Things That Are Good
Yellowjackets, my actual jacket, and Holly Hunter
Hi friends!
Today is Thanksgiving, which is obviously a gnarly historical nightmare in addition to being a stressful day for pretty much everyone, including high school marching bands and giant balloons. Here are some things that are just plain good, no matter if you’re spending the day stress-cooking, hiding from your family, depressed, elated, or (insert feeling here). I will be spending the day drawing monsters with my children and watching my husband clean the kitchen 47 times, which is to say, it’s a pretty normal day, except for the turkey dry-brining in my fridge at the moment.
Good Thing Number One: Yellowjackets
Okay HELLO this is a perfect television show. Here is the premise: a high school championship girls’ soccer team is in a plane crash in 1996, and the show goes back and forth between the past and the present, and Melanie Lynskey skins a rabbit in the second episode. Do not fuck with Melanie Lynskey. Melanie Lynskey had a baby in a bar and now she will skin a goddamn rabbit, don’t you forget it. Perfect set design, perfect music cues, perfect casting, perfect perfect perfect.
Good Thing Number Two: Carla Lalli Music’s That Sounds So Good
Full disclosure, Carla is the older sister of one of my best friends, but even if she wasn’t, I would love her. Her second cookbook is absolutely full of bangers, such as the Melty Cauliflower Pasta, which I am making for dinner at this actual second. Carla is as funny and smart on the page as she is in real life, and the whole book is a goddamn pleasure. You know how there are people you know who finally become Cryptozoologists or whatever and you’re like, yes, this is what you were meant to do, and now the whole world knows it? That’s what it’s like seeing Carla become a food superhero, because she has always been Personality Plus and the things her family cooks will make you reckon (and reckon hard) with the packaged parmesan cheese you grew up with.
Good Thing Number Three: Dressing Like a Crayon Box
I have a ridiculous winter coat. It is LOUD, it is bright, it is warm. I get 500 compliments on my coat every single day. Today, when I was walking to the bookstore, a man stopped me and said “I see you in that coat every day!” To which I replied, “It’s very hard to miss!” He didn’t hear me because he had Air Pods in, but a few hours later, when I went to meet a friend for lunch, I walked in and she laughed out loud and said, “You look like a crayon box!” Which, fair! Wearing color makes me happy and I like to think that it’s sort of the baby version of the Green Lady, one of my very favorite New Yorkers. Something to aspire to.
Why not, you know?
Good Thing Number Four: Holiday Movies
There are a thousand Christmas movies in the world and most of them are garbage, and that’s just fine. I will watch them anyway. But Thanksgiving is a time for one of the greatest movies of all time, Home for the Holidays. As a rule, I prefer Dermot Mulroney to Dylan McDermott, but other than that, this is a perfect movie. Holly Hunter, Anne Bancroft, Robert Downey Jr, and one slippery turkey.
I hope your day includes many desserts. Mine sure will. This newsletter has been brought to you by one (1) Negroni.
__________________________________________________________