Issue #146: How to Use This Summer as Your Solo Reset

Solo hiking and campfire bucatini. 🍅

🎥 ‘The Great Lillian Hall’ on Max: Jessica Lange plays a legendary Broadway actress who is diagnosed with dementia weeks before her latest show, starring as the matriarch of Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, is set to open. As she struggles to recall lines, she has to grapple with the inevitability of decline and her ego around creating art.

📚 Such a Bad Influence by Olivia Muenter: Part crime novel, part behind-the-scenes look at influencing, Evie and Hazel grew up in the same “YouTube” family, though Evie’s followers catapulted her into viral fame as Hazel actively avoided the limelight. Now both adults, Evie has gone missing and Hazel is left to untangle the dark mystery of her sister’s public disappearance. Pairs well with this recent article on FaceTuning kids, this one on the hyper-fixation on capturing everything, and my recent conversation on the author’s podcast about social media!

📺 “The Sympathizer” on Max: This seven-episode adaptation of Viet Thanh Nguyen’s novel of the same name follows a half-French, half-Vietnamese communist spy who has fled Vietnam for Los Angeles, specifically Hollywood, following the Vietnam War. The result is a meta, self-aware story omitted from “classic” war movies, about dual identities and who constructs the narratives we see.

To know me is to know that my ultimate dream is to own a van and road trip half the year, renting out my home. There is nowhere I’d rather wake up than the middle of nowhere, drinking coffee while mapping out that day’s adventures. While the van is still a ways off—I’m focusing my attention on putting down roots, cementing my career and community in Portland, and building back up my savings—I have ample plans for getting outside this season, including backpacking trips and day hikes, beginning with a solo car-camping trip this weekend! Read on for solo hiking and camping tips, a charred tomato bucatini (!) made for car camping, and why you should get yourself to a meadow.