Good Things, January Edition
Our apartment is very much a work-in-progress, but my “office,” aka my little corner of the bedroom, is slowly taking shape.
I have to start with the biggest and brightest good thing of all. When I sat down to watch the Inauguration last Wednesday (was it only last week? it sort of already feels like a lifetime), I was expecting to feel joyous, and proud, and relieved. And I did! I felt all of those things, especially while watching these powerhouse women step forward into the spotlight, each of them a breath of fresh and necessary air. Kamala Harris, taking her Oath of Office from Sonia Sotomayor; Amanda Gorman, reciting her poem; Lady Gaga and Jennifer Lopez, belting it out to high heavens; Michelle Obama and Jill Biden and Nancy Pelosi, gracing the stage, and our screens, with their steady reassuring presences (and absolutely killer fashion choices).
But I felt other things, too. When I first turned on the TV and saw the crowd milling around, before the proceedings officially began, I was briefly disoriented. What’s missing from this picture? Why does this feel so weird? There were the Bushes, the Clintons, the Obamas, the Bidens, the Harris/Emhoffs; there was Nancy and Mitch; there were various other members of the American political establishment. There were masks, and there was distancing, but despite that, the whole picture looked so normal. So calm, and civilized, and unlike the insanity of the outgoing administration. Here they were, assembled all together, the living Presidents of the United States (minus sweet old Jimmy Carter, who at 96 is allowed to do whatever he wants). There was an obvious person missing from that group. Part of me had expected his absence to loom over the proceedings. But it reallly didn’t. The picture felt strangely, fittingly complete without him. That sight—and that sudden unexpected sense of normalcy—was, for me, the real moment of transition. The ceremony hadn’t even officially begun, and already we seemed to be witnessing the fading away of Bizarro World. Only Mike Pence was there, the sole remaining emissary of the Trump administration, like one of those ominous skulls in a Hans Holbein painting, a memento mori of everything we had just lived through.
I am torn between competing impulses, as I imagine a lot of people are. On the one hand, I want to move on with my life. I want to move the hell on! I want to forget about Donald Trump, and get vaccinated, and take a vacation, and see my friends. But I also want to respect the reality of what we have been through in the last year; in the last four years. Watching the Inauguration on Wednesday, I also felt occasional bursts of grief, sudden and passing, like summer thunderstorms. The flags arrayed along the Mall; the National Guard in their fatigues, keeping the peace. I was thinking a lot of my great uncle Johnny Pitoniak, who died of Covid-19 in April. He lived in the Soldiers’ Home in Holyoke, Massachusetts. He served in World War II, then came back to work on the family dairy farm. There are stories and stories to tell about Uncle Johnny. It’s hard to wrap my mind around the fact that he is just one of the 400,000+ Americans (425,208 as of this writing) who have died of this disease. When you live in a country on fire, you don’t really have time to process what is being destroyed in that fire. But some day the fire will settle down, and when that day comes, I hope that I can take the time to remember, and make space for the losses along with the celebrations, because both of those impulses are equally beautiful, and equally necessary for living a good life. At least, I think so.
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Cooking. The sourdough journey continues! Beyond having this recipe for the Tartine country bread in my heavy rotation, I’ve been looking at other recipes that put my sourdough starter to work. The other weekend I made these savory sourdough rolls from Food52. They’re shaped kind of like a cinnamon roll but filled with cheese instead. The dough itself turned out beautifully, just as pillowy and soft as advertised, but honestly, the filling left something to be desired? Ricotta and parmesan sounds delicious, but the filling was a bit lackluster after emerging from the oven: dried out, not cheesy enough. But! I want to make these rolls again, and I think next time I’ll fill them with cheddar and gruyere instead. Aiming for that slightly sharper flavor, and a gougere kind of vibe, melty-on-the-inside, crispy-on-the-outside.
Shopping. I really try to take it easy with the online shopping, especially because (a) I already have far more clothing than I need, and (b) I’m already frankly embarrassed at the number of boxes we receive in the mail each week. But sometimes a girl just needs a little pick-me-up, and this past week, the pick-me-up came in the form of new pajamas. I wanted something comfortable enough to sleep in, but also cute enough to feel excited to wear. So I bought these in white from J.Crew, and they are about as simple as you can get, but I love them. I love how crisp and classic they are. I love how they are the exact opposite of the dumb old t-shirts I usually sleep in. They make me feel like I’m on vacation in some fancy hotel, the kind with nice sheets and deep bathtubs and room service. Every night I am excited to put these pajamas on. Is that weird? I really don’t care. This pandemic has been going on for a century. It’s the little things.
Watching. Have I raved to you yet about Ted Lasso? When Andrew got a new laptop for work, it came with a free year of Apple TV+, and then Andrew kept hearing about this Jason Sudeikis show, and honestly it sounded kind of random to me, but we decided to give it a shot. The premise probably won’t sell you unless you’re a serious Premier League fan—Sudeikis plays an American football coach who is suddenly put in charge of an English football (aka soccer) team—but please just trust me when I say that this show is an absolute delight! And not in a saccharine way. For such a heartfelt show, the script is fantastically fresh. It kept surprising me; it would zig when I expected it to zag. Anyways, I miss Ted Lasso. I want to keep hanging out with him. Hurry up, Season Two. (In unrelated/related news, I am very depressed by the Sudeikis-Wilde break-up. I really liked them!)
Reading. Last week, when I was writing here about The Glass Hotel, I mentioned how bad I am at taking other people’s book recommendations. But I’m also a liar, because sometimes I do listen, indeed sometimes I am very impressionable. Alison Roman was talking about the movie Heartburn in her cooking newsletter recently, and it led me to realize that, even though I love Nora Ephron, I’ve never actually read Heartburn (the movie is based on the novel, and the novel is famously based on Ephron’s real life). The library had it available, so I grabbed it, and it was the perfect thing to devour over the course of the weekend. It was so funny, and so sad, and so good at showing how the very act of being funny—of making another person laugh, of trying not to take it too seriously—is often the only way to keep the pain at bay. And how can you not love a novel that contains this sentence?
I look out the window and I see the lights and the skyline and the people on the street rushing around looking for action, love, and the world's greatest chocolate chip cookie, and my heart does a little dance.
Nora Ephron, better than anyone else, captures the romance of New York. You don’t just have love affairs with people; you have them with places, too. I have more to say on this (I always have more to say on this!), and I’m hoping to write a little more about Heartburn in a future post. But, for now, I will leave you with that. Nora 4ever.