🎥 ‘Mickey 17’ in theaters: “What’s it like to die all the time?” People aboard the space ship bound for a new planet keep asking Mickey (played by Robert Pattinson), an “Expendable” who is put through such dangerous and experimental tasks that he frequently dies and is reprinted, or cloned, with his memories intact. I loved so much about this movie, the latest by ‘Parasite’ director Bong Joon Ho, but it’s strongest in its sci-fi explorations. The satirical aspects, led by a Trump-adjacent Mark Ruffalo, hit a little close to home, even with a plot that takes place light-years away.

📚 The Californians by Brian Castleberry: This generation-spanning novel tells the story of two families across one-hundred years, when Tobey hatches a plan to steal and sell three paintings from his father’s house. The pieces were painted in the 1980s by the granddaughter of a famous silent-movie director, Klaus Von Stiegl, an initially vague connection that is gradually made more clear through this debut’s dizzying narrative about money, intergenerational wealth, and art, out today!

🌮 Healthy Weeknight Taco Bowls: Life’s been insanely busy recently, as I navigate the final few months of school and my clinical internship. At the end of each day, I just want something delicious, satisfying, and easy. Enter: the most delicious taco bowls that take a whopping twenty minutes to throw together and are filled with nourishing ingredients! I made these on repeat last week, initially using beef before substituting veggie meat to make them vegetarian.

At first, I resisted dating the cute guy in my “Treatment Planning” class. Though it had been a year since my separation from my husband, the pain from the split still felt fresh, and I was afraid of getting my heart broken again. I continued to go on casual, online dates and rationalized the reasons for avoiding a relationship with my classmate—we are wildly different people and little about us dating made logical sense to me—even as our connection grew deeper. After a summer of growing closer as friends, we had our first kiss at the top of a hike with a sweeping view of the Columbia River (which is exactly as romantic as it sounds). It quickly became obvious to both of us that, despite—or, maybe because of—our differences, we had staying power, if we could make it through the next few months.

The early days of our relationship felt like trying to date in the middle of an earthquake, as I navigated my divorce, moved into my house, and launched my book, not to mention, his own major life changes. We often spoke of a time when we would finally, “settle into the good,” when the ground would stop moving and we could enjoy a stretch of peace and calm together. When I ended things at the end of that first year, it was largely because it felt like “the good” would never come.

The breakup ultimately functioned as a vital reset and provided us with an opportunity to slowly rebuild our relationship from a new, more stable foundation. Over the past few months, we’ve finally settled into a place of peace, calm, and good, without losing the initial dynamism that attracted each of us to the other.

Ours isn’t the love story I was sold, of meeting “The One” and living happily ever after. In many ways, it’s been better; a deeper, in-my-bones love that’s taken a lot of hard work and communication. I always knew I wanted to invite him onto Morning Person to have an honest conversation about what that’s looked like and last week, we recorded a conversation in which we responded to some of your most-asked questions (and ended up talking about so many bigger themes). Read on for:

How he feels about me sharing my entire life online, as someone who’s never had social media (!)
What it was like for him to date someone in the midst of a divorce
How we merged our physical spaces to move in together
Why we don’t think we would have ever matched on a dating app
What he thinks people would be surprised to learn about me (his response is still making me laugh!)

Issue #185: An AMA with My Boyfriend on…

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