Friendmendations 4.27.21

guess who's back, back again, friendmendations are back, tell a friend

Hello from my new home at Ghost! Everything has been imported over to my new home, and I just have to do some maintenance, like cleaning up every old link to my own content.

I started drafting this last night and had a Biblical level of calamities hit: I cut my finger open with a butter knife, so I ordered food because I couldn't cook, and then the order didn't show up and I assumed it got lost, and then I witnessed a mouse walk into a mouse trap, begin screaming itself to death, and extricate itself only to walk into a second trap and actually die, and then I got my period.

Work is extremely busy right now. My roommate and I had a new roommate lined up for our third bedroom, but they dropped out and now the first of the month is around the corner. I have to do some maintenance on this newsletter, like cleaning up every old link to my own content, but work is extremely busy and also I cut my finger open with a butter knife.

My food eventually arrived and I got a good night's sleep last night! It is only Wednesday! I'm gonna try to turn this week around! Let's do some quick recs!

The one positive part of yesterday

My friend Camille recommended this posture-correcting yoga class from body-positive, Black-owned yoga studio BK Yoga Club because I mentioned my terrible, life-ruining posture. I was so stressed today that I decided to try it, and it was so beautiful and restorative that I felt a peace I haven't felt in weeks. (I decided to continue on this path of self-care by trying a new face peel, but I couldn't open the packaging so I tried to cut it open with a butter knife and that's how my evening went south. Feeling very blessed that I got this lovely yoga session in before all of that happened, though!)

On the topic...

I'd stopped doing yoga after having carpal tunnel surgery and I never got back into it until fairly recently when a friend set up a weekly virtual yoga date. I needed a yoga mat, and I'd seen this one enthusiastically recommended a few times in a Twitter thread, so I bought it and I can confirm that it's great. And it comes in so many colors!

Good read!

The essay "Learning to Write My Truth as a Deaf Queer Writer" by Ross Showalter is such a good look at how teachers can help writers of marginalized identities, and I love his perspective on writing about your identity: "You only have to put in the work to make sure someone who does not share your experience can enter the world you create. If the reader refuses to enter, you cannot do anything. But if the reader encounters a barrier, you must decide if that is part of the path."

Good read on a very different topic!

Have you read "The End of Kimye’s Wild Ride" by Allison P. Davis yet? If not, get in there. You'll be hooked within two or three paragraphs.

(Brag)

I costumed and directed the scenes for this Tiger Oil video! And then it was produced and edited and narrated by Cam aka Sick Limo, whose video "NOVEL ASSESSMENT: The Wit and Wisdom of Oscar Wilde" makes me laugh out loud. Watch both videos and then listen to the whole Tiger Oil demo tape, or do those three things in whatever order feels best to you. (Also if you have a video you want directed, hire me.)

Okay, that's all. Hopefully this newsletter, and also my entire life, will be higher-quality soon. I love y'all.