
But trash TV won’t be enough, so maybe grab the Digital Detox workbook by Jordan Reid and Erin Williams. It can be utilized in front of your children or your great-grandmother, which cannot be said about either of the aforementioned Netflix shows.
5. These socks
If you know me IRL, you’ve heard me talk about Le Bon Shoppe.
Despite them being improbably-named the “Boyfriend Socks”, as if someone’s boyfriend would wear these and not something purchased at Costco, they’re the perfect sock.
They stay up, they’re trendy — but not so much so that you’ll need to donate them in one year, they’re fluffy enough to be cozy without making your shoes uncomfortable, and they can be pulled up over leggings.
Yes, you read that right. I saw teenagers at high school pickup wearing socks pulled way up over their leggings last year — which means grown ladies just started this week. I’d been wanting to try it, but the cult of the no-show sock was heard to break free from. Every time I tried, I felt like a poser.
When I saw my friend Loni, a professional stylist, wearing socks over leggings at the playground, I knew it was finally OK for me to do so without looking like I’m trying to trick a college boy into dating me.
As an added bonus, this trend makes your ankles look thick AF which is a new one for modern beauty trends, but I’m into it.
4. This song by Noah Cyrus and her dad
The first thing you should know is that I’m obsessed with Noah Cyrus and I think you should be, too. She is the one artist whose entire Spotify collection can be played in my car without anyone yelling SKIP, including me.
I don’t know if it’s the fact that I have a child who is about to become a legal adult or simply the rarity of a song that’s about surviving when life gets really effing hard, but I want to soak my soul in this song like it’s a hot bath with epsom salts. That last refrain … my God.
3. The New Masculinity by Alex Manley
One thousand years ago, when I was a freelancer, I wrote for a popular digital mag called AskMen under editor Alex Manley, who was an absolute doll. When Alex asked me to blurb their new book, I was delighted — and I actually read the entire thing. It is lovely.
Among other things, The New Masculinity is a uniquely honest discussion about sex, designed to guide young men who are looking for mutually-fulfilling, honest, healthy sexual interactions. It’s helpful without being gratuitous or pandering, and I think young men will appreciate it.
Pre-order it now. Preorders are the best way to support an author!
2. Women creators calling out TikTok’s ‘suggested links’
One of TikToks’ most popular creators, Jen Hamilton, a L&D nurse with a cute husband and chickens that live indoors, posted a video of herself crying after a devastating shift in the labor and delivery department.
The video, just raw emotion, was sad enough. Then TikTok’s auto-suggest system made it much, much worse.
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Kate Lindsay at
explains how, due to the algorithm, Jen's TikTok ended up turning all eyes to Elyse Myers, a wildly popular creator on the platform who happens to be pregnant, through no fault (or connection) of either woman's own.The suggested search, for reasons unknown, was “Elyse Myers pregnancy loss.”
Myers, a popular creator with over six million followers, had thankfully not lost her baby. But as soon as that suggested search appeared, viewers understandably took it as a piece of tragic news that they had missed, and reacted accordingly.
“That video had nothing to do with Elyse,” Hamilton said in a follow-up. “Please do not use my video to go to her page and ask her questions about losing her baby. And to Elyse, I am so sorry.”
This should be a reminder to us all that no matter how famous they are, no matter how well we think we know them, we don’t actually know these people or the context of their lives — and we should never, ever rely solely on an algorithm to tell us what to do.
1. My puppy vs a wet mystery rodent
I was on a Zoom call with famous anthropologist and author, Dr. Helen Fisher (The Anatomy of Love) when I looked outside and saw my puppy, Willie (full name: Queen Wilhelmina Puppermint), locked in battle with something in the dirt.
I assumed this was a gopher that would disappear down a hole, leaving Willie to shove her beak into the dirt for the next half an hour until finally giving up. When I looked out again two minutes later, Willie was still at it and I could see the creature: some sort of rodent on its hind legs, two tiny arms aloft.
I begged Dr. Fisher’s pardon and ran outside. This is the video of what happened next:
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I forced her to let the little guy go, mostly so I could follow it and see what it was. It walked like a drunken sailor and looked back every time I yelped as if we were friends. Turns out it was a vole.
A final little note: I did turn on “paid subscriptions” but please don’t feel pressure to sign up for those. There will be a few paywalled articles and features, but not too many. I just wanted people to have the option!
Glad I'm not the only one whose puppy distracts her/needs attention during interviews sometimes! :)
Thanks for The New Masculinity recommendation. I'm going to check it out.
Oh man.. Those Kind bars are so good! Like Snickers!