Friday Five: February 21, 2025

hello from the other side

Feb 21, 2025

Consumers, I am sorry I’ve been mum the past few weeks! Two weeks ago, I left my amazing and intense job at Glossier after nearly seven years at the brand. I quit to freelance and hopefully write more, there are more books I want to write, more stories I dream of telling, more mediums that I just need to explore.

This is the first time in my life I’ve not worked in a steady, full-time gig (a privilege!). I have clients now! It’s exhilarating and terrifying all at once. I have more big life changes incoming that I will write about in due time, but things are all happening so quickly that I don’t quite have the time to stop, reflect, and share back. That’ll happen soon though, I promise. Enough of me now, let’s get into your Friday Five: your round up of joy, bewilderment, catharsis, and relief from across the digital universe.

Substack to Follow: As I navigate a new chapter of my career and try to process closing out a big chapter, I’ve been finding a lot of comfort and relief in

BURNT

. A newsletter on burnout doesn’t sound comforting on the onset, I know, but trust me – it’s through understanding our current predicaments that we find our way out of them. I read through this study shared in a recent edition about the impact of politics on our mental health and it was both devastating and affirming.

Music to soothe you: TikTok put me on to Japanese City Pop, long after I already thought I knowledgable about Japanese music having been a Nujabes fan since I was a sad teenager. City Pop rocks, it is fun, it is upbeat, it is chill, for lack of a better descriptor it is vibey. This extremely cool DJ uploaded this hourlong set of groovy goodness with her parents or grandparents chilling in the background, and it is phenomenal. Put it on the background while you read emails, while you cook, while you sit on your couch and have an existential spiral. It will help in any context.

Book: If you’re a bookish human in NYC or LA you have probably seen or heard of 831 Stories, a new publishing company specializing in fun romance novels. This is not the devastated blonde heroine with soaked clothes or hunky man vaguely resembling Kevin from the Backstreet Boys in jeans yielding an axe cover image, grocery store romance category. It’s evolved and it is very fun. I finished “Hardly Strangers” in one sitting, and I LOVED IT. It is my favorite niche category of having a famous person fall in love with you, and the most fun part is that there was a cheeky continuation of the book online once you’ve finished the physical copy. We could all use a little romance, give one of their books a shot.

Maya Angelou Quote to Unnerve You: This could be a monthly category for the remainder of time and there would be enough material here to keep it going. I both saved it to my Instagram and screenshotted it, and in that moment felt so much like my Mom who will save, screenshot, and print something out all at once. Anyway, this quote. My goodness. Growing up is serious business indeed, and it costs us a hell of a lot to really truly do it. A question I’m asking myself: How am I taking responsibility for the time I take up?

words_of_women

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Bonus! Lil Treat: If I’m ever talking about something to purchase, it will be a bonus in this newsletter. Sofie Pavitt, a brilliant esthetician and a phenomenal friend, just launched a new rich moisturizer and for my acne-prone kinfolk, IT WILL NOT BREAK YOU OUT. I’ve been using it for the past week now and my skin is glowy, supple, and hydrated in the depths of an NYC winter, without a pimple on the horizon. It is really damn good and this is not sponsored content!

Joyful Internet Content:

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