🎥 ‘Janet Planet,’ in Theaters: This movie, about a mother-daughter relationship during a New England summer, has the sensibility of a play, with luxurious time allotted to dialogue, and three distinct acts, marked by title cards. Written and directed by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, Annie Baker (I loved her play, “The Flick.”), it’s the perfect escape into a lazy summer. Side note: It reminded me to re-listen to this Van Morrison album, featuring his first wife Janet Planet on the cover. I’m also curious to see Yorgos Lanthimos’ ‘Kinds of Kindness,’ though I’ve heard not-rave reviews. Have you seen it?
📚 Whoever You Are, Honey by Olivia Gatwood: In this tech-thriller, out today, Mitty observes the perfect couple who moved in next door, Lena and Sebastian. Their newly-built Santa Cruz house is state-of-the-art, with floor-to-ceiling glass windows, all harsh angles and sheen compared to the nicotine-stained house Mitty shares with her older roommate. Things just seem… off, and get stranger as Lena befriends Mitty leading up to an ending I couldn’t get out of my head.
📺 “America’s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders” on Netflix: As someone who hasn’t watched reality TV in years, and has seen maybe an hour of football (yes, total), I may not be the target audience for this seven-part series on the “DCC,” but I was enthralled. The show follows a group of women from cheerleading auditions through training camp, and performances as they’re paid an astoundingly low salary and held to next-level (and old-fashioned) standards of beauty and perfectionism, while performing as elite athletes. I couldn’t look away, and have demanded that every friend watch it so we can talk about it! I was also intrigued by “Ren Faire” on Max, though haven’t (yet) made it past the first episode.
P.S. I’ll be in Bend, Oregon this Thursday, July 11th at 6:30 PM in conversation with
(who I chatted with here) at Roundabout Books! You can purchase a ticket and secure your spot here, and buy You’re Safe Here!At the end of last year, I found myself balancing my full-time Master’s program, book edits, this newsletter, and several major life events that included moving twice, buying a house on my own, and going through a divorce. Not to mention, the one million things that go into being a functioning human, friend, and dog owner. It was chaotic… but not entirely unfamiliar. I’ve always approached my life, especially my career, with unbridled enthusiasm and underutilized brake pads. I’m bursting with all the things I want to do and create, and feel an urgency to fit them all into this one life.
While I’m actively working on tempering that urgency—maintaining the excitement I have, without constantly operating on the razor’s edge of burnout or a breakdown—I’ve developed a number of practical tools for getting things done quickly and efficiently, so that I can better make room for things like rest. Read on for how I overcome procrastination (it really works!), manage my time to maximize efficiency and get things done, and how my WFH desk set-up is designed for maintaining focus.
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