Face-down on cold tile

A list of links, recommendations, and a poll

My nasturtiums are having a great summer, thanks for asking.

I didn’t check the news or social media at all last weekend, and when I went online on Monday after dropping my son off, the U.S. had apparently gone to war. By this week’s end, it feels like that same news story has somehow been eclipsed several times over.

This has to be the summer of peak hypernormalization. That feeling of straddling two places, one where everything is clearly falling apart, the other where everyone is acting like things are normal. It’s here versus there.

It gives life a bursting quality that feels totally unsustainable. But it just keeps going, doesn’t it? Summertime adds to this dynamic, with the heat and outward energy expenditure creating a head-spinning vortex that makes me want to lie face-down on cold tile.

It feels like more people are awake to this bizarre reality than ever before. This can be helpful in terms of making one feel less crazy, but it does nothing to stem the onslaught. I don’t have any answers because I don’t think there are any. But I’m fond of Margaret Wheatley’s framing of creating “islands of sanity,” which a kind reader reminded me of in the lovely comments of my last post. These islands are crucially not places of retreat, but rather of contribution — hyperlocal, small in scale, yet deeply meaningful. To remind you that you’re still here, and goodness does still matter.

Below is a list of links and recommendations. I haven’t sent one out since late March, and I’m enjoying compiling these lists less frequently as stand-alone editions, rather than tacking them onto a long essay. I need less inputs in my life, not more, and I’m sure you feel the same.

A quick poll on interviews

I have a bunch of interesting people I want to interview for this newsletter, but Q&As have historically performed worse compared to regular posts, so I’m not sure readers want more of them. Sometimes I wonder if that’s because I’m sending out written Q&As you have to read, rather than recorded conversations you can listen to. Since preparing for and facilitating these interviews is quite a lot of work, I want to ask you: What is your preferred format for consuming interviews?

Things I’ve enjoyed reading

• Even though I am met with images of it every time I open a social app, it’s impossible to metabolize the full scale of the horror and destruction in Gaza. That’s why pieces of writing like this one by Suzy Hansen are so important. If you’ve been scrolling by in a kind of self protection, I can’t say I blame you, but you should take the time to read a sober and comprehensive account of it. [NY Mag]

• “Everyone I know is trying to figure out what to do. We all want to know ‘What’s the project?’” More gorgeous writing by

  Spencer R. Scott
  . [As If We Were Staying]

• Will Storr
  with a great dissection of the generic, AI-ish essays increasingly found on Substack, featuring a “white-noise generality” and “an uncanny vagueness that makes the mind glaze over.” Yes, that’s exactly it. [Science of Storytelling]

• One of the particular joys of being married to another writer (and sharing a child with them) is reading their writing about your child.

  Dan Dalton
  on fathers, sons, and doing what it takes to keep showing up. [Tangents]

• On what makes Call Her Daddy podcaster Alex Cooper such a compelling interviewer. [Vulture]

• “I wish this had never happened, of course. But life would feel thin without it. I understand things about myself and the world now that I can’t wish I didn’t know. All of the noise about what on earth I’m here for has melted away. I think I am a better person, if a sadder one.” Archie Bland on his son Max will stay with you. [The Guardian]

Things I’ve enjoyed listening to

• We need to grapple with the fact that the answer to the rising crisis in masculinity is compassion for men and boys, rather than continuing to cast them as the oppressor. This interview with renowned (and funny) couples therapist Terry Real speaks to that so well. [Modern Love]

• Rep. Sarah McBride, the first openly trans member of Congress, on how the progressive left got ahead of public opinion, why that’s such a problem, and how to fix it. I haven’t enjoying listening to a politician speak this much in a while. [The Ezra Klein Show]

More from me, if you want

I’ve had some great conversations with fellow Substackers recently.

Taryn Greig

and I talked about our experiences of the economics of caregiving. And

kenneth primrose

and I spoke about collapse, care, and what we do next.

And the

The Substack Post

asked me to contribute to their advice for 2025 graduates. I was incredibly honored to be included on this list with some writers I’ve admired for years.

Word Soup

“It’s never enough for the reader of your words to be convinced. The goal is to haunt — to have them think about your words before bed, see them manifest in their dreams, tell their partner about them the next morning, to have them grab random people on the street, shake them and say, ‘have you read this yet?’” —Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Message

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