five things #14

and a brief diatribe on losing phones

I’m warning you: this one’s a bit of a doozy. Apologies in advance.

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We are slouching toward September, babes. Like, we are almost there. So close. August is nearly behind us. Never to be seen again until next year, when the month will once again hit us like a ton of bricks. But what is a year away cannot hurt us now. I’m sure if I had a therapist, that is what they’d say.¹

To help get us through the remaining dredges of August, let’s dip into another installment of five things, where we discuss five things/people/events/je ne sais quois that made me, briefly, not want to eject myself directly into space.

(A funny, funny thing: hours after writing the above on Friday, I lost my phone. Or maybe it was stolen. The exact circumstances remain unclear to me. All that I know is true is that on Friday afternoon, it was no longer on my person and I had no way of locating it. Years of traveling and frolicking and occasionally being irresponsible and this is my first time losing my phone. Et tu, timing? I had to go to the mall to buy a new one,² the silent walk thereto fueled by alarmingly incandescent annoyance, and in trying to set it up I realized I don’t actually know my Apple ID password, do I? Had to initiate the recovery process, didn’t I? Almost 48 hours later and I still have a blank screen sitting next to me instead of a functional device, don’t I? A deeply inconvenient way to spend my weekend whilst not home, and the fact that I rely on my phone this much is somehow bothering me even more than the mere absence of one now.³

All to say that this exercise of cobbling up reasons to feel grateful™, in a week where I was already not feeling my Absolute Best, could not have come at a better/worse time. It’s laughable, really, but lately—and most importantly, bravely—I’ve been accumulating bad days like they’re collector’s items. Maybe I can also get my period early and we’ll have the full trifecta. Why not!)⁴

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1. This is being written from Montevideo. And the thing is, I hadn’t been back since my grandmother died back in December 2022. It’s not a particularly brief journey, what with the transfers and layovers, and it is a tad emotionally harried, what with the dead grandma and the list of ever-evolving family feuds I have to keep up with. But. But but but. Uruguay is beautiful. Once the rain that characterized my first couple days back cleared out, I set out on long walks by the water listening to my girl Madi Diaz’s Weird Faith, both because I love the album and because it is 41 minutes long, which is kinda the perfect length for a little mid-morning walk.

I’ve also been eating pizza & fainá on pretty much a daily basis, which is probably why I haven’t entirely lost my mind yet. If you haven’t eaten Uruguayan/Argentinian pizza, I don’t know what to tell you … it’s square, I guess a bit Roman in style, and delicious. As to fainá, it’s made of chickpea flour, salt, olive oil, and water, and it’s actually very easy to make, but for some reason I really only have it when I’m back in the motherland.⁵

This photo is made possible by the fact that earlier this week I shared it with someone on whatsapp and I miraculously had a whatsapp tab open on my laptop. I am basically 12 again, running to the family computer after school to see if I had any messages on the one, the only MSN messenger (rip). One time I got so bored IMing a crush that I let my mom take over for me for a bit and she asked him if he liked to study. His response? rofl. Spellbinding.

2. I’ve been bopping around a fair bit in August, trying to see all the people I haven’t seen since I left the States last year, and this means I’ve had a good amount of dead time, often on planes and airports, during which I can dedicate myself to reading all the things I’ve been meaning to read for months. I’ve missed spending time uninterrupted by notifications, so I like leaving my phone on airplane mode⁶ for as long as possible and sinking into a novel, letting the hours pass and the light fade until, before I know it, the words on the page are no longer legible. The dream, really. I’ve actually read some pretty mediocre novels recently, which shall not be named because I’m not a total bitch, but the experience of reading them, frequently with my parents’ dog Sophie on my lap, has been, for the most part, elite. Currently, I’m finally reading Barbara Kingslover’s Demon Copperhead, because it’s been recommended to me a thousand times and like … okay. I get it.

3. You know what I watched on one of my flights down to Uruguay? A couple of things. First, The Sound of Music, because there’s no couple I’m rooting for, ever, more than Maria and Captain von Trapp and also because I’m sure Robert Wise intended for sleep-deprived passengers to watch his 1965 masterpiece on an eight-inch airplane screen. I’ve been watching this film since I was a small child (I know the Blockbuster employees hated to see me coming) and I think it will continue to marvel me until the day I die. I do think the Baroness dodged a bullet, a little bit, to the extent that I don’t think she would’ve exactly thrived crossing the Alps on foot with seven children she gave approximately 0.5 shits about. When you really think about it: the Baroness walked so Meredith Blake could run.

I like saying no to subtlety.

What I really wanted to discuss, though, was the first thing I watched: Luther: Never Too Much, the Luther Vandross documentary released last year. It was so lovely. I really enjoy an artist documentary—I prefer it, honestly, to the biopic, which has a tendency to idealize and almost cartoonify the artist. My dad was a big fan, and there was a months-long period when on the morning drive to middle school, he would play his last album, Dance With My Father, which meant I’d walk into homeroom depressed as hell thinking about Luther’s mom’s anguish. So I have a soft spot for the man, is what I’m saying, even beyond the enormous talent. Anyway, imagine me, bopping my little head to Luther’s own bops in row 26, when who should I see on my tiny screen but

Danyel Smith

, esteemed music journalist and fellow newsletter-haver? Mind you, Danyel and I don’t know each other outside of our respective publications, but it felt so much like finding a friend in the wild, I almost woke up the stranger next to me to point at the screen and be like I know her!

4. As per usual, my fellow newsletter writers have been delivering beautiful, thought-provoking words in my inbox, including:

   Mohammed R. Mhawish
   with “The War We Carry;”
   Madison Huizinga
   with “Male ‘Loneliness’;”
   John Paul Brammer
   with “Un-Alive;”
   Sara Hildreth
   with “The pleasure of discovery in backlist reading;”
   Raechel Anne Jolie
   with “a feminist rant in response to feminist rants;”
   Anne Helen Petersen
   with “What Bama Rush Means in 2025;
   Martha
   with “Women in Translation Month;” and
   Shon Faye
   with “vibes.”

5. This one, admittedly, is a bit of a dark horse. There was a tweet—of course there was a tweet—that prompted a hefty bit of discourse last week.

Via @/Iamivy05 on X.

This is, obviously, a Bad Tweet. Part of the “you don’t owe anyone anything” school of thought that has permeated the Therapy Speak side of the Internet for years. The “protect your peace” folks who will protect their way to total isolation and then wonder why it is that they’re alone. Selfishness wearing the muted trappings of self-care. Don’t do anything you don’t wanna do. Stay in bed and cancel plans every other weekend if you feel called to do so, never mind that people are relying on you. Because mental health.

What did gladden me, though, is that a few years ago, back when “namaste in bed” t-shirts were selling like hot cakes at yoga studios around the world, a tweet like this would have been shared with relish and fervent agreement by most people. Now, most of the responses I’ve seen have been mocking, and in the vein of “get a new therapist.” And I love that. This widespread recognition that actually, we do owe each other things, that it’s the only way to make this hell livable—it’s progress.

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Well, I’m off to walk to breakfast with my little incommunicado status. I could take a cab, sure, but I figure why not use this as an opportunity. To get lost and fall into an even deeper pit of despondency, maybe, definitely, but also to discern if my sense of direction is actually any good at all, or if I’ve been fooling myself for years just because I’ve been in possession of a tiny computer at the end of my arm. I’ve written the step-by-step directions in a little notebook that I always carry with me, along with a couple of phone numbers in case of … what? Who knows.

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I promise I’ll complain less next time—in fact, I likely won’t complain at all. Just needed to briefly crash out. You can find me on instagram and tiktok. The newsletter is fully supported by readers, so if you find yourself frequently enjoying these posts, please consider sharing the newsletter with a friend and/or becoming a paid subscriber for $6/month or $40/year.

1. A lot of you sitting back making Wee-Bey’s reaction face as we speak, aren’t you? Don’t fret, Getting a Therapist is on my September to-do list, along with Exfoliating More and Being On My Phone Less. It’s a somewhat comprehensive list.

2. Do you know how much more expensive electronics are in Uruguay? Because as of Friday afternoon, I do. I know!

3. If you make any sort of comment about how stupid I am for not writing down this Very Important Password somewhere, I swear to god.

4. Losing one’s phone is not, I realize, the worst thing that can happen to a person. Within the context of my life at this exact juncture, though … indulge me this bit of drama for a second, and forgive me for posting through this logistical nightmare. I do know it’s dumb.

5. I know the formatting is fucked. Blame Substack, who apparently does not believe you can have more than a single paragraph within a single numbered bullet.

6. To be clear, I wrote this before being unable to find my phone because it was … on airplane mode. The life lessons simply keep adding up and to answer your question no, I am not grateful.