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1.18.2019
on accidents
My favorite secret in our home wouldn't be there if not for our slapdash painters.
In addition to smoking inside, they neglected to take off fixtures and light covers, opting instead to paint around them. So if you were to remove the smoke detector in our living room as I did this week, you'd uncover a circle of the aqua paint that used to bathe every wall in our Chicago flat.
(It's the color #48BBDA, to be precise. I uploaded a photo and busted out the eye-dropper tool, so now a piece of our home is quite literally in your inbox.)
I'm glad they missed it. Our building was constructed in the 1920s, and many lives unfolded inside its rooms—some we know about, and others we'll never discover.
But every now and then, we uncover clues that tell us a little more.
P.S. If you're enjoying this letter and know others who would, too, would you be so kind as to introduce us?
let's go.
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Given that I'm resident of a community that's rapidly evolving, I wonder what it means to be responsible for—and on the receiving end of—change.
Best line: "With decisions made by a few Google cartographers, the identity of a city, town or neighborhood can be reshaped, illustrating the outsize influence that Silicon Valley increasingly has in the real world."
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A guy in my neighborhood has been trying to get me to go solar for months (which, don't get me wrong, I'd like to do). But now I wonder if it's part of this.
Best line: “This is the next subprime crisis,” said Anne Richardson of Los Angeles-based Public Counsel, the nation’s largest pro bono law firm. “It’s a frightening development.”
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Bob Wells started living out of his van way before The New Yorker wrote about #vanlife and is now something of a messiah for transient retirees. (Thousands of them turn up to his yearly Rendezvous in Arizona, all religiously striving to be...Bob Wells.)
I never did get to travel the world in an RV, but maybe there's hope for me yet—after the kids are grown and gone and we're trying to navigate the social media bubble of the future, in which we are cyborgs beaming our #lifestyle content directly into peoples' minds.
Best line: “Owning a house is preposterous." —Bob Wells
*Above quote not endorsed by this happy homeowner.
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My Mizzou professor Berkley Hudson taught us that gold coins are hidden in the NYT's obit pages. It is a fount of inspiration about legacy and what we leave behind.
Best line: "Poems often came to her on walks, and she prepared for this eventuality by secreting pencils in the woods near her home."
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?
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unsponsored content (a.k.a. gear i use)
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What I like: They're Danish, made from pure felted wool that does not stink no matter how sweaty your sockless feet get, and the camp sole means you don't have to change your shoes when you step outside to grab the mail.
Plus, Blake and Elin Raun-Royer wear them, and I follow their style choices keenly.
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