5 things for friday
i'm lying to my barista. plus: the perfect linen beach cover up, a strangely sexy book, greek-ish potato salad, and more
happy friday, friends.
well, i did it (nearly). i made it through my first week without my soul kitty. it was both harder and easier than i had anticipated. easier in the sense that i didn’t, as i had so feared, completely fall apart. i suppose i still could, but i’m hopeful that because i did so much upfront/anticipatory grieving, i have in some ways spared myself a horrific aftermath. easier in the sense that i feel so relieved that she’s no longer suffering. because she was suffering at the end, especially in the last 24 hours, which were particularly difficult, and which i will spare you the details of here (as i said on instagram, i would not wish that experience on my worst enemy).
easier in the sense that in opening myself up and asking for the things i thought i might need, my people showed up, big time. my parents took every single sobbing facetime call (and there were a lot of them). my freshman year roommate whit, who is the one who drove me to the aspca all those years ago to adopt a cat, texted every single day, and somehow found the right words to say every time. ditto my friend yami, who lost her soul kitty, anwar, last year, and kept in touch with both emotional and practical advice ‘til the very last moments.
between penny’s last earthside day (saturday) and today (as i write this, it’s thursday morning), i’ve received not just one, not just two, but five bouquets of flowers. they came from various groups of friends, from my oldest besties to my oldest coworkers. and i know they’re flowers, but they made me feel seen. made me feel acknowledged, and loved. every time they arrived at the house, i’d open them up, and tilt my head towards the ceiling.
see this? i’d say to penny. you are loved. you were loved.
one of the hardest parts about the aftermath of penny’s passing is that my apartment feels incredibly quiet. i look around corners, and i expect to see her cute little kitten face peering out, her green eyes shimmering. i put my key into the lock, and i listen for the pitter patter of tiny pawed feet, for the jingle of her bell. for 17 years, every time i have left the house, i’ve said bye penny, i love you! every time i’ve come home, i’ve said, hi penny! how’s my girl?
i could not handle the concept of full on silence. silence in the sense that she was gone, and silence in the sense that i had no one to greet or say goodbye to. and so i’ve taken up the habit of talking to her heavenly self* every time i come or go.
hi heaven penny, i’ll say. i miss you. or, bye heaven penny. i love you so much.
it’s silly, but it’s helped. i’m talking to the air, and just hoping she’s out there, listening. knowing i haven’t forgotten her (of course i haven’t forgotten her).
*some woo woo shit, i know. listen, i did go through a phase in 6th grade in which i genuinely thought i might be a witch. my friend joia and i conducted many a seance in my basement, having watched now & then a few too many times.
it’s also helped to get out of the city, which i did on tuesday, after my friends invited me down to the jersey shore for a few days. it was both aptly timed with the heat dome hitting the east coast this week, and with the fact that by early tuesday morning, i’d come out of the adrenaline haze that had carried me through sunday and monday, and cried my way through both the final stretch at bar method and my entire walk home, unable to handle the fact that all around me were cute, fluffy, healthy pups, and penny was nowhere to be found. and never would be again.
multiple friends have remarked that i seem to be doing “pretty well.”
that i “seem okay.” and i guess in some moments, i am. but i feel it’s more accurate to say that most moments, i am doing a very good approximation of a person who’s doing pretty well. after a brief respite from the job-hunting anxiety that has haunted me over the past month or so (my brain could only process one crisis at a time), the sinking feeling has returned in full force. i have moments of normalcy in which i do—genuinely—feel normal. but then i remember that penny is gone, and she’s never coming back. and i feel unable to digest that information.
on friday morning, i went for my run and then for coffee, having left penny for a short 45 minutes, snoozing under my bed. at my favorite coffee shop—the one i frequent nearly every day—the barista asked me what my plans were for the weekend. and for a brief moment, everything froze. i cloned myself, and an alternate sarah standing beside me opened her mouth and said, “well, actually, i have to put my cat down tomorrow. they’re coming at 3:30 and she’s my person and i don’t know how i will survive it.”
real sarah simply said, “oh, not too much.”
ditto on monday morning, when—after the same run—he asked me how my weekend had been. sad sarah appeared beside me, a shimmering apparition, the way heat hangs above pavement on a particularly humid day, and said, “i lost my cat on saturday, and i am heartbroken.”
real sarah said, “it was good!”
because how could i say what sad sarah was feeling to a stranger? not that he’s a stranger, really, i see him multiple times a week - but still. he was just making conversation, he wasn’t looking for a therapy session.
these are the ways in which the aftermath has been harder than i expected. because all day every day, there are these tiny interactions in which i appear to be a normal, relatively well-adjusted human. but inside, i am roiling. inside, i am ready to burst into tears at the drop of a hat. inside, i feel like i’m faking it.
on sunday, my friends maddie and alissa and i went to the beach. and i felt okay, i really did. but then we went to the grocery store, and while we waited on line to check out, i looked back and my gaze caught on a sign that read “pet food/pet supplies.” i swear that i felt my heart drop into my stomach. it was like an invisible hand had punched me in the gut. i didn’t need the pet food aisle.
instagram doesn’t know penny is gone, and so it continues to serve me ads for cat beds and cat foods and cat litter. ditto my email ads, ditto the ads i see on tv.
the world doesn’t know i have lost someone, because on the outside, i “seem okay.” and that’s not their fault. i’m the one being dishonest with my barista.
recently, i listened to a podcast episode in which the guest talked about training herself to cry.
because for so much of her life, she had trained herself to hold it in. i’ve been thinking about this a lot, having not yet had a truly hysterical, sobbing so hard you cannot breathe moment. every time i think it’s coming, my body seems—automatically, without my knowledge or permission—to stop it. to hold it in. people keep asking if i want to listen to sad music, or watch a sad movie, or do xyz sad thing to help me let it out.
and while i have cried—plenty—i feel unable, as of yet, to truly release it. i’ve told the story of penny’s last day to multiple friends over the past few days, and i’ve only cried once. maybe it’s because i spent the last few years of my job telling myself, don’t cry don’t cry don’t cry multiple times a week? maybe it’s because i spent the last few weeks telling myself, be strong for penny. penny needs you. she’s already scared, hold it together.
it has to be coming, right? no one gets out of grief like this unscathed. maybe it’ll come when i pick up penny’s ashes. maybe it’ll come when i get a tattoo (my first!) in her honor, or get her collar framed.
but i think it’s more likely that it’ll come when i least expect it, like when the barista asks how my day is going, and i realize i cannot hold it in any longer. or when i see another injured pigeon on the street. or when i find myself walking by the pet store, and realizing i’ve no reason to go in. i can’t predict when it’ll happen. i can only hope that when it does, my body will remember that we know how to do this—and that it’s okay that we are.
ps: if you are one of the real life friends who has carried me over the last few weeks, thank you.
friends: if you genuinely enjoy this newsletter, will you a) tap the little heart at the bottom and b) consider sharing it on your IG stories or forwarding along to a friend?
i continue to be so humbled and grateful that you’re here. that you read, and comment, and every so often, send me a thoughtful email or leave an encouraging comment. if you've not yet subscribed, might you consider doing so?
let’s get to some recs, shall we?
i’ve really been loving the nyt book review’s podcast, and was thrilled to see they’d put out an episode centered around summer reads. i plow through more books in the summer than any other time of year, thanks to beach days and vacations—and in my unemployment era, i’ll be damned if i don’t read more books than ever. in this ep, host gilbert cruz talks through his summer reading recs alongside book review editors elisabeth egan and joumana khatib, and my goodness, are there some good ones in here. elisabeth, joumana and gilbert all have such varying tastes in books, and it makes for an excellent and eclectic list.
i’m not going to paste the full list here, but rather, tell you the one from it i’m most excited for: liz moore’s the god of the woods, which comes out on july 2nd. i LOVED long bright river (which, by the way, is being made into a show starring amanda seyfried!) and can’t wait to read the follow up, which centers around a young girl who vanishes from a summer camp in the 1970s. i recall moore’s prose being searingly beautiful, and imagine i’ll find more of the same in her new novel.
honestly? i think this quote from george saunders says it all: this book is a tour de force. it is unlike anything i’ve ever read, and i can’t stop thinking about it. nor can i stop thinking about this gorgeous cover, and how perfect the title is, chosen from a seemingly innocuous moment about 3/4 of the way into the book that somehow encapsulates THE WHOLE DAMN POINT. miranda july is a master class, and so is this book. i almost don’t even want to tell you what it’s about because i feel like it’s best to go in blind.
so! here’s what i’ll say. it’s about a 40-something mom who sets out on a road trip to new york. except she ends up stopping in a town about 40ish minutes from los angeles (where she lives), and never makes it to new york. this book made me think a lot about aging and the societal perceptions around it, particularly for women. it made me question how often i create stories in my head about the people i date (even for the most casual ones, the answer is often). all fours makes you think about motherhood, and desire, and sex, and marriage. it’s weird as f*ck, and also somehow pretty much perfect? i highly recommend it.
ps: if you’re a big reader, follow me on goodreads! i try and rank/save every book i read (and i read about 50-60 a year!)
sometimes, you just need a feel good show. a ‘turn off my brain, but also still delight me’ show. that was what i needed on sunday and monday, and i found it in geek girl, which netflix assured me i would like. what can i say? the algorithm tends to know me pretty darn well, because i do indeed like geek girl, which is based on a book about a neurodivergent girl who gets randomly scouted to be a supermodel and has to learn how to navigate the high fashion world in london. now, because this is hollywood, harriet is still very obviously pretty. and tall, and thin. so it’s no surprise she gets scouted, nor that the american male model of the moment, nick park, falls for her nearly immediately. the show is at times embarrassingly cringy, but it’s also quite sweet, as well as important, when you consider that it’s rare to see neurodivergent characters on tv, let alone in lead roles.
i did a bit of reading up on this, and it turns out that geek girl is based on a book of the same name, which was written by a neurodivergent author. the actress who plays harriet also identifies as neurodivergent! more of this, please, hollywood! it’s decidedly a show for someone about 25 years younger than i, but you know what? who cares. it is delightful and makes you want to root for the underdog, also known as the only person i ever want to root for.
ps: i have officially reached the age where i google cute young actors on tv and then immediately feel like a creepy cradle robber, and i do not feel great about this. at all.
among the delicious things that my friend amber made for dinner last night was this tzatziki potato salad. it’s a nyt cooking recipe from hetty lui mckinnon, who i adore for her incredibly flavorful vegetarian recipes (i’ll link her fabulous substack below!), and it was so fresh. blanched snap peas, creamy dilly potatoes, salty feta. i ate it again at the beach today and it was just as good the morning after! amber pre-made the dressing the day before, and it kept perfectly. the only thing we changed was no olives (the ones she’d gotten at the grocery store were too mushy for her liking!), but i imagine those would’ve been an excellent umami addition. i can’t wait to make this again at home, and—as i said to amber—maybe even try it sans potatoes, with more veggies? just the snap peas with the tzatziki on their own was amazing, so i can only imagine other hearty veggies would hold up well after a quick blanch.
the moment i realized that my invite to the jersey shore would coincide with an insane heat wave here on the east coast, i panicked. i knew we were planning on beach days and boat days, and i had nothing that would cover my arms once i (inevitably) started to burn. before therapy, i ran into the giant h&m on 34th street, certain that they’d have some sort of long-sleeved, light linen contraption that would keep me covered in the blazing heat. but alas, no dice. after i finished my session, i realized i had about 30 minutes to kill before i had to head downtown to work a training shift at bar method (i’m going to be working the front desk there! mostly just as a way to get out of the house and go to a happy place. i’m really looking forward to it). and then, inspiration struck! j crew. j crew was a place that might have a long linen shirt. so i grabbed a citi bike and pedaled down to flatiron, then marched into the j crew on 5th age in search of something long and linen-y.
imagine my delight when they didn’t just have the PERFECT shirt (long enough to be worn as a dress, loose enough to be knotted at the waist as a shirt, able to be buttoned entirely or left open in the breeze). and it was on sale for $54! i bought it oh so fast, and am thrilled to report that it’s practically perfect in every way. i washed it that night when i got home, and found it was only softer after a little spin in the water. i wore it yesterday on the boat, and found that it somehow protected me from the sun and kept me cool (and hopefully, made me look a tiny bit cool, too?). win-win.
ps: my sunnies are these, and though you can’t see it, i am carrying the perfect beach tote.
one more thing, before you go!
i mentioned a few months ago that i was working with a designer to reimagine the newsletter’s look and feel a little bit. along those same lines, i have been toying with renaming it—allowing it to bend and flex into an entity separate from my instagram account, which many of you may not even realize was what started this whole thing! behind the scenes, i’ve been working with substack to get the subdomain i want for my new name, and as of today, it’s available again! i know i care way more about this than any of you do, and i’m guessing you’re like, cool, a new name, whatevs girl, you do you!
but still, i must ask:
and that, friends, is where i leave you. if you like this post, it would mean the world to me if you’d hit the little heart icon, as well as consider sharing it with your network—so that the grand weekly can be seen by more people.
Such a beautiful newsletter ❤️
I too loved long bright river. looking forward to the adaptation and her latest, thanks for those tidbits.
You look so lovely ☺️ on the boat in your jcrew score.
And finally, I’m sorry for the loss of your precious companion. Sending love to you and penny.